Jorian Ketel went straight to Margaret's room, and there, to his infinite surprise, he found the man he had been in search of, pale and motionless, his head in Margaret's lap, and she kneeling over him, mute now, and stricken to stone. Her eyes were dilated yet glazed, and she neither saw the light nor heard the man, nor cared for anything on earth, but the white face in her lap.
Jorian stood awe-struck, the candle shaking in his hand.
“Why, where was he, then, all the time?”
Margaret heeded him not. Jorian went to the empty chest and inspected it. He began to comprehend. The girl's dumb and frozen despair moved him.
“This is a sorry sight,” said he; “it is a black night's work: all for a few skins! Better have gone with us than so. She is past answering me, poor wench. Stop! let us try whether—”
He took down a little round mirror, no bigger than his hand, and put it to Gerard's mouth and nostrils, and held it there. When he withdrew it, it was dull.
“THERE IS LIFE IN HIM!” said Jorian Ketel to himself.
Margaret caught the words instantly, though only muttered, and it was if a statue should start into life and passion. She rose and flung her arms round Jorian's neck.
“Oh, bless the tongue that tells me so!” and she clasped the great rough fellow again and again, eagerly, almost fiercely.
“There, there! let us lay him warm, said Jorian; and in a moment he raised Gerard and laid him on the bed-clothes. Then he took out a flask he carried, and filled his hand twice with Schiedamze, and flung it sharply each time in Gerard's face. The pungent liquor co-operated with his recovery—he gave a faint sigh. Oh, never was sound so joyful to human ear! She flew towards him, but then stopped, quivering for fear she should hurt him. She had lost all confidence in herself.
“That is right—let him alone,” said Jorian; “don't go cuddling him as you did me, or you'll drive his breath back again. Let him alone: he is sure to come to. 'Tisn't like as if he was an old man.”
Gerard sighed deeply, and a faint streak of colour stole to his lips. Jorian made for the door. He had hardly reached it, when he found his legs seized from behind.
It was Margaret! She curled round his knees like a serpent, and kissed his hand, and fawned on him. “You won't tell? You have saved his life; you have not the heart to thrust him back into his grave, to undo your own good work?”
“No, no! It is not the first time I have done you two a good turn; 'twas I told you in the church whither we had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan and the children, you know.”
“Ah! they shall have those hundred crowns.
“What! are the things in the house?” asked Jorian eagerly.
“No; but I know where they are; and by God and St. Bavon I swear you shall have them to-morrow. Come to me for them when you will, but come alone.”
“I were made else. What! share the hundred crowns with Dirk Brower? And now may my bones rot in my skin if I let a soul know the poor boy is here.”
He then ran off, lest by staying longer he should excite suspicion, and have them all after him. And Margaret knelt, quivering from head to foot, and prayed beside Gerard and for Gerard.
“What is to do?” replied Jorian to Dierich Brower's query; “why, we have scared the girl out of her wits. She was in a kind of fit.”
“We had better all go and doctor her, then.”
“Oh, yes! and frighten her into the churchyard. Her father is a doctor, and I have roused him, and set him to bring her round. Let us see the fire, will ye?”
His off-hand way disarmed all suspicion. And soon after the party agreed that the kitchen of the “Three Kings” was much warmer than Peter's house, and they departed, having first untied Martin.
“Take note, mate, that I was right, and the burgomaster wrong,” said Dierich Brower at the door; “I said we should be too late to catch him, and we were too late.”
Thus Gerard, in one terrible night, grazed the prison and the grave.
And how did he get clear at last? Not by his cunningly contrived hiding-place, nor by Margaret's ready wit; but by a good impulse in one of his captors, by the bit of humanity left in a somewhat reckless fellow's heart, aided by his desire of gain. So mixed and seemingly incongruous are human motives, so shortsighted our shrewdest counsels.
They whose moderate natures or gentle fates keep them, in life's passage, from the fierce extremes of joy and anguish our nature is capable of, are perhaps the best, and certainly the happiest of mankind. But to such readers I should try in vain to convey what bliss unspeakable settled now upon these persecuted lovers, Even to those who have joyed greatly and greatly suffered, my feeble art can present but a pale reflection of Margaret's and Gerard's ecstasy.
To sit and see a beloved face come back from the grave to the world, to health and beauty, by swift gradations; to see the roses return to the loved cheek, love's glance to the loved eye, and his words to the loved mouth—this was Margaret's—a joy to balance years of sorrow. It was Gerard's to awake from a trance, and find his head pillowed on Margaret's arm; to hear the woman he adored murmur new words of eloquent love, and shower tears and tender kisses and caresses on him. He never knew, till this sweet moment, how ardently, how tenderly, she loved him. He thanked his enemies. They wreathed their arms sweetly round each other, and trouble and danger seemed a world, an age behind them. They called each other husband and wife. Were they not solemnly betrothed? And had they not stood before the altar together? Was not the blessing of Holy Church upon their union?—her curse on all who would part them?
But as no woman's nerves can bear with impunity so terrible a strain. presently Margaret turned faint, and sank on Gerard's shoulder, smiling feebly, but quite, quite unstrung. Then Gerard was anxious, and would seek assistance. But she held him with a gentle grasp, and implored him not to leave her for a moment.
“While I can lay my hand on you, I feel you are safe, not else. Foolish Gerard! nothing ails me. I am weak, dearest, but happy, oh! so happy!”
Then it was Gerard's turn to support that dear head, with its great waves of hair flowing loose over him, and nurse her, and soothe her, quivering on his bosom, with soft encouraging words and murmurs of love, and gentle caresses. Sweetest of all her charms is a woman's weakness to a manly heart.
Poor things! they were happy. To-morrow they must part. But that was nothing to them now. They had seen Death, and all other troubles seemed light as air. While there is life there is hope; while there is hope there is joy. Separation for a year or two, what was it to them, who were so young, and had caught a glimpse of the grave? The future was bright, the present was Heaven: so passed the blissful hours.
Alas! their innocence ran other risks besides the prison and the grave. They were in most danger from their own hearts and their inexperience, now that visible danger there was none.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten could not sleep all night for anxiety. He was afraid of thunder and lightning, or he would have made one of the party that searched Peter's house. As soon as the storm ceased altogether, he crept downstairs, saddled his mule, and rode to the “Three Kings” at Sevenbergen. There he found his men sleeping, some on the chairs, some on the tables, some on the floor. He roused them furiously, and heard the story of their unsuccessful search, interlarded with praises of their zeal.
“Fool! to let you go without me,” cried the burgomaster. “My life on't he was there all the time. Looked ye under the girl's bed?”
“No; there was no room for a man there.”
“How know ye that, if ye looked not?” snarled Ghysbrecht. “Ye should have looked under her bed, and in it too, and sounded all the panels with your knives. Come, now, get up, and I shall show ye how to search.”
Dierich Brower got up and shook himself. “If you find him, call me a horse and no man.”
In a few minutes Peter's house was again surrounded.
The fiery old man left his mule in the hands of Jorian Ketel, and, with Dierich Brower and the others, entered the house.
The house was empty.
Not a creature to be seen, not even Peter. They went upstairs, and then suddenly one of the men gave a shout, and pointed through Peter's window, which was open. The others looked, and there, at some little distance, walking quietly across the fields with Margaret and Martin, was the man they sought. Ghysbrecht, with an exulting yell, descended the stairs and flung himself on his mule; and he and his men set off in hot pursuit.
Gerard warned by recent peril, rose before daybreak and waked Martin. The old soldier was astonished. He thought Gerard had escaped by the window last night. Being consulted as to the best way for him to leave the country and elude pursuit, he said there was but one road safe. “I must guide you through the great forest to a bridle-road I know of. This will take you speedily to a hostelry, where they will lend you a swift horse; and then a day's gallop will take you out of Holland. But let us start ere the folk here quit their beds.”
Peter's house was but a furlong and a half from the forest. They started, Martin with his bow and three arrows, for it was Thursday; Gerard with nothing but a stout oak staff Peter gave him for the journey.
Margaret pinned up her kirtle and farthingale, for the road was wet. Peter went as far as his garden hedge with them, and then with more emotion than he often bestowed on passing events, gave the young man his blessing.
The sun was peeping above the horizon as they crossed the stony field and made for the wood. They had crossed about half, when Margaret, who kept nervously looking back every now and then, uttered a cry, and, following her instinct, began to run towards the wood, screaming with terror all the way.
Ghysbrecht and his men were in hot pursuit.
Resistance would have been madness. Martin and Gerard followed Margaret's example. The pursuers gained slightly on them; but Martin kept shouting, “Only win the wood! only win the wood!”
They had too good a start for the men on foot, and their hearts bounded with hope at Martin's words, for the great trees seemed now to stretch their branches like friendly arms towards them, and their leaves like a screen.
But an unforeseen danger attacked them. The fiery old burgomaster flung himself on his mule, and, spurring him to a gallop, he headed not his own men only, but the fugitives. His object was to cut them off. The old man came galloping in a semicircle, and got on the edge of the wood, right in front of Gerard; the others might escape for aught he cared.
Margaret shrieked, and tried to protect Gerard by clasping him; but he shook her off without ceremony.
Ghysbrecht in his ardour forgot that hunted animals turn on the hunter; and that two men can hate, and two can long to kill the thing they hate.
Instead of attempting to dodge him, as the burgomaster made sure he would, Gerard flew right at him, with a savage, exulting cry, and struck at him with all his heart, and soul and strength. The oak staff came down on Ghysbrecht's face with a frightful crash, and laid him under his mule's tail beating the devil's tattoo with his heels, his face streaming, and his collar spattered with blood.
The next moment the three were in the wood. The yell of dismay and vengeance that burst from Ghysbrecht's men at that terrible blow which felled their leader, told the fugitives that it was now a race for life or death.
“Why run?” cried Gerard, panting. “You have your bow, and I have this,” and he shook his bloody staff.
“Boy!” roared Martin; “the GALLOWS! Follow me,” and he fled into the wood. Soon they heard a cry like a pack of hounds opening on sight of the game. The men were in the wood, and saw them flitting amongst the trees. Margaret moaned and panted as she ran; and Gerard clenched his teeth and grasped his staff. The next minute they came to a stiff hazel coppice. Martin dashed into it, and shouldered the young wood aside as if it were standing corn.
Ere they had gone fifty yards in it they came to four blind paths.
Martin took one. “Bend low,” said he. And, half creeping, they glided along. Presently their path was again intersected with other little tortuous paths. They took one of them. It seemed to lead back; but it soon took a turn, and, after a while, brought them to a thick pine grove, where the walking was good and hard. There were no paths here; and the young fir-trees were so thick, you could not see three yards before your nose.
When they had gone some way in this, Martin sat down; and, having learned in war to lose all impression of danger with the danger itself, took a piece of bread and a slice of ham out of his wallet, and began quietly to eat his breakfast.
The young ones looked at him with dismay. He replied to their looks.
“All Sevenbergen could not find you now; you will lose your purse, Gerard, long before you get to Italy; is that the way to carry a purse?”
Gerard looked, and there was a large triangular purse, entangled by its chains to the buckle and strap of his wallet.
“This is none of mine,” said he. “What is in it, I wonder?” and he tried to detach it; but in passing through the coppice it had become inextricably entangled in his strap and buckle. “It seems loath to leave me,” said Gerard, and he had to cut it loose with his knife. The purse, on examination, proved to be well provided with silver coins of all sizes, but its bloated appearance was greatly owing to a number of pieces of brown paper folded and doubled. A light burst on Gerard. “Why, it must be that old thief's; and see! stuffed with paper to deceive the world!”
The wonder was how the burgomaster's purse came on Gerard.
They hit at last upon the right solution. The purse must have been at Ghysbrecht's saddle-bow, and Gerard rushing at his enemy, had unconsciously torn it away, thus felling his enemy and robbing him, with a single gesture.
Gerard was delighted at this feat, but Margaret was uneasy.
“Throw it away, Gerard, or let Martin take it back. Already they call you a thief. I cannot bear it.”
“Throw it away! give it him back? not a stiver! This is spoil lawfully won in battle from an enemy. Is it not, Martin?”
“Why, of course. Send him back the brown paper, and you will; but the purse or the coin—that were a sin.”
“Oh, Gerard!” said Margaret, “you are going to a distant land. We need the goodwill of Heaven. How can we hope for that if we take what is not ours?”
But Gerard saw it in a different light.
“It is Heaven that gives it me by a miracle, and I shall cherish it accordingly,” said this pious youth. “Thus the favoured people spoiled the Egyptians, and were blessed.”
“Take your own way,” said Margaret humbly; “you are wiser than I am. You are my husband,” added she, in a low murmuring voice; “is it for me to gainsay you?”
These humble words from Margaret, who, till that day, had held the whip-hand, rather surprised Martin for the moment. They recurred to him some time afterwards, and then they surprised him less.
Gerard kissed her tenderly in return for her wife-like docility, and they pursued their journey hand in hand, Martin leading the way, into the depths of the huge forest. The farther they went, the more absolutely secure from pursuit they felt. Indeed, the townspeople never ventured so far as this into the trackless part of the forest.
Impetuous natures repent quickly. Gerard was no sooner out of all danger than his conscience began to prick him.
“Martin, would I had not struck quite so hard.”
“Whom? Oh! let that pass, he is cheap served.”
“Martin, I saw his grey hairs as my stick fell on him. I doubt they will not from my sight this while.”
Martin grunted with contempt. “Who spares a badger for his grey hairs? The greyer your enemy is, the older; and the older the craftier and the craftier the better for a little killing.”
“Killing? killing, Martin? Speak not of killing!” and Gerard shook all over.
“I am much mistook if you have not,” said Martin cheerfully.
“Now Heaven forbid!”
“The old vagabond's skull cracked like a walnut. Aha!”
“Heaven and the saints forbid it!”
“He rolled off his mule like a stone shot out of a cart. Said I to myself, 'There is one wiped out,'” and the iron old soldier grinned ruthlessly.
Gerard fell on his knees and began to pray for his enemy's life.
At this Martin lost his patience. “Here's mummery. What! you that set up for learning, know you not that a wise man never strikes his enemy but to kill him? And what is all this coil about killing of old men? If it had been a young one, now, with the joys of life waiting for him, wine, women, and pillage! But an old fellow at the edge of the grave, why not shove him in? Go he must, to-day or to-morrow; and what better place for greybeards? Now, if ever I should be so mischancy as to last so long as Ghysbrecht did, and have to go on a mule's legs instead of Martin Wittenhaagen's, and a back like this (striking the wood of his bow), instead of this (striking the string), I'll thank and bless any young fellow who will knock me on the head, as you have done that old shopkeeper; malison on his memory.
“Oh, culpa mea! culpa mea!” cried Gerard, and smote upon his breast.
“Look there!” cried Martin to Margaret scornfully, “he is a priest at heart still—and when he is not in ire, St. Paul, what a milksop!”
“Tush, Martin!” cried Margaret reproachfully: then she wreathed her arms round Gerard, and comforted him with the double magic of a woman's sense and a woman's voice.
“Sweetheart!” murmured she, “you forget: you went not a step out of the way to harm him, who hunted you to your death. You fled from him. He it was who spurred on you. Then did you strike; but in self-defence and a single blow, and with that which was in your hand. Malice had drawn knife, or struck again and again. How often have men been smitten with staves not one but many blows, yet no lives lost! If then your enemy has fallen, it is through his own malice, not yours, and by the will of God.”
“Bless you, Margaret; bless you for thinking so!”
“Yes; but, beloved one, if you have had the misfortune to kill that wicked man, the more need is there that you fly with haste from Holland. Oh, let us on.”
“Nay, Margaret,” said Gerard. “I fear not man's vengeance, thanks to Martin here and this thick wood: only Him I fear whose eye pierces the forest and reads the heart of man. If I but struck in self-defence, 'tis well; but if in hate, He may bid the avenger of blood follow me to Italy—to Italy? ay, to earth's remotest bounds.”
“Hush!” said Martin peevishly. “I can't hear for your chat.”
“What is it?”
“Do you hear nothing, Margaret; my ears are getting old.”
Margaret listened, and presently she heard a tuneful sound, like a single stroke upon a deep ringing bell. She described it so to Martin.
“Nay, I heard it,” said he.
“And so did I,” said Gerard; “it was beautiful. Ah! there it is again. How sweetly it blends with the air. It is a long way off. It is before us, is it not?”
“No, no! the echoes of this wood confound the ear of a stranger. It comes from the pine grove.”
“What! the one we passed?”
“Why, Martin, is this anything? You look pale.”
“Wonderful!” said Martin, with a sickly sneer. “He asks me is it anything? Come, on, on! at any rate, let us reach a better place than this.”
“A better place—for what?”
“To stand at bay, Gerard,” said Martin gravely; “and die like soldiers, killing three for one.”
“What's that sound?”
“IT IS THE AVENGER OF BLOOD.”
“Oh, Martin, save him! Oh, Heaven be merciful What new mysterious peril is this?”
“GIRL, IT'S A BLOODHOUND.”
The courage, like the talent, of common men, runs in a narrow groove. Take them but an inch out of that, and they are done. Martin's courage was perfect as far as it went. He had met and baffled many dangers in the course of his rude life, and these familiar dangers he could face with Spartan fortitude, almost with indifference; but he had never been hunted by a bloodhound, nor had he ever seen that brute's unerring instinct baffled by human cunning. Here then a sense of the supernatural combined with novelty to ungenteel his heart. After going a few steps, he leaned on his bow, and energy and hope oozed out of him. Gerard, to whom the danger appeared slight in proportion as it was distant, urged him to flight.
“What avails it?” said Martin sadly; “if we get clear of the wood we shall die cheap; here, hard by, I know a place where we may die dear.”
“Alas! good Martin,” cried Gerard, “despair not so quickly; there must be some way to escape.”
“Oh, Martin!” cried Margaret, “what if we were to part company? Gerard's life alone is forfeit. Is there no way to draw the pursuit on us twain and let him go safe?”
“Girl, you know not the bloodhound's nature. He is not on this man's track or that; he is on the track of blood. My life on't they have taken him to where Ghysbrecht fell, and from the dead man's blood to the man that shed it that cursed hound will lead them, though Gerard should run through an army or swim the Meuse.” And again he leaned upon his bow, and his head sank.
The hound's mellow voice rang through the wood.
A cry more tunableWas never halloed to, nor cheered with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, or in Thessaly.
Strange that things beautiful should be terrible and deadly' The eye of the boa-constrictor, while fascinating its prey, is lovely. No royal crown holds such a jewel; it is a ruby with the emerald's green light playing ever upon it. Yet the deer that sees it loses all power of motion, and trembles, and awaits his death and even so, to compare hearing with sight, this sweet and mellow sound seemed to fascinate Martin Wittenhaagen. He stood uncertain, bewildered, and unnerved. Gerard was little better now. Martin's last words had daunted him, He had struck an old man and shed his blood, and, by means of that very blood, blood's four-footed avenger was on his track. Was not the finger of Heaven in this?
Whilst the men were thus benumbed, the woman's brain was all activity. The man she loved was in danger.
“Lend me your knife,” said she to Martin. He gave it her.
“But 'twill be little use in your hands,” said he.
Then Margaret did a sly thing. She stepped behind Gerard, and furtively drew the knife across her arm, and made it bleed freely; then stooping, smeared her hose and shoes; and still as the blood trickled she smeared them; but so adroitly that neither Gerard nor Martin saw. Then she seized the soldier's arm.
“Come, be a man!” she said, “and let this end. Take us to some thick place, where numbers will not avail our foes.”
“I am going,” said Martin sulkily. “Hurry avails not; we cannot shun the hound, and the place is hard by;” then turning to the left, he led the way, as men go to execution.
He soon brought them to a thick hazel coppice, like the one that had favoured their escape in the morning.
“There,” said he, “this is but a furlong broad, but it will serve our turn.”
“What are we to do?”
“Get through this, and wait on the other side; then as they come straggling through, shoot three, knock two on the head, and the rest will kill us.”
“Is that all you can think of?” said Gerard.
“That is all.”
“Then, Martin Wittenhaagen, I take the lead, for you have lost your head. Come, can you obey so young a man as I am?”
“Oh, yes, Martin,” cried Margaret, “do not gainsay Gerard! He is wiser than his years.”
Martin yielded a sullen assent.
“Do then as you see me do,” said Gerard; and drawing his huge knife, he cut at every step a hazel shoot or two close by the ground, and turning round twisted them breast-high behind him among the standing shoots. Martin did the same, but with a dogged hopeless air. When they had thus painfully travelled through the greater part of the coppice, the bloodhound's deep bay came nearer and nearer, less and less musical, louder and sterner.
Margaret trembled.
Martin went down on his stomach and listened.
“I hear a horse's feet.”
“No,” said Gerard; “I doubt it is a mule's. That cursed Ghysbrecht is still alive: none other would follow me up so bitterly.”
“Never strike your enemy but to slay him,” said Martin gloomily.
“I'll hit harder this time, if Heaven gives me the chance,” said Gerard.
At last they worked through the coppice, and there was an open wood. The trees were large, but far apart, and no escape possible that way.
And now with the hound's bay mingled a score of voices hooping and hallooing.
“The whole village is out after us,” said Martin.
“I care not,” said Gerard. “Listen, Martin. I have made the track smooth to the dog, but rough to the men, that we may deal with them apart. Thus the hound will gain on the men, and as soon as he comes out of the coppice we must kill him.”
“The hound? There are more than one.”
“I hear but one.”
“Ay! but one speaks, the others run mute; but let the leading hound lose the scent, then another shall give tongue. There will be two dogs, at least, or devils in dog's hides.”
“Then we must kill two instead of one. The moment they are dead, into the coppice again, and go right back.”
“That is a good thought, Gerard,” said Martin, plucking up heart.
“Hush! the men are in the wood.”
Gerard now gave his orders in a whisper.
“Stand you with your bow by the side of the coppice—there, in the ditch. I will go but a few yards to yon oak-tree, and hide behind it; the dogs will follow me, and, as they come out, shoot as many as you can, the rest will I brain as they come round the tree.”
Martin's eye flashed. They took up their places.
The hooping and hallooing came closer and closer, and soon even the rustling of the young wood was heard, and every now and then the unerring bloodhound gave a single bay.
It was terrible! the branches rustling nearer and nearer, and the inevitable struggle for life and death coming on minute by minute, and that death-knell leading it. A trembling hand was laid on Gerard's shoulder. It made him start violently, strung up as he was.
“Martin says if we are forced to part company, make for that high ash-tree we came in by.”
“Yes! yes! yes! but go back for Heaven's sake! don't come here, all out in the open!”
She ran back towards Martin; but, ere she could get to him, suddenly a huge dog burst out of the coppice, and stood erect a moment. Margaret cowered with fear, but he never noticed her. Scent was to him what sight is to us. He lowered his nose an instant, and the next moment, with an awful yell, sprang straight at Gerard's tree and rolled head-over-heels dead as a stone, literally spitted with an arrow from the bow that twanged beside the coppice in Martin's hand. That same moment out came another hound and smelt his dead comrade. Gerald rushed out at him; but ere he could use his cudgel, a streak of white lightning seemed to strike the hound, and he grovelled in the dust, wounded desperately, but not killed, and howling piteously.
Gerard had not time to despatch him: the coppice rustled too near: it seemed alive. Pointing wildly to Martin to go back, Gerard ran a few yards to the right, then crept cautiously into the thick coppice just as three men burst out. These had headed their comrades considerably: the rest were following at various distances. Gerard crawled back almost on all-fours. Instinct taught Martin and Margaret to do the same upon their line of retreat. Thus, within the distance of a few yards, the pursuers and pursued were passing one another upon opposite tracks.
A loud cry announced the discovery of the dead and the wounded hound. Then followed a babble of voices, still swelling as fresh pursuers reached the spot. The hunters, as usual on a surprise, were wasting time, and the hunted ones were making the most of it.
“I hear no more hounds,” whispered Martin to Margaret, and he was himself again.
It was Margaret's turn to tremble and despair.
“Oh, why did we part with Gerard? They will kill my Gerard, and I not near him.”
“Nay, nay! the head to catch him is not on their shoulders. You bade him meet us at the ash-tree?”
“And so I did. Bless you, Martin, for thinking of that. To the ash-tree!”
“Ay! but with less noise.”
They were now nearly at the edge of the coppice, when suddenly they heard hooping and hallooing behind them. The men had satisfied themselves the fugitives were in the coppice, and were beating back.
“No matter,” whispered Martin to his trembling companion. “We shall have time to win clear and slip back out of sight by hard running. Ah!”
He stooped suddenly; for just as he was going to burst out of the brushwood, his eye caught a figure keeping sentinel. It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten seated on his mule; a bloody bandage was across his nose, the bridge of which was broken; but over this his eyes peered keenly, and it was plain by their expression he had heard the fugitives rustle, and was looking out for them. Martin muttered a terrible oath, and cautiously strung his bow, then with equal caution fitted his last arrow to the string. Margaret put her hands to her face, but said nothing. She saw this man must die or Gerard. After the first impulse she peered through her fingers, her heart panting to her throat.
The bow was raised, and the deadly arrow steadily drawn to its head, when at that moment an active figure leaped on Ghysbrecht from behind so swiftly, it was like a hawk swooping on a pigeon. A kerchief went over the burgomaster, in a turn of the hand his head was muffled in it, and he was whirled from his seat and fell heavily upon the ground, where he lay groaning with terror; and Gerard jumped down after him.
“Hist, Martin! Martin!”
Martin and Margaret came out, the former openmouthed crying, “Now fly! fly! while they are all in the thicket; we are saved.”
At this crisis, when safety seemed at hand, as fate would have it, Margaret, who had borne up so bravely till now, began to succumb, partly from loss of blood.
“Oh, my beloved, fly!” she gasped. “Leave me, for I am faint.”
“No! no!” cried Gerard. “Death together, or safety. Ah! the mule! mount her, you, and I'll run by your side.”
In a moment Martin was on Ghysbrecht's mule, and Gerard raised the fainting girl in his arms and placed her on the saddle, and relieved Martin of his bow.
“Help! treason! murder! murder!” shrieked Ghysbrecht, suddenly rising on his hams.
“Silence, cur,” roared Gerard, and trode him down again by the throat as men crush an adder.
“Now, have you got her firm? Then fly! for our lives! for our lives!”
But even as the mule, urged suddenly by Martin's heel, scattered the flints with his hind hoofs ere he got into a canter, and even as Gerard withdrew his foot from Ghysbrecht's throat to run, Dierich Brower and his five men, who had come back for orders, and heard the burgomaster's cries, burst roaring out of the coppice on them.
Speech is the familiar vent of human thoughts; but there are emotions so simple and overpowering, that they rush out not in words, but eloquent sounds. At such moments man seems to lose his characteristics, and to be merely one of the higher animals; for these, when greatly agitated, ejaculate, though they cannot speak.
There was something terrible and truly animal, both in the roar of triumph with which the pursuers burst out of the thicket on our fugitives, and the sharp cry of terror with which these latter darted away. The pursuers hands clutched the empty air, scarce two feet behind them, as they fled for life. Confused for a moment, like lions that miss their spring, Dierich and his men let Gerard and the mule put ten yards between them. Then they flew after with uplifted weapons. They were sure of catching them; for this was not the first time the parties had measured speed. In the open ground they had gained visibly on the three this morning, and now, at last, it was a fair race again, to be settled by speed alone. A hundred yards were covered in no time. Yet still there remained these ten yards between the pursuers and the pursued.
This increase of speed since the morning puzzled Dierich Brower. The reason was this. When three run in company, the pace is that of the slowest of the three. From Peter's house to the edge of the forest Gerard ran Margaret's pace; but now he ran his own; for the mule was fleet, and could have left them all far behind. Moreover, youth and chaste living began to tell. Daylight grew imperceptibly between the hunted ones and the hunters. Then Dierich made a desperate effort, and gained two yards; but in a few seconds Gerard had stolen them quietly back. The pursuers began to curse.
Martin heard, and his face lighted up. “Courage, Gerard! courage, brave lad! they are straggling.”
It was so. Dierich was now headed by one of his men, and another dropped into the rear altogether.
They came to a rising ground, not sharp, but long; and here youth, and grit, and sober living told more than ever.
Ere he reached the top, Dierich's forty years weighed him down like forty bullets. “Our cake is dough,” he gasped. “Take him dead, if you can't alive;” and he left running, and followed at a foot's pace. Jorian Ketel tailed off next; and then another, and so, one by one, Gerard ran them all to a standstill, except one who kept on stanch as a bloodhound, though losing ground every minute. His name, if I am not mistaken, was Eric Wouverman. Followed by him, they came to a rise in the wood, shorter, but much steeper than the last.
“Hand on mane!” cried Martin.
Gerard obeyed, and the mule helped him up the hill faster even than he was running before.
At the sight of this manoeuvre, Dierich's man lost heart, and, being now full eighty yards behind Gerard, and rather more than that in advance of his nearest comrade, he pulled up short, and, in obedience to Dierich's order, took down his crossbow, levelled it deliberately, and just as the trio were sinking out of sight over the crest of the hill, sent the bolt whizzing among them.
There was a cry of dismay; and, next moment, as if a thunder-bolt had fallen on them, they were all lying on the ground, mule and all.
The effect was so sudden and magical, that the shooter himself was stupefied for an instant. Then he hailed his companions to join him in effecting the capture, and himself set off up the hill; but, ere he had got half way, up rose the figure of Martin Wittenhaagen with a bent bow in his hand. Eric Wouverman no sooner saw him in this attitude, than he darted behind a tree, and made himself as small as possible. Martin's skill with that weapon was well known, and the slain dog was a keen reminder of it.
Wouverman peered round the bark cautiously: there was the arrow's point still aimed at him. He saw it shine. He dared not move from his shelter.
When he had been at peep-ho some minutes, his companions came up in great force.
Then, with a scornful laugh, Martin vanished, and presently was heard to ride off on the mule.
All the men ran up together. The high ground commanded a view of a narrow but almost interminable glade.
They saw Gerard and Margaret running along at a prodigious distance; they looked like gnats; and Martin galloping after them ventre a terre.
The hunters were outwitted as well as outrun. A few words will explain Martin's conduct. We arrive at causes by noting coincidences; yet, now and then, coincidences are deceitful. As we have all seen a hare tumble over a briar just as the gun went off, and so raise expectations, then dash them to earth by scudding away untouched, so the burgomaster's mule put her foot in a rabbit-hole at or about the time the crossbow bolt whizzed innocuous over her head: she fell and threw both her riders. Gerard caught Margaret, but was carried down by her weight and impetus; and, behold, the soil was strewed with dramatis personae.
The docile mule was up again directly, and stood trembling. Martin was next, and looking round saw there was but one in pursuit; on this he made the young lovers fly on foot, while he checked the enemy as I have recorded.
He now galloped after his companions, and when after a long race he caught them, he instantly put Gerard and Margaret on the mule, and ran by their side till his breath failed, then took his turn to ride, and so in rotation. Thus the runner was always fresh, and long ere they relaxed their speed all sound and trace of them was hopelessly lost to Dierich and his men. These latter went crestfallen back to look after their chief and their winged bloodhound.