HEY HO! AND A RUMBELOW!
They had ridden over London Bridge.
The night was dark, and a wind was beginning to rise. Again, here and
there about the bridge, soldiers were lounging, but Commendone and his
servant passed over successfully. He was recognised from the last time,
three nights ago. As they walked their horses through the scattered
houses immediately at the southern end of the bridge, Johnnie spoke to
Hull.
"I have plans," he said quietly; "my mind is full of them. But I can
give you no hint until we are there and doing. Be quick at the uptake,
follow me in all I do, but if necessary act thyself, and remember that
we are desperate men upon an adventure as desperate. Let nothing stand
in the way, as I shall not."
For answer he heard a low mutter, almost a growl, and they rode on in
silence.
Both were cool and calm, strung up to the very highest point, every
single faculty of mind and body on the alert and poised to strike.
One, the Spanish blood within him turning to that cold icy fury which
would stick at nothing in this world to achieve his ends, the while his
trained intelligence and high mental powers sat, as it were, upon his
frozen anger and rode it as a horse; the other, a volcano of hidden
snarling fury, seeing red at each step of his way through the dark, but
subordinate and disciplined by the master mind.
They came to the entrance to Duck Lane, walked their horses quietly down
it--once more it was in silence--until under the lamp above the big red
door of the House of Shame, they saw two horses tethered to a ring in
the wall, and a man in a cloak walking up and down in front of the
house.
He looked up sharply as they came into the circle of lamp-light, and
Johnnie saw, with a fierce throb of exultation, that it was Torrome, the
King's valet.
"It is you, Senor," the man said in a low voice of relief.
Johnnie nodded curtly as he dismounted.
"Yes," he said, in a voice equally low, putting something furtive and
sly into the tones, for he was a consummate actor. "Yes, it is I,
Torrome. I must see His Grace at once on matters of high importance."
"His Grace said nothing," the man began.
"I know, I know," Johnnie answered. "It was not thought that I should
have to come, but as events turn out"--he struck with his hand upon the
door as he spoke--"I am to see His Highness at once."
"I trust Her Grace----" the man whispered in a frightened voice.
"Not a word," Commendone replied. "Take our horses and keep watch over
them also. My man cometh in with me. Word will be sent out to you anon
what to do."
The man bowed, and gathered up the bridle of the two new horses on his
arm; while as he did so, the big red door swung open a little, and a
thin face, covered with a mask of black velvet, peered out at the
newcomers.
"It is all right," the valet said, in French. "This gentleman is of the
suite of His Highness."
The peering, masked face scrutinised Johnnie for a second, then nodded,
and the red lips below twisted into a sinister smile.
"Enter, sir," came in a soft, cooing voice. "I remember you three nights
back...."
Johnnie entered, closely followed by Hull, and the door was closed
behind him. They stood once more in the quiet carpeted passage, with its
sense of mystery, its heavily perfumed air, and once again the tall
nondescript figure flitted noiselessly in front of them, and scratched
upon a panel of the big door at the end of the passage. There was the
tinkle of a bell within. The door was opened. Johnnie pushed aside the
curtains and entered the room, hung with crimson arras, powdered with
the design of gold bats, lit with its hanging silver lamps, and reeking
with the odour of the scented gums which were burning there.
Madame La Motte rose from her chair behind the little table as they
entered. The big, painted face was quite still and motionless, like a
mask, but the eyes glanced with quick, cunning brightness at Commendone
and his companion--the only things alive in that huge countenance. She
recognised Johnnie in a moment, and then her eyebrows went up into her
forehead and the lower part of her face moved down a little, as if the
whole were actuated by the sudden pull of a lever.
"_Mon gars_," she said, in French, "and what brings you here to-night?
And who is this?..."
Her eyes had fallen upon the broad figure of the serving-man in his
leather coat, his short sword hanging from his belt, his hand upon his
dagger.
She might well look in alarm, this ancient, evil woman, for the keen
brown face of the servant was gashed and lined with a terrible and quiet
fury, the lips curled away from the teeth, the fore part of the body was
bent forward a little as if to spring.
Johnnie took two steps up to the woman.
"Madam," he said, in a voice so low that it was hardly more than a
whisper, but every syllable of which was perfectly distinct and clear,
"a lady has been stolen from her friends, and brought to this hell.
Where is she?"
The woman knew in a moment why they had come. She gave a sudden swift
glance towards the door in the arras at the other side of the room,
which told Commendone all he wanted to know.
"It is true, then?" he said. "Thou cat of hell, bound mistress of the
fiend, she is here?"
The huge body of the woman began to tremble like a jelly, slowly at
first in little shivers, and then more rapidly until face and shapeless
form shook and swayed from side to side in a convulsion of fear, while
all the jewels upon her winked and flashed.
As the young man bent forward and looked into her face, she found a
voice, a horrid, strangled voice. "I know nothing," she coughed.
There was a low snarl, like a wakened panther, as Commendone, shuddering
as he did so, gripped one bare, powdered shoulder.
"Silence!" he said.
With one convulsive effort, the woman shot out a fat hand, and rang the
little silver bell upon the table.
Almost immediately the door swung open; there was a swish of curtains,
and the tall, fantastic figure of the creature who had let them into the
house stood there.
"_Allez--la maison en face--viens toi vite,--Jules, Louis._"
Commendone clapped his hand over the woman's mouth, just as the eel-like
creature at the door, realising the situation in a moment, was gliding
through the curtains to summon the bullies of the house.
But John Hull was too quick for him. He caught him by the arm, wrenched
him back into the room, sent him spinning into the centre of it, and
took two steps towards him, his right fist half raised to deal him a
great blow.
The creature mewed like a cat, ducked suddenly and ran at the yeoman,
gripping him round the waist with long, thin arms.
There was no sound as they struggled--this long, eel-like thing, in its
mask and crimson robe twining round his sturdy opponent like some
parasite writhing with evil life.
John Hull rocked, striving to bend forward and get a grip of his
antagonist. But it was useless. He could do nothing, and he was being
slowly forced backwards towards the door.
There was horror upon the man's brown face, horror of this silent,
clinging thing which fought with fury, and in a fashion that none other
had fought with him in all his life.
Then, as he realised what was happening, he stood up for a moment,
staggering backwards as he did so, pulled out the dagger from his belt
and struck three great blows downwards into the thin scarlet back,
burying the steel up to the hilt at each fierce stroke.
There was a sudden "Oh," quite quiet and a little surprised, the sort of
sound a man might make when he sees a friend come unexpectedly into his
room....
That was all. It was over in some thirty seconds, there was a
convulsive wriggle on the floor, and the man, if indeed it was a man,
lay on its back stiff in death. The mask of black velvet had been torn
off in the struggle, and they saw a tiny white face, painted and
hairless, set on the end of a muscular and stringy neck--a monster lying
there in soulless death.
"Have you killed it?" Commendone asked, suddenly.
"Yes, master." Hull's head was averted from what lay upon the carpet,
even while he was pushing it towards the heap of cushions at the side of
the room. Leaning over the body, he took a cushion from the heap--a
gaudy thing of green and orange--and wiped his boot.
"Listen!" Johnnie said, still with his hand covering the woman's face.
They listened intently. Not a sound was to be heard.
"As I take it," Commendone answered, "there are no men in the house
except only those two we have come to seek. The alarm hath not been
given, and that _eunuque_ is dead. We must settle Madame here." He
laughed a grim, menacing laugh as he spoke.
Immediately the figure in his hands began to writhe and tremble, the
feet beat a dull tattoo upon the carpet, the eyes protruded from their
layers of paint, a snorting, snuffling noise came from beneath
Commendone's hand. He caught it away instantly, shuddering with
disgust.
"Kill me not! kill me not!" the old woman gasped. "They are upstairs,
the King and his friend. The girl is there. I know nothing of her, she
was brought to me in the dark by the King's servants. Kill me not; I
will stay silent." Her voice failed. She fell suddenly back in her
chair, and looked at them with indescribable horror in her eyes.
"I'll see to her, master," Hull said in a quiet voice, his face still
distorted with mastiff-like fury.
He caught up his blood-stained dagger from the floor, stepped to the
stiffened corpse, curved by tetanus into a bow, and ripped up a long
piece of the gown which covered it. Quickly and silently he tied the old
woman's ankles together, her hands behind her back--the podgy wrists
would not meet, nor near it--and again he went to the corpse for further
bonds.
"And now to stop her mouth," he said, "or she will be calling."
Commendone took out his handkerchief. "Here," he said. In an instant
Hull had rolled it into a ball, pressed it between the painted lips, and
tied it in its place with the last strip of velvet.
All this had taken but hardly a minute. Then he stood up and looked at
his master. "The time comes," he said.
Johnnie nodded, and walked slowly, with quiet footsteps, towards the
door in the arras at the other side of the room.
He felt warily for the handle, found it, turned it gently, and saw a
narrow stairway stretching upwards, and lit by a lamp somewhere above.
The stair was uncarpeted, but it was of old and massive oak, and,
drawing his sword, he crept cautiously up, Hull following him like a
cat.
They found themselves in a corridor with doors on each side, each door
painted with a big white number. It was lit, warm, and very still.
Johnnie put his fingers to his lips, and both men listened intently.
The silence was absolute. They might have been in an empty house. No
single indication of human movement came to them as they stood there.
For nearly a minute they remained motionless. Their eyes were fixed and
horror-struck, their ears strained to an intensity of listening.
Then, at last, they heard a sound, quite unexpectedly and very near.
It came from the door immediately upon their right, which was painted
with the number "3," and was simply the click of a sword in its
scabbard. Johnnie took two noiseless steps to the door, settled his
sword in his hand, flung it open, and leapt in.
He was in a large low room panelled round its sides, the panels painted
white, the beadings picked out in crimson. A carpet covered the floor, a
low fire burnt upon a wide open hearth. There were two or three padded
sofa lounges here and there, and in front of the fire-place in riding
clothes, though without his hat or gloves, stood Sir John Shelton.
There was a dead silence for several seconds, only broken by the click
of the outer door, as Hull pushed it into its place, and shot the bolt.
Shelton grew very white, but said nothing.
With his sword ready to assume the guard, Johnnie walked to the centre
of the room.
The bully's face grew whiter still. Little drops of moisture glistened
on his forehead, and on his blonde moustache.
Then he spoke.
"Ah! Mr. Commendone!" he said, with a horrid little laugh. "News from
Court, I suppose? Is it urgent? His Grace is engaged within, but I will
acquaint him. His Grace is engaged----" There came a titter of discovery
and fear from his lips. His words died away into silence.
Johnnie advanced towards him, his sword pointed at his heart.
"What does this mean, Mr. Commendone?"
"Death."
The man's sword was out in a moment. The touch of it seemed to bring the
life back to him, and with never a word, he sprang at Commendone. He was
a brave man enough, a clever fencer too, but he knew now that his hour
had come. He read it in the fixed face before him, that face of frozen
fury. He knew it directly the blades touched. Indeed he was no match
for Commendone, with his long training, and clean, abstemious life. But
even had he been an infinitely superior swordsman, he knew that he would
have had no chance in that moment. There was something behind the young
man's arm which no Sir John Shelton could resist.
The blades rattled together and struck sparks in the lamp-light. Click!
Clatter! Click!--"Ah!" the long-drawn breath, a breath surging up from
the very entrails--Click! Clatter! Click!
The fierce cold fury of that fight was far beyond anything in war, or
the ordinary duello. It was _a outrance_, there was only one end to it,
and that came very swiftly.
Commendone was not fighting for safety. He cared not, and knew nothing,
of what the other might have in reserve. He did not even wait to test
his adversary's tricks of fence, as was only cautious and usual. Nothing
could have withstood him, and in less than two minutes from the time the
men had engaged, the end came. Commendone made a half-lunge, which was
parried by the dagger in Sir John's left hand, and then, quick as
lightning, his sword was through Shelton's throat, through and through.
The Captain fell like a log, hiccoughed, and lay still.
"Two," said John Hull.
Johnnie withdrew his sword, holding it downwards, watching it drip; then
he turned to his servant. "Sir John was here on guard," he said; "this
is the ante-room to where She is. But I see no door, save only the one
by which we entered."
"Hist!" Hull replied, almost before his master had finished speaking.
He pointed to the opposite wall, and both men saw a long, narrow bar of
orange light, a momentarily widening slit, opening in a panel.
The panel swung back entirely, forming a sort of hatch or window, and
through it, yellow, livid, and terror-struck, looked the face of the
King.
Without a word John Hull rushed towards that part of the wall. When he
was within a yard of it he gathered himself up and leapt against it,
like a battering-ram. There was a crash, as the concealed door was torn
away from its hinges. Hull lay measuring his length upon the floor, and
Johnnie leaped over the prostrate form into the room beyond.
This is what he saw:
In one corner of the room, close to a large couch covered with rich
silks, Elizabeth Taylor stood against the wall. They had dressed her in
a long white robe of the Grecian sort, with a purple border round the
hem of the skirt, the short sleeves and the low neck. Her face was a
white wedge of terror, her arms were upraised, the palms of her hands
turned outwards, as if to ward off some horror unspeakable.
King Philip, at the other corner of the room, standing by the debris of
the broken door, was perfectly motionless, save only for his head,
which was pushed forward and moved from side to side with a slow
reptilian movement.
He was dressed entirely in black, his clothes in disarray, and the thin
hair upon his head was matted in fantastic elf-locks with sweat.
He saw the set face of Commendone, his drawn and bloody sword. He saw
the thick leathern-coated figure of the yeoman rise from the floor. Both
were confronting him, and he knew in a flash that he was trapped.
Johnnie looked at his master for a moment, and then turned swiftly.
"Elizabeth," he said, "Elizabeth!"
At his voice the girl's hands fell from her face. She looked at him for
a second in wild amazement, and then she cried out, in a high, quavering
voice of welcome, "Johnnie! Johnnie! you've come!"
He put his arms about her, soothing, stroking her hair, speaking in a
low, caressing voice, as a man might speak to a child. And all the time
his heart, which had been frozen into deadly purpose, was leaping,
bounding, and drumming within him so furiously, so strongly, that it
seemed as if his body could hardly contain it. This mortal frame must
surely be dissolved and swept away by such a tumult of feeling.
She had only seen him once. She had never received his little posy of
white flowers, but he was "Johnnie" to her.
"They have not hurt you, my maid?" he said. "Tell me they have not
harmed you."
She shook her head. Happiness sponged away the horror which had been
upon her face. "No, Johnnie," she answered, clinging, her fingers
clutching for a firmer hold of him. "No, Johnnie, only they took me
away, and Alice, that is my maid. They took me away violently, and I
have been penned up here in this place until that man came and said
strange things to me, and would embrace me."
"Sit you here, my darling maid," the young man said, "sit you here,"
guiding her to the couch hard by. "He shall do you no harm. Thou art
with me, and thy good friend there, thy father's yeoman."
She had not seen John Hull before, but now she looked up at him over
Johnnie's arm, and smiled. "'Tis all well now," she murmured, drooping
and half-faint. "Hull is here, and thou also, Johnnie."
Even in the wild joy of finding her, and knowing instinctively that she
was to be his, that she had thought of him so much, Commendone lost
nothing of his sang-froid.
He knew that desperate as had been his adventure when he started out
from the Tower, it was now more desperate still. He and Hull had taken
their lives in their hands when they went to Duck Lane. Their enterprise
had so far been successful, their rescue complete, but--and he was in no
way mistaken--the enterprise was not over, and his life was worth even
a smaller price than it had been before.
With that, he turned from the girl, and strode up to the King, before
whom John Hull had been standing, grimly silent.
Commendone's sword was still in his hand; he had not relinquished it
even when he had embraced Elizabeth, and now he stood before his master,
the point upon the floor, his young face set into judgment.
"And now, Sire?" he said, shortly and quickly.
Philip's face was flushed with shame and fear, but at these sharp words,
he drew himself to his full height.
"Senor," he said, "you are going to do something which will damn you for
ever in the sight of God and Our Lady. You are going to slay the
anointed of the Lord. I will meet death at your hands, and doubtless for
my sins I have deserved death; but, nevertheless, you will be damned."
Then he threw his arms out wide, and there came a sob into his voice as
the liquid Spanish poured from him.
"But to die thus!" he said. "Mother of God! to die thus! unshrived, with
my sins upon me!"
Johnnie tapped impatiently with the point of his sword upon the floor.
"Kill you, Sire?" he said. "I have sworn the oath of allegiance to Her
Grace, the Queen, and eke to you. I break no oaths. Kill you I will
not. Kill you I cannot. I dare not raise my hand against the King."
He dropped on one knee. "Sire," he said again, "I am your Gentleman, and
you will go free from this vile house as you came into it."
Then he rose, took his sword, snapped it across his knee--staining his
hands in doing so--and flung it into the corner of the room.
"And that is that," he said, with a different manner. "So now as man to
man, as from one gentleman to another, hear my voice. You are a
gentleman of high degree, and you are King also of half this globe,
named, and glad to be named His Most Catholic Majesty. Of your kingship
I am not at this moment aware. I am not Royal. But as a gentleman and a
Christian, I tell you to your face that you are low and vile. You
deceive a wife that loveth you. You take maidens to force them to your
will. If you were a simple gentleman I would kill you where you stood.
No! If thou wert a simple gentleman, I would not cross swords with thee,
because thou art unworthy of my sword. I would tell my man here to slit
thee and have done. But as thou art a King"--he spat upon the floor in
his disgust--"and I am sworn to thee, I cannot punish thee as I would,
thou son of hell, thou very scurvy, lying, and most dirty knave."
The King's face was a dead white now. He lifted his hands and beat with
them upon his breast. "_Mea culpa! Mea culpa!_ What have I done that I
should endure this?"
"What no King should ever do, what no gentleman could ever do."
The King's hands dropped to his side.
"I am wearing no sword," he said quietly, "as you see, Senor, but
doubtless you will provide me with one. If you will meet me here and
now, as a simple gentleman, then I give you licence to kill me. I will
defend myself as best I am able."
Johnnie hesitated, irresolutely. All the training of his life was up in
arms with the wishes and the emotions of the moment--until he heard the
voice of common sense.
John Hull broke in. The man had not understood one word of the Spanish,
but he had realised its meaning, and the keen, untutored intelligence,
focused upon the flying minutes, saw very clearly into the future.
"Master," he said, "cannot ye see that all this is but chivalry and
etiquette of courts? Cannot ye see that if ye kill His Highness, England
will not be big enough to hide thee? Cannot ye see, also, that if thou
dost not kill him, but let him go, England will not be big enough to
hide thee either? Master, we must settle this business with speed, and
get far away before the hue and cry, for I tell thee, that this bloody
night's work will bring thee, and Mistress Elizabeth, and myself to the
rack and worse torture, to the stake, and worse than that. Haste! speed!
we must be gone. There is but one thing to be done."
"And what is that, John Hull?"
"Why, thou art lost in a dream, master! To tie up His Highness so that
he cannot move or speak for several hours. To send that Spaniard which
is his man, away from the door outside, and then to fly from this
accursed house, you, I, and the little mistress, and hide ourselves, if
God will let us, from the wrath to come."
The quick, decisive words were so absolutely true, so utterly
unanswerable, that Johnnie nodded, though he shuddered as he did so.
Upon that, John Hull strode up to the King.
"Put your hands behind you, Sire," he said.
The King was wearing a dagger in his belt. As Hull came up to him, his
face was transfixed with fury. He drew it out and lunged at the man's
heart.
Hull was standing a little obliquely to the blow, the dagger glanced
upon his leather surcoat, cut a long groove, and glanced harmlessly
away.
With that, Hull raised his great brown fist and smote King Philip in the
face, driving him to the floor. He was on him in a moment, crouching
over him with one hand upon the Royal throat.
"Quick, master; quick, master! Quick, master! Bonds! Bonds! We must e'en
truss him up, as we did her ladyship below."
It was done. The King was tied and bound. It was done as gently as
possible, and they did not gag him.
Together they laid him upon the floor.
Slow, half-strangled, and venomous words came, came in gouts of
poisonous sound, which made the sweet Spanish hideous....
"The whole world, Mr. Commendone, will not be wide enough to hide you,
your paramour, and this villain from my vengeance."
Johnnie would have heard anything but that one word--that shameful word.
At the word "paramour," hardly knowing what he did, he lifted his hand
and struck the bound and helpless King upon the face.
A timepiece from the next room beat. It was one o'clock in the morning.
Johnnie turned to Elizabeth. "Come, sweetheart," he said, in a hurried,
agitated voice, "come away from this place."
He took her by the arm, half leading, half supporting her, and together
they passed out of the room, without so much as a backward glance at the
bound figure upon the floor. As they went through the broken doorway in
the ante-room, John Hull pressed after them, and walked on the other
side of Elizabeth, talking to her quickly in a cheery voice.
As he looked over the girl's head at his servant, Johnnie knew what Hull
was doing. He was hiding the corpse of Sir John Shelton from the girl's
view.
They came into the corridor, and descended the stairs. Just as they were
about to open the door in the arras, Hull stopped them upon the lowest
step.
"I will go first, master," he said, and again Johnnie realised what was
meant.
When a few seconds afterwards, he and Elizabeth entered the
tapestry-hung room; the great pile of cushions upon the left-hand side
was a little higher, but that was all.
The girl raised her hands to her throat. "Oh," she said, "Johnnie, thank
God you came! I cannot bear it. Take me home, take me home now, to Mr.
Cressemer and Aunt Catherine."
Johnnie took her hands in his own, holding her very firmly by the
wrists, and looked full into her face.
"Dear," he said, "you cannot go to Mr. Cressemer's. You know nothing of
what has happened this night. You do not realise anything at all. Will
you trust in me?"
"Yes," she faltered, though her eyes were firm.
"Then, if you do that, and if God helps us," he said, with a gasp in his
throat, "we may yet win to safety and life, though I doubt it.
Sweetheart, it is right that I should tell you that man upstairs in the
room is the King Consort, husband of Her Grace the Queen."
The girl gave a loud, startled cry, and instantly Commendone saw
comprehension flash into her face.
"Sit here," he said to her, putting a chair for her.
Then he turned. Behind the ebony table, motionless, vast, and purple in
the face, was the great mummy of the procuress.
"What shall we do?" he said to Hull.
"The first thing, master, is to send the Spanish valet away; that you
must do, and therein lies our chance."
Johnnie nodded. He passed out into the passage, went to the front door,
pulled aside three huge bolts which worked with a lever very silently,
for they were all oiled, and let in a puff of fresh wind from the
street.
For a moment he could see nothing in the dark. He called in Spanish:
"Torrome, Torrome, where are you? Come here at once." He had hardly done
so when the cloaked figure of the valet came out from behind a buttress.
"Ah, Senor," he said, "I am perished with this cold wind. His Highness
is ready, then?"
Johnnie shook his head. "No," he answered, "His Highness and Sir John
are still engaged, but I am sent to tell you that you may go home. I and
my man will attend His Highness to the Tower, but we shall not come
until dawn. Go you back to the King's lodging, and if His Highness doth
not come in due time, keep all inquiries at bay. He will be sick--you
understand?"
Torrome nodded.
"Then get you to horse, leave His Highness's horse with ours, and speed
back to the Tower as soon as may be."
Commendone waited until the man had mounted, very glad to be relieved of
his long waiting, and was trotting towards London Bridge. Then he closed
the door, pulled the lever, and went back into the red, scented room.
He saw that Hull had cut the strips of red velvet that bound Madame La
Motte, the gag was taken from her mouth, and he was holding a goblet of
wine to the thick, swollen, and bleeding lips.
There was a long deep sigh and gurgle. The woman shuddered, gasped
again, and then some light and understanding came into her eyes, and she
stared out in front of her.
"What are we to do?" Johnnie asked his servant once more.
"What have ye done, masters?" came in a dry whisper from the old
woman--it was like the noise a man makes walking through parched grass
in summer. "What have ye done, masters?"
Hull answered: "We have killed your servitor, as ye saw," he said, with
a half glance towards the piled cushions against the wall. "Sir John
Shelton is dead also; Mr. Commendone killed him in fair fight."
"And the King, the King?"--the whisper was dreadful in its anxiety and
fear.
"He lieth bound in that room of shame where you took my lady."
There was silence for a moment, and the old woman glanced backwards and
forwards at Hull and Commendone. What she read in their faces terrified
her, and again she shook horribly.
"Sir," she said to Commendone, "if this be my last hour, then so mote it
be, but I swear that I knew nothing. I was told at high noon yesterday
that a girl was to be sent here, that Sir John and the valet of His
Highness would bring her. I knew, and know nothing of who she is. I did
but do as I have always done in my trade. And, messieurs, it was the
King's command. Now ye have come, and there is the lady unharmed, please
God."
"Please God!" Johnnie said brutally. "You hag of hell, who are you to
use that name?"
The fat, artificially whitened hands, with their glittering rings fell
upon the table with a dull thud.
"Who am I, indeed?" she said. "You may well ask that, but I tell you
others of my women received this lady. I have not seen her until now."
"Indeed she hath not," came in a low, startled voice from Elizabeth.
"Sir," La Motte went on, "I see now that this is the end of my sinful
life. Kill me an ye wish, I care not, for I am dead already, and so also
are you, and the young mistress there, and your man too."
"What mean you?" Johnnie said.
"What mean I? Why, upstairs lieth the King, bound. We all have two or
three miserable hours, and then we shall be found, and what we shall
endure will pass the bitterness of death before death comes. That,
messieurs, you know very well.
"So what matters it," she continued, her extraordinary vitality
overcoming everything, her voice growing stronger each moment, "what
matters it! Let us drink wine one to the other, to death! in this house
of death, in this house to which worse than death cometh apace."
She reached out for the flagon of wine before her with a cackle of
laughter.
It was too true. Commendone knew it well. He looked at Hull, and
together they both looked at Elizabeth Taylor.
The girl, in the long white robe which they had put on her, rose from
her seat and came between them, tall, slim, and now composed. She put
one hand upon Johnnie's shoulder and laid the other with an affectionate
gesture upon Hull's arm.
"Look you," she said, "Mr. Commendone, and you, John Hull, my father's
friend, what matters it at all? I see now all that hath passed. There is
no hope for us, none at all. Therefore let us praise God, pray to Him,
and die. We shall soon be with my father in heaven; and, sure, he seeth
all this, and is waiting for us."
John Hull's face was knitted into thought. He hardly seemed to hear the
girl's voice at all.
"Mistress Lizzie," he said, almost peevishly, "pr'ythee be silent a
moment. Master, look you. 'Tis this way. They will come again and find
His Highness when he returneth not to the Tower, but he will dare do
nothing against us openly for fear of the Queen's Grace. Were it known
that he had come to such a stew as this, the Queen would ne'er give him
her confidence again. She would ne'er forgive him. Doubtless the
vengeance will pursue us, but it cannot be put in motion for some hours
until the King is rescued, and has had time to confer with his familiars
and think out a plan. After that, when they catch us, nothing will avail
us, because nothing we can say will be believed. But we are not caught
yet."
Johnnie, who for the last few moments had been quite without hope,
looked up quickly at his servant's words.
"You are right," he said, "in what you say; there speaketh good sense.
Very well, then we must get away at once. But where shall we go? If we
go to His Worship's house, we shall soon be discovered, and bring His
Worship and Mistress Catherine with us to the rack and stake. If we go
to my father's house in Kent, he will not be able to hide us; it will be
the first place to which they will look."
He spread his arms out in a gesture of despair.
"You see," he said, "we in this room to-night have no refuge nor
harbour. For a few hours, a day it may be, we can lie lost from
vengeance. But after that no earthly power can save us. We have done the
thing for which there is no pardon."
"I don't like, master, to wait for death in this way," Hull answered.
"But art wiser than I, and so it must be. But pr'ythee let us have a
little course. The hounds may come, but let us run before them, and
then, if death is at the end of it, well--well, there's an end on't; and
so say I."
There was a voice behind them, a voice speaking in broken but fluent
English.
"You have broken into my house, you have killed my servant, you have
prevented me from calling for help from you, a King lies bound in my
upper chamber, _v'la_! And now you go to run a little course, to scurry
hither and thither before the dogs are at your throats. You are all
prepared to die. I also am ready to die if it must be so, but it need
not be so if you will listen to me."
"What mean you?" Johnnie said.
As he spoke he saw, with a mingling of surprise and disgust, that the
big painted face of Madame La Motte was full of animation and
excitement. She seemed as if the events of the last hour had but stirred
her to endeavour, had given a fillip to her sluggish life.
More astonishing than all, she rose from her chair, gathering together
her vast, unwieldy bulk, came round from behind the table, and joined
their conference almost with vivacity.
"_Tiens_," she said, "there are other countries than this. An army
beaten in an engagement is not always routed. Retreat is possible within
friendly frontiers."
The horrible old creature had such a strength and personality about her
that, with her blood-stained mouth, her great panting body, her
trembling jewelled hands, she yet in that moment dominated them all.
"There is one last chance. At dawn--and dawn is near by--the ship _St.
Iago_ sails from the Thames for foreign parts. The master of the ship,
Clark, is"--she lowered her voice and spoke only to Commendone--"is a
client of mine here. He is much indebted to me in many ways, and ere day
breaks we may all be aboard of her and sailing away. What is't to be,
messieurs?"
They all looked at each other for a moment in silence.
Then Elizabeth put her arms round the old woman's neck and kissed her.
"Madame," she said, "surely God put this into your heart to save us all.
I will come with you, and Johnnie will come, and good John Hull withal,
and so we may escape and live."
The old Frenchwoman patted the slim girl upon the back. "_Bien,
cherie_," she said, "that's a thing done. I will look after you and be a
mother to you, and so we will all be happy."
Commendone and his servant looked on in amazement. At this dreadful
hour, in this moment of extremest peril, the wicked old woman seemed to
take charge of them all. She did not seem wicked now, only genial and
competent, though there was a tremor of fear in her voice and her
movements were hurried and decisive.
"Jean-Marie," she called suddenly, and then, "Phut! I forgot. It is
under the cushions. Well, we must even do without a messenger. Have you
money, Master Commendone?"
Johnnie shook his head. "Not here."
"_Mais, mon Dieu!_ I have a plenty," she answered, "which is good for
all of us. Wait you here."
She hurried away, and went up the stair towards the rooms above.
"Shall I follow her, master?" Hull said, his hand upon his dagger.
Johnnie shook his head.
"No," he answered, "she is in our boat. She must sink or swim with us."
They waited there for five or ten minutes, hearing the heavy noise of
Madame's progress above their heads. They waited there, and as they did
so the room seemed to become cold, their blood ran slowly within them,
the three grouped themselves close together as if for mutual warmth and
consolation.
Then they heard a high-pitched voice at the top of the stairs.
"Send your man up, Monsieur, send your man up. I have no strength to
lift this bag."
At a nod from Johnnie, Hull ran up the stairs. In a moment more he came
down, staggering under the burden of a great leather wallet slung over
his shoulder, and was followed by Madame La Motte, now covered in a fur
cloak and hood.
She held another on her arm. "Put it on, put it on," she said to
Elizabeth, "quickly. We must get out of this. The dawn comes, the wind
freshens, we have but an hour."
And then in the ghostly dawn the four people left the House of Shame,
left it with the red door open to the winds, and hurried away towards
the river.
None of them spoke. The old dame in her fur robe shuffled on with
extraordinary vitality, past straggling houses, past inns from which
nautical signs were hung, for a quarter of a mile towards the mud-marsh
which fringed the pool of Thames. She walked down a causeway of stones,
sunk in the mud and gravel, to the edge of the water.
It was now high tide and the four came out in the grey light upon a
little stone quay where some sheds were set.
In front of one of them, heavily covered with tar, a lantern was still
burning, wan and yellow in the coming light of day.
Madame La Motte kicked at the door of this shed with her high-heeled
shoe. There was no response. She opened the door, burst into a stuffy,
foetid place where two men were lying upon coils of rope. She stirred
them with her foot, but they were in heavy sleep, and only groaned and
snored in answer.
"I'll wake them, Madame," Johnnie said, "I'll stir them up," his voice
full of that thin, high note which comes to those who feel themselves
hunted. He clapped his hand to his side to find his sword; his fingers
touched an empty scabbard. Then he remembered.
"I am swordless," he cried, forgetting everything else as he realised
it.
Behind him there was a thud and a clanking, as John Hull dropped the
leathern bag he held.
"Say not so, master," he said, and held out to the young man a sword in
a scabbard of crimson leather, its hilt of gold wire, its guard set with
emeralds and rubies, the belt which hung down on either side of the
blade, of polished leather studded with little stars and bosses of gold.
"What is this?"
"Look you, sir, as we passed out of Madame's room, I saw this sword
leaning in a corner of the wall by the door. His Highness had left it
there, doubtless, ere he went upstairs. 'So,' says I to myself, 'this is
true spoil of war, and in especial for my master!'"
Johnnie took the sword, looked at it for a moment, and then unbuttoned
his own belt and girded it on.
"So shall it be for a remembrance to me," he said, "for now and always."
But he did not need to use it. Madame's exertions had been sufficient.
Her shrill, angry voice had wakened the watermen. They rose to their
feet, wiped their eyes, and, seeing persons of quality before them, they
hastened down the little hard and embarked the company in their wherry.
Then they pulled out into the stream. The tide was running fast and
free towards the Nore, but they made for a large ship of quite six
hundred tons, which was at anchor in mid-stream. When they came up to
it, and caught the hanging ladder upon the quarter with a boat-hook, the
deck was already busy with seamen in red caps, and a tarry, bearded old
salt, his head tied up in a woollen cloth, was standing on the high
poop, and cursing the men below. Madame La Motte saw him first. She put
two fat fingers in her mouth and gave a long whistle, like a street boy.
The captain looked round him, up into the rigging where the sailors were
already busy upon the yards, looked to his right, looked to his left,
and then straight down from the poop upon the starboard quarter, and saw
Madame La Motte. He stumbled down the steps on to the main deck, and
peered over the bulwarks. "Mother of God!" he cried, "and what's this,
so early in the morning?"
The old Frenchwoman shrieked up at him in her broken English. "_Tiens!
Tiens!_ Send your men to help us up, Captain Clark. Thou art not awake.
Do as I tell you."
The captain rubbed his eyes again, called out some orders, and in a
moment or two Johnnie had mounted the ladder, and stood upon the deck.
"Now the ladies," he said in a quick, authoritative voice.
Elizabeth came up to the side, and then it was the question of Madame
La Motte. John Hull stood in the tossing, heaving wherry, and gave the
woman her first impetus. She clawed the side ropes, cursing and spitting
like a cat as she did so, mounting the low waist of the ship like a
great black slug. As soon as she got within arm's length of the captain
and a couple of sailors, they caught her and heaved her on board as if
she had been a sack, and within ten seconds afterwards John Hull, with
the leather bag over his shoulder, stood on the deck beside them.
Johnnie felt in his pocket and found some coins there. He flung them
over to the watermen, and they fell in the centre of the boat as it
sheered off.
Mr. Clark, captain of the _St. Iago_, was now very wide awake.
"I will thank ye, Madame," he said, "to explain your boarding of my ship
with your friends."
The quick-witted Frenchwoman went up to him, put her fat arms round his
neck, pulled his head down, and spoke in his ear for a minute. When she
had finished the captain raised his head, scratched his ear, and looked
doubtfully at Commendone, Elizabeth, and John Hull.
"Well," he said, in a thick voice, "since you say it, I suppose I must,
though there is little accommodation on board for the likes of you. You
pay your passage, Madame, I suppose?"
"Phut! I will make you rich."
The captain's eyes contracted with leery cunning.
"There is more in this than meets mine eye--that ye should be so eager
to leave London. What have ye done, that is what I would like to know? I
must inquire into this, though we are due to sail. I must send a man
ashore to speak with the Sheriff----"
"The Sheriff! And where would any of your dirty sailors find the Sheriff
at this hour of the morning? You'll lose the tide, Master Clark, and
you'll lose your money, too."
The captain scratched his head again.
"Natheless, I am not sure," he began.
Then Johnnie stepped forward.
"Captain Clark?" he said, in short, quick accents of authority.
"That am I," said the captain.
"Very good. Then you will take these ladies and bestow them as well as
you are able, and you will set sail at once. This ship, I believe,
belongs to His Worship the Alderman, Master Robert Cressemer?"
The captain touched his forehead.
"Yes, sir, indeed she does," he answered, in a very different voice.
Johnnie, from where he had been standing, had looked down into the
waist, and had seen the great bags of wool with the Alderman's
trade-mark upon them. "Very well," he said, "you'll heave anchor at
once, and this is my warrant."
He put his hand into his doublet and pulled out the Alderman's letter.
He showed him the last paragraph of it.
It was enough.
"I crave your pardon, master," the captain said. "I did not know that
you came from His Worship. That old Moll, I was ready to oblige her,
though it seemed a queer thing her coming aboard just as we were setting
sail. Why did you not speak at first, sir? Well, all is right. The wind
is favourable, and off we go."
Turning away from Johnnie, he rushed up to the poop again, put his hand
to his mouth, and bellowed out a crescendo of orders.
The yards swarmed with men, there was a "Heave ho and a rumbelow," a
clanking of the winch as the anchor came up, a flapping of unfurled
topsails at the three square-rigged masts, and in five minutes more the
_St. Iago_ began to move down the river.
Johnnie walked along the open planking of the waist, mounted to the
poop, and heard the "lap, lap" and ripple of the river waves against the
rudder. He turned and saw not far away to his left the White Tower
growing momentarily more distinct and clear in the dawn.
The whole of the Palace and Citadel was clear to view, the two flags of
England and Spain were just hoisted, running out before the breeze. To
his left, as he turned right round, were huddled houses at the southern
end of London Bridge. In one of them, empty, lit and blown through by
the morning winds, His Most Catholic Majesty was lying, silent and
helpless.
He turned again, looked forward, and took in a great breath of the salt
air.
The cordage began to creak, the sails to belly out, the hoarse voice of
the pilot by Johnnie's side to call directions. Presently Sheppey Island
came into view, and the sky above it was all streaked with the promise
of daylight.
Regardless of Captain Clark and two other men, who were busied coiling
ropes and making the poop ship-shape for the Channel, Johnnie fell upon
his knees, brought the cross-belt of the King's sword to his lips, and
thanked God that he was away with his love.