The First Sir Percy, Baroness Orczy [most important books to read TXT] 📗

But she no longer felt the desire to sing. The happiness which filled her entire soul was too complete even for song.

One of the equerries had awhile ago found his way to the guest-chamber where the sick man was lying, and had informed Diogenes that the Stadtholder was now ready to start on his way, but desired his presence that he might take his leave. Then it was that Diogenes sent an urgent message to his Highness, entreating him to remain but a little while longer. The sick man was better, would soon wake out of a refreshing sleep. Diogenes would then question him. Poor old Pythagoras had something to say, something that the Stadtholder himself must hear. Of this Diogenes was absolutely convinced.

“I know it,” the young soldier asserted earnestly. “I seem to feel it in my bones.”

Whereupon the Stadtholder had decided to wait, and Diogenes, after his brief glimpse of Gilda, felt easier in his mind, less impatient. Already he chided himself for his gloomy forebodings. Since his beloved was ready to entrust herself to him, the journey to England would only be put off by a few hours. What need to repine? Joy would be none the less sweet for this brief delay.

A quarter of an hour later Pythagoras was awake, the physician out of the room, and Diogenes was sitting on the edge of the bed holding his faithful comrade’s hand, and trying to disentangle some measure of coherence out of the other’s tangled narrative, whilst Socrates stood by making an occasional comment or just giving an expressive grunt from time to time. It took both time and patience, neither of which commodities did Diogenes possess in superabundance; but after the first few moments of listening to the rambling of the sick man, he became very still and attentive. The busy house, the noisy guests, the waiting Stadtholder down below, all slipped out from his ken. Holding his comrade’s hand, he was with him on the snow-clad Veluwe, and had found his way with him into the lonely mill.

“It was the Lord of Stoutenburg,” Pythagoras averred, with as much strength as he could command. “I’d stake my life on’t! I knew him at once. How could I ever forget his ugly countenance, after all he made you suffer?”

“Well⁠—and?” queried Diogenes eagerly.

“I knew the other man too, but could not be sure of his name. He was one of those who was with Stoutenburg that day at Ryswick, when you so cleverly put a spoke in their abominable wheel. I knew them both, I tell you!” the sick man insisted feverishly; “but I had the good sense not to betray what I knew.”

“But Stoutenburg did not know you?” Diogenes insisted.

“Yes, he did,” the other replied, sagely nodding his head. “That is why he ordered his menial to put a bullet into my back. The two noble gentlemen questioned me first,” he went on more coherently; “then they plied me with wine. They wanted to make me drunk so as to murder me at their leisure.”

“They little know they, eh, thou bottomless barrel?” Diogenes broke in with a laugh. “The cask hath not been fashioned yet that would contain enough liquor even to quench thy thirst, what?”

“They plied me with wine,” Pythagoras reiterated gravely; “and then I pretended to get very drunk. For I soon remarked that the more drunk they thought I was, the more freely they talked.”

“Well, and what did they say?”

“They talked of De Berg crossing the Ijssel with ten thousand men between Doesburg and Bronchorst; and of Isembourg coming up from Kleve at the same time. I make no doubt that the design is to seize Arnheim and Nijmegen. They talked a deal about Arnheim, which they thought was scantily garrisoned and could easily be taken by surprise and made to surrender. Having got these two cities, the plan is to march across the Veluwe and offer battle to the Stadtholder with a force vastly superior to his, if in the meanwhile⁠—”

He paused. It seemed as if his voice, hoarse with fatigue, was refusing him service. Diogenes reached for the potion which stood on a small table beside the bed. The sick man made a wry face.

“Physic?” he ejaculated reproachfully. “From you, old compeer? Times were when⁠—”

“There will be a time now,” retorted the other gruffly, “when you’ll sink back into a raging fever, and will be babbling bibulous nonsense if you don’t do as you are told.”

“I’ll sink into a raging fever now,” the sick man retorted fretfully, “if I have not something potable to drink ere long.”

“You’ll drink this physic now, old compeer,” Diogenes insisted, and held the mug to his friend’s parched lips, forcing him to drink. “Then I’ll see what can be done for you later on.”

He schooled himself to patience and gentleness. At all costs Pythagoras must complete his narrative. There was just something more that he wished to say, apparently⁠—something fateful and of deadly import, but which for some obscure reason he found difficult to put into words.

“Now then, old friend, make an effort!” Diogenes urged insistently. “There is still something on your mind. What is it?”

Pythagoras’ round, beady eyes were rolling in their sockets. He looked scared, like one who has gazed on what is preternatural and weird.

“Stoutenburg has a project,” he resumed after a while, and sank his spent voice to the merest whisper. “Listen, my compeer; for the very walls have ears. Bend yours to me. There! That’s better,” he added, as Diogenes bent his long back until his ear was almost on a level with the sick man’s lips. “Stoutenburg hath a project, I tell you. A damnable project, akin to the one which you caused to abort three months ago.”

“Assassination?” Diogenes queried curtly.

The sick man nodded.

“Do you know the details?”

“Alas, no! But it is aimed at the Stadtholder. What form it is to take I know not, and they had evidently talked it all