"This threatens danger," Bevill thought to himself after he had spoken
to the man in the alley, and had received from him a surly grunt and
the information that the other was, like himself, a traveller having
his own horse in another stall. But the ostler did not add the words
that Bevill had expected to hear--viz., that this traveller was, also
like himself, a Frenchman. He remembered, however, a moment later,
that though Sparmann was now undoubtedly a French spy, he was
absolutely as much a Dutchman as any native of St. Trond, and could,
consequently, pass easily as a man who was voyaging from one part of
the Netherlands to another.
In recollecting this, there came suddenly into his mind a thought--an
inspiration--a reflection that, in such a circumstance lay the chance
of outwitting, of silencing--though only for a time, yet perhaps for
long enough--this fellow who, beyond almost all possibility of doubt,
was here with the view of causing harm to him.
"He is a Hollander," Bevill thought to himself as he stood outside the
courtyard of "Le Prince d'Orange," while undecided as to whether he
should endeavour to see, or at least to communicate with, the
Comtesse. "A Hollander, yet one who is now in the service of France,
and, consequently, an enemy to all things Dutch. If--if--I denounced
him to-night to some of the burghers of this place, to some native
magistrate here, as he will endeavour to denounce me to some of the
French who hold the place, it will go hard with him. These Dutch may,
because they must at present, tolerate the French army, but they will
not tolerate a spy who is their own countryman amongst them. Yet how
to do it? Above all, how to do it at once? Let me reflect."
As he so reflected, however, he was already crossing the _place_, and
in a moment was in front of the courtyard of "Le Duc de Brabant,"
which, although it was similar to that of the inn where he had put up,
was nevertheless considerably larger than the latter. Halting,
however, under the archway that led into this yard, he saw the great
coach of Madame de Valorme standing out in the dark, and observed
that, from some of the lower windows of the inn, there still gleamed
the rays of a lamp or other light, as well as the beams from a
lanthorn hung on a hook outside the stable door. Thus the coach and
the baggage on the top of it stood clearly out, thin and weakly though
the rays of light might be, and by their aid he was able to perceive
other things.
He saw that Joseph, the coachman, on account of whose ill-treatment by
the Brabant peasants that afternoon he had lodged a bullet in the
shoulder of one of them, was now strapping up a valise on the roof of
the coach; a valise that he divined easily had already been used this
evening and repacked and closed, and then sent down to be put in its
place in time for the morning's departure. Near the coachman, who now
seemed to be entirely recovered from his slight injury--which had been
only prevented by an inch from being a fatal one--there stood a
_facchin_, or porter of the inn, who had evidently brought down the
valise and was now going away to, in all probability, fetch another.
"Joseph," Bevill said now to the man as he descended from the box on
which he had been standing while strapping the valise, "Joseph, come
down. I wish to speak to you on a matter of serious concern."
Astonished at seeing beneath him the dashing horseman who, at a
critical moment for all concerned, had suddenly appeared amongst the
boors who had attacked his mistress's coach, and--which he did not
overlook--nearly killed him, Joseph sprang to the ground, while
doffing the hat he wore and instantly commencing a long series of
thanks and utterances of gratitude to Bevill, all of which he had
previously uttered many times during the continuation of the journey.
"No matter for that," said Bevill, while looking round to see that
they were out of earshot, and remarking that the _facchin_ had
disappeared. "I need no more thanks, nor have needed any. But,
Joseph--your mistress? Where is she? If it may be so, if it can be
compassed, I must speak with her to-night."
"To-night, monsieur? _Helas!_ it is impossible. She has retired; the
necessaries are all distributed there," glancing up at the roof of the
vehicle, "save one small chest that remains in the rooms for use in
the morning. It is impossible, monsieur," he repeated. "But," the man
went on, "if monsieur has anything to confide, if he requires any
service which one so humble as I can give, monsieur knows where he can
obtain it. Monsieur punished the ruffians who endeavoured to slay me.
If one so poor as I can----"
"Nay, no matter; yet--yet--it is of grave import. There has happened
that which thrusts against my hopes of reaching Liége, of reaching
that city in company of--almost, may I say, in charge of Madame----"
"What, monsieur, what?" the man exclaimed in a low voice. "Monsieur is
in some peril? And he, our preserver----"
"Listen," Bevill` said, thinking it best to at once tell this man the
worst. "It may be that ere morning I shall no longer be able to
accompany Madame La Comtesse on her road."
"Oh, monsieur!" Joseph exclaimed. "Oh, monsieur! Monsieur is indeed in
some peril. What is it, monsieur?"
"There is a man now staying at the inn where I am, at 'Le Prince
d'Orange,' who knows a secret of mine which may undo me if divulged.
He is a Dutchman, yet now he serves France--our country--as the basest
of creatures. He is a spy, one employed by France. What's that?"
Bevill broke off to say, hearing a slight noise in the stable close
by.
"I heard nothing, monsieur. Doubtless one of the horses moving. It is
nothing. Please go on, monsieur."
"Yet also is he, as I say, an enemy of mine. He may denounce me as one
having sympathy with these Dutch, as one favourable to this Grand
Alliance. Ha!" Bevill exclaimed, breaking off again. "Look! Did'st?
see. That man who passed outside the entry but now, his cloak about
him! One with dark, piercing eyes and a flash of grey beard showing.
That is the man. I will follow him, prevent him, if possible, from
carrying out his intentions to-night."
"And so also will I, monsieur. Let me but get my coat and whinyard,
and I will be with you. But an instant, monsieur. But an instant."
"Nay," Bevill called, even as the man sped towards the great wooden
staircase that led out of the courtyard up to the balconies outside
the various floors; "nay, stay here, I command you. Stay here by your
mistress to whom your service is due. I need no assistance. It is man
to man, as," he muttered grimly through set teeth, "it was two years
ago in England."
Then, seeing that Joseph had disappeared up the stairs, Bevill went
swiftly out of the courtyard and under the arch into the street.
But he did not know that, as he did so, another man had followed in
his footsteps.
A man who, almost ere he was outside the entrance, had softly pushed
open the stable door and then, after looking round stealthily to make
sure that he was not observed, had come out himself, while thrusting
into the folds of his coarse shirt something that gleamed for an
instant in the rays of the lanthorn.
"What was it he said?" this man muttered to himself in a hoarse,
raucous voice. "What? I could not hear all--yet enough. A Dutchman!
One of us--who has joined these accursed French as a spy on us. On
us--_ach! Himmel!_ On us, his countrymen. Ha! Let me but find him, and
he spies no more in this world."
And now this man was also in the _place_--the deserted place in which
glittered but one or two oil lamps hung on chains stretched across the
road, yet which was well lighted now by a late risen moon that was in
her third quarter--a moon that was topping now the pointed,
crenellated roofs of the old houses and flooding the whole space with
its beams. By this light the man saw that he was not yet too late.
[Illustration: "'He's mine,' the watcher whispered to himself."]
He saw the tall form of Bevill turning away from the door of "Le
Prince d'Orange," and understood that the man, who had in his hearing
denounced the other as a spy, had been to see if the latter had
entered the inn. He saw, too, by looking up the one long street that
led from the _place_, that the denouncer paused for a moment and then
went swiftly along it. Seeing this, he understood, and himself
followed swiftly, while now and again putting his hand in his breast
as though to make sure of what was hidden there.
"He is gone that way," he muttered, "and the other knows it. So, too,
do I know it now. Between us we shall run the fox to ground."
Thus they went on: the first man invisible to the last, but the second
kept well in view by that last; then suddenly the latter paused.
He paused, with a muttered imprecation; paused while withdrawing
himself into the deep, dark stoop of an old house.
"He has missed him! Missed him! He is coming back. The spy has
escaped. Ah! ah! the chance is gone. If he has missed him how shall I
ever find him?"
A moment later this watcher started, while giving utterance to some
sound that was, now, neither imprecation nor exclamation, but, in
truth, a gasp. A gasp full of astonishment, nevertheless; a gasp that
surprise seemed to have choked back into his throat.
For he who was coming back was not the tall, handsomely apparelled
young man who had started forth in pursuit of him whom he had
denounced as a renegade spy; but, instead, another. An older man, one
who held a dark cloak across his features from which some wisp of a
grey beard projected; one who, as he came swiftly towards that stoop
where the man was hidden, looked back and back, and back again, and
glinted a pair of dark eyes up and down the street as though in mortal
fear.
"He's mine," the watcher whispered to himself. "He's mine. He will spy
no more."
As he so spoke, the man who was returning drew near the stoop, his
footsteps fell outside it. He was before it!
* * * * * *
"How did I miss him? What twist or turn did the vagabond take whereby
to avoid me?" Bevill pondered the next morning, as now the soft,
roseate hue of the sun suffused the skies that, half an hour before,
had been daffodil and, before that, lit by the moon. For it was four
o'clock now, and the daylight had dawned on one of the last remaining
days of May.
Four o'clock! And Bevill Bracton, after he had re-entered his room,
disheartened at having missed Sparmann, had sat from midnight until
now on a chair at a table by the window, while sternly refraining from
lying down for fear that, thereby, he might fall asleep and so be
trapped by some of the French soldiery whom the spy would possibly
have put on his track.
He had asked himself the above question a dozen, a score, a hundred
times during these hours. He had muttered again and again, "How did I
miss him? How lose sight of him?" yet was always unable to find an
answer to the question.
Also Bevill had asked himself another, a more important question
which, not only in his own mind but in actual fact, remained
unanswered. Why, since Sparmann had escaped him, had he not already
been denounced? Why, through the night as it passed away, or in the
cool coming of the dawn, had he heard no tread of provost's picket, or
corporal's guard, coming down the street to the inn to arrest him? Yet
his ancient enemy had but to warn them that here, in "Le Prince
d'Orange," was an Englishman on whom would be found a Frenchman's
passport, the passport of a secretary of the French Embassy in London,
for his doom to be swift and sure. A hurried examination, a still more
hurried trial, and--a platoon of soldiers! That was all.
Yet nothing had come during those hours of the passing night. Nothing
had disturbed the watcher and listener at that table by the window,
nothing had caused him to even glance towards his unsheathed sword as
it lay on the undisturbed bed, nothing to cause his hand to advance
one inch towards the pistols placed on a chair by his side. A dog
barking, some labourers going forth to their toil, the striking of the
hours by the church clock; but nothing more. And now the day was come
and he was still free and unsought for.
"Even had I been sought for it may be that I might have escaped from
out the town at break of day," Bevill mused now; "but what of her
opposite? What of the woman who depends on me and my succour if
needed--the woman who, knowing that I am no Frenchman and am, since
all the world is against France or France's king, doubtless her enemy,
does not betray me? Might have escaped? No! I could not have done
that."
"Why," he continued, still reflecting, "has that man held his peace?
Does he doubt that he may be mistaken, that I am not his old enemy and
victor; or does he fear that, as he might betray me to his new
masters, so might I find opportunity to betray him to his old ones, to
his countrymen? In truth, it may be so."
The little town was waking up to the work of the day by this time.
Windows were being thrown open to the rays of the bright morning sun.
Away, outside the town, the bugles and trumpets of those who held the
place in subjection could be heard, and, a moment later, Bevill saw
Jeanne thrust aside the shutters of the rooms of the first floor of
the "Duc de Brabant."
"I had best make my way across," Bevill mused, as now he refreshed
himself with some hearty ablutions and made the usual toilet of
travellers of that day. "It seems that I am to be unmolested for the
present. Therefore will I start at once, and the sooner the better!
leaving word that, as near as may be, I will await the coach of Madame
la Comtesse beyond the town."
Thrusting, therefore, his sword into his belt, and his pistols into
his deep pockets, he threw open the door of the room and went out into
the passage. As he did so, however, he saw the sun streaming through
the open door of another bedroom farther down, and heard voices
proceeding from inside the room.
"Not in all night!" he heard one voice say, while recognising it as
that of the landlady. "Not in all night! And he a man of years! Surely
he is not a wastrel and a roysterer? It may be so, since he says he is
a Frenchman, though he has not the air thereof. Perhaps he has been
carousing with their dissolute soldiery. Or--_ach!_--if he should have
ridden off without payment. _Ach!_ 'tis like enough!"
"His horse is in the stable," another voice, that of an ancient _femme
de chamber_, replied. "He has not done that. Yet, all the same, 'tis
strange. _Ja Wohl_, it is strange."
"It must be _him_ of whom they speak," Bevill thought to himself, as
now he passed the door, and, giving "good-day" to the women within the
room, went down the stairs and out into the street, after which he
crossed the _place_ to the "Duc de Brabant."
The coach of the Comtesse de Valorme was as he had seen it last night.
At present there was no sign of departure; the horses had not yet been
brought from the stable, and none of madame's servants were about. In
the courtyard, however, the stableman and _facchins_ were sluicing the
whole place with buckets of water and brushing and mopping the stones,
amongst them being the one who had brought down the valises to Joseph
overnight.
Calling this man towards him with the intention of asking him to bring
Jeanne Or Joseph down for a moment, so that he might leave a message
for the Comtesse, he observed that he had a huge bruise on his face,
one that was almost raw, and bled slightly.
"You have hurt yourself," Bevill said kindly to the fellow, after he
had asked him to do his behest; and after, also, putting a piece of
silver in his hand. "You would do well to put some styptic to your
face."
"'Tis nothing, mynheer, nothing," the man muttered, as he pocketed the
silver. "The lights were out as I went to my bed last night. The
passages in this old house are dark as a pocket. It is nothing. I fell
and bruised myself." After which he went away to summon one of the
servants of her whom he called "Matame la Gomdesse."
A moment later Joseph appeared on the scene, and, ere Bevill could bid
him inform Madame de Valorme that he thought it best to proceed past
the barrier and out of the town at once, the coachman exclaimed:
"And the enemy of monsieur? The spy! What of him?"
"I lost him," Bevill replied. "He evaded me."
"And evidently he has not betrayed monsieur?"
"Evidently. It may be, Joseph, he supposed that in betraying me I
might in return have betrayed him, if not to his new friends, at least
to his old. Now, Joseph, I go. Present my respects to madame and say
that a mile farther on the road to Liége I will await her coming."