Two of these men sat facing one another at a great table covered with papers. As I entered they turned their faces to me, and on the instant one sprang to his feet with an exclamation of rage that made the roof ring.
'General!' he cried passionately, 'what--what devil's trick is this? Why have you brought that man here?'
'Why?' Tzerclas answered easily, insolently. 'Does he know you?' He had come in just before us. He smiled; the man's excitement seemed to amuse him.
'By ----, he does!' the other exclaimed through his teeth. 'Are you mad?'
'I think not,' the general answered, still smiling. 'You will understand in a minute. But his business can wait. First'--he took up a paper and scanned it carefully--'let us complete this list of----'
'No!' the stranger replied impetuously. And he dashed the paper back on the table and looked from one to another like a wild beast in a trap. He was a tall, very thin, hawk-nosed man, whom I had seen once at my lady's--the commander of a Saxon regiment in the city's service, with the name of a reckless soldier. 'No!' he repeated, scowling, until his brows nearly met his moustachios. 'Not another gun, not another measurement will I give, until I know where I stand! And whether you are the man I think you, general, or the blackest double-dyed liar that ever did Satan's work!'
The general laughed grimly--the laugh that always chilled my blood. 'Gently, gently,' he said. 'If you must know, I have brought him into this room, in the first place, because it is convenient, and in the second, because----'
'Well?' Neumann snarled, with an ugly gleam in his eyes.
'Because dead men tell no tales,' Tzerclas continued quietly. 'And our friend here is a dead man. Now, do you see? I answer for it, you run no risk.'
'Himmel!' the other exclaimed; in a different tone, however. 'But in that case, why bring him here at all? Why not despatch him upstairs?'
'Because he knows one or two things which I wish to know,' the general answered, looking at me curiously. 'And he is going to make us as wise as himself. He has been drilling in the south-east bastion by the orchard, you see, and knows what guns are mounted there.'
'Cannot you get them from the fool in the other room?' Neumann grunted.
'He will tell nothing.'
'Then why do you have him hanging about here day after day, risking everything? The man is mad.'
'Because, my dear colonel, I have a use forhimtoo,' Tzerclas replied. Then he turned to me. 'Listen, knave,' he said harshly. 'Do you understand what I have been saying?'
I did, and I was desperate. I remembered what I had done to him, how we had outwitted, tricked, and bound him; and now that I was in his power I knew what I had to expect; that nothing I could say would avail me. I looked him in the face. 'Yes,' I said.
'You had the laugh on your side the last time we met,' he smiled. 'Now it is my turn.'
'So it seems,' I answered stolidly.
I think it annoyed him to see me so little moved. But he hid the feeling. 'What guns are in the orchard bastion?' he asked.
I laughed. 'You should have asked me that,' I said, 'before you told me what you were going to do with me. The dead tell no tales, general.'
'You fool!' he replied. 'Do you think that death is the worst you have to fear? Look round you! Do you see these windows? They are boarded up. Do you see the door? It is guarded. The house? The walls are thick, and we have gags. Answer me, then, and quickly, or I will find the way to make you. What guns are in the orchard bastion?'
He took up a paper with the last word and looked at me over it, waiting for my answer. For a moment not a sound broke the silence of the room. The other men stood all at gaze, watching me, Neumann with a scowl on his face. The lights in the room burned high, but the frowning masks of boards that hid the windows, the litter of papers on the table, the grimy floor, the cloaks and arms cast down on it in a medley--all these marks of haste and secrecy gave a strange and lowering look to the chamber, despite its brightness. My heart beat wildly like a bird in a man's hand. I feared horribly. But I hid my fear; and suddenly I had a thought.
'You have forgotten one thing,' I said.
They started. It was not the answer they expected.
'What?' Tzerclas asked curtly, in a tone that boded ill for me--if worse were possible.
'To ask how I came into the house.'
The general looked death at Ludwig. 'What is this, knave?' he thundered. 'You told me that he came in by the window?'
'He did, general,' Ludwig answered, shrugging his shoulders.
'Yes, from the next house,' I said coolly. 'Where my friends are now waiting for me.'
'Which house?' Tzerclas demanded.
'Herr Krapp's.'
I was completely in their hands. But they knew, and I knew, that their lives were scarcely more secure than mine; that, given a word, a sign, a traitor among them--and they were all traitors, more or less--all their boarded windows and locked doors would avail them not ten minutes against the frenzied mob. That thought blanched more than one cheek while I spoke; made more than one listen fearfully and cast eyes at the door; so that I wondered no longer, seeing their grisly faces, why the room, in spite of its brightness, had that strange and sombre look. Treachery, fear, suspicion, all lurked under the lights.
Tzerclas alone was unmoved; perhaps because he had something less to fear than the faithless Neumann. 'Herr Krapp's?' he said scornfully. 'Is that all? I will answer for that house myself. I have a man watching it, and if danger threatens from that direction, we shall know it in good time. He marks all who go in or out.'
'You can trust him?' Neumann muttered, wiping his brow.
'I am trusting him,' the general answered dryly. 'And I am not often deceived. This man and the puling girl upstairs tricked me once; but they will not do so again. Now, sirrah!' and he turned to me afresh, a cruel gleam in his eyes. 'That bird will not fly. To business. Will you tell me how many guns are in the orchard bastion?'
'No!' I cried. I was desperate now.
'You will not?'
'No!'
'You talk bravely,' he answered. 'But I have known men talk as bravely, and whimper and tremble like flogged children five minutes later. Ludwig--ah, there is no fire. Get a bit of thin whip-cord, and twist it round his head with your knife-handle. But first,' he continued, devouring me with his hard, smiling eyes, 'call in Taddeo. You will need another man to handle him neatly.'
At the word my blood ran cold with horror, and then burning hot. My gorge rose; I set my teeth and felt all my limbs swell. There was a mist of blood before my eyes, as if the cord were already tight and my brain bursting. I heaved in my bonds and heard them crack and crack. But, alas! they held.
'Try again!' he said, sneering at me.
'You fiend!' I burst out in a fury. 'But I defy you. Do your worst, I will balk you yet!'
He looked at me hard. Then he smiled. 'Ah!' he said. 'So you think you will beat me. Well, you are an obstinate knave, I know; and I have not much time to spare. Yet I shall beat you. Ludwig,' he continued, raising his voice, though his smiling eyes did not leave me. 'Is Taddeo there?'
'He is coming, general.'
'Then bid him fetch the girl down! Yes, Master Martin,' he continued with a ruthless look, 'we will see. I have a little account against her too. Do not think that I have kept her all this time for nothing. We will put the cord not round your head--you are a stubborn fool, I know--but round hers, my friend. Round her pretty little brow. We will see if that will loosen your tongue.'
The room reeled before my eyes, the lights danced, the men's faces, some agrin, some darkly watchful, seemed to be looking at me through a mist that dimmed everything. I cried out wild oaths, scarcely knowing what I said, that he would not, that he dared not.
He laughed. 'You think not, Master Martin?' he said. 'Wait until the slut comes. Ludwig has a way of singeing their hands with a lamp--that will afford you, I think, the last amusement you will ever enjoy!'
I knew that he spoke truly, and that he and his like had done things as horrible, as barbarous, a hundred times in the course of this cursed war! I knew that I had nothing to expect from their pity or their scruples. And the frenzy of passion, which for a moment had almost choked me, died down on a sudden, leaving me cold as the coldest there and possessed by one thought only, one hope, one aim--to get my hands free for a moment and kill this man. The boarded windows, the guarded doors, the stern faces round me, the silence of the gloomy house all forbade hope; but revenge remained. Rather than Marie should suffer, rather than that childish frame should be racked by their cruel arts, I would tell all, everything they wanted. But if by any trick or chance I went afterwards free for so much as a second, I would choke him with my naked hands!
I waited, looking at the door, my mind made up. The moments passed like lead. So apparently thought some one else, for suddenly on the silence came an interruption. 'Is this business going to last all night?' Neumann burst out impatiently. 'Hang the man out of hand, if he is to be hanged!'
'My good friend, revenge is sweet,' Tzerclas answered, with an ugly smile. 'These two fooled me a while ago; and I have no mind to be fooled with impunity. But it will not take long. We will singe her a little for his pleasure--he will like to hear her sing--and then we will hang him for her pleasure. After which----'
'Do what you like!' Neumann burst out, interrupting him wrathfully. 'Only be quick about it. If the girl is here----'
'She is coming. She is coming, now,' Tzerclas answered.
I had gone through so much that my feelings were blunted. I could no longer suffer keenly, and I waited for her appearance with a composure that now surprises me. The door opened, Taddeo came in! looked beyond him, but saw no one else; then I looked at him. The ruffian was trembling. His face was pale. He stammered something.
Tzerclas made but one stride to him. 'Dolt!' he cried, 'what is it?'
'She is gone!' the man stuttered.
'Gone?'
'Yes, your excellency.'
For an instant Tzerclas stood glaring at him. Then like lightning his hand went lip and his pistol-butt crashed down on the man's temple. The wretch threw up his arms and fell as if a thunderbolt had struck him--senseless, or lifeless; no one asked which, for his assailant, like a beast half-sated, stood glaring round for a second victim. But Ludwig, who had come down with Taddeo, knew his master, and kept his distance by the door. The other two men shrank behind me.
'Well?' Tzerclas cried, as soon as passion allowed him to speak. 'Are you dumb? Have you lost your tongue? What is it that liar meant?'
'The girl is away,' Ludwig muttered. 'She got out through a window.'
'Through what window?'
'The window of my room, under the roof,' the man answered sullenly. 'The one--through which that fool came in,' he continued, nodding towards me.
'Ah!' the general cried, his voice hissing with rage. 'Well, we have still got him. How did she go?'
'Heaven knows, unless she had wings,' Ludwig answered. 'The window is at the top of the house, and there is neither rope nor ladder there, nor foothold for anything but a bird. She is gone, however.'
The general ground his teeth together. 'There is some cursed treachery here!' he said.
The Saxon colonel laughed in scorn. 'Maybe!' he retorted in a mocking tone, 'but I will answer for it, that there is something else, and that is cursed mismanagement! I tell you what it is, General Tzerclas,' he continued fiercely. 'With your private revenges, and your public plots, and your tame cats who are mad, and your wild cats who have wings--you think yourself a very clever man. But Heaven help those who trust you!'
The general's eyes sparkled. 'And those who cross me?' he cried in a voice that made his men tremble. 'But there, sir, what ground of complaint have you? The girl never saw you.'
'No, but that man has seen me!' Neumann retorted, pointing to me. 'And who knows how soon she may be back with a regiment at her heels? Then it will be "Save yourselves!" and he will be left to hang me.'
The general laughed without mirth. 'Have no fear!' he said. 'We will hang him out of hand. Ludwig, while we collect these papers, take the other two men and string him up in the hall. When they break in they shall find some one to receive them!'
I had thought that the agony of death was passed; but I suppose that the news of Marie's escape had awakened my hopes as well as rekindled my love of life; for at these words, I felt my courage run from me like water. I shrank back against the wall, my limbs trembling under me, my heart leaping as if it would burst from my breast. I felt the rope already round my neck, and when the men laid hold on me, I cried out, almost in spite of myself, that I would tell what guns there were in the orchard bastion, that I knew other things, that----
'Away with him!' Tzerclas snarled, stamping his foot passionately. He was already hurrying papers together, and did not give me a glance. 'String him up, knaves, and see this time that you obey orders. We must be gone, so pull his legs.'
I would have said something more; I would have tried again. Even a minute, a minute's delay meant hope. But my voice failed me, and they hustled me out. I am no coward, and I had thought myself past fear; but the flesh is weak. At this pinch, when their hands were on me, and I looked round desperately and found no one to whom I could appeal--while hope and rescue might be so near and yet come too late--I shrank. Death in this vile den seemed horrible. My knees trembled; I could scarcely stand.
The hall into which they dragged me was the same dusty, desolate place into which, little foreseeing what would happen there, I had looked over the deaf hag's shoulder. Ludwig's candle only half dispersed the darkness which reigned in it. Two of the men held me while he went to and fro with the light raised high above his head.
'Ha! here it is!' he said at last. 'I thought that there was a hook. Bring him here, lads.'
They forced me, resisting feebly, to the place. The candle stood beside him; he was forming a noose. The light, which left all behind them dark, lit up the men's harsh faces; but I read no pity there, no hope, no relenting; and after a hoarse attempt to bribe them with promises of what my lady would give for my life, I stood waiting. I tried to pray, to think of Marie, of my soul and the future; but my mind was taken up with rage and dread, with the wild revolt against death, and the rush of indignation that would have had me scream like a woman!
On a sudden, out of the darkness grew a fourth face that looked at me, smiling. It was no more softened by ruth or pity than the others were; the laughing eyes mocked me, the lip curled as with a jest. And yet, at sight of it, I gasped. Hope awoke. I tried to speak, I tried to implore his help, I tried But my voice failed me, no words came. The face was the Waldgrave's.
Yet he nodded as if I had spoken. 'Yes,' he said, smiling more broadly, 'I see, Martin, that you are in trouble. You should have taken my advice in better time. I told you that he would get the better of you.'
Ludwig, who had not seen him before he spoke, dropped the rope, and stood, stupefied, gazing at him. I cried out hoarsely that they were going to hang me.
'No, no, not as bad as that!' he said lightly, between jest and earnest. 'But I gave you fair warning, you know, Martin. Oh, he is----'
Waldgrave, Waldgrave!' I panted, trying to get to him; but the men held me back. 'They will hang me! They will! It is no joke. In God's name, save me, save me! I saved you once, and----'
'Chut, chut!' he replied easily. 'Of course I will save you. I will go to the general and arrange it now. Don't be afraid. My sweet cousin must not lose her steward. Why, you are shaking like an aspen, man. But I told you, did I not? Oh, he is the---- Wait, fellow,' he continued to Ludwig, 'until I come back. Where is your master?'
'Upstairs,' Ludwig answered sullenly, an ugly gleam in his eyes.
The Waldgrave turned from me carelessly, and went towards the stairs, which were at the end of the hall. Ludwig, as he did so, picked up the rope with a stealthy gesture. I read his mind, and called pitifully to the Waldgrave to stop.
'They will hang me while you are away,' I cried. 'And he is not upstairs! They are lying to you. He is in the room on the left.'
The Waldgrave halted and came back, his handsome face troubled. Ludwig, looking as if he would strike me, swore under his breath.
'Upstairs, your excellency, upstairs!' he cried. 'You will find him there. Why should I----'
'Hush!' one of the other men said, and I felt his grasp on my arm relax. 'What is that, captain--that noise?'
But Ludwig was intent on the Waldgrave. 'Upstairs!' he continued to cry, waving his hand in that direction. 'I assure you, my lord----'
'Steady!' the man who had cut him short before exclaimed. 'They are at the door, Ludwig. Listen, man, listen, or we shall be taken like wolves in a trap!'
This time Ludwig condescended to listen, scowling. A noise like that made by a rat gnawing at wood could be heard. My heart beat fast and faster. The man who had given the alarm had released my arm altogether. The other held me carelessly.
With a yell which startled all, I burst suddenly from him and sprang past the Waldgrave. Bound as I was, I had the start and should have been on the stairs in another second, when, with a crash and a blinding glare, a shock, which loosened the very foundations of the house, flung me on my face.
I lay a moment, gasping for breath, wondering where I was hurt. Out of the darkness round me came a medley of groans and shrieks. The air was full of choking smoke, through which a red glare presently shone, and grew gradually brighter. I could see little, understand less of what was happening; but I heard shots and oaths, and once a rush of charging feet passed over me.
After that, growing more sensible, I tried to rise, but a weight lay on my legs--my arms were still tied--and I sank again. I took the fancy then that the house was on fire and that I should be burned alive; but before I had more than tasted the horror of the thought, a crowd of men came round me, and rough hands plucked me up.
'Here is another of them!' a voice cried. 'Have him out! To the churchyard with him! The trees will have a fine crop!'
'Halloa! he is tied up already!' a second chimed in.
I gazed round stupidly, meeting everywhere vengeful looks and savage faces.
A butcher, with his axe on his shoulder, hauled at me. 'Bring him along!' he shouted. 'This way, friends! Hurry him. To the churchyard!'
My wits were still wool-gathering, and I should have gone quietly; but a man pushed his way to the front and looked at me. 'Stop! stop!' he cried in a voice of authority. 'This is a friend. This is the man who got in by the roof. Cut the ropes, will you? See how his hands are swollen. That is better. Bring him out into the air. He will revive.'
The speaker was Herr Krapp. In a moment a dozen friendly arms lifted me up and carried me through the crowd, and set me down in the little court. The cool night air swept my brow. I looked up and saw the stars shining in the quiet heaven, and I leant against the wall, sobbing like a woman.
Ludwig was found dead in the hall, slain on the spot by the explosion of the petard which had driven in the door. His two comrades, less fortunate, were taken alive, and, with the hag who kept the house, were hanged within the hour on the elms in St. Austin's churchyard. The Waldgrave and Neumann, both wounded, the former by the explosion and the latter in his desperate resistance, were captured and held for trial. But Tzerclas, the chief of all, arch-tempter and arch-traitor, vanished in the confusion of the assault, and made his escape, no one knew how. Some said that he went by way of a secret passage known only to himself; some, that he had a compact with the devil, and vanished by his aid; some, that he had friends in the crowd who sheltered him. For my part, I set down his disappearance to his own cool wits and iron nerves, and asked no further explanation.
For an hour the little dark court behind the ill-omened house seethed with a furious mob. No sooner were one party satisfied than another swept in with links and torches and ransacked the house, tore down the panels, groped through the cellars, and probed the chimneys; all with so much rage, and with gestures so wild and extravagant, that an indifferent spectator might have thought them mad. Nor were those who did these things of the lowest class; on the contrary, they were mostly burghers and traders, solid townsfolk and their apprentices, men who, with wives and daughters and sweethearts, could not sleep at night for thoughts of storm and sack, and in whom the bare idea that they had amongst them wretches ready to open the gates, was enough to kindle every fierce and cruel passion.
I stood for a time unnoticed, gazing at the scene in a kind of stupor, which the noise and tumult aggravated. Little by little, however, the cool air did its work; memory and reason began to return, and, with anxiety awaking in my breast, I looked round for Herr Krapp. Presently I saw him coming towards me with a leather flask in his hand.
'Drink some of this,' he said, looking at me keenly. 'Why so wild, man?'
'The girl?' I stammered. I had not spoken before since my release, and my voice sounded strange and unnatural.
'She is safe,' he answered, nodding kindly. 'I was at my window when she swung herself on to the roof by the rope which you left hanging. Donner! you may be proud of her! But she was distraught, or she would not have tried such a feat. She must inevitably have fallen if I had not seen her. I called out to her to stand still and hold fast; and my son, who had come upstairs, ran down for a twelve-foot pike. We thrust that out to her, and, holding it, she tottered along the pike to my window, where I caught her skirts, and we dragged her in in a moment.'
I shuddered, remembering how I had suffered, hanging above the yawning street. 'I suppose that it was she who warned you and sent you here?' I said.
'No,' he answered. 'This house had been watched for two days, though I did not tell you so. We had been suspicious of it for a week or more, or I should not have helped you into a neighbour's house as I did. However, all is well that ends well; and though we have not got that bloodthirsty villain to hang, we have stopped his plans for this time.'
He was just proposing that, if I now felt able, I should return to my lady's, when a rush of people from the house almost carried me off my feet. In a moment we were pushed aside and squeezed against the wall. A hoarse yell, like the cry of a wild beast, rose from the crowd, a hundred hands were brandished in the air, weapons appeared as if by magic. The glare of torches, falling on the raging sea of men, picked out here and there a scared face, a wandering eye; but for the most part the mob seemed to feel only one passion--the thirst for blood.
'What is it?' I shouted in Herr Krapp's ear.
'The prisoners,' he answered. 'They are bringing them out. Your friend the Waldgrave, and the other. They will need a guard.'
And truly it was a grim thing to see men make at them, striking over the shoulders of the guard, leaping at them wolf-like, with burning eyes and gnashing teeth, striving to tear them with naked hands. Down the narrow passage to the churchyard the soldiers had an easy task; but in the open graveyard, whither Herr Krapp and I followed slowly, the party were flung this way and that, and tossed to and fro--though they were strong men, armed, and numbered three or four score--like a cork floating on rapids. Their way lay through the Ritter Strasse, and I went with them so far. Though it was midnight, the town, easily roused from its feverish sleep, was up and waking. Scared faces looked from windows, from eaves, from the very roofs. Men who had snatched up their arms and left their clothes peered from doorways. The roar of the mob, as it swayed through narrow ways, rose and fell by turns, now loud as the booming of cavern-waves, now so low that it left the air quivering.
When it died away at last towards the Burg, I took leave of Herr Krapp, and hurried to my lady's, passing the threshold in a tumult of memories, of emotions, and thankfulness. I could fancy that I had lived an age since I last crossed it--eight hours before. The house, like every other house, was up. Herr Krapp had sent the news of my escape before me, and I looked forward with a tremulous, foolish expectation that was not far from tears to the first words two women would say to me.
But though men and women met me with hearty greetings on the threshold, on the stairs, on the landing, and Steve clapped me on the back until I coughed again,theydid not appear. It was after midnight, but the house was still lighted as if the sun had just set, and I went up to the long parlour that looked on the street. My heart beat, and my face grew hot as I entered; but I might have spared myself. There was only Fraulein Max in the room.
She came towards me, blinking. 'So Sancho Panza has turned knight-errant,' she said with a sneer, 'as well as Governor?'
I did not understand her, and I asked gently where my lady was.
She laughed in her gibing way. 'You beg for a stone and expect bread,' she said. 'You care no more where my lady is than where I am! You mean, where is your Romanist chit, with her white face and wheedling ways.'
I saw that she was bursting with spite; that Marie's return and the stir made about it had been too much for her small, jealous nature, and I was not for answering her. She was out of favour; let her spit, her venom would be gone the sooner. But she had not done yet.
'Of course she has had some wonderful adventures!' she continued, her face working with malice and ill-nature. 'And we are all to admire her. But to a lover does she not seem somewhatblandula, vagula?Here to-day and gone to-morrow.Dolus latet in generalibus, the Countess says'--and here the Dutch girl mimicked my lady, her eyes gleaming with scorn. 'Butdolus latet in virginibus, too, Master Martin, as you will find some day! Oh, a great escape, a heroic escape,--but from her friends!'
'If you mean to infer, Fraulein----' I said hotly.
'Oh, I infer nothing. I leave you to do that!' she replied, smirking. 'But pigs go back to the dirt, I read. You know where you found her and the brat!'
'I know where we should all be to-day,' I cried, trembling with indignation, 'if it had not been for her!'
'Perhaps not worse off than we are now,' she snapped. 'However, keep your eyes shut, if it pleases you.'
My raised voice had reached the Countess's chamber, and as Fraulein Max, giggling spitefully, went out through one door the other opened and stood open. My anger melted away. I stood trembling, and looking, and waiting.
They came in together, my lady with her arm round Marie, the two women I loved best in the world. I have heard it said that evil runs to evil as drops of water to one another. But the saying is equally true of good. Little had I thought, a few weeks back, that my lady would come to treat the outcast girl from Klink's as a friend; nor I believe were there ever two people less alike, and yet both good, than these two. But that one quality--which is so quick to see its face mirrored in another's heart--had brought them close together, and made each to recognise the other; so that, as they came in to me, there was not a line of my lady's figure, not a curve of her head, not a glance of her proud eyes, that was not in sympathy with the girl who clung to her--Romanist stranger, low born as she was. I looked and worshipped, and would have changed nothing. I found the dignity of the one as beautiful as the dependence of the other.
Not a word was spoken. I had wondered what they would say to me--and they said nothing. But my lady put her into my arms, and she clung to me, hiding her face.
The Countess laughed, yet there were tears in her voice. 'Be happy,' she said. 'Child, from the day you were lost he never forgave me. Martin, see where the rope has cut her wrist. She did it to save you.'
'And myself!' Marie whispered on my breast.
'No!' my lady said. 'I will not have it so! You will spoil both him and my love-story.Per tecta, per terram, you have sought one another. You have gone downsub orco. You have bought one another back from death, as Alcestis bought her husband Admetus. At the first it was a gold chain that linked you together, soon----'
I felt Marie start in my arms. She freed herself gently, and looked at my lady with trouble in her eyes. 'Oh,' she said, 'I had forgotten!'
'What?' the Countess said. 'What have you forgotten?'
'The child!' Marie replied, clasping her hands. 'I should have told you before!'
'You have had no time to tell us much!' my lady answered smiling. 'And you are trembling like an aspen now. Sit down, girl. Sit down at once!' she continued imperatively. 'Or, no! You shall go to your bed, and we will hear it in the morning.'
But Marie seemed so much distressed by this that my lady did not insist; and in a few minutes the girl had told us a tale so remarkable that consideration of her fatigue was swallowed up in wonder.
'It was the night I was lost,' she said; 'the night when the alarm was given on the hill, and we rode down it. I clung to my saddle--it was all I could do--and remember only a dreadful shock, from which I recovered to find myself lying in the road, shaken and bruised. Fear of those whom I believed to be behind us was still in my mind, and I rose, giddy and confused, my one thought to get off the road. As I staggered towards the bank, however, I stumbled over something. To my horror I found that it was a woman. She was dead or senseless, but she had a child in her arms; it cried as I felt her face. I dared not stay, but, on the impulse of the moment--I could not move the woman, and I expected our pursuers to ride down the hill each instant--I snatched the child up and ran into the brushwood. After that I only remember stumbling blindly on through bog and fern, often falling in my haste, but always rising and pushing on. I heard cries behind me, but they only spurred me to greater exertions. At last I reached a little wood, and there, unable to go farther, I sank down, exhausted, and, I suppose, lost my senses, for I awoke, chilled and aching, in the first grey dawn. The leaves were black overhead, but the white birch trunks round me glimmered like pale ghosts. Something stirred in my arms. I looked down, and saw the face of my child--the child I found in the wood by Vach.'
'What!' the Countess cried, rising and staring at her. 'Impossible! Your wits were straying, girl. It was some other child.'
But Marie shook her head gently. 'No, my lady,' she said. 'It was my child.'
'Count Leuchtenstein's?'
'Yes, if the child I found was his.'
'But how--did it come where you found it?' the Countess asked.
'I think that the woman whom I left in the road was the poor creature who used to beg at our house in the camp,' Marie answered, hesitating somewhat--'the wife of the man whom General Tzerclas hung, my lady. I saw her face by a glimmer of light only, and, at the moment, I thought nothing. Afterwards it flashed across me that she was that woman. If so, I think that she stole the child to avenge herself. She thought that we were General Tzerclas' friends.'
'But then where is the child?' my lady exclaimed, her eyes shining. I was excited myself; but the delight, the pleasure which I saw in her face took me by surprise. I stared at her, thinking that I had never seen her look so beautiful.
Then, as Marie answered, her face fell. 'I do not know,' my girl said. 'After a time I found my way back to the road, but I had scarcely set foot on it when General Tzerclas' troopers surprised me. I gave myself up for lost; I thought that he would kill me. But he only gibed at me, until I almost died of fear, and then he bade one of his men take me up behind him. They carried me with them to the camp outside this city, and three days ago brought me in and shut me up in that house.'
'But the child?' my lady cried. 'What of it?'
'He took it from me,' Marie said. 'I have never seen it since, but I think that he has it in the camp.'
'Does he know whose child it is?'
'I told him,' Marie replied. 'Otherwise they might have let it die on the road. It was a burden to them.'
The Countess shuddered, but in a moment recovered herself. '"While there is life there is hope,"' she said. 'Martin, here is more work for you. We will leave no stone unturned. Count Leuchtenstein must know, of course, but I will tell him myself. If we could get the child back and hand it safe and sound to its father, it would be---- Perhaps the Waldgrave may be able to help us?'
'I think that he will need all his wits to help himself,' I said bluntly.
'Why?' my lady questioned, looking at me in wonder.
'Why?' I cried in astonishment. 'Have you heard nothing about him, my lady?'
'Nothing,' she said.
'Not that he was taken to-night, in Tzerclas' company,' I answered, 'and is a prisoner at this moment at the Burg, charged, along with the villain Neumann, with a plot to admit the enemy into the city?'
My lady sat down, her face pale, her aspect changed, as the countryside changes when the sun goes down. 'He was there' she muttered--'with Tzerclas?'
I nodded.
'The Waldgrave Rupert--my cousin?' she murmured, as if the thing passed the bounds of reason.
'Yes, my lady,' I said, as gently as I could. 'But he is mad. I am assured that he is mad. He has been mad for weeks past. We know it. We have known it. Besides, he knew nothing, I am sure, of Tzerclas' plans.'
'But--he wasthere!' she cried. 'He was one of those two men they carried by? One of those!'
'Yes,' I said.
She sat for a moment stricken and silent, the ghost of herself. Then, in a voice little above a whisper, she asked what they would do to him.
I shrugged my shoulders. To be candid, I had not given the Waldgrave much thought, though in a way he had saved my life. Now, the longer I considered the matter, the less room for comfort I found. Certainly he was mad. We knew him to be mad. But how were we to persuade others? For weeks his bodily health had been good; he had carried himself indoors and out-of-doors like a sane man; he had done duty in the trenches, and mixed, though grudgingly, with his fellows, and gone about the ordinary business of life. How, in the face of all this, could we prove him mad, or make his judges, stern men, fighting with their backs to the wall, see the man as we saw him?
'I suppose that there will be a trial?' my lady said at last, breaking the silence.
I told her yes--at once. 'The town is in a frenzy of rage,' I continued. 'The guards had a hard task to save them to-night. Perhaps Prince Bernard of Weimar----'
'Don't count on him,' my lady answered. 'He is as hard as he is gallant. He would hang his brother if he thought him guilty of such a thing as this. No; our only hope is in'--she hesitated an instant, and then ended the sentence abruptly--'Count Leuchtenstein. You must go to him, Martin, at seven, or as soon after as you can catch him. He is a just man, and he has watched the Waldgrave and noticed him to be odd. The court will hear him. If not, I know no better plan.'
Nor did I, and I said I would go; and shortly afterwards I took my leave. But as I crept to my bed at last, the clocks striking two, and my head athrob with excitement and gratitude, I wondered what was in my lady's mind. Remembering the Waldgrave's gallant presence and manly grace, recalling his hopes, his courage, and his overweening confidence, as displayed in those last days at Heritzburg, I could feel no surprise that so sad a downfall touched her heart. But--was that all? Once I had deemed him the man to win her. Then I had seen good cause to think otherwise. Now again I began to fancy that his mishaps might be crowned with a happiness which fortune had denied to him in his days of success.
Late as it was when I fell asleep--for these thoughts long kept me waking--I was up and on my way to Count Leuchtenstein's before the bells rang seven. It was the 17th of August, and the sun, already high, flashed light from a hundred oriels and casements. Below, in the streets, it sparkled on pikeheads and steel caps; above, it glittered on vane and weather-cock; it burnished old bells hung high in air, and decked the waking city with a hundred points of splendour. Everywhere the cool brightness of early morning met the eye, and spoke of things I could not see--the dew on forest leaves, the Werra where it shoals among the stones.
But as I went I saw things that belied the sunshine, things to which I could not shut my eyes. I met men whose meagre forms and shrunken cheeks made a shadow round them; and others, whose hungry vulture eyes, as they prowled in the kennel for garbage, seemed to belong to belated night-birds rather than to creatures of the day. Wan, pinched women, with white-faced children, signs of the deeper distress that lay hidden away in courts and alleys, shuffled along beside the houses; while the common crowd, on whose features famine had not yet laid its hand, wore a stern pre-occupied look, as if the gaunt spectre stood always before their eyes--visible, and no long way off.
In the excitement of the last few days I had failed to note these things or their increase; I had gone about my business thinking of little else, seeing nothing beyond it. Now my eyes were rudely opened, and I recognised with a kind of shock the progress which dearth and disease were making, and had made, in the city. North and south and east and west of me, in endless multitude, the roofs and spires of Nuremberg rose splendid and sparkling in the sunshine. North and south, and east and west, in city and lager lay scores of thousands of armed men, tens of thousands of horses--a host that might fitly be called invincible; and all come together in its defence. But, in corners, as I went along I heard men whisper that Duke Bernard's convoy had been cut off, that the Saxon forage had not come in, that the Croats were gripping the Bamberg road, that a thousand waggons of corn had reached the imperial army. And perforce I remembered that an army must not only fight but eat. The soldiers must be fed, the city must be fed. I began to see that if Wallenstein, secure in his impregnable position on the hills, declined still to move or fight, the time would come when the Swedish King must choose between two courses, and either attack the enemy on the Alta Veste against all odds of position, or march away and leave the city to its fate. I ceased to wonder that care sat on men's faces, and seemed to be a feature of the streets. The passion which the mob had displayed in the night, no longer surprised me. The hungry man is no better than a brute.
Opposite Count Leuchtenstein's lodgings they were quelling a riot at a bakehouse, and the wolfish cries and screams rang in my ears long after I had turned into the house. The Count had been on night service, and was newly risen, and not yet dressed, but his servant consented to admit me. I passed on the stairs a grey-haired sergeant, scarred, stiff, and belted, who was waiting with a bundle of lists and reports. In the ante-chamber two or three gentlemen in buff coats, who talked in low, earnest voices and eyed me curiously as I passed, sat at breakfast. I noted the order and stillness which prevailed everywhere in the house, and nowhere more than in the Count's chamber; where I found him dressing before a plain table, on which a small, fat Bible had the place of a pouncet-box, and a pair of silver-mounted pistols figured instead of a scent-case. Not that the appointments of the room were mean. On a little stand beside the Bible was the chain of gold walnuts which I had good cause to remember; and this was balanced on the other side by a miniature of a beautiful woman, set in gold and surmounted by a coat-of-arms.
He was vigorously brushing his grey hair and moustachios when I entered, and the air, which the open window freely admitted, lent a brightness to his eyes and a freshness to his complexion that took off ten of his years. He betrayed some surprise at seeing me so early; but he received me with good nature, congratulated me on my adventure, the main facts of which had reached him, and in the same breath lamented Tzerclas' escape.
'But we shall have the fox one of these days,' he continued. 'He is a clever scoundrel, and thinks to be a Wallenstein. But the world has only space for one monster at a time, friend Steward. And to be anything lower than Wallenstein, whom I take to be unique,--to be a Pappenheim, for instance,--a man must have a heart as well as a head, or men will not follow him. However, you did not come to me to discuss Tzerclas,' he continued genially. 'What is your errand, my friend?'
'To ask your excellency's influence on behalf of the Waldgrave Rupert.'
He paused with his brushes suspended. 'On your own account?' he asked; and he looked at me with sudden keenness.
'No, my lord,' I answered. 'My lady sent me. She would have come herself, but the hour was early; and she feared to let the matter stand, lest summary measures should be taken against him.'
'It is likely very summary measures will be taken!' he answered dryly, and with a sensible change in his manner; his voice seemed to grow harsher, his features more rigid. 'But why,' he continued, looking at me again, 'does not the Countess leave him in Prince Bernard's hands? He is his near kinsman.'
'She fears, my lord, that Prince Bernard may not----'
'Be inclined to help him?' the Count said. 'Well, and I think that that is very likely, and I am not surprised. See you how the matter stands? This young gallant should have been, since his arrival here, foremost in every skirmish; he should have spent his days in the saddle, and his nights in his cloak, and been the first to mount and the last to leave the works. Instead of that, he has shown himself lukewarm throughout, Master Steward. He has done no credit to his friends or his commission; he has done everything to lend colour to this charge; and, by my faith, I do not know what can be done for him--nor that it behoves us to do anything.'
'But he is not guilty of this, if your excellency pleases,' I said boldly. The Count's manner of speaking of him was hard and so nearly hostile that my choler rose a little.
'He has not done his duty!'
'Because he has not been himself,' I replied.
'Well, we have enough to do in these evil days to protect those who are!' he answered sharply. 'Besides, this matter is a city matter. It is in the citizens' hands, and I do not know what we have to do with it. Look now,' he continued, almost querulously, 'it is an invidious thing to meddle with them. We of the army are risking our lives and no more, but our hosts are risking all--wives and daughters, sweethearts, and children, and homes! And I say it is an awkward thing meddling with them. For Neumann the sooner they hang the dog the better; and for this young spark I can think of nothing that he has done that binds us to go out of our way to save him. Marienbad! What brought him into that den of thieves?'
'My lord,' I said, taken aback by his severity--'since he received a wound some months back he has not been himself.'
'He has been sufficiently himself to hang about a woman's apron-strings,' the Count answered with a flash of querulous contempt, 'instead of doing his duty. However, what you say is true. I have seen it myself. But, again, why does not your lady leave Prince Bernard to settle the matter?'
'She fears that he may not be sufficiently interested.'
He turned away abruptly; unless I was mistaken, he winced. And in a moment a light broke in upon me. The peevishness and irritability with which he had received the first mention of the Waldgrave's name had puzzled me. I had not expected such a display in a man of his grave, equable nature, of his high station, his great name. I had given him credit for a less churlish spirit and a judgment more evenly balanced. And I had felt surprised and disappointed.
Now, on a sudden, I saw light--in an unexpected quarter. For a moment I could have laughed both at myself and at him. The man was jealous; jealous, at his age and with his grey hairs! At the first blush of the thing I could have laughed, the feeling and the passion it implied seemed alike so preposterous. There on the table before me stood the miniature of his first wife, and his child's necklace. And the man himself was old enough to be my lady's father. What if he was tall and strong; and still vigorous though grey-haired; and a man of great name. When I thought of the Waldgrave--of his splendid youth and gallant presence, his gracious head and sunny smile, and pictured this staid, sober man beside him, I could have found it in my heart to laugh.
While I stood, busy with these thoughts, the Count walked the length of the room more than once with his head bent and his shoulder turned to me. At length he stopped and spoke; nor could my sharpened ear now detect anything unusual in his voice.
'Very well,' he said, his tone one of half-peevish resignation, 'you have done your errand. I think I understand, and you may tell your mistress--I will do what I can. The King of Sweden will doubtless remit the matter to the citizens, and there will be some sort of a hearing to-day. I will be at it. But there is a stiff spirit abroad, and men are in an ugly mood--and I promise nothing. But I will do my best. Now go, my friend. I have business.'
With that he dismissed me in a manner so much like his usual manner that I wondered whether I had deceived myself. And I finally left the room in a haze of uncertainty. However, I had succeeded in the object of my visit; that was something. He had taken care to guard his promise, but I did not doubt that he would perform it. For there are men whose lightest word is weightier than another's bond; and I took it, I scarcely know why, that the Count belonged to these.
Nevertheless, I saw things, as I went through the streets, that fed my doubts. While famine menaced the poorer people, the richer held a sack, with all the horrors which Magdeburg had suffered, in equal dread. The discovery of Neumann's plot had taught them how small a matter might expose them to that extremity; and as I went along I saw scarcely, a burgher whose face was not sternly set, no magistrate whose brow was not dark with purpose.
Consequently, when I attended my lady to the Rath-haus at two o'clock, the hour fixed for the inquiry, I was not surprised to find these signs even more conspicuous. The streets were thronged, and ugly looks and suspicious glances met us on all sides, merely because it was known that the Waldgrave had been much at my lady's house. We were made to feel that Nuremberg was a free city, and that we were no more than its guests. It is true, no one insulted us; but the crowd which filled the open space before the Town-house eyed us with so little favour that I was glad to think that the magistrates with all their independence must still be guided by the sword, and that the sword was the King of Sweden's.
My lady, I saw, shared my apprehensions. But she came of a stock not easily daunted, and would as soon have dreamed of putting out one of her eyes because it displeased a chance acquaintance, as of deserting a friend because the Nurembergers frowned upon him. Her eyes sparkled and her colour rose as we proceeded; the ominous silence which greeted us only stiffened her carriage. By the time we reached the Rath-haus I knew not whether to fear more from her indiscretion, or hope more from her courage.
The Court sat in private, but orders that we should be admitted had been given; and after a brief delay we were ushered into the hall of audience--a lofty, panelled chamber, carved and fretted, having six deep bays, and in each a window of stained glass. A number of scutcheons and banners depended from the roof; at one end a huge double eagle wearing the imperial crown pranced in all the pomp of gold and tinctures; and behind the court, which consisted of the Chief Magistrate and four colleagues, the sword of Justice was displayed. But that which struck me far more than these things, was the stillness that prevailed; which was such that, though there were a dozen persons present when we entered, the creaking of our boots as we walked up the floor, and the booming of distant cannon, seemed to be equally audible.
The Chief Magistrate rose and received my lady with due ceremony, ordering a chair to be placed for her, and requesting her to be seated at the end of the dais-table, behind which he sat. I took my stand at a respectful distance behind her; and so far we had nothing to complain of; but I felt my spirits sensibly dashed both by the stillness and the sombre and almost forbidding faces of the five judges. Two or three attendants stood by the doors, but neither the King of Sweden nor any of his officers were present. I looked in vain for Count Leuchtenstein; I could see nothing of him or of the prisoners. The solemn air of the room, the silence, and the privacy of the proceedings, all contributed to chill me. I could fancy myself before a court of inquisitors, a Vehm-Gericht, or that famous Council of Ten which sits, I have heard, at Venice; but for any of the common circumstances of such tribunals as are usual in Germany, I could not find them.
I think that my lady was somewhat taken aback too; but she did not betray it. After courteously thanking the Council for granting her an audience, she explained that her object in seeking it was to state certain facts on behalf of the Waldgrave Rupert of Weimar, her kinsman, and to offer the evidence of her steward, a person of respectability.
'We are quite willing to hear your excellency,' the Chief Magistrate answered in a grave, dry voice. 'But perhaps you will first inform us to what these facts tend? It may shorten the inquiry.'
'Some weeks ago,' my lady answered with dignity, 'the Waldgrave Rupert was wounded in the head. From that time he has not been himself.'
'Does your excellency mean that he is not aware of his actions?'
'No,' my lady answered quietly. 'I do not go as far as that.''
'Or that he is not aware in what company he is?' the magistrate persisted.
'Oh no.'
'Or that he is ignorant at any time where he is?'
'No, but----'
'One moment!' the Chief Magistrate stopped her with a courteous gesture. 'Pardon me. In an instant, your excellency--to whom I assure you that the Court are obliged, since we desire only to do justice--will see to what my questions lead. I crave leave to put one more, and then to put the same question to your steward. It is this: Do you admit, Countess, that the Waldgrave Rupert was last night in the house with Tzerclas, Neumann, and the other persons inculpated?'
'Certainly,' my lady answered. 'I am so informed. I did not know that that was in question,' she added, looking round with a puzzled air.
'And you, my friend?' The Chief Magistrate fixed me with his small, keen eyes. 'But first, what is your name?'
'Martin Schwartz.'
'Yes, I remember. The man who was saved from the villains. We could have no better evidence. What do you say, then? 'Was the Waldgrave Rupert last night in this house--the house in question?'
'I saw him in the house,' I answered warily. 'In the hall. But he was not in the room with Tzerclas and Neumann--the room in which I saw the maps and plans.'
'A fair answer,' the Burgomaster replied, nodding his head, 'and your evidence might avail the accused. But the fact is--it is to this point we desire to call your excellency's attention,' he continued, turning with a dusty smile to my lady--'the Waldgrave steadily denies that he was in the house at all.'
'He denies that he was there?' my lady said. 'But was he not arrested in the house?'
'Yes,' the Chief Magistrate answered dryly, 'he was.' And he looked at us in silence.
'But--what does he say?' my lady asked faintly.
'He affects to be ignorant of everything that has occurred in connection with the house. He pretends that he does not know how he comes to be in custody, that he does not know many things that have lately occurred. For instance, three days ago,' the Burgomaster continued with a chill smile,' I had the honour of meeting him at the King of Sweden's quarters and talking with him. He says to-day that I am a stranger to him, that we did not meet, that we did not talk, and that he does not know where the King of Sweden's quarters are.'
'Then,' my lady said sorrowfully, 'he is worse than he was. He is now quite mad.'
'I am afraid not,' the magistrate replied, shaking his head gravely. 'He is sane enough on other points. Only he will answer no questions that relate to this conspiracy, or to his guilt.'
'He is not guilty,' the Countess cried impetuously. 'Believe me, however strangely he talks, he is incapable of such treachery!'
'Your excellency forgets--that he was in this house!'
'But with no evil intentions!'
'Yet denies that he was there!' the Burgomaster concluded gravely.
That silenced my lady, and she sat rolling her kerchief in her hands. Against the five impassive faces that confronted her, the ten inscrutable eyes that watched her; above all, against this strange, this inexplicable denial, she could do nothing! At last--
'Will you hear my steward?' she asked--in despair, I think.
'Certainly,' the Burgomaster answered. 'We wish to do so.'
On that I told them all I knew; in what terms I had heard Neumann and General Tzerclas refer to the Waldgrave; how unexpected had been his appearance in the hall; how this interference had saved my life; and, finally, my own conviction that he was not privy to Tzerclas' designs.
The Court heard me with attention; the Burgomaster put a few questions, and I answered them. Then, afraid to stop--for their faces showed no relenting--I began to repeat what I had said before. But now the Court remained silent; I stumbled, stammered, finally sank into silence myself. The air of the place froze me; I seemed to be talking to statues.
The Countess was the first to break the spell. 'Well?' she cried, her voice tremulous, yet defiant.
The Burgomaster consulted his colleagues, and for the first time something of animation appeared in their faces. But it lasted an instant only. Then the others sat back in their chairs, and he turned to my lady.
'We are obliged to your excellency,' he said gravely and formally. 'And to your servant. But the Court sees no reason to change its decision.'
'And that is?' The Countess's voice was husky. She knew what was coming.
'That both prisoners suffer together.'
For an instant I feared that my lady would do something unbecoming her dignity, and either break into womanish sobs and lamentations, or stoop to threats and insistence that must be equally unavailing. But she had learned in command the man's lesson of control; and never had I seen her more equal to herself. I knew that her heart was bounding wildly; that her breast was heaving with indignation, pity, horror; that she saw, as I saw, the fair head for which she pleaded, rolling in the dust. But with all--she controlled herself. She rose stiffly from her seat.
'I am obliged to you for your patience, sir,' she said, trembling but composed. 'I had expected one to aid me in my prayer, who is not here. And I can say no more. On his head be it. Only--I trust that you may never plead with as good a cause--and be refused.'
They rose and stood while she turned from them; and the two court ushers with their wands went before her as she walked down the hall. The silence, the formality, the creaking shoes, the very gules and purpure that lay in pools on the floor--I think that they stifled her as they stifled me; for when she reached the open air at last and I saw her face, I saw that she was white to the lips.
But she bore herself bravely; the surly crowd, that filled the Market Square and hailed our appearance with a harsh murmur, grew silent under her scornful eye, and partly out of respect, partly out of complaisance, because they now felt sure of their victim, doffed their caps to her and made room for us to pass. Every moment I expected her to break down: to weep or cover her face. But she passed through all proudly, and walked, unfaltering, back to our lodging.
There on the threshold she did pause at last, just when I wished her to go on. She stood and turned her head, listening.
pg 332But with all--she controlled herself. She rose stiffly from her seat.
'What is that?' she said.
'Cannon,' I answered hastily. 'In the trenches, my lady.'
'No,' she said quietly. 'It is shouting. They have read the sentence.'
She said no more, not another word; and went in quietly and upstairs to her room. But I wondered and feared. Such composure as this seemed to be unnatural, almost cruel. I could not think of the Waldgrave myself without a lump coming in my throat. I could not face the sunshine. And Steve and the men, when they heard, were no better. We stood inside the doorway in a little knot, and looked at one another mournfully. A man who passed--and did not know the house or who we were--stopped to tell us that the sentence would be carried out at sunset; and, pleased to have given us the news, went whistling down the stale, sunny street.
Steve growled out an oath. 'Who are these people,' he said savagely, 'that they should say my lady nay? When the Countess stoops to ask a life--Himmel!--is she not to have it?'
'Not here,' I said, shaking my head.
'And why not?'
'Because we are not at Heritzburg now,' I answered sadly.
'But--are we nobody here?' he growled in a rage. 'Are we going to sit still and let them kill my lady's own cousin?'
I shrugged my shoulders. 'We have done all we can,' I said.
'But there is some one can say nay to these curs!' he cried. And he spat contemptuously into the street. He had a countryman's scorn of townsfolk. 'Why don't we take the law into our own hands, Master Martin?'
'It is likely,' I said. 'One against ten thousand! And for the matter of that, if the people are angry, it is not without cause. Did you see the man under the archway?'
Steve nodded. 'Dead,' he muttered.
'Starved,' I said. 'He was a cripple. First the cripples. Then the sound men. Life is cheap here.'
Steve swore another oath. 'Those are curs. But our man--why don't we go to the King of Sweden? I suppose he is a sort of cousin to my lady?'
'We have as good as gone to him,' I answered. At another time I might have smiled at Steve's notion of my lady's importance. 'We have been to one equally able to help us. And he has done us no good. And for the matter of that, there is not time to go to the camp and back.'
Steve began to fume and fret. The minutes went like lead. We were all miserable together. Outside, the kennel simmered in the sun, the low rumble of the cannon filled the air. I hated Nuremberg, the streets, the people, the heat. I wished that I had never seen a stone of it.
Presently one of the women came down stairs to us. 'Do you know if there has been any fighting in the trenches to-day?' she asked.
'Nothing to speak of,' I answered. 'As far as I have heard. Why?'
'The Countess wishes to know,' she said. 'You have not heard of any one being killed?'
'No.'
'Nor wounded?'
'No.'
She nodded and turned away. I called after her to know the reason of her questions, but she flitted upstairs without giving me an answer, and left us looking at one another. In a second, however, she was down again.
'My lady will see no one,' she said, with a face of mystery. 'You understand, Master Martin? But--if any come of importance, you can take her will.'
I nodded. The woman cast a lingering look into the street and went upstairs again.