Half an hour later Stuven's tale had been told; the Court knew that,
no matter what else might weigh heavily against the Englishman, at
least the murder of the Dutch spy in the pay of the French did not do
so.
At once, after startling all in the _salle d'armes_ by his frenzied
outcry, Stuven had been bidden to narrate all the incidents of the
night in question, while warned that it would be well to speak the
absolute truth, since, though nothing could save him from his fate,
that might at least save him from torture, from those awful
instruments which lay upon the stone floor of the great hall.
But the warning had been received by the man with such scorn and
contemptuous utterance that all present recognised that it might well
have remained unuttered.
"The truth! My fate!" Stuven had cried from the spot to which he had
now been dragged by the soldiers, a spot immediately facing his judges
and near to Bevill. "Why should I lie? You have enough against this
man already," glancing at Bevill, "to hang him; while, for that thing
there," with a second glance at Francbois, "who would lie to save him?
And, for my fate--bah! I regret it only that it will prevent me from
slaying more renegades whom you and your country buy with your
accursed gold."
"Tell what you know," De Violaine said sternly, "and make no
reflections on us who hold you in our hands. We can do worse than slay
you, should you merit it. Proceed."
Yet as the gallant Frenchman spoke, the loyalist who, in spite of his
ruler's own evil-doing and tyranny, served that ruler as he had sworn
to do long ere Louis had become the bitter oppressor of those of his
own faith, knew that, in his heart, this fellow's rude, stern hatred
of traitors and renegades, and those who employed them, was not
amazing. Stuven might be, might have become almost, a demoniac in his
patriotism and loyalty to the land that bare him, but at least he was
noble in comparison with such as Francbois and, perhaps, with such as
the dead traitor, Sparmann.
But now Stuven was speaking, partly in his Walloon _patois_, partly in
some sort of French he had acquired--Heaven knew the opportunities had
not been wanting during the last cycles of oppression and invasion of
the Netherlands by France!--he was telling what he knew, what he had
done in Holland's cause.
"It was," Stuven said now, his raw, bruised face bent forward towards
the members of the Court, his eyes gleaming red as he spoke, his
raucous voice made almost impressive by the intensity of his passion,
"at St. Trond I first attempted to slay the spy--_ach!_" and he spat
on the ground--"the traitor. At St. Trond where I learned who and what
he was, by overhearing this man, this Englishman, tell another.
And--and--I swore to kill him then--or later; some day, for sure. That
night I failed, even though waiting for him, having him in my hand. I
struck not deep enough, and, ere I could strike again, the patrol came
by. I missed his heart by an inch or so; I--I had done no more than
wound him in the shoulder. No matter, I told myself; I would not fail
next time.
"Some of the patrol carried him to the Lutheran Spital; some chased
me; one came so near that, with his pike, he tore my face, as your men
have torn it again in capturing me," and Stuven laughed horribly. "But
I knew the streets and alleys better than they--_I_ was no stranger,
no invader, so I escaped them.
"Then for three weeks I waited. I worked no more; I watched only. None
came out of the Spital, none went in, but I saw them. I begged at the
gate--it was a good vantage place--I tried to get into the Spital to
wait on the sick, to help bury, carry out the dead. Had I not failed
in my desire I need not have waited so long."
At this the young Duc de Guise muttered to his neighbour, "This fellow
should have lived in earlier days. For one's rival now--an enemy--our
dearest foe--he would have been the man."
"Nay," that neighbour, an older, grey-headed officer, muttered back,
"he would have been useless. His fire was for his country's enemy, for
his own. As a hired bravado, a paid assassin, he would have lacked the
necessary spark. A handful of crowns would have awakened nothing in
him."
"He came out at last," Stuven went on, even as those two whispered
together, "three weeks later. He found his horse at the inn where he
had left it; he rode slowly, a wounded man--wounded by me--to Liége.
But he never rode from me, out of my sight. We entered the gates close
together; he found a lodging, I slept in the street outside it.
Then--then--after I had tracked him for some days I knew that he was
tracking another. And at last I knew it was this man here," and again
Stuven's eyes were turned on Bevill. "If I could have warned you," he
said now to the latter, "I would have done so, but I could not leave
him and I never saw you except when he drew near to you.
"So it went on. Had he had time, I think he would have come to you and
denounced him," and now the man looked at De Violaine, "but he had
not. He rose early, went to his bed late; and he was wary. In dark
streets at night he had his sword drawn beneath his cloak; once, too,
he noticed me, and from that time he feared for his own life. I think
he understood that I was the man who fell on him at St. Trond.
"But now the night was come, the night of the storm. We--it was always
_we_--he intent on following this man, and I on following him--were on
our road to that great white house. Since dark I had been near the
Gouden Leeuw, and I saw this Englishman come forth, mount his horse
and ride to the house. I saw him enter a postern gate, opening it with
a key; it took him some time to help his horse through it. Then the
gate was shut again.
"A few moments later Sparmann went round to the wall on the other
side, and, finding another postern gate in that, took from his pocket
a key and entered; but he did not shut the gate, desiring doubtless to
leave the way clear to escape quickly if he needed to. Then I knew he
had been there before, or had been well directed how to gain entrance.
Also, I remembered that more than once I had seen him with a man who
on one occasion handed him something. I thought then that it was
money; now, on this night, I understood that it was the key that he
was using. And the man was _this_----" Stuven added, his eyes on
Francbois, the contempt of his voice as biting, as burning as the bite
of vitriol on live flesh; the very gesture of his hand, as he
indicated the other, blighting, withering, in its disdainful scorn.
And Francbois, trembling before his late judges and present warders,
and white, too, as the dead within their shrouds, could only mutter
"False, false, false--all false!"
"Since Sparmann had left the door open behind him, my way was clear,"
Stuven went on, ignoring Francbois' feeble moan. "Five minutes later I
knew that he was creeping slowly up the back stairs, and I, my knife
in hand, was near him. The storm was at its height; now and again the
great hall was lit by the lightning, so, too, was the whole house; it
penetrated even to where he was, where I was, too. And now I knew
that he feared something. The lightning showed me his backward
glance, the glare of fear in his eyes, the look of the rat hunted
through the streets by dogs. I guessed that he knew there was
someone--something--near him that threatened danger. It may be that he
thought it was this Englishman; or, also, he may have feared that it
was I, the man who had failed once, but would never fail again."
"It will be bad," the Duc de Guise muttered, brushing his jewelled
fingers across his forehead, "if all Louis' enemies are like this, all
who are opposed to us!"
And again the old grey-haired soldier answered him, saying, "Be at
peace, monseigneur. The man he tracked was his country's betrayer; he
is not the enemy of Louis or of us."
"Sparmann," Stuven continued, "had reached a room at the end of the
corridor; I was behind its open door, observing him through the chink
beneath its hinges. And again the lightning played, and I saw that he
was standing at the open window regarding something outside the
balcony of that window. It was the head of a ladder that rose above
the ledge some foot or more. And I heard him whisper to himself 'Can
it be Bracton has come this way; I do fear he lurks near. I--I--ah! he
will slay me.' While saying this he turned and made for the door to
flee the room. As he so left, I, from my place behind that door, drove
my knife deep into his breast, even as I whispered in his ear
'Traitor; renegade, foul, apostate!' and slashed at him again, missing
him, but striking, I think, his arm or hand. Then, as he staggered
down a great balcony round the hall, I knew that it was time for me to
go, and that the ladder outside was my road.
"The wind of the storm had closed the door noisily, heavily, as he
passed out; the noise reverberated through the empty house; opening
the door now, I rushed to the window. As I did so I saw the ladder
head slowly sliding to one side, and I knew that it was being removed
from its position against the balcony. And I leant over the ledge to
see who was this third man who had been in the room, believing I
should see this Englishman. But it was not he, but that other one,
that traitor to you and your country," and again Stuven's finger
pointed with scorn at Francbois. "And he saw me, but, in his turn,
since the night was black and dark, thought I was the Englishman.
Whereon he hissed, addressing me by some name I did not comprehend,
'So, so! English spy, English brigand, you add midnight murder to
other things, here in the house of the woman you and I both love, the
woman who--malediction on her!--loves you. I have you now--you!
you!--the murderer of those in the service of France. You will never
leave Liége alive!"
As Stuven reached this portion of his narrative, which was in absolute
fact the end of it, since none cared to hear, or he to tell, of how he
had left the house on the other side of it, losing his hat in the
hurry of his flight, there came to his ears the sound of a thud, a
heavy fall. Looking round, as did also Bevill, while the members of
the Court of Inquiry and the soldiers could see what had happened, he
perceived that Francbois had fallen in a swoon to the floor. What he
had heard from this man's lips was, in truth, sufficient to cause him
to swoon, since it was now proved that one of his principal charges
against Bracton was false; though, had he known that against his enemy
there still remained a graver charge than all--namely, of being in
correspondence with one of the most bitter enemies of France--his
agony of mind might not have been so great. For though Francbois could
not hope that there remained the thousandth portion of a chance for
his own life, the rendering up of that life might have been less
bitter had he been certain that, with his existence, his enemy's would
likewise be forfeited. Also, the sweetness of vengeance was lost to
Francbois if, in death, that enemy should fail to recognise that it
was to him he owed it.
Had the wretch but retained his faculties some moments longer, or,
instead of being borne out of the _salle d'armes_ by the men in whose
custody he was, had he been allowed to lie until he regained his
senses--as he shortly did when removed--some of the wild delirium of
fulfilled revenge would have been his.
Now that Stuven had told his story, of the truth of which no person
present had entertained a doubt, De Violaine addressed Bevill, saying:
"That you are innocent of the murder of that wretched man who was in
the service of France, of the King," and he and the Duke touched their
hats while the others bowed as he mentioned their august ruler, "the
Court allows. But of the other charges it is not easy to acquit you.
You entered a city invested by us under false names, bearing false
papers; you endeavoured to leave the city, while also endeavouring to
remove from it a woman who by our orders--orders common in war--was
not to quit it. Also a letter has been found on you from your
countryman, Lord Peterborough, in which he tells you he hopes soon to
take part in this war against us, and bids you, at the same time,
observe carefully our strength and the disposition of our forces, and
to communicate with him thereupon. You have been a soldier in your own
country's service, you have fought against France in the time of your
late King, therefore you know the laws of war. You know, too, what
action the present commander of the English forces would take if he
discovered a Frenchman in the position in which you have placed
yourself."
As De Violaine ceased his eyes were not removed from Bevill's face,
wherefore the latter, taking this as an intimation that if he desired
to speak this was the time, said:
"To what you say, Monsieur le Gouverneur, my answer must be brief,
since, in truth, I have but little answer to make. Yet I crave hearing
for my words. I am one who was cast out of his country's service
because he avenged the insults uttered against it by that dead spy,
Sparmann. When once more your country and mine were at war, I sought
fresh service in the field, yet, being but a broken man, it needed to
obtain that employment that I should bring myself before the eyes of
those who might bestow it on me. A chance arose; I deemed it
Heaven-sent. The woman whom now I love with my whole heart and soul,
whose image is enshrined in my heart, and will be ever there till my
last hour is told, was here. I thought I saw the chance, and snatched
at it as one that might make me a soldier again. You, to whom I speak,
are all soldiers; had your case been mine, had the chance come to you
to reinstate yourselves, would you have refused to do so? Enough of
this.
"And the rest is soon answered. I am no spy. Had I escaped from here
with her whom I love, no word of your plans and dispositions should
have ever passed, not even though Peterborough had bade me speak and
divulge all; though he had told me that on my utterance all my future
hopes rested. As for the passports, listen, messieurs, I beg. I
loathed landing under an assumed name on the soil acquired by you; had
it been possible, I would have come in plume and corselet, as once I
came against you when an English cuirassier. But that was not
possible, while as for the second papers--ah, well! there was no other
way. That unhappy man now dead would have avenged my honourable defeat
of him--one given face to face, by man to man--by himself denouncing
me behind my back in his new shape of spy, of informer; he who had
been our ally, the countryman of our King! In Antwerp, in St. Trond,
he would have done so; also in Liége, had not this man whom you have
heard slain him. Messieurs, there is no more. I have been what you are
all. I have faced death before; it will not fright me now, much though
I desire to live." And beneath his breath Bevill added, "For her."
He ceased, and, in ceasing, knew that in his few, quietly spoken words
he had better pleaded his cause than if he had uttered one word for
mercy. For though the eyes of all his judges had never left his face,
they had been grave, but not hostile. He knew--he felt--that, had
there existed no absolute code by which they were forced to condemn
him for that which he had done, there would be no condemnation. But
still there was the code, as he had known from the moment when
Peterborough had first opened to him the matter of his quest for
Sylvia; from the moment he set out upon his enterprise.
The heads of the members of the Court were close together now; the
registrar was reading a paper to them he had written; a moment later
the paper and a pen were handed to the Duc de Guise, who, although the
highest in position, was the lowest in military rank, and was
therefore to sign first.
For a moment this young man of superb lineage, though a lineage on
which there rested, as it had rested for more than a century, so dark
and awful a blot, sat gazing at the paper before him while biting the
feather of the pen; then he said, or asked:
"The prisoner is a Protestant?"
"He is," De Violaine answered, gazing astonished at him.
"I will not sign," the Duke said, throwing down the pen.
"Monseigneur!"
[Illustration: "'I will not sign,' the Duke said, throwing down the
pen"--_p_. 1034.]
"No, I will not sign. We," and the Duke's hand caught the lace at his
breast in its grasp, as though its owner were stirred by some internal
agitation, "we--ah!--we of our line have testified in the past all
that we have felt towards those of his faith. I will not have it said
that another Guise should sign the finding of this Court against a man
whom he respects, no matter how much that man has erred, because he is
a Protestant."
"I, too, respect him," De Violaine said, even as he laid his hand,
unseen by the others, upon the young Duke's and pressed it. "But I
myself am a Protestant, and also the President of this inquiry. Yet I
shall sign. Neither will I have it said that, being of the prisoner's
faith, I used that bond between us to shield him from the punishment
he has brought on his own head."