"And a rogue's neck, sir, is of such infinitely less value than a good woman's heart. So I pray you say no more about it. Death and I are old acquaintances, oft hath he nodded to me en pa.s.sant, we are about to become closer friends, that is all."

"Some day my sister shall know, sir, all that you have done for her and for me."

The ghost of a shadow pa.s.sed over the Laughing Cavalier's face.

"That, sir, I think had best remain 'twixt you and me for all times. But this I would have you know, that when I accepted the ign.o.ble bargain which you proposed to me in my friend Hals' studio, I did so because I thought that the jongejuffrouw would be safer in my charge then than in yours!"

Beresteyn was about to retort more hotly when Jan, closely followed by half a dozen men, came with swift, firm footsteps up to the prisoner. He saluted Beresteyn deferentially as was his wont.

"Your pardon, mynheer," he said, "my lord hath ordered that the prisoner be forthwith led to execution."

Nicolaes' pale face became the colour of lead.

"One moment, Jan," he said, "one moment. I must speak with my lord ... I...."

"My lord is with the jongejuffrouw," said Jan curtly, "shall I send to tell him that you desire to speak with him?"

"No--no--that is I ... I ..." stammered Nicolaes who, indeed, was fighting a cruel battle with his own weakness, his own cowardice now. It was that weakness which had brought him to the abject pa.s.s in which he now stood, face to face with the man he had affected to despise, and who was about to die, laden with the crimes which he Nicolaes had been the first to commit.

Stoutenburg's influence over him had been paramount, through it he had lost all sense of justice, of honour and of loyalty; banded with murderers he had ceased to recognize the very existence of honesty, and now he was in such a plight morally, that though he knew himself to be playing an ign.o.ble role, he did not see the way to throw up the part and to take up that of an honest man. One word from him to Gilda, his frank confession of his own guilt, and she would so know how to plead for the condemned man that Stoutenburg would not dare to proceed with this monstrous act.

But that word he had not the courage to speak.

With dull eyes and in sullen silence he watched Piet the Red untying under Jan's orders the ropes which held the prisoner to the beam, and then securing others to keep his arms pinioned behind his back. The mist now was of a faint silvery grey, and the objects around had that mysterious hushed air which the dawn alone can lend. The men, attracted by the sight of a fellow creature in his last living moments, had gathered together in close knots of threes and fours. They stood by, glowering and sombre, and had not Jan turned a wilfully deaf ear to their murmurings he would have heard many an ugly word spoken under their breath.

These were of course troublous and fighting times, when every man's hand was against some other, when every able-bodied man was firstly a soldier and then only a peaceable citizen. Nor was the present situation an uncommon one: the men could not know what the prisoner had done to deserve this summary punishment. He might have been a spy--an informer--or merely a prisoner of war. It was no soldier's place to interfere, only to obey orders and to ask no questions.

But they gave to the splendid personality of the condemned man the tribute of respectful silence. Whilst Jan secured the slender white hands of the prisoner, and generally made those awful preparations which even so simple a death as hanging doth demand, jests and oaths were stilled one by one among these rough fighting men, not one head but was uncovered, not a back that was not straightened, not an att.i.tude that was not one of deference and attention. Instinct--that unerring instinct of the soldier--had told them that here was no scamp getting his just reward, but a brave man going with a careless smile to his death.

"Has mynheer finished with the prisoner," asked Jan when he saw that Piet had finished his task and that the prisoner was ready to be led away. "Is there aught your greatness would still desire to say to him?"

"Only this," said Beresteyn firmly, "that were his hands free I would ask leave to grasp them."

A look of kindly amus.e.m.e.nt fell from the prisoner's eyes upon the pale face of the young man.

"I have never known you, sir, save by a quaint nick-name," continued Beresteyn earnestly, "but surely you have kith and kin somewhere. Have you no father or mother living whom you will leave to mourn?"

The prisoner made no immediate reply, the smile of kindly amus.e.m.e.nt still lingered round his lips, but presently with an instinctive gesture of pride, he threw back his head and looked around him, as one who has nothing to fear and but little to regret. He met the sympathetic glance cast on him by the man who had done him--was still doing him--an infinite wrong, and all round those of his mute and humble friends who seemed to be listening eagerly now for the answer which he would give to Mynheer. Then with a quick sweep his eyes suddenly rested on the wooden erection beyond the molens that loomed out so tragically through the mist, pointing with its one weird arm to some infinite distance far away.

Something in the gentle pathos of this humble deference that encompa.s.sed him, something mayhap in the solemnity of that ghostly arm suddenly seemed to melt the thin crust of his habitual flippancy. He looked back on Beresteyn and said softly:

"I have a friend, Frans Hals--the painter of pictures--tell him when next you see him that I am glad his portrait of me is finished, and that I asked G.o.d to bless him for all his goodness has meant to me in the past."

"But your father, sir," urged Beresteyn, "your kindred...."

"My father, sir," replied Diogenes curtly, "would not care to hear that his son had died upon the gallows."

Beresteyn would have spoken again but Jan interposes once more, humbly but firmly.

"My lord's orders," he now says briefly, "and time presses, mynheer."

Beresteyn stands back, smothering a sigh. Jan on ahead, then Piet the Red and the six soldiers with the prisoner between them. A few steps only divide them from the gruesome erection that looms more solidly now out of the mist. Beresteyn, wrapping his head up in his cloak to shut out sound and sight, walks rapidly away in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

"SAUVE QUI PEUT"

Then it is that, out of the thickness of the fog a figure suddenly emerges running and panting: a man has fallen up against the group of soldiers who have just halted beside the gibbet.

"It is Lucas of Sparendam come back from Delft," they cry as soon as they recognize the stained face, wet with the frost and the mist.

Already Jan--who with Piet's help was busy with the rope--has heard the name. His wan, thin face has become the colour of ashes.

"Lucas of Sparendam back from Delft," he murmurs, "the Lord save us all!"

Lucas of Sparendam was sent yesterday to Delft by the Lord of Stoutenburg to spy and to find out all that was going on inside the Prinzenhof where slept the Stadtholder and his bodyguard of one hundred men-at-arms: and now he has come back running and panting: his clothes torn, his face haggard and spent. He has run all the way from Delft--a matter of a league and a half! Why should a man half kill himself by endeavouring to cover a league and a half in one hour?

"A drop of hot wine for Lucas," cries one of the soldiers. "He is faint."

The other men--there are close on forty all told--crowd round the gibbet now, those in charge of the prisoner have much ado to keep the s.p.a.ce clear. They don't say anything just yet, but there is a strange, restless look in their eyes and their lips tremble with all the unspoken questions. Only two men remain calm and silent, Jan has never ceased in his task of adjusting the ropes, and the prisoner stands quite still, bound with cords, and neither looking on Lucas nor yet on the gibbet above him. His eyes are half closed and there is a strained look on his merry face as if he were trying to listen to something that was too far off to hear.

But one man in the meanwhile is ready with the bottle of spiced wine, the best cordial there is for a fainting man. The others make way for him so that he can minister to Lucas. And Lucas drinks the wine eagerly, then he opens his eyes.

"We are betrayed," he murmurs.

"Great G.o.d!" exclaims Jan dully.

"Betrayed!"

"What does it mean?"

No one heeds the prisoner now. They all crowd around Lucas. Jan calls out his orders in vain: Piet the Red alone listens to what he says, the others all want to know what Lucas means. They had been in the thick of a plot of course, they all knew that: a guet-apens had been prepared by the Lord of Stoutenburg for the Stadtholder whom he hates. The heavy boxes of course--gunpowder ... to blow up the wooden bridge when the Stadtholder and his escort are half way across!

Of course they had all guessed it, thought on it all through the night while they polished the arms--the swords and the pistols and the cullivers--which had been served out to them. They had guessed of course--the foreign mercenaries who were always in the thick of every conspiracy and well paid for being so--they had been the first to guess and they had told the country louts who only grinned enjoying the prospect of the fun.

But now they were betrayed. Lucas of Sparendam had come back with the news, and even Jan stopped in his hideous task in order to listen to what he had to say.

"It all happened yesterday," quoth Lucas as soon as he had recovered his breath, "the rumour began in the lower quarters of the town. n.o.body knows who began it. Some say that a foreigner came into the city in the early morning and sat down at one of the taverns to eat and drink with the Prince's soldiers."

"A foreigner?"

Jan turns to look on the prisoner and encounters his mocking glance.