KNAVE AGAINST GENTLEMAN.
"Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather."
--_The Alchemist._
Cutting Tom was struck motionless at sight of the captain; but, after a
moment, reassuring himself by a look at Jerningham, he led his captive
into the hall. His men followed. The group came to a halt ere any one
found voice.
Ravenshaw, recovering a little from his surprise, was about to hurl a
question at Cutting Tom, when his tongue was stayed by his seeing the
maid's eyes turn with blazing indignation upon himself, and her lips
open to speak.
"So, then, it is your work!" she said.
"My work?" quoth the captain, in a maze, dropping his chicken.
"No doubt you spied upon poor Master Holyday, and corrupted these
rogues he trusted in," she went on; and then, giving way, she wept:
"Oh, God! into whose hands have I fallen!"
Ravenshaw quailed at her tears; but suddenly stiffened himself, set
down his lantern, and said wrathfully to Cutting Tom:
"What means this, knave? Why came you here? Where is--the gentleman you
serve? Speak, thou slave, or by--"
But Millicent, coming swiftly out of her tears, cried, scornfully:
"Think not to blind me, thou villain! The gentleman is where you bade
these wretches leave him,--in the woods, robbed,--mayhap slain! Alas,
having seen his fate, what may I expect for myself!" And again she fell
into lamentations.
"I understand this not," said Ravenshaw. "Cutting Tom, thou blundering
hound, why bring you this maid to this place, and to me?"
"Oh, out upon pretense!" cried Millicent. "Thinkst thou I am so great
a fool as not to see? God send I were Sir Peregrine's wife rather than
such a villain's captive!"
"Mistress, I know not why you are here, nor what hath befallen Master
Holyday. There is some mistake or falseness, which I shall worm out
of this tongue-tied knave; but first assure yourself you are not my
captive."
"Oh, peace! As if this fellow, whom you call by name, and who cringes
before you, had not turned treacherous!"
"Ten to one he hath turned treacherous, and dear he shall pay for it;
but he hath not turned so at my instigation."
"Oh, no more, I pray. Even this fellow is not bold-faced enough to deny
it is for you he has betrayed us. God knows what is to become of me,
a prisoner in your hands, without a soul that knows my whereabouts to
protect me!"
At this, Master Jerningham, who had kept still while an inspiration
perfected itself in his mind, stepped courteously forward, and said,
with grave sympathy:
"Not so, mistress. I, the master of this house, will protect you in it."
She looked at him in surprise. His was a face she recalled vaguely as
having seen, or faces more or less resembling it, in the streets of
London, or in churches, or other public places; but it was not a face
she had ever had reason to note carefully. Whatever were the forgotten
occasions upon which she may have observed it, as she had observed
ten thousand faces worth a careless second glance, the night of her
adventure in February was not one of them; for on that night, besides
keeping himself in shadow, and leaving all talk to Sir Clement Ermsby,
Jerningham had hidden his countenance under the brim of a great Spanish
hat. So his face at this moment, appearing as that of a stranger,
awakened in her mind no association either pleasant or unpleasant; in
itself, it wore so serious and sweet a smile, and the manner of its
owner was so quietly chivalrous, that Millicent's feelings promptly
declared in its favour. A sudden sense of safety came over her,
depriving her for a moment of speech. Then she murmured, unsteadily:
"Master of this house, say you?"
"Ay, mistress, but no conspirator in your being brought here. I am
not often at the place; this man hath newly arrived as steward; I
came to-night without warning, no more expecting to see strangers in
my house than he expected to see me. I know not what hath been afoot;
but Heaven must have sent me here, if my coming has saved you from a
mischief."
He offered her his hand. Cutting Tom had already released her arm.
After a moment, she took the hand, and allowed Jerningham to lead her
to a seat by the table. As she scanned his features, an increasing
trustfulness appeared in her own.
"Sir," she faltered, deeply relieved and grateful, "I must thank Heaven
for my deliverance. To find a gentleman--after these rascals--"
She cast a glance at Ravenshaw, and trembled to think what manner of
man she had escaped; for indeed at that instant the captain looked like
the very devil.
"He deliver you!" exclaimed Ravenshaw, as soon as his feelings
permitted him to speak calmly. "Why, he is of all men the one you most
need deliverance from!"
Jerningham smiled with tolerant contempt. "I scarce think you will
believe that, mistress," said he, lightly, "seeing how completely I am
a stranger to you."
"Believe him?" she replied, scornfully. "He is the prince of cozeners;
he is all made of lies and shifts. I know not how he hath come to be
steward to a gentleman; belike you know not of him; perchance he hath
passed upon you by another name, as he did upon us; he is Captain
Ravenshaw."
"To say truth, mistress, I knew him; but I little thought--"
"Knew me?" said Ravenshaw, with a laugh. "Ay, indeed. Well enough for
me in turn to know his designs against yourself, mistress; from which,
as from marriage with that old dotard, I had hoped to see you saved. As
for your being brought here, ask these men. Find your tongue, Cutting
Tom, and explain this."
"Why, of a truth," said Cutting Tom, slowly, finding courage in a
significant glance from Jerningham, "I know not what you would have me
explain. I am but a dull-witted man; if you had only told me beforehand
what to say--"
"'Tis too clear these knaves acted by your orders, captain,"
interrupted Jerningham.
"Why, yes, so we did, and that's the hell of it," said Cutting Tom.
"Liar and slave!" cried Ravenshaw, half drawing his sword; but he
controlled himself, and said: "'Tis plain that you, Master Jerningham,
have bought this knave, though 'tis beyond my ken how you learned what
he was to be about to-night. Mistress, I swear to you, the man who
intends you harm is he that you put your trust in; the man who would
save you is he that you revile and disbelieve."
"Mistress," said Jerningham, ignoring this speech, "wherever you have
come from, wherever you would go, 'tis now too late in the night to
leave this house. Shall I conduct you to a chamber where you will be
safe and alone? Your ears need not then be assailed by the rude talk of
this man. Surely you will not doubt me upon his wild words?"
"Nay," said she, rising compliantly, "I heed not his words."
"For proof of them," said the captain, "let me tell you that this
gentleman employed me to be his go-between with you."
She blushed. Jerningham said: "Oh, villain! You have the devil's
invention, I think. You would make yourself out a worse knave, that you
might make her distrust me. Mistress, if you have the smallest fear--"
"Sir, God forbid I should doubt a gentleman on the word of a known
rascal!"
Jerningham led her by the hand toward the corridor at the right.
But the captain, not delayed by his momentary reflection upon the
occasional inconvenience of a bad reputation, sprang ahead of them, and
took his place at the corridor entrance, grasping his sword. Master
Jerningham instantly drew back with the maid, in a manner implying that
the captain's threatening action was as much directed against her as
him. He hastened with her toward the opposite passage, but Ravenshaw
was again beforehand. Jerningham thereupon conducted her to the front
part of the hall. It was not his desire to release her hand, as he
must needs do if he himself fought Ravenshaw at this juncture. He did
not wish to call in Ermsby yet, fearing the effect her recognition
of that gallant might have upon her confidence in himself. His own
two followers in the hall were armed only with knives. Cutting Tom,
the disguised Gregory, and their three companions, were his men in
reality; but he must seemingly win them over before using them, lest
she perceive they indeed acted for him in giving this direful turn to
her elopement.
"Thou whom he calls Cutting Tom," said Jerningham, "thou and thy
fellows,--ye have done a dangerous thing for your necks in conveying
this lady hither against her will."
"Sir, I know it," replied Tom. "But I was led by my needs, and these my
followers knew nothing of the business. I take you to be a gentleman
that has power in the world. I beg of you, now that the villainy has
failed, deal not too hardly with us."
"It lies with yourselves. If you be minded to undo the villainy, to
serve me in my protection of this maid--"
"We will, we will! and thank your good worship!" said Tom, quickly,
and turned to his men with a look which elicited from them a chorus of
confirmatory "ayes," supported by a variety of oaths.
"Then seize that man, till I pass with this lady," said Jerningham, in
a decided tone. "To him, all of ye,--Meadows and Goodcole, too!"
Cutting Tom and his men drew their swords; having first attached their
lanterns and torch to wall-sconces, and dropped the bundle of Holyday's
clothes. The party advanced upon Ravenshaw, being joined by Meadows
and Goodcole, which twain preferred wisely that the bearers of longer
weapons should precede them into the captain's immediate neighbourhood.
Tom himself went rather shufflingly, doubtless willing to give
opportunity for any more impetuous comrade to be more forward in the
matter. But the other men were no more eager than he to be first;
and so the movement, beginning with some show of a fearless rush,
deteriorated in a trice to a hesitating shamble. At two steps from the
captain, the party came to a stop.
"Ho, dogs, will ye come dancing up to me so gaily?" cried Ravenshaw.
"Dance back again as fast!" His rapier leaped out, and sang against
three of their own blades in the time of a breath.
All seven of the men, appalled at his sudden onslaught, stepped hastily
back. The captain strode forward. The fellows increased their backward
pace. He followed. They turned in a kind of panic, and ran pell-mell
for the front door. Laughing loudly at their retreat, Ravenshaw
stopped, as he was in no mind to be drawn outside while Millicent
remained within. At sound of his laugh, the fellows turned and stood
about the doorway with their weapons in defence.
"Sir," said Ravenshaw, turning to Master Jerningham, "I pray you, look
upon this maid; consider her youth and her innocence. Will you mar
such an one a lifetime, to pleasure yourself an hour? As you are a
gentleman, I ask you, give her up."
"Do not give me up to him!" she said, affrightedly, clinging closer to
Jerningham.
Ravenshaw shook his head in sorrow. "Ah, mistress, that you should
think I would harm you! If you but knew--but for what you think of me,
no matter. 'Tis a cruel twist of circumstance that you should oppose
him that would save you, and cleave to him that would destroy you. You
would know how the affair stands, if there were a spark of truth to be
found among these knaves and traitors. Oh, for a gleam of honesty! How
foul falsehood looks when it has the whole place to itself!"
A whinny of impatience was heard from the horse waiting outside.
"'Tis high time you were in the saddle, captain," said Jerningham.
"Come, man; I will forget your attempt upon this maid, since no harm
has followed. And she, too, will forget it, if she take my counsel.
Will you trust your welfare in this matter to me, mistress?"
"Entirely," answered Millicent, in a low voice.
"Oh, mistress, how you are deceived!" said Ravenshaw. "What can I do to
save you?"
She shrank back from his look.
"Fear not, mistress," said Jerningham, softly. "Come, come, captain, an
end, an end! Time is hastening. I pray you, be off upon your ride to
Dover."
"Dover!" echoed the captain, with a strange laugh. "Ride to Dover! By
God's death, things have changed in the past ten minutes! I shall not
ride to Dover, thank your worship! not this night! I shall stay here
to save this lady in spite of herself!--in spite of herself and of you
all, good gentlemen!"
"Is this your promise, you rascal?" exclaimed Jerningham. "You gave
your word to ride forthwith."
"And being a rascal, I claim a rascal's privilege to break his word!"
cried Ravenshaw. "Away from that lady, or by this hand--"
He did not finish his threat, but made straightway for Jerningham. The
latter ran with the maid to the farther side of the table, and whipped
out his sword. Ravenshaw, in pursuing, turned his back to the fellows
at the doorway. "Upon him, men!" shouted Jerningham, and then, raising
his voice still higher, called out: "Ho, Ermsby, to the rescue!"
Ravenshaw, trusting his ears to warn him of what threatened in the
rear, kept Jerningham's sword in play rather cautiously, for fear of
too much endangering or frightening Millicent, who was pale as death.
The girl, clinging to Jerningham, was thus rather a protection than an
encumbrance to that gentleman. Very soon the captain heard the bustle
of newcomers entering at the front door, and then a general movement,
led by a more resolute tread than he had noticed before. He turned and
faced Sir Clement Ermsby, whom he recognised but vaguely as a person
with whom he had been in collision sometime in the past. He parried the
knight's thrust, and guarded himself with his dagger from a lunge of
Cutting Tom's. He then spun around on his heel, lest Jerningham might
either pierce his back, or profit by the opportunity to take the maid
away.
Jerningham had chosen the latter course, but he was hindered by the
rush of some of his own men, who had run around the table in order
that the captain might be surrounded. Thus checked for an instant, and
in some way made sensible of Ravenshaw's last movement, Jerningham
turned back, and again engaged the captain. Ravenshaw was thus between
two forces, one headed by Jerningham, the other by Sir Clement. He
leaped upon the table, jumped to the floor on the other side, while
half a dozen blades darted after him; dragged the table to a corner,
and turned to face his enemies from the little triangular space behind
it. Led by Ermsby, they rushed upon him, thinking to find the table of
short use as a bulwark against such numbers.
But Jerningham stood back out of the rush, still holding Millicent by
the hand, and shouted:
"Some keep him busy above the table; some thrust under at his legs. Let
the knave die, 'tis good time! I'll look to the comfort of the lady."
And he started again toward the right-hand passage.
Ravenshaw bent forward across the table, and swept aside the points
of steel with sword and dagger; but they threatened him anew, and he
heard men scrambling under the table to stab his legs; he saw, between
two heads of his foes, Jerningham's movement toward the passage, and he
shouted:
"Ho, rufflers, maunderers, upright men! a rescue! a rescue!"
Jerningham halted, somewhat wondering. The kitchen door flew open, and,
with a hasty thumping of crutches, the beggars hobbled in, men and
women, most of them with pewter cans, from which they had been regaling
themselves. At sight of these maimed creatures, with their frowsy hair,
their gaunt looks, the red blotches and bandages of some, the white
eyeballs of others, Millicent started back in horror. As the door by
which they came in was near the passage toward which Jerningham was
leading her, and as they spread into a wide group in entering, they
blocked the way of her departure.
"Stop the gentry cove!" cried Ravenshaw. "In the name of the salamon,
stand by a brother!"
The captain's assailants had drawn away a little to see who the
newcomers were. Having satisfied himself at a glance, Sir Clement
Ermsby laughed, and said: "A rescue, sooth! A bunch of refuse,--rotten
pieces of men. Come, back to your work!" And he renewed the attack
on Ravenshaw; while Jerningham, calling out, "Ay, to him! these be
helpless cripples," started again for the passage, his sword-point
forward.
But with a wild whoop the beggars straightened out of their lame
attitudes, swung their crutches and staves in the air, lost all regard
of sores and patches, found arms for empty sleeves, showed keen eyes
where white balls had plead for pity, threw off all the shams of their
profession, and swept upon the captain's foes. A sturdy blow of a staff
bore down Jerningham's rapier, a filching hook tore his dagger from his
other hand. Iron-shod crutches and staves rained upon the heads of Sir
Clement and the other men; hooks caught their clothing, and dragged
some to the floor. When at close quarters, the beggars drew their
knives; the women fought like men. Millicent, separated from Jerningham
in the fray, ran shrieking in the one direction open to her; this was
toward the corner at the right of the front door. Ravenshaw, dashing
through the confusion, placed himself triumphantly at her side. She
essayed to run from him; but he gently swept her with a powerful arm
into the corner behind him.
"Oh, God, I am lost!" she cried, seeing Jerningham and his men brought
to pause by the sturdy wielders of staff, crutch, and knife.
Across the captain's mind flashed a wild project of bearing her away
in search of her uncle's house, which he knew was somewhere in the
neighbourhood; but he heard a sudden fierce dash of the long-expected
rain against the rear windows, saw how faint and exhausted she was,
thought of the opposition she would offer, and considered the up-hill
fight he would have to wage against an enemy desperate with the fear of
losing his prey. He had a better idea,--one in which prowess might be
supplemented with craft.
Quite near him, in the wall at his right hand, was the open door to
the porter's room which he had noticed upon arriving at the house; it
had no other means of entrance or exit, its high-placed window being a
mere slit. He purposely moved a little to the left. Millicent, seeing
an opening, glided along the wall to escape him. He sprang forward,
and confronted her just at the door of the porter's room. Recoiling
from him, she instinctively darted through the door. "Good!" cried the
captain, taking his place in the doorway, his face to the hall.
Millicent, in the little room, sank upon a pallet, which was its only
furniture, and put out her hands to keep the captain from approaching
her. But she saw that he had stopped at the threshold, with his back to
her. It was, indeed, no part of his plan to follow her into the room.
Jerningham, startled at the maid's sudden disappearance, ran forward
with a cry of rage; but Ravenshaw met sword and dagger with sword and
dagger, and Jerningham was fain to draw back to save his body. Matters
thereupon resumed a state of abeyance, during which men recovered
breath, regained their feet, and took account of bleeding heads and
flesh wounds.
"Hark you!" spoke the captain, in a tone meant for her as well as for
Jerningham. "It is now for us to prove which of us means this lady no
harm. Let her abide where she is, till the storm and the night are
past; then, together, we'll conduct her to her friends. And meanwhile,
the man who attempts to enter this room declares himself her enemy."
Jerningham's face showed the rage of temporary defeat. "Then come from
the door there," he said, sullenly, for want of a better speech.
"Nay, for this night I am the door here,--though she may close this
wooden door an she please. These"--his sword and dagger--"she'll find
true bolts and bars. She may e'en sleep, if she will,--there's a pallet
to lie on."
Sitting weak and perplexed on the pallet in the dark little apartment,
she wondered what purpose the captain might be about.
At the suggestion of sleep, Jerningham had an idea. Pretending to
confer in whispers with Sir Clement, he secretly beckoned Gregory,
who was still in his false beard. The servant approaching without
appearance of intent, Jerningham, still under cover of talking to
Ermsby, asked in undertone for the sleeping potion which Gregory was to
have obtained. The lackey transferred a phial in an unperceived manner
to his master's hand. Pocketing it in triumph, Jerningham turned to the
captain:
"We shall see how honestly you mean, then. And that the lady may rest
freer of annoyance, send these knaves of yours out of her hearing, back
to their ale."
"With all my heart--when you send away your knaves also."
"I will do so; but fear not, mistress," he called out. "I will not
leave this hall. 'Tis all for the avoiding of bloodshed, and your
better comfort in the end."
"'Tis well, sir; I am not afraid," she answered, in a tired, trembling
voice.
It was agreed that Jerningham's men should go into the room on the
left-hand side of the hall, diagonally opposite that in which the maid
was; that the beggars should return to the kitchen; that the signal for
both parties to withdraw should be given by Jerningham. He was about to
speak the word forthwith, when the captain interposed:
"By your leave, I'll first have private speech with my friends. You
have already had with yours, and may have again ere they depart."
Jerningham saw no way of refusing, or, indeed, much reason therefor;
doubtless the captain wished but to counsel his rascals to be vigilant
for a possible second call. So Jerningham gave consent by silence.
Ravenshaw had a conference with the beggars, in which chief parts were
taken by the white-bearded rogue and the ancient cripple who had guided
the maunderers to the Grange.
Presently Ravenshaw signified that he had done; whereupon Jerningham
said "Begone," and the two parties filed out, each narrowly watching
the other, Jerningham's men taking a torch with them, the beggars
clumping with their iron-tipped wooden implements. Only Ravenshaw
took note that one of the lanterns disappeared with the beggars. The
captain, Jerningham, Mistress Meg, who had watched recent occurrences
from the kitchen door, and Sir Clement Ermsby were left in the hall.
"How?" quoth the captain, staring at the knight. "Do you break faith?
Why go you not with the other men?"
"Troth, sir, I am nobody's man," replied Sir Clement. "I am this
gentleman's friend, and, when I choose, I fight for him; but my comings
and goings are not to be stipulated for by any man."
Ravenshaw perceived that a minor point had been scored against him; but
he was not much discomfited. He had merely to play for time, to guard
the doorway of that room for an unknown number of hours. As long as he
could temporise, two antagonists were no worse than one; if it came to
fighting, two were a little worse, but, as both must attack in front,
the odds were nothing out of his experience.
"Have we not met before this, sir?" asked Ravenshaw, scrutinising
Ermsby.
"My memory is but so-so," replied Sir Clement, quizzically.
"Before God, I think we have," said the captain, "and upon opposite
sides, too, as we are now. Would I could remember! I have had so many
quarrels, so many foes. I could swear you and I had clashed once upon a
time."
Sir Clement, who remembered the meeting well enough, merely smiled as
if amused at the captain's puzzlement. Ravenshaw drew a stool to the
doorway, and sat down, weapons still in hand. Sir Clement was leaning
back against the table, at the opposite side of the hall, with folded
arms. He made mirth for himself by suggesting various impossible places
where the captain might have met him; while Jerningham, ever keeping
the corner of his eye on his enemy, went back and held a whispered
conversation with Meg.
"Fear not," said Jerningham, heeding the peremptory question in her
eyes. "The maid is in yonder room. This captain, by a strange chance,
knows her as one he hath designs against. He would neither have her go
free, nor taken back to her father. He thinks to find her at his mercy.
But we shall outwit him, and no more fighting. 'Tis for you to--"
"One would think he was her friend," said Meg, glancing toward the
captain.
"Poh! she fears him as he were the devil."
"Does he, then, desire her?" queried Meg, with a curious feigned
unconcernedness of tone and look.
Jerningham regarded her with the silence of sudden discovery; then,
restraining a smile, said, watchfully: "He is another's instrument, I
think. Such a man's fancy would ne'er light upon a child; she is little
more. A woman of your figure were more to his liking, I'll wager." He
paused, to observe Meg's blush, which was not resentful; then he added,
significantly: "If a woman were minded to make a fresh trial of life,
with a brave husband now--"
"Well, and what then?" said she, looking him frankly in the eyes. "How
if a woman were? The man is not seeking a wife, ten to one."
"A few drops of this, mixed with a man's wine," said Jerningham,
producing the phial in such manner that his body concealed it from
Ravenshaw's view, "have been known to work a wonder."
"What is it?" she whispered, gazing at it.
"A love potion," he answered. "The surest in the world, too. 'Tis the
one with which--" But he broke off, shook his head, and replaced the
phial in his pocket.
"Let me have it," she whispered, excitedly.
"If you will swear to one thing."
"What?"
"That you will find means to use it this night."
"Why this night?"
He invented a reason. "So that, when it hath effect, you may use your
power to draw him from that maid."
"I swear," she replied. He passed the phial to her, directed her in
detail what to do, and returned to the front of the hall as if from a
mere conference upon household matters. Meg went back to the kitchen.
She failed to notice there that one of the beggars, a very old man, was
missing; or that the window-seat was wet, as if the casement had been
recently opened and closed again. Nor could old Jeremy have called her
attention to these matters, for upon their return the other beggars had
so crowded around him at the ale-cask that he had seen and heard only
them and their clamours.
Ravenshaw and Sir Clement, having exhausted their topic of
conversation, were regarding each other in silence. Jerningham, as his
eyes fell upon the front door, suddenly exclaimed:
"The horse! Zounds, in this pelting rain--" He seized one of the
lanterns and ran to the porch. "How now? The beast is not here!" He
came back into the hall, looking puzzled.
"Perhaps the old man hath put him under roof," suggested Ermsby.
Jerningham went to the kitchen door and called Jeremy, who averred he
had not been near the horse since he had tied it outside the porch.
"'Twas ill tied, no doubt," said Jerningham, "and hath got loose and
sought shelter. Belike you left the stable door open. Go and see; and
look in all the penthouses, too."
Jeremy went out. His return was awaited in silence, Jerningham pacing
the hall, Sir Clement staying motionless at the table's edge, Ravenshaw
sitting upon the stool before Millicent's room. She had not closed
the door; she remained upon the pallet, able to see a little of the
hall, but herself out of the light that came in through the doorway.
Her thoughts were in confusion; at last they became so clouded that,
obeying the impulse of fatigue, she lay down on the pallet, without
heed of the act; soon she was in a state between anxious waking and a
troubled dream.
Jeremy came back, dripping, and said the horse was not to be found.
Berating him for stupidity, his master sent him back to the kitchen.
Jerningham presently sat down upon a chair near the table against which
Sir Clement stood. Slowly the minutes passed, while the heavy beat
of the rain against the casements was the only sound. Once Jerningham
called out: "Is all well with you, mistress?"
Millicent, brought to a sense of her whereabouts after a moment's
bewilderment, answered: "Yes, I thank you." The silence fell again.
At last Jerningham said to Sir Clement: "Those rascals yonder need not
have all the good cheer to themselves. There's better drink than ale
left in the house." He rose, and summoned Meg from the kitchen.
"Fetch wine," said he. Meg, returning to the kitchen, presently
reappeared therefrom with a flagon and a pewter drinking cup.
"First fill a cup, I pray you," said Jerningham, "and carry it to the
lady in yonder room."
She poured out a cupful, set the flagon on the table, and approached
the door at which Ravenshaw sat.
"Nay, you shall not pass here," quoth the captain.
"What, will you deny the unhappy lady that small comfort?" said
Jerningham, while Meg paused.
"No; I will convey it to her; but I'll first see you drink a cup of the
same wine."
Jerningham shrugged his shoulders, took the cup from Meg, drained it,
and turned it upside down. He then refilled it. Meg carried it to the
captain, and held it close to his nostrils in handing it. He breathed
its perfume, eyed it yearningly, then thrust his left hand with it into
the room.
"A cup of wine for you, mistress," called Jerningham.
Millicent, again roused from half-slumber, was too gracious to refuse;
she took the cup, sipped, and passed it back to the captain's waiting
hand. He noticed that the cup was nearly full, but gave it back to Meg,
though a little reluctantly. Jerningham emptied it down his own throat,
and filled it for Sir Clement, who made one long grateful draught of
the contents.
"Fill for yourself, mistress," said Jerningham, affably. Meg shook her
head, but, nevertheless, proceeded to pour out another cupful. Her
back was toward Ravenshaw as she did so, but there was nothing in that
to strike attention. What Jerningham and Sir Clement saw, however,
was this: she held the cup with her thumb and little finger, against
her palm, so that her three other fingers lay across the top. Along
the inside of her middle finger was placed the phial, a narrow tube,
tied to the finger with fine thread; the open end of the phial was
toward the palm, which she had hitherto kept tight against it. But now,
opening her fingers out above the rim of the cup as she poured the
wine, she released a part of the phial's contents into the cup at the
same time. The sleight required but a moment.
She put down the flagon, transferred the cup to the other hand, and
turned toward Ravenshaw.
"Eh? What?" exclaimed Jerningham, in feigned disapproval, reaching out
for the cup.
"Nay," said Meg, holding it away from him; "hospitality ever, even to
them you quarrel with!"
Whereupon she walked gravely over to the captain and offered him the
cup.
Ravenshaw had thought he detected approbation of himself in this
woman's looks at the time of his arrival; and now he thought he might
flatter himself the approbation still existed. Attributing all to her
good nature toward him, and not suspecting wine in the same vessel, and
from the same flagon, as had supplied his enemies but a moment since,
he grasped the cup with a hearty smile of gratitude, and emptied it
swiftly down his throat.
Meg received back the cup, placed it on the table beside the flagon,
and passed silently to the kitchen, followed by a faint smile of
mirth on the part of Jerningham. The smile was supplanted by a look
of expectant curiosity as Jerningham turned his eyes upon Ravenshaw.
The captain sat as before, rapier in one hand, dagger in the other.
Jerningham himself had resumed his chair near the table, and Sir
Clement retained his old attitude. In the little room, Millicent
relapsed into a dreamy half-consciousness, wherein she seemed borne
by rough winds through black and red clouds; the room appeared a vast
space wherein this occurred; and yet always she was vaguely aware of
her actual surroundings.
Ravenshaw felt serenely comfortable; a delicious ease of mind and body
came over him; the beat of the rain softened into a soothing lull; the
hall grew dark before him. He opened his eyes with a start, amazed at
himself for having let them close. A mist seemed to fill the place;
through it appeared the faces of his two enemies, a curious smiling
expression upon each.
"What is it?" cried the captain, sharply, and gave his head a shake to
throw off the drowsiness that invaded him.
Jerningham's eyes shone with elation.
"God's death, the wine!" cried Ravenshaw, staggering madly to his feet.
"Methought there was an aftertaste. Ye've played foul with me!"
He put his arms against the wall to keep himself from falling; his
head swayed, and sank forward; the floor seemed to yield beneath him;
darkness surged in upon him, and for an instant he knew not where he
was or what he was about. But he flung himself back to life with a
fierce effort, and began walking vigorously back and forth in front of
his doorway. He knew that his sole hope of resisting the drug, if it
was what he guessed, lay in constant action of body and mind.
Jerningham sat still; he had but to wait till the captain succumbed,
delude Meg with the tale that the philtre sometimes began its operation
by inducing a long sleep, find means to administer the rest of the
potion to Millicent, and carry out his original design. The beggars
were little to be feared without Ravenshaw; they would drink themselves
stupid, and on the morrow, while they were snoring or bousing, the
unconscious maid could be carried to the ship. As for Ravenshaw, once
the drug overcame him he would be virtually out of the world for two
days, at least. He could be locked in a chamber, and the beggars
informed by Meg that he was gone. They would doubtless take themselves
off when they had drunk the place dry. Meg would await with interest
the termination of the captain's sleep. Thus all would pass without
bloodshed and without any scandal reaching the bishop's ears too
soon. Meanwhile, the slightest movement against Ravenshaw, or toward
Millicent's room, was to be avoided; it would only stir the captain
to action opposed to the effects of the drug. He was still striving
against those effects, pacing with rapid steps the small stretch of
floor he allowed himself, and thrusting in the air with his weapons.
He was continually losing his mental grasp and regaining it with
effort. He wondered how they had contrived to drug his wine alone;
doubtless the woman had the arts of a witch; a woman who talked so
little was not natural.
How if, in spite of all his resolution, the drug should prove too
potent for him? What of the maid then? He shuddered to think of her
at the mercy of Jerningham, who had doubtless provided all means of
dealing with her in safety from consequences. Should he, Ravenshaw,
consign her to the protection of the beggars? Without his masterful and
resourceful presence, they were like to prove fickle rogues. Should
he remove Jerningham forthwith by killing him? If he did so, and then
succumbed to the drug or to Jerningham's men, how might she fare at
the hands of the survivors, rascals on both sides? This friend of
Jerningham's was the only gentleman in the house, and he was without
doubt a bird of Jerningham's feather. Where had the captain met him
before? Ravenshaw, calling up anew his energies, stopped in his walk
to stare at the man, and lurched toward him drunkenly. Suddenly the
captain's face cleared, he stumbled back to the doorway, and cried:
"Mistress, look, look!"
So sudden and imperative a cry brought Millicent to the threshold,
startled, white of face.
"Look!" went on Ravenshaw. "'Tis he--that night in the street--in
February--they would not let you go--but I compelled them! And one
gave me the slip--a man with a Spanish hat--a thick-bearded--Ah! 'twas
you, you, you!" He had turned his gaze upon Jerningham. "That was the
beginning, I trow! Ah, mistress, who were your enemies that night, and
who was your friend?"
She stood bereft of speech, her hand against the door-post, recognising
Sir Clement indeed, and dismayed at the frown--which to suddenly
enlightened eyes was a betrayal of the truth--on Jerningham's face.
And then she wondered at the wild, drunken movements of Ravenshaw, who
had resumed his rapid pacing of the floor in a fresh struggle with the
persistent opiate.
"The man will never sleep," said Ermsby, in a low tone, to Jerningham.
"He will outwalk your medicine. You are not like to have him in a worse
state than he is in now. Let me put an end to him while he is thus."
"But Meg--" objected Jerningham.
"If I give him a thrust in my own quarrel, she cannot blame you. Come;
my weapons are itching."
"Why do you wish to slay him?"
"For the sport of it, i' faith." Sir Clement's face lighted up with
cruelty. "'Tis your only sure way. He'll walk out of this cloud
presently."
"As you will," said Jerningham, abruptly, after a moment's thought.
"But 'tis between you and him."
Sir Clement, without moving, said aloud to the captain:
"I remember our meeting. You boasted you could be my teacher with the
rapier. I knew not then you were Ravenshaw, the roaring captain; else I
had not put off the lesson."
"Lesson--put off lesson--what lesson?" murmured the captain, dreamily,
swaying and plunging as he strode.
"I said a time might come when I should see your skill," Ermsby went
on. "I am bound on a far journey to-morrow, and may never meet you
again." He drew his rapier and dagger, and stepped forward. "Come,
knave! Remember your insolence that night; for I shall make you swallow
it!"
However vague an impression the previous words had made on the
captain's mind, the sight of sword and dagger in threatening position
roused and steadied him. Not fully sensible of how he had come to
be opposed by these weapons at this stage, he met them with the
promptitude of habit. The steel of his dagger clashed against the
other's sword-point; his own rapier shot forth to be narrowly diverted
in like manner. There was exchange of thrust and parry till the place
sang with the ring of steel. The jocund heat of battle woke in the
captain's blood, its fierce thrill gladdened his soul and invigorated
his body. And yet he went as one in a dream, with the lurches of
a drunken man. But dazed as he appeared in countenance, wild and
uncontrolled as his movements looked, his eye was never false as to
the swift dartings of his enemy's weapons, his hand never failed to
meet steel with steel. Some spirit within him, offspring of nature and
practice conjoined, seemed to clear his eye and guide his arm, however
his body plunged or his legs went awry.
Meg ran in from the kitchen at the first sound of steel. Jerningham
hastened back and drew her out of the way of the fighters, saying:
"They fell a-quarrelling; I could not part them. See what effect the
potion hath upon him; he should sleep now, but for this fighting. I
hope 'twill end without blood."
The beggars, now drunk, were looking over one another's heads from
the kitchen, not daring to enter without the order; and Jerningham's
men, drawn from their dice by the noise, were crowded together beyond
the left-hand doorway. Jerningham hoped that Ravenshaw would yet, in
a moment of exhaustion, yield to the opiate ere Sir Clement found
opportunity for a home thrust. So he stood with Meg at the fireplace,
while Millicent, held by the interest and import of the scene, watched
from her threshold. The fighters tramped up and down the hall.
"Never with that thrust, good teacher!" said Ermsby, blocking a
peculiar deviation of his opponent's blade from its apparent mark--his
right groin--toward his left breast.
"Nor you with that feint, boy!" retorted the captain, ignoring a
half-thrust, and catching on his dagger the lightning-swift lunge that
followed.
Furiously they gave and took, panting, dripping with sweat, their
faces red and tense, their blazing eyes fixed. Now the captain threw
himself forward when there seemed an opening in the other's guard; now
he sprang back before a similar onslaught on his adversary's part. He
swayed and staggered, and sometimes appeared to stop himself in the
nick of time from falling headlong, but always his attack and guard
were as true as those of Sir Clement, whose body and limbs moved as
by springs of steel. It seemed as if neither's point could ever reach
flesh, so sure and swift was the defence; the pair might have been clad
in steel.
Ravenshaw had worked back to the front of the hall; suddenly he sprang
forward, driving Sir Clement toward the fireplace. Ermsby made the
usual feint, the usual swift-following lunge. Ravenshaw caught it,
but with a sharp turn of the wrist that loosened his grip so that
his dagger was struck from his hand by the deflected sword-point. Sir
Clement uttered a shout of triumph, and thereby put himself back in the
game by the hundredth part of a second; in that infinitesimal time the
captain drove his old thrust home. Sir Clement dropped, limp and heavy,
his cry of victory scarce having ceased to resound.
Ravenshaw turned fiercely about, his sword ready for new foes. Startled
at the movement, Jerningham called his men to seize the slayer. The
captain shouted to the beggars. These came staggering in from the
kitchen, but he saw they were helpless with drink. The white-bearded
fellow was feebly brandishing a pistol which he had made ready for
firing,--the weapon he had pointed at Ravenshaw in the road. The
captain seized it, turned toward Jerningham's advancing adherents,
and fired into the band. A man fell with a groan, but his comrades
passed over him, and Millicent recognised, as his false beard became
displaced in his struggles, the fellow who had denounced Ravenshaw in
her father's garden. The captain hurled himself upon the other men;
brought down Cutting Tom with the sting of his rapier; felled Goodcole
with a blow of the pistol; dashed through the opening he had thus made
in their ranks; pitched forward as if at last all sense had left him;
spun around, and grasped at the air like one drowning, and fell heavily
against the front door, closing it with his weight. He stood leaning,
his head hanging forward, his arms and jaw falling loose.
"No more, men!" cried Jerningham, though the half-dozen appalled
survivors needed no command to refrain, any more than the beggars, who
were stumbling over their staves. "The knave hath slain Sir Clement
Ermsby, but he is done for, too. Now, mistress, for a better lodging!"
The captain, mistily, as if at a great distance, saw his enemy clasp
the girl's waist. He tried to move, but could not even keep his feet
save by bracing himself against the door. Suddenly, as the maid drew
away from Jerningham's face of hot desire, Ravenshaw was thrown forward
by a violent push of the door from without. Staggering to the table, he
turned and looked. In stepped the old cripple, soaking wet; behind him
was a portly, fat-faced gentleman, followed by several rustic varlets
armed with pikes and broadswords. Lights flared in the porch, and with
the sound of the rain came that of snorting, pawing horses.
"Well met, Master Etheridge," spoke Ravenshaw, thickly. "Look to your
niece."
Jerningham stared in chagrin; Millicent ran with a cry of joy to
her Uncle Bartlemy. Then the captain said, "Thank God, I may now go
asleep!" and fell full length upon the floor.