The Laughing Cavalier, Baroness Orczy [the beginning after the end read novel TXT] 📗

“We are not going to lie low and play the part of cowards while you are being slaughtered.”

“You will do just what I ask, faithful old compeers,” rejoined Diogenes more earnestly than was his wont. “You will lie very low and take the greatest possible care not to run your heads into the same rope wherein mayhap mine will dangle presently. Nor will you be playing the part of cowards, for you have not yet learned the A.B.C. of that part, and you will remember that on your safety and freedom of action lies my one chance, not so much of life as of saving my last shred of honour.”

“What do you mean?”

“The jongejuffrouw⁠—” he whispered, “I swore to bring her back to her father and I must cheat a rascal of his victory. In the confusion⁠—at dawn tomorrow⁠—think above all of the jongejuffrouw.⁠ ⁠… In the confusion you can overpower the guard⁠—rush the miller’s hut where she is⁠ ⁠… carry her off⁠ ⁠… the horses are in the shed behind the hut⁠ ⁠… you may not have time to think of me.”

“But⁠ ⁠…”

“Silence⁠—they listen.⁠ ⁠…”

“One of us with the jongejuffrouw⁠—the other to help you⁠—”

“Silence⁠ ⁠… I may be a dead man by then⁠—the jongejuffrouw remember⁠—make for Ryswyk with her first of all⁠—thence straight to Haarlem⁠—to her father⁠—you can do it easily. A fortune awaits you if you bring her safely to him. Fulfil my pledge, old compeers, if I am not alive to do it myself. I don’t ask you to swear⁠—I know you’ll do it⁠—and if I must to the gallows first I’ll do so with a cry of triumph.”

“But you⁠ ⁠…”

“Silence!” he murmured again peremptorily, but more hoarsely this time for fatigue and loss of blood and tense excitement are telling upon his iron physique at last⁠—he is well-nigh spent and scarce able to speak. “Silence⁠—I can hear Jan’s footsteps. Here! quick! inside my boot⁠ ⁠… a wallet? Have you got it?” he added with a brief return to his habitual gaiety as he felt Socrates’ long fingers groping against his shins, and presently beheld his wallet in his compeer’s hand. “You will find money in there⁠—enough for the journey. Now quick into the night, you two⁠—disappear for the nonce, and anon when sauve qui peut rings in the air⁠—tonight or at dawn or whenever this may be, remember the jongejuffrouw first of all and when you are ready give the cry we all know so well⁠—the cry of the fox when it lures its prey. If I am not dangling on a gibbet by then, I shall understand. But quick now!⁠—Jan comes!⁠—Disappear I say!⁠ ⁠…”

Quietly and swiftly Socrates slipped the wallet with some of the money back into his friend’s boot, the rest he hid inside his own doublet.

Strange that between these men there was no need of oaths. Pythagoras and Socrates had said nothing: silent and furtive they disappeared into the darkness. Diogenes’ head sank down upon his breast with a last sigh of satisfaction. He knew that his compeers would do what he had asked. Jan’s footsteps rang on the hard-frozen ground⁠—silently the living circle had parted and the philosophers were swallowed up by the gloom.

Jan looks suspiciously at the groups of men who now stand desultorily around.

“Who was standing beside the prisoner just now?” he asks curtly.

“When, captain?” queries one of the men blandly.

“A moment ago. I was descending the steps. The lantern was close to the prisoner; I saw two forms⁠—that looked unfamiliar to me⁠—close to him.”

“Oh!” rejoined Piet the Red unblushingly, “it must have been my back that you saw, captain. Willem and I were looking to see that the ropes had not given way. The prisoner is so restless.⁠ ⁠…”

Jan⁠—not altogether reassured⁠—goes up to the prisoner. He raises the lantern and has a good and comprehensive look at all the ropes. Then he examines the man’s face.

“What ho!” he cries, “a bottle of spiced wine from my wallet. The prisoner has fainted.”

What a commotion when dawn breaks at last; it comes grey, dull, leaden, scarce lighter than the night, the haze more dense, the frost more biting. But it does break at last after that interminable night of excitement and sleeplessness and preparations for the morrow.

Jan has never closed an eye, he has scarcely rested even, pacing up and down, in and out of those gargantuan beams, with the molens and its secrets towering above his head. Nor I imagine did those noble lords and mynheers up there sleep much during this night; but they were tired and lay like logs upon straw paillasses, living over again the past few hours, the carrying of heavy iron boxes one by one from the molens to the wooden bridge, the unloading there, the unpacking in the darkness, and the disposal of the death-dealing powder, black and evil smelling, which will put an end with its one mighty crash⁠—to tyranny and the Stadtholder’s life.

Tired they are but too excited to sleep: the last few hours are like a vivid dream; the preparation of the tinder, the arrangements, the position to be taken up by Beresteyn and Heemskerk, the two chosen lieutenants who will send the wooden bridge over the Schie flying in splinters into the air.

Van Does too has his work cut out. General in command of the forces⁠—foreign mercenaries and louts from the country⁠—he has Jan for able captain. The mercenaries and the louts know nothing yet of what will happen tomorrow⁠—when once the dawn has broken⁠—but they are well prepared; like beasts of the desert they can scent blood in the air; look at them polishing up their swords and cleaning their cullivers! they know that tomorrow they will fight, even though tonight they have had no orders save to see that one prisoner tied with ropes to a beam and fainting with exposure and loss of blood does not contrive to escape.

But