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

of the bird to its mate, humming the sweet refrain gently under her breath, with every note she seemed to tear at his heart with an unendurable regret for what might have been.

Oh, it had been such a perfect dream! Gilda and that stately home over in England, and the ride through the night in pursuit of happiness which had proved as elusive as Fata Morgana, as unreal as the phantoms born in the mind of a rhapsodist.

Then the silence did, indeed, become absolute, even to him. Gilda had ceased her song. Only his straining ears caught the sound of her footsteps as she rose from the virginal, then moved swiftly about the room.

“Well,” the Stadtholder reiterated, after awhile, “which is it to me, my friend? I start for Utrecht within the hour and if we are to save Arnheim and Nijmegen, you should be on your way to Vorden with the necessary moneys and my written orders tonight. Of course, I cannot compel you,” he added simply. “The decision rests with you, and if you⁠—”

The words died on his lips, and in an instant all eyes were turned to that end of the room where a heavy portière divided it from the room beyond. A faint rustling sound had come from there, then the grating of metal rings upon the cornice-pole that held the tapestry. The next moment Gilda appeared in the doorway, shadowy, wraithlike in her sombre gown that melted into the gloom. Just her small, white face and delicate hands stood out against the murky background, and the gossamer lace at her throat and wrists.

For a moment she stood there, one hand still holding back the heavy portière, quite still, taking in the company at a glance. A sigh of longing and of renunciation came from an overburdened heart, and was wafted up to the foot of Him who knows all and understands all. Then Gilda allowed the tapestry to fall together behind her, and she came quickly forward. In the other hand she was holding, firmly clasped, her husband’s heavy sword.

She came close to him, and then said simply, with an ingenuous smile: “I thought you might wonder where you had left it. It was in the other room. You will be wanting it, my dear lord, if you start for Vorden within the hour.”

With deft fingers she buckled the sword to his belt. This, in truth, was her decision, and she had acted with scarce a moment’s hesitation, even whilst he marvelled how he could set to work to break her heart by leaving her this night.

Now, when their glances met, they understood one another. The power that lay within both their souls had met and, as it were, clasped hands. They accepted one another’s sacrifice. Hers, mayhap, was the more complete of the two, because for her his absence would mean weary waiting, the dull heartache so terrible to bear.

For the man, the wrench would be eased by action, danger and hard fighting; for her there would be nothing to do but wait. But she acquiesced. No one had seen the struggle which it had cost her, over there in the little room, all alone with only the dumb virginal and the dying light to see the tears of rebellion and of agony which for one brief moment⁠—for her an eternity⁠—had seared her eyes. By the time the full meaning of what she had overheard from the other side of the portière had entered into her brain, she had recovered full outward calm, and had brought him his sword in token of her resolve.

Gilda Beresteyn came of a race that had learned to fight even from its infancy. She had handled her father’s sword at an age when little maids are content with playthings. Now, when she made the buckles of her husband’s sword secure, she met his glance with perfect serenity, and said simply and calmly:

“You will find me, as before, in the other room. I will be waiting there to bid you farewell.”

Then she glided out of the room, wraithlike, ethereal, as she had come. And Diogenes woke as if out of a trance.

The Stadtholder jumped to his feet. “Then you’re with us?” he exclaimed.

“If your Highness hath need of me,” the soldier replied.

“Have I not said so?” the prince retorted. “Henceforth, Sir Percy Blakeney⁠—for that is your name, is it not?⁠—accompanies us as our Master of the Camp wherever we go!”

“Nay,” the other replied quite firmly and without even a sigh of regret this time, “my name is Diogenes, as it hath always been. It is the nameless and homeless adventurer, the son of the poor Dutch tramp, who once again places his sword at your Highness’s disposal. Sir Percy Blakeney was only a myth, a shade that hath already been exorcized by the magic of your Highness’s call, in the name of our faith and of liberty.”

“Frankly, man,” the Stadtholder retorted with a smile, “I could not picture you in the character of a placid and uxorious country gentleman, watching with unruffled complacence the life and death struggles of your friends.”

“I should have waxed obese, your Highness,” Diogenes assented whimsically; “and the horror of it would have sent me to my grave.”

“Then, you inveterate mocker, are you ready to start?”

“Booted and spurred, your Highness, and a sword on my hip,” replied the other lightly. “And my horse hath been waiting for me these two hours past.”

Already Maurice of Nassau was on his feet. He took the sacrifice, the self-denial, as a matter of course; was unaware of it, probably. Every other thought was completely merged in that of the coming struggle⁠—De Berg crossing the Ijssel, Spinola threatening from the south, and victory beckoning once more.

The burghers crowded round him, speaking words of loyalty and of encouragement. He responded with somewhat curt farewells. His thoughts were no longer here; they were across the Veluwe with Marquet and De Keysere; inside Arnheim and Nijmegen.

He kept Diogenes by his side, wrote out his