He was a young man, and a Dutchman, but not a Dutchman of the stout, burly type which I had most commonly seen in the country. He had, it is true, the usual fair hair and blue eyes, and he was rather short than tall; but his figure was thin and meager, and he had a pointed nose and chin, and a scanty fair beard. I took him to be nearsighted: at a second glance I saw that he was angry. He was talking fast to Dymphna--of course in Dutch--and my first impulse, in face of his excited gestures and queer appearance, was to laugh. But I had a notion what his relationship to the girl was, and I smothered this, and instead asked, as soon as I could get a word in, whether I should leave them.
"Oh, no!" Dymphna answered, blushing slightly, and turning to me with a troubled glance. I believe she had clean forgotten my presence. "This is Master Jan Van Tree, a good friend of ours. And this," she continued, still in Spanish, but speaking to him, "is Master Carey, one of my father's guests."
We bowed, he formally, for he had not recovered his temper, and I--I dare say I still had my Spanish ancestors in my head--with condescension. We disliked one another at sight, I think. I dubbed him a mean little fellow, a trader, a peddler; and, however he classed me, it was not favorably. So it was no particular desire to please him which led me to say with outward solicitude, "I fear you are annoyed at something, Master Van Tree?"
"I am!" he said bluntly, meeting me half-way.
"And am I to know the cause?" I asked, "or is it a secret?"
"It is no secret!" he retorted. "Mistress Lindstrom should have been more careful. She should not have exposed herself to the chance of being seen by those miserable foreigners."
"The foreigners--in the boat?" I said dryly.
"Yes, of course--in the boat," he answered. He was obliged to say that, but he glared at me across her as he spoke. We had turned and were walking back to the house, the poplars casting long shadows across our path.
"They were rude," I observed carelessly, my chin very high. "But there is no particular harm done that I can see, Master Van Tree."
"Perhaps not, as far as you can see," he retorted in great excitement. "But perhaps also you are not very far-sighted. You may not see it now, yet harm will follow."
"Possibly," I said, and I was going to follow up this seemingly candid admission by something very boorish, when Mistress Dymphna struck in nervously.
"My father is anxious," she explained, speaking to me, "that I should have as little to do with our Spanish governors as possible, Master Carey. It always vexes him to hear that I have fallen in their way, and that is why my friend feels annoyed. It was not, of course, your fault, since you did not know of this. It was I," she continued hurriedly, "who should not have ventured to the elm tree without seeing that the coast was clear."
I knew that she was timidly trying, her color coming and going, to catch my eye; to appease me as the greater stranger, and to keep the peace between her ill-matched companions, who, indeed, stalked along eying one another much as a wolf-hound and a badger-dog might regard each other across a choice bone. But the young Dutchman's sudden appearance had put me out. I was not in love with her, yet I liked to talk to her, and I grudged her to him, he seemed so mean a fellow. And so--churl that I was--in answer to her speech I let drop some sneer about the great fear of the Spaniards which seemed to prevail in these parts.
"Youare not afraid of them, then?" Van Tree said, with a smile.
"No, I am not," I answered, my lip curling also.
"Ah!" with much meaning. "Perhaps you do not know them very well."
"Perhaps not," I replied. "Still, my grandmother was a Spaniard."
"So I should have thought," he retorted swiftly.
So swiftly that I felt the words as I should have felt a blow. "What do you mean?" I blurted out, halting before him, with my cheek crimson. In vain were all Dymphna's appealing glances, all her signs of distress. "I will have you explain, Master Van Tree, what you mean by that?" I repeated fiercely.
"I mean what I said," he answered, confronting me stubbornly, and shaking off Dymphna's hand. His blue eyes twinkled with rage, his thin beard bristled; he was the color of a turkey-cock's comb. At home we should have thought him a comical little figure; but he did not seem so absurd here. For one thing, he looked spiteful enough for anything; and for another, though I topped him by a head and shoulders, I could not flatter myself that he was afraid of me. On the contrary, I felt that in the presence of his mistress, small and short-sighted as he was, he would have faced a lion without winking.
His courage was not to be put to the proof. I was still glaring at him, seeking some retort which should provoke him beyond endurance, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and I turned to find that Master Bertie and the Duchess had joined us.
"So here are the truants," the former said pleasantly, speaking in English, and showing no consciousness whatever of the crisis in the middle of which he had come up, though he must have discerned in our defiant attitudes, and in Dymphna's troubled face, that something was wrong. "You know who this is, Master Francis," he continued heartily. "Or have you not been introduced to Master Van Tree, the betrothed of our host's daughter?"
"Mistress Dymphna has done me that honor," I said stiffly, recovering myself in appearance, while at heart sore and angry with everybody. "But I fear the Dutch gentleman has not thanked her for the introduction, since he learned that my grandmother was Spanish."
"Yourgrandmother, do you mean?" cried the Duchess, much astonished.
"Yes, madam."
"Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and appealing whimsically to the others. "This boy is full of starts and surprises. You never know what he will produce next. The other day it was a warrant! To-day it is a grandmother, and a temper!"
I could not be angry with her; and perhaps I was not sorry now that my quarrel with the young Dutchman had stopped where it had. I affected, as well as I could, to join in the laugh at my expense, and took advantage of the arrival of our host--who at this moment came up the slope from the landing-place, his hands outstretched and a smile of greeting on his kindly face--to slip away unnoticed, and make amends to my humor by switching off the heads of the withes by the river.
But naturally the scene left a degree of ill-feeling behind it; and for the first time, during the two months we had spent under Master Lindstrom's roof, the party who sat down to supper were under some constraint. I felt that the young Dutchman had had the best of the bout in the garden; and I talked loudly and foolishly in the boyish attempt to assert myself, and to set myself right at least in my own estimation. Master Van Tree meanwhile sat silent, eying me from time to time in no friendly fashion. Dymphna seemed nervous and frightened, and the Duchess and her husband exchanged troubled glances. Only our host and Mistress Anne, who was in particularly good spirits, were unaffected by the prevailing chill.
Mistress Anne, indeed, in her ignorance, made matters worse. She had begun to pick up some Dutch, and was fond of airing her knowledge and practicing fresh sentences at meal-times. By some ill-luck she contrived this evening--particularly after, finding no one to contradict me, I had fallen into comparative silence--to frame her sentences so as to cause as much embarrassment as possible to all of us. "Where did you walk with Dymphna this morning?" was the question put to me. "You are fond of the water; Englishmen are fond of the water," she said to Dymphna. "Dymphna is tall; Master Francis is tall. I sit by you to-night; the Dutch lady sat by you last night," and soon, and so on, with prattle which seemed to amuse our host exceedingly--he was never tired of correcting her mistakes--but which put the rest of us out of countenance, bringing the tears to poor Dymphna's eyes--she did not know where to look--and making her lover glower at me as though he would eat me.
It was in vain that the Duchess made spasmodic rushes into conversation, and in the intervals nodded and frowned at the delinquent. Mistress Anne in her innocence saw nothing. She went on until Van Tree could stand it no longer, and with a half-smothered threat, which was perfectly intelligible to me, rose roughly from the table, and went to the door as if to look out at the night.
"What is the matter?" Mistress Anne said, wonderingly, in English. Her eyes seemed at length to be opened to the fact that something was amiss with us.
Before I could answer, the Duchess, who had risen, came behind her. "You little fool!" she whispered fiercely, "if fool you are. You deserve to be whipped!"
"Why, what have I done?" murmured the girl, really frightened now, and appealing to me.
"Done!" whispered the Duchess; and I think she pinched her, for my neighbor winced. "More harm than you guess, you minx! And for you, Master Francis, a word with you. Come with me to my room, please."
I went with her, half-minded to be angry, and half-inclined to feel ashamed of myself. She did not give me time, however, to consider which attitude I should take up, for the moment the door of her room was closed behind us, she turned upon me, the color high in her cheeks. "Now, young man," she said in a tone of ringing contempt, "do you really think that that girl is in love with you?"
"What girl?" I asked sheepishly. The unexpected question and her tone put me out of countenance.
"What girl? What girl?" she replied impatiently. "Don't play with me, boy! You know whom I mean. Dymphna Lindstrom!"
"Oh, I thought you meant Mistress Anne," I said, somewhat impertinently.
Her face fell in an extraordinary fashion, as if the suggestion were not pleasant to her. But she answered on the instant: "Well! The vanity of the lad! Do you think all the girls are in love with you? Because you have been sitting with a pretty face on each side of you, do you think you have only to throw the handkerchief, this way or that? If you do, open your eyes, and you will find it is not so. My kinswoman can take care of herself, so we will leave her out of the discussion, please. And for this pink and white Dutch girl," my lady continued viciously, "let me tell you that she thinks more of Van Tree's little finger than of your whole body."
I shrugged my shoulders, but still I was mortified. A young man may not be in love with a girl, yet it displeases him to hear that she is indifferent to him.
The Duchess noticed the movement. "Don't do that," she cried in impatient scorn. "You do not see much in Master Van Tree, perhaps? I thought not. Therefore you think a girl must be of the same mind as yourself. Well," with a fierce little nod, "you will learn some day that it is not so, that women are not quite what men think them; and particularly, Master Francis, that six feet of manhood, and a pretty face on top of it, do not always have their way. But there, I did not bring you here to tell you that. I want to know whether you are aware what you are doing?"
I muttered something to the effect that I did not know I was doing any harm.
"You do not call it harm, then," the Duchess retorted with energy, "to endanger the safety of every one of us? Cannot you see that if you insult and offend this young man--which you are doing out of pure wanton mischief, for you are not in love with the girl--he may ruin us?"
"Ruin us?" I repeated incredulously.
"Yes, ruin us!" she cried. "Here we are, living more or less in hiding through the kindness of Master Lindstrom--living in peace and quietness. But do you suppose that inquiries are not being made for us? Why, I would bet a dozen gold angels that Master Clarence is in the Netherlands, at this moment, tracking us."
I was startled by this idea, and she saw I was. "We can trust Master Lindstrom, were it only for his own sake," she continued more quietly, satisfied perhaps with the effect she had produced. "And this young man, who is the son of one of the principal men of Arnheim, is also disposed to look kindly on us, as I fancy it is his nature to look. But if you make mischief between Dymphna and him----"
"I have not," I said.
"Then do not," she replied sharply. "Look to it for the future. And more, do not let him fancy it possible. Jealousy is as easily awakened as it is hardly put to sleep. A word from this young man to the Spanish authorities, and we should be hauled back to England in a trice, if worse did not befall us here. Now, you will be careful?"
"I will," I said, conscience-stricken and a little cowed.
"That is better," she replied smiling. "I think you will. Now go."
I went down again with some food for thought--with some good intentions, too. But I was to find--the discovery is made by many--that good resolutions commonly come too late. When I went downstairs I found my host and Master Bertie alone in the parlor. The girls had disappeared, so had Van Tree, and I saw at once that something had happened. Master Bertie was standing gazing at the stove very thoughtfully, and the Dutchman was walking up and down the room with an almost comical expression of annoyance and trouble on his pleasant face.
"Where are the young ladies?" I asked.
"Upstairs," said Master Bertie, not looking at me.
"And--and Van Tree?" I asked mechanically. Somehow I anticipated the answer.
"Gone!" said the Englishman curtly.
"Ay, gone, the foolish lad!" the Dutchman struck in, tugging at his beard. "What has come to him? He is not wont to show temper. I have never known him and Dymphna have a cross word before. What has come to the lad, I say, to go off in a passion at this time of night? And no one knows whither he has gone, or when he will come back again!"
He seemed as he spoke hardly conscious of my presence; but Master Bertie turned and looked at me, and I hung my head, and very shortly afterward, I slunk out. The thought of what I might have brought upon us all by my petulance and vanity made me feel sick. I crept up to bed nervous and fearful of the morrow, listening to every noise without, and praying inwardly that my alarm might not be justified.
When the morrow came I went downstairs as anxious to see Van Tree in the flesh as I had been yesterday disappointed by his appearance. But no Van Tree was there to be seen. Nothing had been heard of him. Dymphna moved restlessly about, her cheeks pale, her eyes downcast, and if I had ever flattered myself that I was anything to the girl, I was undeceived now. The Duchess shot angry glances at me from time to time. Master Bertie kept looking anxiously at the door. Every one seemed to fear and to expect something. But none of them feared and expected it as I did.
"He must have gone home; he must have gone to Arnheim," said our host, trying to hide his vexation. "He will be back in a day or two. Young men will be young men."
But I found that the Duchess did not share the belief that Van Tree had gone home; for in the course of the morning she took occasion, when we were alone, to charge me to be careful not to come into collision with him.
"How can I, now he has gone?" I said meekly, feeling I was in disgrace.
"He has not gone far," replied the Duchess meaningly. "Depend upon it, he will not go far out of sight unless there is more harm done than I think, or he is very different from English lovers. But if you come across him, I pray you to keep clear of him, Master Francis."
I nodded assent.
But of what weight are resolutions, with fate in the other scale! It was some hours after this, toward two o'clock indeed, when Mistress Anne came to me, looking flurried and vexed. "Have you seen Dymphna?" she asked abruptly.
"No," I answered. "Why?"
"Because she is not in the house," the girl answered, speaking quickly, "nor in the garden; and the last time I saw her she was crossing the island toward the footbridge. I think she has gone that way to be on the lookout--you can guess for whom [with a smile]. But I am fearful lest she shall meet some one else, Master Francis; she is wearing her gold chain, and one of the maids says that she saw two of the Spanish garrison on the road near the end of the footbridge this morning. That is the way by land to Arnheim, you know."
"That is bad," I said. "What is to be done?"
"You must go and look for her," Anne suggested. "She should not be alone."
"Let her father go, or Master Bertie," I answered.
"Her father has gone down the river--to Arnheim, I expect; and Master Bertie is fishing in a boat somewhere. It will take time to find him. Why cannot you go? If she has crossed the footbridge she will not be far away."
She seemed so anxious as she spoke for the Dutch girl's safety, that she infected me with her fears, and I let myself be persuaded. After all there might be danger, and I did not see what else was to be done. Indeed, Mistress Anne did not leave me until she had seen me clear of the orchard and half across the meadows toward the footbridge. "Mind you bring her back," she cried after me. "Do not let her come alone!" And those were her last words.
After we had separated I did think for a moment that it was a pity I had not asked her to come with me. But the thought occurred too late, and I strode on toward the head of the bridge, resolving that, as soon as I had sighted Dymphna, I would keep away from her and content myself with watching over her from a distance. As I passed by the little cluster of cottages on the landward side of the island, I glanced sharply about me, for I thought it not unlikely that Master Van Tree might be lurking in the neighborhood. But I saw nothing either of her or him. All was quiet, the air full of spring sunshine and warmth and hope and the blossoms of fruit trees; and with an indefinable pleasure, a feeling of escape from control and restraint, I crossed the long footbridge, and set foot, almost for the first time since our arrival--for at Master Lindstrom's desire we had kept very close--on the river bank.
To the right a fair road or causeway along the waterside led to Arnheim. At the point where I stood, this road on its way from the city took a turn at right angles, running straight away from the river to avoid a wide track of swamp and mere which lay on my left--a quaking marsh many miles round, overgrown with tall rushes and sedges, which formed the head of the bay in which our island lay. I looked up the long, straight road to Arnheim, and saw only a group of travelers moving slowly along it, their backs toward me. The road before me was bare of passengers. Where, then, was Dymphna, if she had crossed the bridge? In the last resort I scanned the green expanse of rushes and willows, which stretched, with intervals of open water, as far as the eye could reach on my left. It was all rustling and shimmering in the light breeze, but my eye picked out one or two raised dykes which penetrated it here and there, and served at once as pathways to islets in the mere and as breastworks against further encroachments of the river. Presently, on one of these, of which the course was fairly defined by a line of willows, I made out the flutter of a woman's hood. And I remembered that the day before I had heard Dymphna express a wish to go to the marsh for some herb which grew there.
"Right!" I said, seating myself with much satisfaction on the last post of the bridge. "She is safe enough there! And I will go no nearer. It is only on the road she is likely to be in danger from our Spanish gallants!"
My eyes, released from duty, wandered idly over the landscape for a while, but presently returned to the dyke across the mere. I could not now see Dymphna. The willows hid her, and I waited for her to reappear. She did not, but some one else did; for by and by, on the same path and crossing an interval between the willows, there came into sight a man's form.
"Ho! ho!" I said, following it with my eyes. "So I may go home! Master Van Tree is on the track. And now I hope they will make it up!" I added pettishly.
Another second and I started up with a low cry. The sunlight had caught a part of the man's dress, a shining something which flashed back a point of intense light. The something I guessed at once was a corselet, and it needed scarce another thought to apprise me that Dymphna's follower was not Van Tree at all, but a Spanish soldier!
I lost no time; yet it took me a minute--a minute of trembling haste and anxiety--to discover the path from the causeway on to the dyke. When once I had stumbled on to the latter I found I had lost sight of both figures; but I ran along at the top of my speed, calculating that the two, who could not be far apart, the man being the nearer to me, were about a quarter of a mile or rather more from the road. I had gone one-half of this distance perhaps when a shrill scream in front caused me to redouble my efforts. I expected to find the ruffian in the act of robbing the girl, and clutched my cudgel--for, alas! I had left my sword at home--more tightly in my grasp, so that it was an immense relief to me when, on turning an angle in the dyke, I saw her running toward me. Her face, still white with fear, however, and her hair streaming loosely behind her, told how narrow had been her escape--if escape it could be called. For about ten feet behind her, the hood he had plucked off still in his grasp, came Master Spaniard, hot-foot and panting, but gaining on her now with every stride.
stoodI STOOD OVER HIM WATCHING HIM
He was a tall fellow, gayly dressed, swarthy, mustachioed, and fierce-eyed. His corselet and sword-belt shone and jingled as he ran and swore; but he had dropped his feathered bonnet in the slight struggle which had evidently taken place when she got by him; and it lay a black spot in the middle of the grassy avenue behind him. The sun--it was about three hours after noon--was at my back, and shining directly into his eyes, and I marked this as I raised my cudgel and jumped aside to let the girl pass; for she in her blind fear would have run against me.
It was almost the same with him. He did not see me until I was within a few paces of him, and even then I think he noticed my presence merely as that of an unwelcome spectator. He fancied I should step aside; and he cursed me, calling me a Dutch dog for getting in his way.
The next moment--he had not drawn his sword nor made any attempt to draw it--we came together violently, and I had my hand on his throat. We swayed as we whirled round one another in the first shock of the collision. A cry of astonishment escaped him--astonishment at my hardihood. He tried, his eyes glaring into mine, and his hot breath on my cheek, to get at his dagger. But it was too late. I brought down my staff, with all the strength of an arm nerved at the moment by rage and despair, upon his bare head.
He went down like a stone, and the blood bubbled from his lips. I stood over him watching him. He stretched himself out and turned with a convulsive movement on his face. His hands clawed the grass. His leg moved once, twice, a third time faintly. Then he lay still.
There was a lark singing just over my head, and its clear notes seemed, during the long, long minute while I stood bending over him in an awful fascination, to be the only sounds in nature. I looked so long at him in that dreadful stillness and absorption, I dared not at last look up lest I should see I knew not what. Yet when a touch fell on my arm I did not start.
"You have killed him!" the girl whispered, shuddering.
"Yes, I have killed him," I answered mechanically.
I could not take my eyes off him. It was not as if I had done this thing after a long conflict, or in amêléewith others fighting round me, or on the battle-field. I should have felt no horror then such as I felt now, standing over him in the sunshine with the lark's song in my ears. It had happened so quickly, and the waste about us was so still; and I had never killed a man before, nor seen a man die.
"Oh, come away!" Dymphna wailed suddenly. "Come away!"
I turned then, and the sight of the girl's wan face and strained eyes recalled me in some degree to myself. I saw she was ill; and hastily I gave her my arm, and partly carried, partly supported, her back to the road. The way seemed long and I looked behind me often. But we reached the causeway at last, and there in the open I felt some relief. Yet even then, stopping to cast a backward glance at the marsh, I shuddered anew, espying a bright white spark gleaming amid the green of the rushes. It was the dead man's corselet. But if it had been his eye I could scarcely have shrunk from it in greater dread.
It will be imagined that we were not long in crossing the island. Naturally I was full of what had happened, and never gave a thought to Van Tree's jealousy, or the incidents of his short visit. I had indeed forgotten his existence until we reached the porch. There entering rapidly, with Dymphna clinging to my arm, I was so oblivious of other matters that when the young Dutchman rose suddenly from the seat on one side of the door, and at the same moment the Duchess rose from the bench on the other, I did not understand in the first instant of surprise what was the matter, though I let Dymphna's hand fall from my arm. The dark scowling face of the one, however, and the anger and chagrin written on the features of the other, as they both glared at us, brought all back to me in a flash. But it was too late. Before I could utter a word the girl's lover pushed by me with a fierce gesture and fiercer cry, and disappeared round a corner of the house.
"Was ever such folly!" cried the Duchess, stamping her foot, and standing before us, her face crimson. "Or such fools! You idiot! You----"
"Hush, madam," I said sternly--had I really grown older in doing the deed? "something has happened."
And Dymphna, with a low cry of "The Spaniard! The Spaniard!" tottered up to her and fainted in her arms.
"This is a serious matter," said Master Bertie thoughtfully, as we sat in conclave an hour later round the table in the parlor. Mistress Anne was attending to Dymphna upstairs, and Van Tree had not returned again; so that we had been unable to tell him of the morning's adventure. But the rest of us were there. "It considerably adds to the danger of our position," Bertie continued.
"Of course it does," his wife said promptly. "But Master Lindstrom here can best judge of that, and of what course it will be safest to take."
"It depends," our host answered slowly, "upon whether the dead man be discovered before night. You see if the body be not found----"
"Well?" said my lady impatiently, as he paused.
"Then we must some of us go after dark and bury him," he decided. "And perhaps, though he will be missed at the next roll-call in the city, his death may not be proved, or traced to this neighborhood. In that case the storm will blow over, and things be no worse than before."
"I fear there is no likelihood of that," I said; "for I am told he had a companion. One of the maids noticed them lurking about the end of the bridge more than once this morning."
Our host's face fell.
"That is bad," he said, looking at me in evident consternation. "Who told you?"
"Mistress Anne. And one of the maids told her. It was that which led me to follow your daughter."
The old man got up for about the fortieth time, and shook my hand, while the tears stood in his eyes and his lip trembled. "Heaven bless you, Master Carey!" he said. "But for you, my girl might not have escaped."
He could not finish. His emotion choked him, and he sat down again. The event of the morning--his daughter's danger, and my share in averting it--had touched him as nothing else could have touched him. I met the Duchess's eyes and they too were soft and shining, wearing an expression very different from that which had greeted me on my return with Dymphna.
"Ah, well! she is safe," Master Lindstrom resumed, when he had regained his composure. "Thanks to Heaven and your friend, madam! Small matter now if house and lands go!"
"Still, let us hope they will not," Master Bertie said. "Do you think these miscreants were watching the island on our account? That some information had been given as to our presence, and they were sent to learn what they could?"
"No, no!" the Dutchman answered confidently. "It was the sight of the girl and her gewgaws yesterday brought them--the villains! There is nothing safe from them and nothing sacred to them. They saw her as they passed up in the boat, you remember."
"But then, supposing the worst to come to the worst?"
"We must escape across the frontier to Wesel, in the Duchy of Cleves," replied Lindstrom in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he had long considered and settled the point. "The distance is not great, and in Wesel we may find shelter, at any rate for a time. Even there, if pressure be brought to bear upon the Government to give us up, I would not trust it. Yet for a time it may do."
"And you would leave all this?" the Duchess said in wonder, her eyes traveling round the room, so clean and warm and comfortable, and settling at length upon the great armoire of plate, which happened to be opposite to her. "You would leave all this at a moment's notice?"
"Yes, madam, all we could not carry with us," he answered simply. "Honor and life, these come first. And I thank Heaven that I live here within reach of a foreign soil, and not in the interior, where escape would be hopeless."
"But if the true facts were known," the Duchess urged, "would you still be in danger? Would not the magistrates protect you? The Schout and Schepen as you call them? They are Dutchmen."
"Against a Spanish governor and a Spanish garrison?" he replied with emphasis. "Ay, they would protect me--as one sheep protects another against the wolves. No! I dare not risk it. Were I in prison, what would become of Dymphna?"
"Master Van Tree?"
"He has the will to shelter her, no doubt. And his father has influence; but such as mine--a broken reed to trust to. Then Dymphna is not all. Once in prison, whatever the charge, there would be questioning about religion; perhaps," with a faint smile, "questioning about my guests."
"I suppose you know best," said the Duchess, with a sigh. "But I hope the worst will not come to the worst."
"Amen to that!" he answered quite cheerfully.
Indeed, it was strange that we seemed to feel more sorrow at the prospect of leaving this haven of a few weeks, than our host of quitting the home of a lifetime. But the necessity had come upon us suddenly, while he had contemplated it for years. So much fear and humiliation had mingled with his enjoyment of his choicest possessions that this long-expected moment brought with it a feeling akin to relief.
For myself I had a present trouble that outweighed any calamity of to-morrow. Perforce, since I alone knew the spot where the man lay, I must be one of the burying party. My nerves had not recovered from the blow which the sight of the Spaniard lying dead at my feet had dealt them so short a time before, and I shrank with a natural repulsion from the task before me. Yet there was no escaping it, no chance of escaping it, I saw.
None the less, throughout the silent meal to which we four sat down together, neither the girls nor Van Tree appearing, were my thoughts taken up with the business which was to follow. I heard our host, who was to go with me, explaining that there was a waterway right up to the dyke, and that we would go by boat; and heard him with apathy. What matter how we went, if such were the object of our journey? I wondered how the man's face would look when we came to turn him over, and pictured it in all ghastliest shapes. I wondered whether I should ever forget the strange spasmodic twitching of his leg, the gurgle--half oath, half cry--which had come with the blood from his throat. When Lindstrom said the moon was up and bade me come with him to the boat, I went mechanically. No one seemed to suspect me of fear. I suppose they thought that, as I had not feared to kill him, I should not fear him dead. And in the general silence and moodiness I escaped notice.
"It is a good night for the purpose," the Dutchman said, looking about when we were outside. "It is light enough for us, yet not so light that we run much risk of being seen."
I assented, shivering. The moon was almost at the full, and the weather was dry, but scud after scud of thin clouds, sweeping across the breezy sky, obscured the light from time to time, and left nothing certain. We loosed the smallest boat in silence, and getting in, pulled gently round the lower end of the island, making for the fringe of rushes which marked the line of division between river and fen. We could hear the frogs croaking in the marsh, and the water lapping the banks, and gurgling among the tree-roots, and making a hundred strange noises to which daylight ears are deaf. Yet as long as I was in the open water I felt bold enough. I kept my tremors for the moment when we should brush through the rustling belt of reeds, and the willows should whisper about our heads, and the rank vegetation, the mysterious darkness of the mere should shut us in.
For a time I was to be spared this. Master Lindstrom suddenly stopped rowing. "We have forgotten to bring a stone, lad," he said in a low voice.
"A stone?" I answered, turning. I was pulling the stroke oar, and my back was toward him. "Do we want a stone?"
"To sink the body," he replied. "We cannot bury it in the marsh, and if we could it were trouble thrown away. We must have a stone."
"What is to be done?" I asked, leaning on my oar and shivering, as much in impatience as nervousness. "Must we go back?"
"No, we are not far from the causeway now," he answered, with Dutch coolness. "There are some big stones, I fancy, by the end of the bridge. If not, there are some lying among the cottages just across the bridge. Your eyes are younger than mine, so you had better go. I will pull on, and land you."
I assented, and the boat's course being changed a point or two, three minutes' rowing laid her bows on the mud, some fifty yards from the landward bend of the bridge, and just in the shadow of the causeway. I sprang ashore and clambered up. "Hist!" he cried, warning me as I was about to start on my errand. "Go about it quietly, Master Francis. The people will probably be in bed. But be secret."
I nodded and moved off, as warily as he could desire. I spent a minute or two peering about the causeway, but I found nothing that would serve our purpose. There was no course left then but to cross the planks, and seek what I wanted in the hamlet. Remembering how the timbers had creaked and clattered when I went over them in the daylight, I stole across on tiptoe. I fancied I had seen a pile of stones near one of the posts at that end, but I could not find them now, and after groping about a while--for this part was at the moment in darkness--I crept cautiously past the first hovel, peering to right and left as I went. I did not like to confess to myself that I was afraid to be alone in the dark, but that was nearly the truth. I was feverishly anxious to find what I wanted and return to my companion.
Suddenly I paused and held my breath. A slight sound had fallen on my ears, nervously ready to catch the slightest. I paused and listened. Yes, there it was again; a whispering of cautious voices close by me, within a few feet of me. I could see no one. But a moment's thought told me that the speakers were hidden by the farther corner of the cottage abreast of which I stood. The sound of human voices, the assurance of living companionship, steadied my nerves, and to some extent rid me of my folly. I took a step to one side, so as to be more completely in the shadow cast by the reed-thatched eaves, and then softly advanced until I commanded a view of the whisperers.
They were two, a man and a woman. And the woman was of all people Dymphna! She had her back to me, but she stood in the moonlight, and I knew her hood in a moment. The man--surely the man was Van Tree then, if the woman was Dymphna? I stared. I felt sure it must be Van Tree. It was wonderful enough that Dymphna should so far have regained nerve and composure as to rise and come out to meet him. But in that case her conduct, though strange, was explicable. If not, however, if the man were not Van Tree----
Well, he certainly was not. Stare as I might, rub my eyes as I might, I could not alter the man's figure, which was of the tallest, whereas I have said that the young Dutchman was short. This man's face, too, though it was obscured as he bent over the girl by his cloak, which was pulled high up about his throat, was swarthy; swarthy and beardless, I made out. More, his cap had a feather, and even as he stood still I thought I read the soldier in his attitude. The soldier and the Spaniard!
What did it mean? On what strange combination had I lit? Dymphna and a Spaniard! Impossible. Yet a thousand doubts and thoughts ran riot in my brain, a thousand conjectures jostled one another to get uppermost. What was I to do? What ought I to do? Go nearer to them, as near as possible, and listen and learn the truth? Or steal back the way I had come, and fetch Master Lindstrom? But first, was it certain that the girl was there of her own free will? Yes, the question was answered as soon as put. The man laid his hand gently on her shoulder. She did not draw back.
Confident of this, and consequently of Dymphna's bodily safety, I hesitated, and was beginning to consider whether the best course might not be to withdraw and say nothing, leaving the question of future proceedings to be decided after I had spoken to her on the morrow, when a movement diverted my thoughts. The man at last raised his head. The moonlight fell cold and bright on his face, displaying every feature as clearly as if it had been day. And though I had only once seen his face before, I knew it again.
And knew him! In a second I was back in England, looking on a far different scene. I saw the Thames, its ebb tide rippling in the sunshine as it ripples past Greenwich, and a small boat gliding over it, and a man in the bow of the boat, a man with a grim lip and a sinister eye. Yes, the tall soldier talking to Dymphna in the moonlight, his cap the cap of a Spanish guard, was Master Clarence! the Duchess's chief enemy!
* * * * *
I stayed my foot. With a strange settling into resolve of all my doubts I felt if my sword, which happily I had brought with me, was loose in its sheath, and leaned forward scanning him. So he had tracked us! He was here! With wonderful vividness I pictured all the dangers which menaced the Duchess, Master Bertie, the Lindstroms, myself, through his discovery of us, all the evils which would befall us if the villain went away with his tale. Forgetting Dymphna's presence, I set my teeth hard together. He should not escape me this time.
But man can only propose. As I took a step forward, I trod on a round piece of wood which turned under my foot, and I stumbled. My eye left the pair for a second. When it returned to them they had taken the alarm. Dymphna had started away, and I saw her figure retreating swiftly in the direction of the house. The man poised himself a moment irresolute opposite to me; then dashed aside and disappeared behind the cottage.
I was after him on the instant, my sword out, and caught sight of his cloak as he whisked round a corner. He dodged me twice round the next cottage, the one nearer the river. Then he broke away and made for the bridge, his object evidently to get off the island. But he seemed at last to see that I was too quick for him--as I certainly was--and should catch him half way across the narrow planking; and changing his mind again he doubled nimbly back and rushed into the open porch of a cottage, and I heard his sword ring out. I had him at bay.
At bay indeed! But ready as I was, and resolute to capture or kill him, I paused. I hesitated to run in on him. The darkness of the porch hid him, while I must attack with the moonlight shining on me. I peered in cautiously. "Come out!" I cried. "Come out, you coward!" Then I heard him move, and for a moment I thought he was coming, and I stood a-tiptoe waiting for his rush. But he only laughed a derisive laugh of triumph. He had the odds, and I saw he would keep them.
I took another cautious step toward him, and shading my eyes with my left hand, tried to make him out. As I did so, gradually his face took dim form and shape, confronting mine in the darkness. I stared yet more intently. The face became more clear. Nay, with a sudden leap into vividness, as it were, it grew white against the dark background--white and whiter. It seemed to be thrust out nearer and nearer, until it almost touched mine. It--his face? No, it was not his face! For one awful moment a terror, which seemed to still my heart, glued me to the ground where I stood, as it flashed upon my brain that it was another face that grinned at me so close to mine, that it was another face I was looking on; the livid, bloodstained face and stony eyes of the man I had killed!
With a wild scream I turned and fled. By instinct, for terror had deprived me of reason, I hied to the bridge, and keeping, I knew not how, my footing upon the loose clattering planks, made one desperate rush across it. The shimmering water below, in which I saw that face a thousand times reflected, the breeze, which seemed the dead man's hand clutching me, lent wings to my flight. I sprang at a bound from the bridge to the bank, from the bank to the boat, and overturning, yet never seeing, my startled companion, shoved off from the shore with all my might--and fell a-crying.
A very learned man, physician to the Queen's Majesty has since told me, when I related this strange story to him, that probably that burst of tears saved my reason. It so far restored me at any rate that I presently knew where I was--cowering in the bottom of the boat, with my eyes covered; and understood that Master Lindstrom was leaning over me in a terrible state of mind, imploring me in mingled Dutch and English to tell him what had happened. "I have seen him!" was all I could say at first, and I scarcely dared remove my hands from my eyes. "I have seen him!" I begged my host to row away from the shore, and after a time was able to tell him what the matter was, he sitting the while with his arm round my shoulder.
"You are sure that it was the Spaniard?" he said kindly, after he had thought a minute.
"Quite sure," I answered shuddering, yet with less violence. "How could I be mistaken? If you had seen him----"
"And you are sure--did you feel his heart this morning? Whether it was beating?"
"His heart?" Something in his voice gave me courage to look up, though I still shunned the water, lest that dreadful visage should rise from the depths. "No, I did not touch him."
"And you tell me that he fell on his face. Did you turn him over?"
"No." I saw his drift now. I was sitting erect. My brain began to work again. "No," I admitted; "I did not."
"Then how----" asked the Dutchman roughly--"how do you know that he was dead, young sir? Tell me that."
When I explained, "Bah!" he cried. "There is nothing in that! You jumped to a conclusion. I thought a Spaniard's head was harder to break. As for the blood coming from his mouth, perhaps he bit his tongue, or did any one of a hundred things--except die, Master Francis. That you may be sure is just what he did not do."
"You think so?" I said gratefully. I began to look about me, yet still with a tremor in my limbs, and an inclination to start at shadows.
"Think?" he rejoined, with a heartiness which brought conviction home tome; "I am sure of it. You may depend upon it that Master Clarence, or the man you take for Master Clarence--who no doubt was the other soldier seen with the scoundrel this morning--found him hurt late in the evening. Then, seeing him in that state, he put him in the porch for shelter, either because he could not get him to Arnheim at once, or because he did not wish to give the alarm before he had made his arrangements for netting your party."
"That is possible!" I allowed, with a sigh of relief. "But what of Master Clarence?"
"Well," the old man said; "let us get home first. We will talk of him afterward."
I felt he had more in his mind than appeared, and I obeyed; growing ashamed now of my panic, and looking forward with no very pleasant feelings to hearing the story narrated. But when we reached the house, and found Master Bertie and the Duchess in the parlor waiting for us--they rose startled at sight of my face--he bade me leave that out, but tell the rest of the story.
I complied, describing how I had seen Dymphna meet Clarence, and what I had observed to pass between them. The astonishment of my hearers may be imagined. "The point is very simple," said our host coolly, when I had, in the face of many exclamations and some incredulity, completed the tale; "it is just this! The woman certainly was not Dymphna. In the first place, she would not be out at night. In the second place, what could she know of your Clarence, an Englishman and a stranger? In the third place, I will warrant she has been in her room all the evening. Then if Master Francis was mistaken in the woman, may he not have been mistaken in the man? That is the point."
"No," I said boldly. "I only saw her back. I saw his face."
"Certainly, that is something," Master Lindstrom admitted reluctantly.
"But how many times had you seen him before?" put in my lady very pertinently. "Only once."
In answer to that I could do no more than give further assurance of my certainty on the point. "It was the man I saw in the boat at Greenwich," I declared positively. "Why should I imagine it?"
"All the same, I trust you have," she rejoined. "For, if it was indeed that arch scoundrel, we are undone."
"Imagination plays us queer tricks sometimes," Master Lindstrom said, with a smile of much meaning. "But come, lad, I will ask Dymphna, though I think it useless to do so. For whether you are right or wrong as to your friend, I will answer for it you are wrong as to my daughter."
He was rising to go from them for the purpose, when Mistress Anne opened the door and came in. She looked somewhat startled at finding us all in conclave. "I thought I heard your voices," she explained timidly, standing between us and the door. "I could not sleep."
She looked indeed as if that were so. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a bright spot of crimson in each cheek. "What is it?" she went on abruptly, looking hard at me and shutting her lips tightly. There was so much to explain that no one had taken it in hand to begin.
"It is just this," the Duchess said, opening her mouth with a snap. "Have you been with Dymphna all the time?"
"Yes, of course," was the prompt answer.
"What is she doing?"
"Doing?" Mistress Anne repeated in surprise. "She is asleep."
"Has she been out since nightfall?" the Duchess continued. "Out of her room? Or out of the house?"
"Out? Certainly not. Before she fell asleep she was in no state to go out, as you know, though I hope she will be all right when she awakes. Who says she has been out?" Anne added sharply. She looked at me with a challenge in her eyes, as much as to say, "Is it you?"
"I am satisfied," I said, "that I was mistaken as to Mistress Dymphna. But I am just as sure as before that I saw Clarence."
"Clarence?" Mistress Anne repeated, starting violently, and the color for an instant fleeing from her cheeks. She sat down on the nearest seat.
"You need not be afraid, Anne," my lady said smiling. She had a wonderfully high courage herself. "I think Master Francis was mistaken, though he is so certain about it."
"But where--where did he see him?" the girl asked. She still trembled.
Once more I had to tell the tale; Mistress Anne, as was natural, listening to it with the liveliest emotions. And this time so much of the ghost story had to be introduced--for she pressed me closely as to where I had left Clarence, and why I had let him go--that my assurances got less credence than ever.
"I think I see how it is," she said, with a saucy scorn that hurt me not a little. "Master Carey's nerves are in much the same state to-night as Dymphna's. He thought he saw a ghost, and he did not. He thought he saw Dymphna, and he did not. And he thought he saw Master Clarence, and he did not."
"Not so fast, child!" cried the Duchess sharply, seeing me wince. "Your tongue runs too freely. No one has had better proofs of Master Carey's courage--for which I will answer myself--than we have!"
"Then he should not say things about Dymphna!" the young lady retorted, her foot tapping the floor, and the red spots back in her cheeks. "Such rubbish I never heard!"