Jan thereupon gave a brief word of command, the men ranged themselves around the prisoner, whose massive figure was thus completely hidden from Gilda's view; only — towering above the heads of the soldiers — the wide sweep of the brow caught a glimmer of light from the flickering lamp overhead.
Soon the order was given. The small knot of men turned and slowly filed out. The Lord of Stoutenburg was the last to leave. He bowed nearly to the ground when he finally left Gilda's presence.
And she remained alone, sitting by the fire, and staring into the smouldering ashes. She had heard news to-night that flooded her soul with happiness. Her brother whom she loved was innocent of crime, and God Himself had interfered. He had touched the heart of the Lord of Stoutenburg and stopped the infamous plot against the Stadtholder's life. Yet Gilda's heart was unaccountably heavy, and as she sat on, staring into the fire, heavy tears fell unheeded from her eyes.
CHAPTER XXXVI
BROTHER PHILOSOPHERS
And now for the clang of arms, the movement, the bustle, the excitement of combat! There are swords to polish, pistols to clean, cullivers to see to! Something is in the air! We have not been brought hither all the way to this God-forsaken and fog-ridden spot in order to stare on a tumble-down molens, or watch a solitary prisoner ere he hang.
Jan knows of course, and Jan is eager and alert, febrile in his movements, there is a glow in his hollow eyes. And Jan always looks like that when fighting is in the air, when he sniffs the scent of blood and hears the resonance of metal against metal. Jan knows of course. He has no thought of sleep, all night he wanders up and down the improvised camp. No fires allowed and it is pitch dark, but an occasional glimmer from a lanthorn lights up compact groups of men lying prone upon the frozen ground, wrapped in thick coats, or huddled up with knees to chin trying to keep warm.
A few lanthorns are allowed, far into the interior of that weird forest of beams under the molens where slender protection against a bitter north-westerly wind can alone be found.
Shoulder to shoulder, getting warmth one from the other, we are all too excited to sleep. Something is in the air, some fighting to be done, and yet there are only thirty or forty of us at most: but swords and cullivers have been given out, and half the night through my lord and his friends, served only by Jan, have been carrying heavy loads from the molens out toward the Schie and the wooden bridge that spans it.
Silently, always coming away with those heavy loads from the molens, and walking with them away into the gloom, always returning empty-handed, and served only by Jan. Bah, we are no cullions! 'tis not mighty difficult to guess. And by the saints! why all this mystery? Some of us are paid to fight, what care we how we do it? in the open with muskets or crossbows, or in the dark, with a sudden blow which no man knows from whence it comes.
All night we sit and wait, and all night we are under the eye of Jan. He serves his lord and helps him to carry those heavy boxes from the molens to some unknown place by the Schie, but he is always there when you least expect him, watching to see that all is well, that there is not too much noise, that no one has been tempted to light a fire, that we do not quarrel too hotly among ourselves.
He keeps a watchful eye too, upon the prisoner: poor beggar! with a broken shoulder and a torn hip, and some other wounds too, about his body. A good fighter no doubt! but there were seven against him, and that was a good idea to swing heavy skates by their straps and to bring him down with them. His head was too high, else a blow from those sharp blades might have ended his life more kindly than the Lord of Stoutenburg hath planned to do.
A merry devil too! full of quaint jokes and tales of gay adventure! By Gad! a real soldier of fortune! devil-may-care! eat and drink and make merry for to-morrow we may die. Jan has ordered him to be kept tied to a beam! God-verdomme! but 'tis hard on a wounded man, but he seems tougher than the beams, and laughter in his throat quickly smothers groans.
Tied to a beam, he is excellent company! Ye gods, how his hands itch to grip his sword. Piet the Red over there! let him feel the metal against his palms, 'twill ease his temper for sure! Jan is too severe: but 'tis my lord's rage that was unbridled. Ugh! to strike a prisoner in the face. 'Twas a dirty trick and many saw it.
Heigh-ho, but what matter! To-morrow we fight, to-morrow he hangs! What of that? To-morrow most of us mayhap will be lying stark and stiff upon the frozen ground, staring up at next night's moon, with eyes that no longer see! A rope round the neck, a hole in the side, a cracked skull! what matters which mode Dame Death will choose for our ultimate end. But 'tis a pity about the prisoner! A true fighter if there was one, a stoic and a philosopher. "The Cavalier" we pretty soon call him.
"What ho!" he shouts, "call me the Laughing Cavalier!"
Poor devil! he tries not to show his hurts. He suffers much what with that damnable wind and those ropes that cut into his tough sinews, but he smiles at every twinge of pain: smiles and laughs and cracks the broadest jokes that have e'er made these worm-eaten beams ring with their echo.
The Laughing Cavalier in sooth!
There! now we can ease him somewhat. Jan's back is turned: we dare not touch the ropes, but a cloak put between his back and the beam, and another just against his head.
Is that not better, old compeer?
Aye! but is it not good to be a villain and a rogue and herd with other villains and other rogues who are so infinitely more kind and gentle than all those noble lords?
Diogenes — his head propped against the rude cushion placed there by the hand of some rough Samaritan — has fallen into a fitful doze.
Whispers around him wake him with a start. Ye gods! was there ever so black a night? The whispers become more eager, more insistent.
"Let us but speak with him. We'll do no harm!"
St. Bavon tell us how those two scarecrows have got here! For they are here in the flesh, both of them, Diogenes would have spotted his brother philosophers through darkness darker than the blackest hell. Pythagoras rolling in fat and Socrates lean and hungry-looking, peering like a huge gaunt bird through the gloom. Someone is holding up a lanthorn and Pythagoras' tip-tilted nose shines with a ruddy glow.
"But how did you get here, you old mushroom-face?" asks one of the men.
"We had business with him at Rotterdam," quoth Socrates with one of his choicest oaths and nodding in the direction of the prisoner. "All day we have wondered what has become of him."
"Then in the afternoon," breaks in Pythagoras, to the accompaniment of a rival set of expletives, "we saw him trussed like a fowl and tied into a sledge drawn by a single horse, which started in the wake of a larger one wherein sat a lovely jongejuffrouw."
"Then what did you do?" queries some one.
"Do?" exclaimed the philosophers simultaneously and in a tone of deep disgust.
"Followed on his trail as best we could," rejoins Socrates simply, "borrowed some skates, ran down the Schie in the wake of the two sledges and their escort."
"And after that?"
"After that we traced him to this solitary God-forsaken hole, but presently we saw that this molens was not so deserted as it seemed, so we hung about until now ... then we ventured nearer ... and here we are."
Here they were of course, but how was it possible to contravene the orders of Jan? What could these scarecrows have to say to the Laughing Cavalier?
"Just to ask him if there's anything we can do," murmurs Socrates persuasively. "He's like to hang to-morrow, you said, well! grant something then to a dying man."
Grave heads shake in the gloom.
"Our orders are strict...."
"'Tis a matter of life and death