FERDINAND CLUDDE.
The bitterness of that hour long past, when he had left me for death,
when he had played with the human longing for life, and striven
without a thought of pity to corrupt me by hopes and fears the most
awful that mortals know, was in my voice as I spoke. I rejoiced that
vengeance had come upon him at last, and that I was its instrument. I
saw the pallor of a great fear creep into his dark cheek, and read in
his eyes the vicious passion of a wild beast trapped, and felt no
pity. "Master Clarence!" I said, and laughed--laughed mockingly. "You
do not look pleased to see your friends. Or perhaps you do not
remember me. Stand forward, Master Bertie! Maybe he will recognize
you."
But though Master Bertie came forward and stood by my side gazing at
him, the villain's eyes did not for an instant shift from mine. "It is
the man!" my companion said after a solemn pause--for the other,
breathing fast, made no answer. "He was a spy in the pay of Bishop
Gardiner, when I knew him. At the Bishop's death I heard that he
passed into the service of the Spanish Ambassador, the Count de Feria.
He called himself at that time Clarence. I recognize him."
The quiet words had their effect. From full one-half of the savage
crew round us a fierce murmur rose more terrible than any loud outcry.
Yet this seemed a relief to the doomed man; he forced himself to look
away from me and to confront the dark ring of menacing faces which
hemmed him in. The moment he did so he appeared to find courage and
words. "They take me for another man!" he cried in hoarse accents. "I
know nothing of them!" and he added a fearful oath. "He knows me. Ask
him!"
He pointed to Walter Kingston, who was sitting moodily on a tram
outside the ring, and who alone had not risen under the excitement of
my challenge. On being thus appealed to he looked up suddenly. "If I
am to choose between you," he said bitterly, "and say which is the
true man, I know which I shall pick."
"Which?" Clarence murmured. "Which?" This time his tone was different.
In his voice was the ring of hope.
"I should give my vote for you," Kingston replied, looking
contemptuously at him. "I know something about you, but of the other
gentleman I know nothing!"
"And not much of the person you call Crewdson," I retorted fiercely,
"since you do not know his real name."
"I know this much," the young man answered, tapping his boot with his
scabbard with studied carelessness, "that he lent me some money, and
seemed a good fellow and one that hated a mass priest. That is enough
for me. As for his name, it is his fancy perhaps. You call yourself
Carey. Well, I know a good many Careys, but I do not know you, nor
ever heard of you!"
I swung round on him with a hot cheek. But the challenge which was
upon my tongue was anticipated by Master Bertie, who drew me forcibly
back. "Leave this to me, Francis," he said, "and do you watch that
man. Master Kingston and gentlemen," he continued, turning again to
them, and drawing himself to his full height as he addressed them,
"listen, if you please! You know me, if you do not know my friend. The
honor of Richard Bertie has never been challenged until to-night, nor
ever will be with impunity. Leave my friend out of the question and
put me in it. I, Richard Bertie, say that that man is a paid spy and
informer, come here in quest of blood-money! And he, Crewdson, a
nameless man, says that I lie. Choose between us. Or look at him and
judge! Look!"
He was right to bid them look. As the savage murmur rose again and
took from the wretched man his last hope, as the ugliness of despair
and wicked, impotent passion distorted his face, he was indeed the
most deadly witness against himself.
The lights which shone on treacherous weapons half hidden, or on the
glittering eyes of cruel men whose blood was roused, fell on nothing
so dangerous as the livid, despairing face which, unmasked and eyed by
all with aversion, still defied us. Traitor and spy as he was, he had
the merit of courage at least; he would die game. And even as I, with
a first feeling of pity for him, discerned this, his sword was out,
and with a curse he lunged at me.
Penruddocke saved me by a buffet which sent me reeling against the
wall, so that the villain's thrust was spent on air. Before he could
repeat it, four or five men flung themselves upon him from behind. For
a moment there was a great uproar, while the group surrounding him
swayed to and fro as he dragged his captors up and down with a
strength I should not have expected. But the end was certain, and we
stood looking on quietly. In a minute or two they had him down, and
disarming him, bound his hands.
For me he seemed to have a special hatred. "Curse you!" he panted,
glaring at me as he lay helpless. "You have been my evil angel! From
the first day I saw you, you have thwarted me in every plan, and now
you have brought me to this!"
"Not I, but yourself," I answered.
"My curse upon you!" he cried again, the rage and hate in his face so
terrible that I turned away shuddering and sick at heart. "If I could
have killed you," he cried, "I would have died contented."
"Enough!" interposed Penruddocke briskly. "It is well for us that
Master Bertie and his friend came here to-night. Heaven grant it be
not too late! We do not need," he added, looking round, "any more
evidence, I think?"
The dissent was loud, and, save for Kingston, who still sat sulking
apart, unanimous.
"Death?" said the Cornishman quietly.
No one spoke, but each man gave a brief stern nod.
"Very well," the leader continued; "then I propose----"
"One moment," said Master Bertie, interrupting him. "A word with you
apart, with our friends' permission. You can repeat it to them
afterward."
He drew Sir Thomas aside, and they retired into the corner by the
door, where they stood talking in whispers. I had small reason to feel
sympathy for the man who lay there tied and doomed to die like a calf.
Yet even I shuddered--yes, and some of the hardened men round me
shuddered also at the awful expression in his eyes as, without moving
his head, he followed the motions of the two by the door. Some faint
hope springing into being wrung his soul, and brought the perspiration
in great drops to his forehead. I turned away, thinking gravely of the
early morning three years ago when he had tortured me by the very same
hopes and fears which now racked his own spirit.
Penruddocke came back, Master Bertie following him.
"It must not be done to-night," he announced quietly, with a nod which
meant that he would explain the reason afterward. "We will meet again
to-morrow at four in the afternoon instead of at eight in the evening.
Until then two must remain on guard with him. It is right he should
have some time to repent, and he shall have it."
This did not at once find favor.
"Why not run him through now?" said one bluntly. "And meet to-morrow
at some place unknown to him? If we come here again we shall, likely
enough, walk straight into the trap."
"Well, have it that way, if you please," answered Sir Thomas,
shrugging his shoulders. "But do not blame me afterward if you find we
have let slip a golden opportunity. Be fools if you like. I dare say
it will not make much difference in the end!"
He spoke at random, but he knew how to deal with his crew, it seemed,
for on this those who had objected assented reluctantly to the course
he proposed. "Barnes and Walters are here in hiding, so they had
better be the two to guard him," he continued. "There is no fear that
they will be inclined to let him go!" I looked at the men whom the
glances of their fellows singled out, and found them to belong to the
little knot of fanatics I had before remarked: dark, stern men, worth,
if the matter ever came to fighting, all the rest of the band put
together.
"At four, to-morrow, then, we meet," Sir Thomas concluded lightly.
"Then we will deal with him, never fear! Now it is near midnight, and
we must be going. But not all together, or we shall attract
attention."
Half an hour later Master Bertie and I rode softly out of the
courtyard and turned our faces toward the city. The night wind came
sweeping across the valley of the Thames, and met us full in the face
as we reached the brow of the hill. It seemed laden with melancholy
whispers. The wretched enterprise, ill-conceived, ill-ordered, and in
its very nature desperate, to which we were in honor committed, would
have accounted of itself for any degree of foreboding. But the scene
through which we had just passed, and on my part the knowledge that I
had given up a fellow-being to death, had their depressing influences.
For some distance we rode in silence, which I was the first to break.
"Why did you put off his punishment?" I asked.
"Because I think he will give us information in the interval," Bertie
answered briefly. "Information which may help us. A spy is generally
ready to betray his own side upon occasion."
"And you will spare him if he does?" I asked. It seemed to me neither
justice nor mercy.
"No," he said, "there is no fear of that. Those who go with ropes
round their necks know no mercy. But drowning men will catch at
straws; and ten to one he will babble!"
I shivered. "It is a bad business," I said.
He thought I referred to the conspiracy, and he inveighed bitterly
against it, reproaching himself for bringing me into it, and for his
folly in believing the rosy accounts of men who had all to win, and
nothing save their worthless lives to lose. "There is only one thing
gained," he said. "We are likely to pay dearly for that, so we may
think the more of it. We have been the means of punishing a villain."
"Yes," I said, "that is true. It was a strange meeting and a strange
recognition. Strangest of all that I should be called up to swear with
him."
"Not strange," Master Bertie answered gravely. "I would rather call it
providential. Let us think of that, and be of better courage, friend.
We have been used; we shall not be cast away before our time."
I looked back. For some minutes I had thought I heard behind us a
light footstep, more like the pattering of a dog than anything else. I
could see nothing, but that was not wonderful, for the moon was young
and the sky overcast. "Do you hear some one following us?" I said.
Master Bertie drew rein suddenly, and turning in the saddle we
listened. For a second I thought I still heard the sound. The next it
ceased, and only the wind toying with the November leaves and sighing
away in the distance, came to our ears. "No," he said, "I think it
must have been your fancy. I hear nothing."
But when we rode on the sound began again, though at first more
faintly, as if our follower had learned prudence and fallen farther
behind. "Do not stop, but listen!" I said softly. "Cannot you hear the
pattering of a naked foot now?"
"I hear something," he answered. "I am afraid you are right, and that
we are followed."
"What is to be done?" I said, my thoughts busy.
"There is Caen wood in front," he answered, "with a little open ground
on this side of it. We will ride under the trees and then stop
suddenly. Perhaps we shall be able to distinguish him as he crosses
the open behind us." We made the experiment; but as if our follower
had divined the plan, his footstep ceased to sound before we had
stopped our horses. He had fallen farther behind. "We might ride
quickly back," I suggested, "and surprise him."
"It would be useless," Bertie answered. "There is too much cover close
to the road. Let us rather trot on and outstrip him."
We did trot on; and what with the tramp of our horses as they swung
along the road, and the sharp passage of the wind by our ears, we
heard no more of the footstep behind. But when we presently pulled up
to breathe our horses--or rather within a few minutes of our doing
so--there it was behind us, nearer and louder than before. I shivered
as I listened; and presently, acting on a sudden impulse, I wheeled my
horse round and spurred him back a dozen paces along the road.
I pulled up.
There was a movement in the shadow of the trees on my right, and I
leaned forward, peering in that direction. Gradually, I made out the
lines of a figure standing still as though gazing at me; a strange,
distorted figure, crooked, short, and in some way, though no lineament
of the face was visible, expressive of a strange and weird
malevolence. It was the witch! The witch whom I had seen in the
kitchen at the Gatehouse. How, then, had she come hither? How had she,
old, lame, decrepit, kept up with us?
I trembled as she raised her hand, and, standing otherwise motionless,
pointed at me out of the gloom. The horse under me was trembling too,
trembling violently, with its ears laid back, and, as she moved, its
terror increased, it plunged wildly. I had to give for a moment all my
attention to it, and though I tried, in mere revolt against the fear
which I felt was overcoming me, to urge it nearer, my efforts were
vain. After nearly unseating me, the beast whirled round and, getting
the better of me, galloped down the road toward London.
"What is it?" cried Master Bertie, as I came speedily up with him; he
had ridden slowly on. "What is the matter?"
"Something in the hedge startled it," I explained, trying to soothe
the horse. "I could not clearly see what it was."
"A rabbit, I dare say," he remarked, deceived by my manner.
"Perhaps it was," I answered. Some impulse, not unnatural, led me to
say nothing about what I had seen. I was not quite sure that my eyes
had not deceived me. I feared his ridicule, too, though he was not
very prone to ridicule. And above all I shrank from explaining the
medley of superstitious fear, distrust, and abhorrence in which I held
the creature who had shown so strange a knowledge of my life.
We were already near Holborn, and reaching without further adventure a
modest inn near the Bars, we retired to a room we had engaged, and lay
down with none of the gallant hopes which had last night formed the
subject of our talk. Yet we slept well, for depression goes better
with sleep than does the tumult of anticipation; and I was up early,
and down in the yard looking to the horses before London was well
awake. As I entered the stable a man lying curled up in the straw
rolled lazily over and, shading his eyes, glanced up. Apparently he
recognized me, for he got slowly to his feet. "Morning!" he said
gruffly.
I stood staring at him, wondering if I had made a mistake.
"What are you doing here, my man?" I said sharply, when I had made
certain I knew him, and that he was really the surly ostler from the
Gatehouse tavern at Highgate. "Why did you come here? Why have you
followed us?"
"Come about your business," he answered. "To give you that."
I took the note he held out to me. "From whom?" I said. "Who sent it
by you?"
"Cannot tell," he replied, shaking his head.
"Cannot, or will not?" I retorted.
"Both," he said doggedly. "But there, if you want to know what sort of
a kernel is in a nut, you don't shake the tree, master--you crack the
nut."
I looked at the note he had given me. It was but a slip of paper
folded thrice. The sender had not addressed, or sealed, or fastened it
in anyway; had taken no care either to insure its reaching its
destination or to prevent prying eyes seeing the contents. If one of
our associates had sent it, he had been guilty of the grossest
carelessness. "You are sure it is for me?" I said.
"As sure as mortal can be," he answered. "Only that it was given me
for a man, and not a mouse! You are not afraid, master?"
I was not; but he edged away as he spoke, and looked with so much
alarm at the scrap of paper that it was abundantly clear he was very
much afraid himself, even while he derided me. I saw that if I had
offered to return the note he would have backed out of the stable and
gone off there and then as fast as his lame foot would let him. This
puzzled me. However, I read the note. There was nothing in it to
frighten me. Yet, as I read, the color came into my face, for it
contained one name to which I had long been a stranger.
"To Francis Cludde," it ran. "If you would not do a thing of which you
will miserably repent all your life, and which will stain you in the
eyes of all Christian men, meet me two hours before noon at the cross
street by St. Botolph's, where you first saw Mistress Bertram. And
tell no one. Fail not to come. In Heaven's name, fail not!"
The note had nothing to do with the conspiracy, then, on the face of
it; mysterious as it was, and mysteriously as it came. "Look here!" I
said to the man. "Tell me who sent it, and I will give you a crown."
"I would not tell you," he answered stubbornly, "if you could make me
King of England! No, nor King of Spain too! You might rack me and you
would not get it from me!"
His one eye glowed with so obstinate a resolve that I gave up the
attempt to persuade him, and turned to examine the message itself. But
here I fared no better. I did not know the handwriting, and there was
no peculiarity in the paper. I was no wiser than before. "Are you to
take back any answer?" I said.
"No," he replied, "the saints be thanked for the same! But you will
bear me witness," he went on anxiously, "that I gave you the letter.
You will not forget that, or say that you have not had it? But there!"
he added to himself as he turned away, speaking in a low voice, so
that I barely caught the sense of the words, "what is the use? she
will know!"
She will know! It had something to do with a woman then, even if a
woman were not the writer. I went in to breakfast in two minds about
going. I longed to tell Master Bertie and take his advice, though the
unknown had enjoined me not to do so. But for the time I refrained,
and explaining my absence of mind as well as I could, I presently
stole away on some excuse or other, and started in good time, and on
foot, into the city. I reached the rendezvous a quarter of an hour
before the time named, and strolling between the church and the
baker's shop, tried to look as much like a chance passer-by as I
could, keeping the while a wary lookout for any one who might turn out
to be my correspondent.
The morning was cold and gray. A drizzling rain was falling. The
passers were few, and the appearance of the streets dirty and, with
littered kennels, was dreary indeed. I found it hard at once to keep
myself warm and to avoid observation as I hung about. Ten o'clock had
rung from more than one steeple, and I was beginning to think myself a
fool for my pains, when a woman of middle height, slender and young in
figure, but wearing a shabby brown cloak, and with her head muffled in
a hood, as though she had the toothache or dreaded the weather more
than ordinary, turned the corner of the belfry and made straight
toward me. She drew near, and seemed about to pass me without notice.
But when abreast of me she glanced up suddenly, her eyes the only
features I could see.
"Follow me to the church!" she murmured gently. And she swept on to
the porch.
I obeyed reluctantly; very reluctantly, my feet seeming like lead. For
I knew who she was. Though I had only seen her eyes, I had recognized
them, and guessed already what her business with me was. She led the
way resolutely to a quiet corner. The church was empty and still, with
only the scent of incense in the air to tell of a recent service. It
was no surprise to me when she turned abruptly, and, removing her
hood, looked me in the face.
"What have you done with him?" she panted, laying her hand on my arm.
"Speak! Tell me what you have done with him?"
The question, the very question, I had foreseen! Yet I tried to fence
with her. I said, "With whom?"
"With whom?" she repeated bitterly. "You know me! I am not so changed
in three years that you do not recognize me?"
"No; I know you," I said.
There was a hectic flush on her cheeks, and it seemed to me that the
dark hair was thinner on her thin temples than when I had seen her
last. But the eyes were the same.
"Then why ask with whom?" she cried passionately. "What have you done
with the man you called Clarence?"
"Done with him?" I said feebly.
"Ay, done with him? Come, speak and tell me!" she repeated in fierce
accents, her hand clutching my wrist, her eyes probing my face with
merciless glances. "Have you killed him? Tell me!"
"Killed him, Mistress Anne?" I said sullenly. "No, I have not killed
him."
"He is alive?" she cried.
"For all I know, he is alive."
She glared at me for some seconds to assure herself that I was telling
the truth. Then she heaved a great sigh; her hands fell from my
wrists, the color faded out of her face, and she lowered her eyes. I
glanced round with a momentary idea of escape--I so shrank from that
which was to come. But before I had well entertained the notion she
looked up, her face grown calm.
"Then what have you done with him?" she asked.
"I have done nothing with him," I answered.
She laughed; a mirthless laugh. "Bah!" she said, "do not tell me lies!
That is your honor, I suppose--your honor to your friends down in the
cellar there! Do you think that I do not know all about them? Shall I
give you the list? He is a very dangerous conspirator, is Sir Thomas
Penruddocke, is he not? And that scented dandy Master Kingston! Or
Master Crewdson--tell me of him! Tell me of him, I say!" she
exclaimed, with a sudden return from irony to a fierce eagerness, a
breathless impatience. "Why did he not come up last night? What have
you done with him?"
I shook my head, sick and trembling. How could I tell her?
"I see," she said. "You will not tell me. But you swear he is yet
alive, Master Cludde? Good. Then you are holding him for a hostage? Is
that it?" with a piercing glance at my face. "Or, you have condemned
him, but for some reason the sentence has not been executed!" She drew
a long, deep breath, for I fear my face betrayed me. "That is it, is
it? Then there is still time."
She turned from me and looked toward the end of the aisle, where a
dull red lamp hanging before the altar glowed feebly in the warm
scented air. She seemed so to turn and so to look in thankfulness, as
if the news she had learned were good instead of what it was. "What is
the hour fixed?" she asked suddenly.
I shook my head.
"You will not tell me? Well, it matters not," she answered briskly.
"He must be saved. Do you hear? He must be saved, Master Cludde. That
is your business."
I shook my head.
"You think it is not?" she said. "Well, I can show you it is! Listen!"
She raised herself on a step of the font, and looked me harshly in the
face. "If he be not given up to me safe and sound by sunset this
evening, I will betray you all! All! I have the list here," she
muttered sternly, touching her bosom. "You, Master Bertie,
Penruddocke, Fleming, Barnes--all. All, do you hear? Give him up or
you shall hang!"
"You would not do it!" I cried aghast, peering into her burning eyes.
"Would not do it? Fool!" she hissed. "If all the world but he had one
head, I would cut it off to save his! He is my husband! Do you hear?
He is my husband--my all! Do you think I have given up everything,
friends and honor and safety, for him, to lose him now? No! You say I
would not do it? Do you know what I have done? You have a scar there."
She touched me lightly on the breast. "I did it," she said.
"You?" I muttered.
"Yes, I, you blind fool! I did it," she answered. "You escaped then,
and I was glad of it, since the wound answered my purpose. But you
will not escape again. The cord is surer."
Something in her last words crossed my memory and enlightened me.
"You were the woman I saw last night," I said. "You followed us from
High gate."
"What matter! What matter!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Better be
footsore than heartsore. Will you do now what I want? Will you answer
for his life?"
"I can do nothing without the others," I said.
"But the others know nothing," she answered. "They do not know their
own danger. Where will you find them?"
"I shall find them," I replied resolutely. "And in any case I must
consult Master Bertie. Will you come and see him?"
"And be locked up too?" she said sternly, and in a different tone.
"No. It is you must do this, and you must answer for it, Francis
Cludde. You, and no one else."
"I can do nothing by myself," I repeated.
"Ay, but you can--you must!" she retorted, "or Heaven's curse will be
upon you! You think me mad to say that. Listen! Listen, fool! The man
whom you have condemned, whom you have left to die, is not only my
husband, wedded to me these three years, but your father--your father,
Ferdinand Cludde!"