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

up by the grey wall which lies dense and heavy over the lowland around; for a time they appear like ghosts with blurred outlines of torn doublets and scraps of felt hats placed awry; then the outline gets more dim as they run, and the kindly mist hides them from view.

Under the molens all is silent now. Jan and Piet the Red guard the prisoner alone. The gallows are ready or nearly so, but there is no one to send to the Lord of Stoutenburg to tell him this⁠—as he hath commanded⁠—so that he may see this man hang whom he hates. And it would not be safe to leave the prisoner unguarded. Only from time to time Jan looks to see that the ropes still hold fast, but for the most part his eyes are fixed upon the mist on his left, for that way lies Delft, and from thence will loom out by and by the avenging hordes sent by the Prince of Orange.

Now that all those panting, perspiring human creatures have gone, the frost is more bitter, more biting than before; but neither Piet nor Jan seem to heed it, though their flesh is blue with the cold. Overhead there is a tramp of feet; the noble mynheers must have heard the confusion, they must have seen the flight; they are even now preparing to do in a slightly more dignified way what the foreign mercenaries and the louts from the country have done so incontinently.

The prisoner, hearing this tramp of feet over his head, looks more alertly around him. He sees that Jan and Piet have remained on guard even whilst the others have fled. He also sees the pile of heaped-up arms, the broken metal, the rags and the mud, and through the interstices of the wooden steps the booted feet of the mynheers running helter-skelter down; and a mad, merry laugh⁠—that holds a world of joy in its rippling tones⁠—breaks from his lips.

The next moment from far away comes a weird cry through the mist. A fox on the alert tries to lure his prey with that quaint cry of his, which appeals to the young birds and encourages them to come. What should a fox be doing on these ice-covered tracks? he must have strayed from very far, from over the moor mayhap beyond Gonda; hunger no doubt hath made a wanderer of him, an exile from his home.

Jan listens⁠—greatly astonished⁠—what should a fox be doing here? Piet is impassive, he knows nothing of the habits of foxes; sea-wolves are more familiar to him. With his eyes Jan instinctively questions the prisoner:

“What should a fox be doing here on these icebound flats?” he mutely asks.

But the prisoner apparently cares nothing about the marvels of nature, cares nothing about exiled foxes. His head is erect, his eyes dance with glee, a happy smile lights up his entire face.

Jan remembered that the others last night had called the wounded man the Laughing Cavalier. A Cavalier he looked, every inch of him; the ropes mattered nothing, nor the torn clothing; proud, triumphant, happy, he was laughing with all the lighthearted gaiety which pertains to youth.

The Laughing Cavalier forsooth. Lucky devil! if he can laugh! Jan sighed and marvelled when the Lord of Stoutenburg would relieve him from his post.

XL The Loser Pays

Nicolaes Beresteyn had not gone far when Lucas of Sparendam came running with the news. He heard it all, he saw the confusion, the first signs of sauve qui peut.

At first he was like one paralyzed with horror and with fear; he could not move, his limbs refused him service. Then he thought of his friends⁠—some up in the molens, others at various posts on the road and by the bridge⁠—they might not hear the confusion and the tumult, they might not see the coming sauve qui peut; they might not hear that the Stadtholder’s spies are on the alert, and that his bodyguard might be here at any time.

Just then the disbanding began. Nicolaes Beresteyn pushed his way through the fighting, quarrelling crowd to where Lucas of Sparendam, still exhausted and weak, was leaning up against a beam.

“Their lordships up in the molens,” he said in a voice still choked with fear, “and the Lord of Stoutenburg in the hut with the jongejuffrouw⁠ ⁠… Come and tell them at once all that you know.”

And he dragged Lucas of Sparendam in his wake.

The Lord of Stoutenburg was at Gilda’s feet when Beresteyn ran in with Lucas to tell him the news.

After he had given Jan the orders to prepare the gallows for the summary execution of the prisoner he had resumed his wild, restless pacing up and down the room. There was no remorse in him for his inhuman and cowardly act, but his nerves were all on the jar, and that perpetual hammering which went on in the distance drove him to frantic exasperation.

A picture of the happenings in the basement down below would obtrude itself upon his mental vision; he saw the prisoner⁠—careless, contemptuous, ready for death; Jan sullen but obedient; the men murmuring and disaffected. He felt as if the hammering was now directed against his own head, he could have screamed aloud with the agony of this weary, expectant hour.

Then he thought of Gilda. Slowly the dawn was breaking, the hammering had ceased momentarily; silence reigned in the basement after the turbulence of the past hour. The Lord of Stoutenburg did not dare conjecture what this silence meant.

The thought of Gilda became more insistent. He snatched up a cloak and wrapping it closely round him, he ran out into the mist. Quickly descending the steps, he at once turned his back on the basement where the last act of the supreme tragedy would be enacted presently. He felt like a man pursued, with the angel of Nemesis close to his heels, hourglass in hand