"Take the varlet out and hang him!"
Obviously this time it would be irrevocable. There was no one here to plead, and there was Jan, stolid and grim as was his wont, already at attention under the lintel -- a veritable tower of strength in support of his chief's decisions.
Jan was not in the habit of arguing with his lordship. This, or any other order, was as one to him. As for the blind vagabond -- well, Jan was as eager as his Magnificence to get the noose around the rascal's throat. There were plenty of old scores to settle between them -- the humiliation of three months ago, which had sent Stoutenburg, disgraced and a fugitive, out of the land, had hit Jan severely, too.
And that never-to-be-forgotten discomfiture was entirely due to this miserable caitiff, who, indeed would get naught but his deserts.
The task, in truth, was a congenial one to Jan. A blind man was easy enough to deal with, and this one offered but little resistance. He had been half-asleep, it seems, and only woke to find himself on the brink of eternity. Even so, his good-humour did not forsake him.
"Odd's fish!" he exclaimed when, roughly shaken from his somnolence, he found himself in the hands of the soldiery. "I had forgotten this hanging business. You might have left a man to finish his dreams in peace."
He appeared dazed, and his speech was thick. He had been drinking heavily all the evening, and, save for an odd moment or so of lucid interval, he had been hopelessly fuddled all along. And he was merry in his cups; laughter came readily to his lips; he was full of quips and sallies, too, which kept the men in rare good-humour. In truth, the fellow would joke and sing apparently until the hangman's rope smothered all laughter in his throat.
But he had an unquenchable thirst; entreated the men to bring him a jug of wine.
"Spanish wine," he pleaded. "I dote on Spanish wine, but had so little of it to drink in my day. That villainous rascal Pythagoras -- some of you must have known the pot-bellied loon -- would always seize all there was to get. He and Socrates. Two scurvy runagates who should hang 'stead o' me. Give me a mug of wine, for mercy's sake!"
The men had none to give, and the matter was referred to Jan.
"Not another drop!" Jan declared with unanswerable finality. "The knave is quite drunk enough as it is."
"Ah!" the blind man protested with ludicrous vehemence. "But there thou'rt wrong, worthy Jan. No man is ever -- is ever drunk enough. He may be top-heavy, he may be as drunk as a lord, or as fuddled as David's sow. He may be fuzzy, fou, or merely sottish; but sufficiently drunk? No!"
A shout of laughter from the men greeted this solemn pronouncement. Jan shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"Well, that is as may be!" he rejoined gruffly. "But not another drop to drink wilt thou get from me."
"Oh, Jan," the poor man protested, with a pitiable note of appeal, "my good Jan, think on it! I am about to hang! Wouldst refuse the last request of a dying man?"
"Thou'rt about to hang," Jan assented, unmoved. "Therefore, 'twere a pity to waste good liquor on thee."
"I'll pay the well, my good Jan," Diogenes put in, with a knowing wink of his sightless eyes.
"Pay me?" Jan retorted, with a grim laugh. " 'Tis not much there's left in thy pockets, I'm thinking."
"No," the blind man agreed, nodding gravely. "These good men here did, in truth -- empty my pockets effectually awhile ago. 'Twas not with coin I meant to repay thee, good Jan ---"
"With what, then?"
"Information, Jan!" the blind man replied, sinking his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Information for the like of which his Lordship of Stoutenburg would give his ears."
Jan laughed derisively. The men laughed openly. They thought this but another excellent joke on the part of the droll fellow.
"Bah! Jan said, with a shrug of the shoulder. "How should a varlet like thee know aught of which his lordship hath not full cognisance already?"
"His lordship," the other riposted quickly, even whilst a look of impish cunning overspread his face -- "his lordship never was in the confidence of the Stadtholder. I was!"
"What hath the Stadtholder to do with the matter?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" the blind man replied airily. "Thou art obstinate, my good Jan, and 'tis not I who would force thee to share a secret for the possession of which, let me assure thee, his lordship would repay me not only with a tankard of his best wine, but with my life! Ay, and with a yearly pension of one thousand guilders to boot."
These last few words he had spoken quite slowly and with grave deliberation, his head nodding sagely while he spoke. The look of cunning in those spectral orbs had lent to his pale, wan face an air of elfin ghoulishness. He was swaying on his feet, and now and again the men had to hold him up, for he was on the very point of measuring his length on the hall floor.
Jan did not know what to make of it all. Obviously the man was drunk. But not so drunk that he did not know what he was talking about. And the air of cunning suggested that there was something alive in the fuddled brain. Jan looked across the hall in the direction of the banqueting-room.
The doors were wide open, and he could see that his lordship, who at first had paced up and down the long room like a caged beast, had paused quite close to the door, then advanced on tip-toe out into the hall, where he had remained for the last minute or two, intent and still, with eager, probing glance fixed upon the blind man. Now, when Jan questioned him with a look, he gave his faithful henchman a scarce perceptible sign, which the latter was quick enough to interpret correctly.
"Thou dost set my mouth to water," he said to the blind man, with well-assumed carelessness, "By all this talk of yearly pensions and of guilders. I am a poor man, and not so young as I was. A thousand guilders a year would keep me in comfort for the rest of my life."
"Yet art so obstinate," Diogenes riposted with a quaint, inane laugh, "as to deny me a tankard of Spanish wine, which might put thee in possession of my secret -- a secret, good Jan, worth yearly pensions and more to his lordship."
"How do I know thou'rt not a consummate liar?" Jan protested gruffly.
"I am!" the other riposted, wholly unruffled. "I am! Lying hath been my chief trade ever since I was breeched. Had I not lied to the Stadtholder he would not have entrusted his secrets to me, and I could not have bartered those secrets for a tankard of good Spanish wine."
"Thy vaunted secrets may not be worth a tankard of wine."
"They are, friend Jan, they are! Try them and see."
"Well, let's hear them and, if they are worth it, I'll pay thee with a tankard of his lordship's best Oporto."
But the blind man shook his head with owlish solemnity.
"And then sell them to his lordship," he retorted, "for pensions and what not, whilst thine own hand, mayhap, puts the rope around my neck. No, no, my good Jan, say no more about it. I'd as lief see his lordship and thee falling into the Stadtholder's carefully laid trap, and getting murdered in your beds, even while I am on my journey to kingdom come."
"Who is going to murder us?" Jan queried, frowning and puzzled, trying to get his cue once more from his master. "And how?"
"I'll not tell thee," the blind man replied, with a quick turn to that obstinacy which so oft pertains to the drunkard, "not if thou wert to plunge me in a bath of best Oporto."
Some of the men began to murmur.
"We might all share?" one or two of them suggested.
"Let's hear what it is," others declared.
"I'll tell thee, knave, what I'll do," Jan rejoined decisively. "I'll bring thee a tankard of Oporto to loosen thy tongue. Then, if thy secret is indeed as important