"Swear," she implored, "swear," clinging with her hands to the lappet of his coat and lifting to him her white and piteous face.

"I make it an offering in expiation of my sins," he groaned, "you shall go free of me."

Elsa uttered a sigh of relief. She put no faith whatever in Adrian's promises, but at the worst it would give her time.

"I thought that I should not appeal in vain--"

"To so amusing and egregious a donkey," said Ramiro's mocking voice speaking from the gloom of the doorway, which now Elsa observed for the first time had swung open mysteriously.

"My dear son and daughter-in-law, how can I thank you sufficiently for the entertainment with which you have enlivened one of the most dreary afternoons I remember. Don't look dangerous, my boy; recall what you have just told this young lady, that the crime of removing a parent is one which, though agreeable, is not lightly to be indulged. Then, as to your future arrangements, how touching! The soul of a Diana, I declare, and the self-sacrifice of a-no, I fear that the heroes of antiquity can furnish no suitable example. And now, adieu, I go to welcome the gentleman you both of you so eagerly expect."

He went, and a minute later without speaking, for the situation seemed beyond words, Adrian crept down the stairs after him, more miserable and crushed even than he had crept up them half an hour before.

Another two hours went by. Elsa was in her apartment with Black Meg for company, who watched her as a cat watches a mouse in a trap. Adrian had taken refuge in the place where he slept above. It was a dreary, vacuous chamber, that once had held stones and other machinery of the mill now removed, the home of spiders and half-starved rats, that a lean black cat hunted continually. Across its ceiling ran great beams, whereof the interlacing ends, among which sharp draughts whistled, lost themselves in gloom, while, with an endless and exasperating sound, as of a knuckle upon a board, the water dripped from the leaky roof.

In the round living-chamber below Ramiro was alone. No lamp had been lit, but the glow from the great turf fire played upon his face as he sat there, watching, waiting, and scheming in the chair of black oak. Presently a noise from without caught his quick ear, and calling to the serving woman to light the lamp, he went to the door, opened it, and saw a lantern floating towards him through the thick steam of falling rain. Another minute and the bearer of the lantern, Hague Simon, arrived, followed by two other men.

"Here he is," said Simon, nodding at the figure behind him, a short round figure wrapped in a thick frieze cloak, from which water ran. "The other is the head boatman."

"Good," said Ramiro. "Tell him and his companions to wait in the shed without, where liquor will be sent to them; they may be wanted later on."

Then followed talk and oaths, and at length the man retreated grumbling.

"Enter, Father Thomas," said Ramiro; "you have had a wet journey, I fear. Enter and give us your blessing."

Before he answered the priest threw off his dripping, hooded cape of Frisian cloth, revealing a coa.r.s.e, wicked face, red and blear-eyed from intemperance.

"My blessing?" he said in a raucous voice. "Here it is, Senor Ramiro, or whatever you call yourself now. Curse you all for bringing out a holy priest upon one of your devil's errands in weather which is only fit for a bald-headed coot to travel through. There is going to be a flood; already the water is running over the banks of the dam, and it gathers every moment as the snow melts. I tell you there is going to be such a flood as we have not seen for years."

"The more reason, Father, for getting through this little business quickly; but first you will wish for something to drink."

Father Thomas nodded, and Ramiro filling a small mug with brandy, gave it to him. He gulped it off.

"Another," he said. "Don't be afraid. A chosen vessel should also be a seasoned vessel; at any rate this one is. Ah! that's better. Now then, what's the exact job?"

Ramiro took him apart and they talked together for a while.

"Very good," said the priest at length, "I will take the risk and do it, for where heretics are concerned such things are not too closely inquired into nowadays. But first down with the money; no paper or promises, if you please."

"Ah! you churchmen," said Ramiro, with a faint smile, "in things spiritual or temporal how much have we poor laity to learn of you!" With a sigh he produced the required sum, then paused and added, "No; with your leave we will see the papers first. You have them with you?"

"Here they are," answered the priest, drawing some doc.u.ments from his pocket. "But they haven't been married yet; the rule is, marry first, then certify. Until the ceremony is actually performed, anything might happen, you know."

"Quite so, Father. Anything might happen either before or after; but still, with your leave, I think that in this case we may as well certify first; you might want to be getting away, and it will save so much trouble later. Will you be so kind as to write your certificate?"

Father Thomas hesitated, while Ramiro gently clinked the gold coins in his hand and murmured, "I should be sorry to think, Father, that you had taken such a rough journey for nothing."

"What trick are you at now?" growled the priest. "Well, after all it is a mere form. Give me the names."

Ramiro gave them; Father Thomas scrawled them down, adding some words and his own signature, then said, "There you are, that will hold good against anyone except the Pope."

"A mere form," repeated Ramiro, "of course. But the world attaches so much importance to forms, so I think that we will have this one witnessed-No, not by myself, who am an interested party-by someone independent," and calling Hague Simon and the waiting-woman he bade them set their names at the foot of the doc.u.ments.

"Papers signed in advance-fees paid in advance!" he went on, handing over the money, "and now, just one more gla.s.s to drink the health of the bride and bridegroom, also in advance. You will not refuse, nor you, worthy Simon, nor you, most excellent Abigail. Ah! I thought not, the night is cold."

"And the brandy strong," muttered the priest thickly, as this third dose of raw spirit took effect upon him. "Now get on with the business, for I want to be out of this hole before the flood comes."

"Quite so. Friends, will you be so good as to summon my son and the lady? The lady first, I think-and all three of you might go to escort her. Brides sometimes consider it right to fain a slight reluctance-you understand? On second thoughts, you need not trouble the Senor Adrian. I have a new words of ante-nuptial advice to offer, so I will go to him."

A minute later father and son stood face to face. Adrian leaped up; he shook his fist, he raved and stormed at the cold, impa.s.sive man before him.

"You fool, you contemptible fool!" said Ramiro when he had done. "Heavens! to think that such a creature should have sprung from me, a human jacka.s.s only fit to bear the blows and burdens of others, to fill the field with empty brayings, and wear himself out by kicking at the air. Oh! don't twist up your face at me, for I am your master as well as your father, however much you may hate me. You are mine, body and soul, don't you understand; a bond-slave, nothing more. You lost the only chance you ever had in the game when you got me down at Leyden. You daren't draw a sword on me again for your soul's sake, dear Adrian, for your soul's sake; and if you dared, I would run you through. Now, are you coming?"

"No," answered Adrian.

"Think a minute. If you don't marry her I shall, and before she is half an hour older; also-" and he leant forward and whispered into his son's ear.

"Oh! you devil, you devil!" Adrian gasped; then he moved towards the door.

"What? Changed your mind, have you, Mr. Weatherc.o.c.k? Well, it is the prerogative of all feminine natures-but, your doublet is awry, and allow me to suggest that you should brush your hair. There, that's better; now, come on. No, you go first, if you please, I'd rather have you in front of me."

When they reached the room below the bride was already there. Gripped on either side by Black Meg and the other woman, white as death and trembling, but still defiant, stood Elsa.

"Let's get through with this," growled the half-drunken, ruffian priest. "I take the willingness of the parties for granted."

"I am not willing," cried Elsa. "I have been brought here by force. I call everyone present to witness that whatever is done is against my will. I appeal to G.o.d to help me."

The priest turned upon Ramiro.

"How am I to marry them in the face of this?" he asked. "If only she were silent it might be done--"

"The difficulty has occurred to me," answered Ramiro. He made a sign, whereon Simon seized Elsa's wrists, and Black Meg, slipping behind her, deftly fastened a handkerchief over her mouth in such fashion that she was gagged, but could still breathe through the nostrils.

Elsa struggled a little, then was quiet, and turned her piteous eyes on Adrian, who stepped forward and opened his lips.

"You remember the alternative," said his father in a low voice, and he stopped.

"I suppose," broke in Father Thomas, "that we may at any rate reckon upon the consent, or at least upon the silence of the Heer bridegroom."

"You may reckon on his silence, Father Thomas," replied Ramiro.

Then the ceremony began. They dragged Elsa to the table. Thrice she flung herself to the ground, and thrice they lifted her to her feet, but at length, weary of the weight of her body, suffered her to rest upon her knees, where she remained as though in prayer, gagged like some victim on the scaffold. It was a strange and brutal scene, and every detail of it burned itself into Adrian's mind. The round, rude room, with its glowing fire of turfs and its rough, oaken furniture, half in light and half in dense shadow, as the lamp-rays chanced to fall; the death-like, kneeling bride, with a white cloth across her tortured face; the red-chopped, hanging-lipped hedge priest gabbling from a book, his back almost turned that he might not see her att.i.tude and struggles; the horrible, uns.e.xed women; the flat-faced villain, Simon, grinning by the hearth; Ramiro, cynical, mocking, triumphant, and yet somewhat anxious, his one bright eye fixed in mingled contempt and amus.e.m.e.nt upon him, Adrian-those were its outlines. There was something else also that caught and oppressed his sense, a sound which at the time Adrian thought he heard in his head alone, a soft, heavy sound with a moan in it, not unlike that of the wind, which grew gradually to a dull roar.

It was over. A ring had been forced on to Elsa's unwilling hand, and, until the thing was undone by some competent and authorised Court, she was in name the wife of Adrian. The handkerchief was unbound, her hands were loosed, physically, Elsa was free again, but, in that day and land of outrage, tied, as the poor girl knew well, by a chain more terrible than any that hemp or steel could fashion.

"Congratulations! Senora," muttered Father Thomas, eyeing her nervously. "I fear you felt a little faint during the service, but a sacrament--"

"Cease your mockings, you false priest," cried Elsa. "Oh! let the swift vengeance of G.o.d fall upon every one of you, and first of all upon you, false priest."

Drawing the ring from her finger, as she spoke she cast it down upon the oaken table, whence it sprang up to drop again and rattle itself to silence. Then with one tragic motion of despair, Elsa turned and fled back to her chamber.

The red face of Father Thomas went white, and his yellow teeth chattered. "A virgin's curse," he muttered, crossing himself. "Misfortune always follows, and it is sometimes death-yes, by St. Thomas, death. And you, you brought me here to do this wickedness, you dog, you galley slave!"

"Father," broke in Ramiro, "you know I have warned you against it before at The Hague; sooner or later it always breaks up the nerves," and he nodded towards the flagon of spirits. "Bread and water, Father, bread and water for forty days, that is what I prescribe, and--"

As he spoke the door was burst open, and two men rushed in, their eyes starting, their very beards bristling with terror.

"Come forth!" they cried.

"What has chanced?" screamed the priest.

"The great d.y.k.e has burst-hark, hark, hark! The floods are upon you, the mill will be swept away."

G.o.d in Heaven-it was true! Now through the open doorway they heard the roar of waters, whose note Adrian had caught before, yes, and in the gloom appeared their foaming crest as they rushed through the great and ever-widening breach in the lofty d.y.k.e down upon the flooded lowland.

Father Thomas bounded through the door yelling, "The boat, the boat!" For a moment Ramiro thought, considering the situation, then he said: "Fetch the Jufvrouw. No, not you, Adrian; she would die rather than come with you. You, Simon, and you, Meg. Swift, obey."

They departed on their errand.

"Men," went on Ramiro, "take this gentleman and lead him to the boat. Hold him if he tries to escape. I will follow with the lady. Go, you fool, go, there is not a second to be lost," and Adrian, hanging back and protesting, was dragged away by the boatmen.

Now Ramiro was alone, and though, as he had said, there was little time to spare, again for a few moments he thought deeply. His face flushed and went pale; then entered into it a great resolve. "I don't like doing it, for it is against my vow, but the chance is good. She is safely married, and at best she would be very troublesome hereafter, and might bring us to justice or to the galleys since others seek her wealth," he muttered with a shiver, adding, "as for the spies, we are well rid of them and their evidence." Then, with swift resolution, stepping to the door at the foot of the stairs, Ramiro shut it and shot the great iron bolt!

He ran from the mill; the raised path was already three feet deep in water; he could scarcely make his way along it. Ah! there lay the boat. Now he was in it, and now they were flying before the crest of a huge wave. The dam of the cutting had given altogether, and fed from sea and land at once, by snow, by rain, and by the inrush of the high tide, its waters were pouring in a measureless volume over the doomed marshes.

"Where is Elsa?" screamed Adrian.

"I don't know. I couldn't find her," answered Ramiro. "Row, row for your lives! We can take her off in the morning, and the priest too, if he won back."

At length the cold winter sun rose over the watery waste, calm enough now, for the floods were out, in places ten and fifteen feet deep. Through the mists that brooded on the face of them Ramiro and his crew groped their way back to where the Red Mill should be. It was gone!

There stood the brick walls of the bottom story rising above the flood level, but the wooden upper part had snapped before the first great wave when the bank went bodily, and afterwards been swept away by the rushing current, swept away with those within.

"What is that?" said one of the boatmen, pointing to a dark object which floated among the tangled debris of sere weeds and woodwork collected against the base of the mill.

They rowed to the thing. It was the body of Father Thomas, who must have missed his footing as he ran along the pathway, and fallen into deep water.

"Um!" said Ramiro, "'a virgin's curse.' Observe, friends, how the merest coincidences may give rise to superst.i.tion. Allow me," and, holding the dead man by one hand, he felt in his pockets with the other, till, with a smile of satisfaction, he found the purse containing the gold which he had paid him on the previous evening.

"Oh! Elsa, Elsa," moaned Adrian.

"Comfort yourself, my son," said Ramiro as the boat put about, leaving the dead Father Thomas bobbing up and down in the ripple; "you have indeed lost a wife whose temper gave you little prospect of happiness, but at least I have your marriage papers duly signed and witnessed, and-you are her heir."

He did not add that he in turn was Adrian's. But Adrian thought of it, and even in the midst of his shame and misery wondered with a shiver how long he who was Ramiro's next of kin was likely to adorn this world.

Till he had something that was worth inheriting, perhaps.

CHAPTER XXVII

WHAT ELSA SAW IN THE MOONLIGHT

It will be remembered that some weeks before Elsa's forced marriage in the Red Mill, Foy, on their escape from the Gevangenhuis, had been carried upon the naked back of Martin to the shelter of Mother Martha's lair in the Haarlemer Meer. Here he lay sick many days, for the sword cut in his thigh festered so badly that at one time his life was threatened by gangrene, but, in the end, his own strength and healthy const.i.tution, helped with Martha's simples, cured him. So soon as he was strong again, accompanied by Martin, he travelled into Leyden, which now it was safe enough for him to visit, since the Spaniards were driven from the town.

How his young heart swelled as, still limping a little and somewhat pale from recent illness, he approached the well-known house in the Bree Straat, the home that sheltered his mother and his love. Presently he would see them again, for the news had been brought to him that Lysbeth was out of danger and Elsa must still be nursing her.

Lysbeth he found indeed, turned into an old woman by grief and sore sickness, but Elsa he did not find. She had vanished. On the previous night she had gone out to take the air, and returned no more. What had become of her none could say. All the town talked of it, and his mother was half-crazed with anxiety and fear, fear of the worst.

Hither and thither they went inquiring, seeking, tracking, but no trace of Elsa could they discover. She had been seen to pa.s.s the Morsch poort; then she disappeared. For a while Foy was mad. At length he grew calmer and began to think. Drawing from his pocket the letter which Martha had brought to him on the night of the church-burning, he re-read it in the hope of finding a clue, since it was just possible that for private reasons Elsa might have set out on some journey of her own. It was a very sweet letter, telling him of her deep joy and grat.i.tude at his escape; of the events that had happened in the town; of the death of his father in the Gevangenhuis, and ending thus: "Dear Foy, my betrothed, I cannot come to you because of your mother's sickness, for I am sure that it would be your wish, as it is my desire and duty, that I should stay to nurse her. Soon, however, I hope that you will be able to come to her and me. Yet, in these dreadful times who can tell what may happen? Therefore, Foy, whatever chances, I am sure you will remember that in life or in death I am yours only-yes, to you, dead or living, you dead and I living, or you living and I dead, while or wherever I have sense or memory, I will be true; through life, through death, through whatever may lie beyond our deaths, I will be true as woman may be to man. So, dear Foy, for this present fare you well until we meet again in the days to come, or after all earthly days are done with for you and me. My love be with you, the blessing of G.o.d be with you, and when you lie down at night and when you wake at morn, think of me and put up a prayer for me as your true lover Elsa does for you. Martha waits. Most loved, most dear, most desired, fare you well."

Here was no hint of any journey, so if such had been taken it must be without Elsa's own consent.

"Martin, what do you make of it?" asked Foy, staring at him with anxious, hollow eyes.

"Ramiro-Adrian-stolen away-" answered Martin.

"Why do you say that?"

"Hague Simon was seen hanging about outside the town yesterday, and there was a strange boat upon the river. Last night the Jufvrouw went through the Morsch poort. The rest you can guess."

"Why would they take her?" asked Foy hoa.r.s.ely.

"Who can tell?" said Martin shrugging his great shoulders. "Yet I see two reasons. Hendrik Brant's wealth is supposed to be hers when it can be found; therefore, being a thief, Ramiro would want her. Adrian is in love with her; therefore, being a man, of course he would want her. These seem enough, the pair being what they are."

"When I find them I will kill them both," said Foy, grinding his teeth.

"Of course, so will I, but first we have got to find them-and her, which is the same thing."

"How, Martin, how?"

"I don't know."

"Can't you think, man?"

"I am trying to, master; it's you who don't think. You talk too much. Be silent a while."

"Well," asked Foy thirty seconds later, "have you finished thinking?"