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

Beresteyn made ready to go. He took less pains than Stoutenburg to conceal his terror and his knees frankly shook under him. At the door he paused. He had suddenly remembered Gilda.

She had risen from her chair and stood now like a statue carved in stone, white to the lips, wide-eyed, her whole expression one of infinite horror.

It had all been lies then, all that Stoutenburg had told her yesterday! He had concealed the monstrous truth, lying to her with every word he uttered. Now he stood there pale and trembling, the traitor who in his turn has been betrayed. Fear and blind rage were fighting their last deathly battle in his soul. The edifice of his treachery was crumbling around him; God’s hand⁠—through an unknown channel⁠—had set the limit to his crimes. Twice a traitor, he had twice failed. Already he could see the disbanding of his mercenary troops, the beginning of that mad, wild flight to the coast, and down the steps of the molens his friends too were running helter-skelter, without thought of anything save of their own safety.

It would be so immeasurably horrible to fall into the Stadtholder’s hands.

And Gilda, pale and silent, stood between the two men who had lied to her, outraged her to the end. Nicolaes was a traitor after all; he had cast the eternal shroud of shame over the honour and peace of his house. An God did not help him now, his death would complete that shame.

She tried to hold his glance, but he would not look at her; she felt that his wrath of her almost bordered on hatred because he believed that she had betrayed them all. His eyes were fixed upon his leader and friend, and all the anxiety which he felt was for that one man.

“You must not delay, Nicolaes,” said Stoutenburg curtly, “go, warn the others and tell them to make for Scheveningen. But do you wait for me⁠—we’ll follow anon in the sledge and, of course, Gilda comes with us.”

And Beresteyn said firmly:

“Of course, Gilda comes with us.”

She was not afraid, even when he said this, even when his fierce glance rested upon her, and she was too proud to make an appeal to him. It was her turn now to avert her glance from him; to the bottom of her soul she loathed his cowardice, and the contempt with which she regarded him now was almost cruel in its intensity.

He went out of the room followed by Lucas of Sparendam, and now she was once more alone with the Lord of Stoutenburg.

“Gilda,” he cried with a fierce oath, “when did you do this?”

“It was not I, my lord,” she replied calmly, “you and Nicolaes did all that lay in your power to render me helpless in this. God knows I would not have betrayed you⁠ ⁠… it is His hand that hath pointed the way to one who was more brave than I.”

“ ’Tis false,” he exclaimed violently, “no one knew of our plans save those who now must flee because like us they have been betrayed. No sane man would wilfully put his head in the halter, and there are no informers amongst us.”

“You need not believe me, my lord,” she rejoined coldly, “an you do not wish. But remember that I have never learnt the art of lying, nor could I be the Judas to betray my own brother. Therefore do I pledge you my word that I had no share in this decree of God.”

“If not yourself,” he retorted, “you spoke of it to someone⁠ ⁠… who went to the Stadtholder⁠ ⁠… and warned him! to someone⁠ ⁠… someone who⁠ ⁠… Ah!” he cried suddenly with a loud and ghoulish scream wherein rage, horror and fear and a kind of savage triumph too rang out, “I see that I have guessed aright. You did speak of what you knew⁠ ⁠… to the miserable knave whom Nicolaes paid to outrage you⁠ ⁠… and you offered him money to betray your own brother.”

“It is false!”

“It is true⁠—I can read it in your face. That man went to Delft yesterday⁠—he was captured by Jan on his way back to Rotterdam. He had fulfilled your errand and warned the Prince of Orange and delivered me and all my friends into hands that never have known mercy.”

He was blind with passion now and looked on her with bloodshot eyes that threatened to kill. But Gilda was not cast in the same mould as was this traitor.

Baffled in his crime, fear had completely unmanned him, but with every cry of rage uttered by Stoutenburg she became more calm and less afraid.

“Once more, my lord,” she said quietly in the brief interval of Stoutenburg’s ravings and while he was forced to draw breath, “do I pledge my word to you that I had no hand in saving the Stadtholder’s life. That God chose for this another instrument than I, I do thank Him on my knees.”

While she spoke Stoutenburg had made a quick effort to regain some semblance of composure, and now he contrived to say quite calmly and with an evil sneer upon his face:

“That instrument of God is an I mistake not tied to a post with ropes like an ox ready for the butcher’s hand. Though I have but sorry chances of escape myself and every minute hath become precious, I can at least spend five in making sure that his fate at any rate be sorrier than mine.”

Her face became if possible even paler than before.

“What do you mean to do?” she murmured.

“The man who has betrayed me to the Prince of Orange is the same man who laid hands upon you in Haarlem⁠—is that not so?”

“I cannot say,” she said firmly.

“The same man who was here in this room yesterday, bound and pinioned before you?” he insisted.

“I do not know.”

“Will you swear then that you never spoke to him of the Prince of Orange, and of our plans?”

“Not of