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

the Heer Burgomaster rise from his bed and attend upon our pleasure.”

“My father?” Nicolaes exclaimed in surprise. “Why? What hath he⁠—”

“You will see, my good Klaas,” the other broke in quietly. “You will see. I think that you will be satisfied.”

Jan, at his word, had already gone. Nicolaes, really puzzled, tried to ask questions, but Stoutenburg was obviously determined to keep the secret of his intentions awhile longer to himself.

It was long past one o’clock now, and bitterly cold. Even the huge blazing logs in the monumental hearth failed to keep the large room at a pleasing temperature. Nicolaes, shivering and yawning, crouched beside the blaze, knocked his half-frozen hands one against the other. He would at this moment have bartered most of his ambitions for the immediate prospect of a good bed. But Stoutenburg was as wide awake as ever, and evidently some kind of inward fever kept the cold out of his bones.

After Jan’s departure he resumed that restless pacing of his up and down the long room. Up and down, until Nicolaes, exasperated beyond endurance, could have screamed with choler.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, the burgomaster arrived, ushered in by Jan. He had apparently not taken off his clothes since he had been upstairs. It was indeed more that likely that he had spent the time in prayer, for Mynheer Beresteyn was a pious man, and the will of God in fortune or adversity was a very real thing to him. With the same dignified submission which he had displayed throughout, he had immediately followed Jan when curtly ordered to do so. But he came down to face the arrogant tyrant for the third time tonight with as heavy a heart as before, not knowing what fresh indignity, what new cruel measure, would be put upon him. Grace or clemency he knew that he could not expect.

The look of malignant triumph wherewith Stoutenburg greeted him appeared to justify his worst forebodings. The presence, too, of Diogenes, fettered and asleep, filled his anxious heart with additional dread. As he stepped out into the room he took no notice of his son, but only strove to face his arch-enemy with as serene a countenance as he could command.

“Your lordship desired that I should come,” he said quietly. “What is your lordship’s pleasure?”

But Stoutenburg was all suavity. A kind of feline gentleness was in his tone as he replied:

“Firstly, to beg your forgiveness, mynheer, for having disturbed you again⁠—and at this hour. But will you not sit? Jan,” he commanded, “draw a chair nearer to the hearth for the Heer Burgomaster.”

“I was not asleep, my lord,” Beresteyn rejoined coldly. “And by your leave, will take your commands standing.”

“Oh, commands, mynheer!” Stoutenburg rejoined blandly. “ ’Tis no commands I would venture to give you. It was my duty⁠—my painful duty⁠—not to keep you in ignorance of certain matters which have just come to my knowledge, and which will have a momentous bearing upon all my future plans. Will you not sit?” he added, with insidious urbanity. “No? Ah, well, just as you wish. But you will forgive me if I⁠—”

He sat down in his favourite chair, with his back to the table and the candlelight and facing the fire, which threw ruddy gleams on his gaunt face and grizzled hair. His deepset eyes were inscrutable in the shadow, but they were fixed upon the burgomaster who stood before him dignified and calm, half-turned away from the pitiful spectacle which the blind man presented in somnolent helplessness.

“Since last I had the pleasure of addressing you, mynheer,” Stoutenburg began slowly, after awhile, “it hath come to my knowledge that the Stadtholder, far from abandoning all hope of reconquering Gelderland from our advancing forces, did in truth not only devise a plan whereby he intended to deliver Ede and Amersfoort from our hands, but his far-reaching project also embraced the possibility of seizing my person, and once for all ridding himself of an enemy⁠—a justiciary, shall we say?⁠—who is becoming might inconvenient.”

“A project, my lord,” the burgomaster riposted earnestly, “which I pray God may fully succeed.”

Stoutenburg gave a derisive laugh.

“So it would have done, mynheer,” he said with a sardonic grin. “It would have succeeded admirably, and by this hour tomorrow I should no doubt be dangling on a gibbet, for Maurice of Nassau hath sworn that he would treat me as a knave and as a traitor unworthy of the scaffold.”

“And the world would have been rid of a murderous miscreant,” the burgomaster put in coldly, “had God so willed it.”

“Ah, but God⁠—your God, mynheer,” Stoutenburg retorted with a sneer, “did not will it, it seems. And forewarned is forearmed, you know.”

Instinctively, as the full meaning of Stoutenburg’s words reached his perceptions the Burgomaster’s eyes had sought those of his son, whilst a ghastly pallor overspread his face even to his lips.

“The Stadtholder’s schemes have been revealed to you,” he murmured slowly. “By whom?”

Then, as Stoutenburg made no reply, only regarded him with a mocking and quizzical gaze, he added more vehemently:

“Who is the craven informer who hath sold his master to you?”

“What would you do to him if you knew?” Stoutenburg retorted coolly.

“Slay him with mine own hand,” the burgomaster replied calmly, “were he my only son!”

“ ’Twas not I!” Nicolaes cried involuntarily.

Stoutenburg appeared vastly amused.

“No,” he said. “It was not your son Klaas, whose merits, by the way, you have not yet learned to appreciate. Nicolaes hath rendered me and the Archduchess immense services, which I hope soon to repay adequately. But,” he added with mocking emphasis, “the most signal service of all, which will deliver the Stadtholder into my hands and reestablish thereby the dominion of Spain over the Netherlands, was rendered to me by the varlet whom, but for me, you would have acclaimed as your son.”

And with a wide flourish of the arm, Stoutenburg turned in his chair and pointed to Diogenes, who, sublimely unconscious of what went on around him, was even in the act of