"I cannot help you, mynheer, in that."
"Thou wilt not!" he cried.
"I cannot," she reiterated gently. "I do not know where she is."
"Will fifty guilders help thy memory?" he sneered.
"Fifty guilders would mean ease and comfort to my father and to me for many months to come. I would do much for fifty guilders but I cannot tell that which I do not know."
"An hundred guilders, girl, and the safety of thy lover. Will that not tempt thee?"
"Indeed, indeed, gracious sir," she moaned piteously, "I swear to you that I do not know."
"Then dost perjure thyself and wilt rue it, wench," he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet, and with a loud curse kicked the chair away from him.
The Lord of Stoutenburg was not a man who had been taught to curb his temper; he had always given way to his passions, allowing them as the years went on to master every tender feeling within him; for years now he had sacrificed everything to them, to his ambition, to his revenge, to his loves and hates. Now that this fool of a girl tried to thwart him as he thought, he allowed his fury against her full rein, to the exclusion of reason, of prudence, or ordinary instincts of chivalry. He stooped over her like a great, gaunt bird of prey and his thin claw-like hand fastened itself on her thin shoulder.
"Thou liest, girl," he said hoarsely, "or art playing with me? Money thou shalt have. Name thy price. I'll pay thee all that thou wouldst ask. I'll not believe that thou dost not know! Think of thy lover under torture, on the rack, burnt at the stake. Hast ever seen a man after he has been broken on the wheel? his limbs torn from their sockets, his chest sunken under the weights — and the stake? hast seen a heretic burnt alive...?"
She gave a loud scream of agony: her hands went up to her ears, her eyes stared out of her head like those of one in a frenzy of terror.
"Pity! pity! my lord, have pity! I swear that I do not know."
"Verdomme!" he cried out in the madness of his rage as with a cruel twist of his hand he threw the wretched girl off her balance and sent her half-fainting, cowering on the floor.
"Verdommt be thou, plepshurk," came in a ringing voice from behind him.
The next moment he felt as if two grapnels made of steel had fastened themselves on his shoulders and as if a weight of irresistible power was pressing him down, down on to his knees. His legs shook under him, his bones seemed literally to be cracking beneath that iron grip, and he had not the power to turn round in order to see who his assailant was. The attack had taken him wholly by surprise and it was only when his knees finally gave way under him, and he too was down on the ground, licking the dust of the floor — as he had forced the wretched girl to do — that he had a moment's respite from that cruel pressure and was able to turn in the direction whence it had come.
Diogenes with those wide shoulders of his squared out to their full breadth, legs apart and arms crossed over his mighty chest was standing over him, his eyes aflame and his moustache bristling till it stood out like the tusks of a boar.
"Dondersteen!" he exclaimed as he watched the other man's long, lean figure thus sprawling on the ground, "this is a pretty pass to which to bring this highly civilized and cultured country. Men are beginning to browbeat and strike the women now! Dondersteen!"
Stoutenburg, whose vocabulary of oaths was at least as comprehensive as that of any foreign adventurer, had — to its accompaniment — struggled at last to his feet.
"You ..." he began as soon as he had partially recovered his breath. But Diogenes putting up his hand hastily interrupted him:
"Do not speak just now, mynheer," he said with his wonted good-humour. "Were you to speak now, I feel that your words would not be characterized by that dignity and courtesy which one would expect from so noble a gentleman."
"Smeerlap! — " began Stoutenburg once more.
"There now," rejoined the other with imperturbable bonhomie, "what did I tell you? Believe me, sir, 'tis much the best to be silent if pleasant words fail to reach one's lips."
"A truce on this nonsense," quoth Stoutenburg hotly, "you took me unawares — like a coward...."
"Well said, mynheer! Like a coward — that is just how I took you — in the act of striking a miserable atom of humanity — who is as defenceless as a sparrow."
"'Tis ludicrous indeed to see a man of your calling posing as the protector of women," retorted Stoutenburg with a sneer. "But enough of this. You find me unarmed at this moment, else you had already paid for this impudent interference."
"I thank you, sir," said Diogenes as he swept the Lord of Stoutenburg a deep, ironical bow, "I thank you for thus momentarily withholding chastisement from my unworthiness. When may I have the honour of calling on your Magnificence in order that you might mete unto me the punishment which I have so amply deserved?"
"That chastisement will lose nothing by waiting, since indeed your insolence passes belief," quoth Stoutenburg hotly. "Now go!" he added, choosing not to notice the wilfully impertinent attitude of the other man, "leave me alone with this wench. My business is with her."
"So is mine, gracious lord," rejoined Diogenes with a bland smile, "else I were not here. This room is mine — perhaps your Magnificence did not know that — you would not like surely to remain my guest a moment longer than you need."
"Of a truth I knew that the baggage was your sweetheart — else I had not come at all."
"Leave off insulting the girl, man," said Diogenes whose moustache bristled again, a sure sign that his temper was on the boil, "she has told you the truth, she knows nothing of the whereabouts of the noble lady who has disappeared from Haarlem. An you desire information on that point you had best get it elsewhere."
But Stoutenburg had in the meanwhile succeeded in recovering — at any rate partially — his presence of mind. All his life he had been accustomed to treat these foreign adventurers with the contempt which they deserved. In the days of John of Barneveld's high position in the State, his sons would never have dreamed of parleying with the knaves, and if — which God forbid! — one of them had dared then to lay hands on any member of the High Advocate's family, hanging would certainly have been the inevitable punishment of such insolence.
Something of that old haughtiness and pride of caste crept into the attitude of the Lord of Stoutenburg now, and prudence also suggested that he should feign to ignore the rough usage which he had received at the hands of this contemptible rascal. Though he was by no means unarmed — for he never went abroad these days without a poniard in his belt — he had, of a truth, no mind to engage in a brawl with this young Hercules whose profession was that of arms and who might consequently get easily the better of him.
He made every effort therefore to remain calm and to look as dignified as his disordered toilet would allow.
"You heard what I said to this girl?" he queried, speaking carelessly.
"You screamed loudly enough," replied Diogenes lightly. "I heard you through the closed door. I confess that I listened for quite a long while: your conversation greatly interested me. I only interfered when I thought it necessary."
"So then I need not repeat what I said," quoth the other lightly. "Hanging for you, my man, unless you tell me where you have hidden Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn."
"I? What have I to do with that noble lady, pray?"
"It is futile to bandy words with me. I know every circumstance of the disappearance of the lady, and could denounce you to the authorities within half an hour, and see you hanged for the outrage before sunrise."
"Then I do wonder," said Diogenes suavely, "that your Magnificence doth not do this, for of a truth you must hate me fairly thoroughly by now."
"Hate you, man? I'd gladly see you hang, or better still broken on the wheel. But I must know from you first where you have hidden the jongejuffrouw."
"If