That night Bevill Bracton slept well, and as he had not slept since he first went on boardLe Grand Roiat Harwich two days ago. For the vessel had been full of persons, and especially children, who suffered from the sea; the passage had been rough and, consequently, noisy; while, although the wind was favourable for reaching the Dutch coast, it had rendered sleep impossible.
But this night had made amends for all, and Bevill Bracton, springing out of bed as he heard the clock of St. Peter's striking seven, prepared to make himself ready for the day's journey. Overnight, before he had sought sleep, he had thanked Heaven devoutly for having allowed him to penetrate so far as even this old city of Louvain, and into what was, in truth, the enemy's country--by seizure, though not by right. Now once more he prayed that, as he had been thus far favoured, so he might still be.
One thing he observed at once as he threw back the heavy shutters from his windows, which looked down into the great courtyard. He saw that the great travelling coach was gone. The Comtesse, whose title he had learnt from the landlord ere he sought his bed overnight was De Valorme, had departed with any following she might have other than the ancient domestic he had seen at table, and the woman, Jeanne, of whom they had spoken.
"Yet," Bevill said to himself, "at the pace La Rose," as he had now named the mare, "can travel as against the speed that heavy lumbering coach can attain, I should pass her ere she has accomplished half the distance to Liége--long before she has reached St. Trond, indeed. And," for still there was in his mind a thought, a fear--engendered doubtless by the dangers with which he must be now surrounded, and would be doubly surrounded as he progressed farther, and when he had entered Liége--that in this woman there might be hidden something that would imperil his safety, "and if she is a spy, at least it is as well I should be there before her. Let me waste no time therefore."
He folded up his haversack and cloak, although, as he could see by the courtyard, which was wet and had little pools of rain lying in the hollows between the old, worn stones, it must have rained during the night or early morning, although it was now a fair, sweet day. The late May sun was shining down fiercely on the red roofs; a thrush was singing blithely in its wicker cage as though rejoicing in the warmth and light; one or two of the heavy, clownish domestics of the inn were making an early meal of black bread and blacker beer at a table below him; all nature smiled.
He descended, therefore, carrying his haversack and cloak, and with his recently purchased pistols thrust in his sash under his coat, since no traveller left such weapons far from his hand when he slept in strange houses, and, going once more to theSpeiseraum, ordered some breakfast. Then he went out to see that all was well with La Rose.
Half an hour later he was on the way to Liége, and was riding along roads that passed through orchards which were now losing all their pink and white blossoms as the fruit slowly developed on the trees.
Because he was young and strong and healthy; because, too, he had great hopes before him, he took a keen delight in all that was around him--in the fresh morning air that he drew into his lungs in great draughts, in the sight of the full-leaved, half blossom and half fruit gardens and orchards, even in the brooks that had been cut by the sides of those orchards in long past days, and through which the water ran with a swishing sound--he was jocund. He felt how good it was to live and to be passing through the land on such a morning as this, to hear the birds singing and twittering, and to see the cattle already seeking shade from the morning sun; to cry out "Good-morning" to the peasants in the fields or "God be with you" to the old people sitting outside their houses, their life's labour done. He felt thus because he was young, and strong, and full of life; because, too, his blood was stirred by the thought of the adventures which must surely lie before him; because almost he felt as though he were some young knight-errant of dead and long-forgotten centuries riding forth to rescue a lady fair who, immured in some gloomy town or fortalice, waited for him with longing, eager eyes.
"And if the miniature does not belie sweet Sylvia Thorne," Bevill murmured to himself as the mare cantered along the white roads which the sun had now dried, "then no knight in armour ever rode in far-off days to the assistance of woman more fair than she. As a child she was winsome. I wonder if this stately woman, whose portrait I have gazed on so of ten since my lord gave it into my charge, is winsome still? Winsome--yes, it may well be so. But grave, almost austere, as those eyes that look out at me whenever I gaze on the portrait proclaim; stately in her bearing, almost cold. Well! Cold let her be. What matters it to me? She is not the guerdon that I seek to win, but only the means by which I shall win the guerdon I would have. Let me but do my best, and all will be very well. Mistress Thorne may freeze me with one glance from those calm eyes, and yet my lord Marlborough shall warm me back to life with his approval."
The day went on, the sun rose high in the cloudless sky, and, except for the various halts which Bevill made under shady trees, or on the cool side of old Lutheran churches and quaint Flemish houses, to rest La Rose--and once to refresh himself--he had wasted no time. So that he knew, not only by the sign-posts and the hamlets he had passed through, but also by aroutier, or chart of the district, which hung in the dark hall of the "Duc de Brabant," that he must be nearing a small town called St. Trond, a place that lay nearer to Liége than to Louvain.
"Madame de Valorme set out at six, the landlord told me," Bevill reflected, "and I ere the clocks struck eight; I marvel much that I have not come up with her coach yet. Her horses must travel faster than I thought, or that coach be lighter than its appearance warranted."
Then, at this moment, there came an interruption to any further meditations on his part.
A shot rang out on the clear noontide air, one that caused the nervous, excitable mare to swerve and spring across the road, almost unseating Bevill; and then, while he recovered himself, to gallop wildly along the white straight road bordered by pollard trees.
"Gently, gently," Bevill exclaimed, as he endeavoured to soothe her, while, since he was a finished horseman, he knew better than to attempt to check her suddenly, but drew her up gradually. "Gently. Though, 'fore Heaven, that sudden report was enough to startle one less flighty than she. Whence," he mused, "did that shot proceed? To my left, surely, and from a side road which I passed a moment ere the report rang forth. Was," with a dark look on his face, "the ball intended for me? Well, we will see to it."
Whereupon, since now La Rose was, by the aid of much stroking of her neck and patting and soothing, restored somewhat to calmness, Bevill turned her head round in the direction they had come, and at last persuaded her, though it was not easy to do, to retrace her steps to the crossroads.
Also, he opened the covers of his holsters and threw them back, so that the butt of each of his new pistols should be ready to his hand.
"I may be indebted for a favour to some marauder," he muttered, "and I abhor debt. If I owe one, it shall be repaid in full." After which he loosened his sword in its sheath, and so reached the crossroads.
As he turned into it he saw nothing at first, unless it was the ominous twitching of the mare's ears; but a moment later he heard a voice, and that a woman's--a voice that exclaimed:
"You cowardly dastards! You--you Flemish boors! To attack a woman--to slay an old man!"
"Great powers!" exclaimed Bevill to himself, as now a touch of his knee sent La Rose forward swiftly, while at the same time he drew forth the pistol from the right holster. "'To slay an old man.' And that voice hers. Hers!"
"French! French! French!" he heard several voices exclaim together in the raucous, guttural, Low Frankish dialect of the district. "You are all French Papists, servants of the great Papist King in Paris, of the Italian Priest in Rome. We will not spare you. Or," one voice said, "not your wealth, if we spare your lives. And he, this dead one, should not have resisted us."
Whatever the ruffians who thus spoke might have intended doing was now, however, doomed to be frustrated. Bevill Bracton was amongst them--a party of seven men, armed some with great horse pistols, one or two with reaping hooks, and another with a rusty sword. In a moment they were, however, scattered, the mare knocking down two as she lashed out, while one received a bullet in the shoulder from Bevill, and, falling to the ground, vowed that he was dead.
But amidst the confusion, and while Bevill cried, "Stop, all of you. He who attempts to fly shall be shot on the spot," he was able to see at a glance what had happened.
The coach--the driver had doubtless been misdirected, or the horses' heads had not been turned down this side road--stood lower down the lane than those who had occupied it. At the feet of the horses lay the man who was undoubtedly the coachman; by his side knelt the Comtesse de Valorme, looking up at the boors who had attacked the party. Jeanne, her maid, an elderly woman, seemed to have fainted inside the coach; while old Ambroise, who was weeping and shaking all over, stood with a footman close by the side of his mistress.
Now, as Bevill dismounted, Madame de Valorme, looking up at him, exclaimed:
"Ah! The Capitaine Le Blond. Heaven be praised!"
p125"By his side knelt the Comtesse."
But Bevill had no time to be startled at hearing himself addressed thus, nor to speculate as to whether the Comtesse had discovered his assumed name from the landlord, or had herself searched for it in the register. His attention was otherwise needed.
"You brute dogs!" he exclaimed in the best Dutch he could muster. "So 'tis thus war begins with you--by attacks on women and old men." While, as he spoke, he thrust his discharged pistol back into the right holster and drew out that in the left.
"We are starving," one man said. "You--you--French trample us down, take all--you, who are as bad as the Spaniards were. We retaliate when we can."
"Is there a rope?" Bevill asked, looking down from his seat on the horse and addressing Ambroise and the younger man, the footman. "One used in the coach? If so, fetch it."
"A rope!" the men howled now, while two of them flung themselves on their knees and whined and screamed for mercy. "A rope! Spare us--spare us! We have taken nothing."
"Except a life," Bevill exclaimed, glancing at the body of the coachman.
Meanwhile, the footman had mounted the box of the coach and was busily engaged in uncording the valises piled up on top of it. But while he did so the Comtesse de Valorme had risen to her feet and had held out her hand to Bevill, which he, after dismounting, took in his.
"How shall a helpless woman, travelling with only serving men in attendance on her, thank one who is strong and brave enough to rescue her?" madame asked. "How? Ah! monsieur----"
"Madame in Comtesse." Bevill replied, "I have but done that which every man would do for a woman. I beseech you say no more."
"It may be that at Liége," the Comtesse continued (and Bevill could not but observe how, as she spoke, her blue eyes looked into his as though endeavouring to read, to decipher, what impression her words might make on him), "at Liége I can return----"
"Madame!"
"----Some of your chivalrous service. Even though proffered to a French officer," and now those eyes shone like sapphires, "in safety--in--a French garrison, a woman's assistance may be worth acceptance."
"She knows me for what I am," Bevill thought; "or, rather, for what I am not. And she will not betray me."
The few words that had been exchanged between him and the Comtesse de Valorme were uttered in low tones, though, even had they been spoken clearly, it is doubtful if the boors who were trembling close by them would have heard, or, in hearing, have understood. For now their courage, their Dutch courage, had left them; they deemed their fate at hand, since, armed as this man was and with a horse on which to pursue them, flight would have been vain.
At this moment their fears were at their height; their whimpers were turned into shrieks and supplications. The footman had descended, bearing in his hand a rope some ten or twelve feet long; while, as the man who had shot one of them and, in a moment, terrified the rest into abject fear, took it in his own hands, they saw that his eyes were directed towards an elm that grew by the side of the road.
"In mercy's sake," the Comtesse whispered, since she, too, saw Bevill's glance, "in the name of Him Who forgives all sinners, proceed to no extremities. And--and--Joseph, my coachman, is not truly dead. The ball has but grazed his face and stunned him. Monsieur, I beseech you--nay, I----"
"Madame," Bevill replied, turning his back to the men who were, in absolute fact, his prisoners, "I had no thought of executing them. But still punishment is their meed. Therefore, I will have them bound to that tree and, at the next village or town--it should be one called St. Trond--there may be some Prévôt-Maréchal or Captain of Maréchaussée to whom we can denounce them. The French, our troops----"
"Yes. Our troops?" with another swift glance.
"Are all about. The line stretches from Antwerp to Cologne, and across the Rhine. Into their hands shall these ruffians be delivered. They shall be the instruments of justice."
Half an hour after this decision had been come to the coach of the Comtesse de Valorme was on its way once more; but now it was driven by the young footman, at whose side Ambroise sat. Outside was Joseph also, who had recovered from the shock he had received, and was now engaged in thanking Heaven for the narrow escape that had been vouchsafed to him, and in calling down blessings on the Comtesse and Jeanne (on whose shoulder his head rested) and Bevill indiscriminately.
Sometimes ahead of the great travelling carriage, and sometimes--though not often--by the side of the open window, where Madame sat, Bevill Bracton rode now as escort. But, as he did so, while keeping ever a vigilant look-out to right and left and in front of him--for he knew not if other groups similar to those who were now, with the exception of the man wounded by him, all tied firmly and back to back to the elm tree, might be about--his thoughts did not dwell on the rescue he had by chance effected, but on the woman he had preserved from outrage and insult. Also, they dwelt on what must be the state of that woman's mind at this time.
"For she is French, and I am a subject of her country's bitterest foe--and she knows it. Or, not knowing, still suspects. And yet--and yet--if I mistake her not, if I have read her aright, I have rendered her harmless. Likewise, she is a good woman. She pleaded for mercy for those vagabonds, not knowing that there was no need for pleading, since I am no hangman; she spoke of Him Who pardons all sinners. 'Tis not of such stuff as this that spies, denouncers, women who rend the hand that is held out to them, are made. Yet, knowing all, she must be torn with vastly conflicting feelings. How shall she reconcile herself to befriending one who is of those who would render her ambitious, evil King harmless? How shall she, a Frenchwoman, bring herself to be the ally of an Englishman?"
But still, even as Bevill mused, he knew that he and his secret, or as much as she knew or could guess of it, were safe in this woman's hands.
A moment later, he had certain proof that he had divined aright.
They were drawing near St. Trond now; ahead of them they could see the smoke curling up in the afternoon air, and they could also see the men lounging at the barrier through which admission was gained to the town.
"We shall be there," the Comtesse said to Bevill, who was at this time riding by the window of the coach, while directing her glance to the little place, "ere many moments are passed. Monsieur," and she put her gloved hand upon the sash and leant forward towards him, "those men will have suffered enough by the time they are released from that tree. I ask you not to call the attention of any Prévôt or officer of Maréchaussée to their being there, or to their attack on me."
"Madame is truly of a forgiving nature. Yet, since it is her concern, not mine----"
"It would be best, even though, unhappily, forgiveness plays no part in my desire. Questions might be asked, explanations required; nay," and once more the deep blue eyes looked full into Bevill's, "some of monsieur's brother mousquetaires may be here." And now those eyes looked strangely; almost it seemed as though they conveyed a menace. Yet, Bevill asked himself, even as a chill seemed to strike to his heart, as icy fingers seemed to clutch at it, could this woman be false; a traitress to one who had helped and succoured her? Was she no better than a female Sparmann?
"She spoke," he said to himself, "of Him Who pardons all sinners; she besought mercy for those who had molested her. Can such as she be a spy? I will never believe it."
Then, suddenly gazing down at her--and now the intensity of his glance equalled her own, while he saw she did not blench beneath it--he said, not roughly, yet determinately:
"Have done with equivocations, madame, with pointed words," remembering the accentuation of those words "monsieur's brother mousquetaires." "Speak plainly. Truth, openness, are ever best."
"If," the Comtesse said now, though still all was not open, her meaning not altogether apparent, "if you are what I believe--nay, what I know you to be--and you are discovered, your life is in awful danger. If you reach Liége you will, if betrayed, never quit it alive."
"Who shall betray me to my death? Answer me. Since you have told so much, tell more. What is it you know, and who and what are you?"
"A woman," the Comtesse answered. "One who does not betray gallant men to their deaths."
"This death you speak of is certain?"
"Certain. Beyond all doubt. For you are----"
"What?"
"Listen. Bend down from your horse. Not even they," with a glance above to where the servants were, "must hear."
"Great Heaven!" Bevill exclaimed when he had done so and she had whispered in his ear.
For the words she had thus whispered were: "You are an Englishman, and your name is not Le Blond. Have I not said truly? If you are discovered your doom is certain."
The names of some of its past rulers as well as Spanish governors have stamped themselves deeply over all Brabant; and scarcely was there an inn or wayside hostelry to be found in the towns and villages surrounding the old capital of Brussels that did not bear for sign either that of "La Duchesse de Parma," "Le Duc de Brabant," "Le Comte d'Egmont," or, greater still, "Le Prince d'Orange," it being William the Silent, the great Liberator, to whom reference was made.
These names constituted a strange mixture, and combined to form a strange gallery of reminiscences. The first recalled a stately woman of high lineage on one side and base origin on the other. She was the daughter of Charles Quint, of "Charles qui triche,"[2]and the sister of Philip, the thousandfold murderer--a woman fierce as the she-wolf when robbed of its whelps, yet often merciful; one who, to her eternal glory, despised that other murderer, that persecutor of all of the Reformed Faith, the Duke of Alva, and kept him in his place, while sometimes forcing even him to cease from shedding the blood of the innocent. The second recorded those rulers of Brabant, among whose numbers had been produced holy men and scoffers, poets and tyrants;jongleursand minstrels and buffoons; knights as brave as ever Bayard was, and cowards who shuddered and whimpered in their innumerable palaces if but a few of their subjects muttered in the streets or congregated in small knots at the street corners. The third perpetuated the name of Lamoral d'Egmont, brave, bold, and vain; one who had been shipwrecked in corners of the world that had then been hardly heard of; who had fought for the new faith like a lion, yet had almost dreaded death, but had, nevertheless, died like a hero and a martyr at the headsman's hands in the great square of Brussels. The fourth was he who crushed Philip II. and Spain and all their myrmidons under his heel, who established for ever the Reformed Faith as the recognised national religion from the German Ocean to the Ural Mountains, and who perished at the hand of an assassin bribed by Philip to do the deed.
In St. Trond, where the Comtesse de Valorme had decided to rest for the night, it was the same as at Louvain, Brussels, and all other places. Those names were still perpetuated over the doors of the inn; the lineaments of their bearers swung in the breeze or were painted on the walls.
"Another 'Duc de Brabant,'" the Comtesse said to Bevill, as now the coach passed an inn of this name. It was the first they came to, and the landlord, running out bareheaded, begged of Madame to honour his house.
"Well, so be it. It is to the former one that I owe my meeting with a gallant defender. I will rest here. And Monsieur Le Blond--where does he purpose sojourning for the night?"
Perceiving that there was probably in this question some feeling of delicacy on the part of Madame de Valorme, some sentiment of propriety as to their not entering the town in company--they who, until those whispered words of an hour ago, had been all but unknown to each other--and of afterwards staying in company in the same inn, Bevill, casting his eyes across theplace, said:
"There is another inn for travellers over there, and it is called 'Le Prince d'Orange.' It has a quiet, peaceful air. It will do very well. Also, since I have constituted myself the cavalier of Madame until Liége is reached, I shall be near at hand to keep watch and ward."
"Monsieur is very good. Farewell, monsieur. Goodnight. When," she asked, as an afterthought, "does monsieur intend to set out?"
"Early, madame. Even though 'tis but little distance to my destination, yet I would fain be there and about the work I have to do."
"If," Madame de Valorme said now, after observing with one glance from her clear eyes that her servants--who had now all descended and were directing the porters of the inn what baggage was to be taken into the house and what might be left on the top of the coach for the night--were out of earshot--"if monsieur seeks for peace and repose in Liége--though in truth it is not very like that such as he will require any such things in a French garrison "--and her eyes were on Bevill, while almost seeming to smile at him and at the knowledge of his secret, which he now knew she possessed--"I go to join some kindred whose house will be open to him. Monsieur has been a gallant chevalier to me----"
"I beseech madame to forget any foolish, trifling service I have rendered her by chance."
"I shall not forget, and"--though now she paused, and said next a word, and then paused again as though in hesitation and doubt, and still, a moment later, went on again--"and it may be that all service--all mutual service--is not yet at an end between us. If, as I believe, there is some----"
"Some what, madame?"
"Nay; I will say no more. Or only this: I, too, go to Liége about a work I have to do. A work"--and now she leant forward in the coach from which she had naturally not yet descended, while continuing in a low tone--"to which I am vowed, to which my life is vowed; a task in which so long as I have life I will not falter. And I have a hope, a belief, a supposition--call it what you will--that in you I may by chance light on one who can help me at little cost to himself."
"I protest, madame," Bevill almost stammered at hearing these words, "I protest that----"
"Listen, Monsieur le Blond," the Comtesse said, speaking so low that now her voice was no more than a whisper, a murmur, yet a whisper so clear that, by bending his head, the young man could catch every syllable she uttered. "Listen. Yet, ere you do so, promise me that no word I let fall, no thought I give utterance to, shall cause you offence, or, if I may say it, fear?"
"Fear? I fear nothing on this earth. While as for the rest, I promise."
"Enough." Then in, if it could be so, a yet lower tone, the Comtesse de Valorme continued:
"As I have said, you are not what you seem to be. You are not le Capitaine le Blond for he was a kinsman of mine and I knew him well. I--I--a Frenchwoman--ah! shame on me, good as my cause is--only hope you may be----"
"What?"
"As faithful to my desire, my secret, when you learn it, as I will be to yours. If so, then all will be well!"
"What else can madame believe I shall be? Speak. I will answer truthfully."
"No; I have said enough--for to-night. Farewell. I, too, leave this place early. Farewell, or rather adieu." And the Comtesse put out her hand to Bevill.
The landlord had been standing in the great stoop of his house while this whispered colloquy had taken place; and now, while seeing with extreme regret that the handsome, well-apparelled young horseman who had escorted the lady in the coach to his door, was not himself going to patronise him, he came forward to the carriage. Wherefore, as Bevill turned the horse's head towards "Le Prince d'Orange" he murmured respectfully, "Madame la Comtesse"--since the coronet on the carriage, if not the servants' own words, had told him the personage with whom he had to deal--"the necessaries have been taken to madame's apartments. Will Madame la Comtesse please to enter?"
Meanwhile, Bevill had ridden across to the rival place of entertainment, had given La Rose into the charge of the stableman, and had chosen a front room on the first floor of that rambling but substantial house.
"There is some strange mystery in this woman," he mused, as he stood on the balcony to which the window of the room gave access, and gazed across to the opposite inn. "Something that passes comprehension. Still, no matter, since there is also a mystery about me. And she knows it; she informs me she knows it, and yet proffers me help and assistance. Whatever else she is, she is at least no traitor to the man who has rendered her some light, trifling service. I am here; she is across theplace. If in the night aught of evil should befall her--and in this disturbed land troubles may well come--I am near her. We are friends, auxiliaries, though enemies by race."
But now, springing from out of these musings, there returned to Bevill's mind the memory of one word that had risen to it; the recollection that, in pondering over the mystery of the Comtesse de Valorme, he had discarded from his thoughts the suggestion that she could be a traitor of another description.
"To me? No! Never! Perish the thought!" he exclaimed, as he stepped back from the balcony and threw himself on an old couch by the window. "No; but what if she be a traitor to her country, to France! By birth, by blood, by all hereditary instincts we are foes, and yet she offers me help and protection. Le Blond, the man under whose name I masquerade, whose very horse I ride, was kinsman to her; yet she, knowing what I am, makes offers of assistance. She a Frenchwoman and I an Englishman!
"She prayed," Bevill went on, "that I might be what she believes I am. She asked earlier if I could give her information of my Lord Marlborough's movements and plans. Great heavens! Does she desire to betray her country into his hands?" Then, suddenly, he sprang from his seat, exclaiming, "No, no! Never will I believe it! Never There is some other cause that moves thig woman to act as she is doing. That is the reason for her desire to reach Liége. It is not, cannot be, treachery."
The evening was at hand now--one of the soft calm evenings which, in the Netherlands, in fine weather, are at times almost as soft and calm as the nights of more southern lands; nights when here, through all this marshy country, made fertile and rich by centuries of toil, the fireflies dance in the dusk as in far off Italy; when the sun sinks a globe of flame into the bosom of the German Ocean, and when as it does so, the stars begin to stud the skies.
Such a night, such a twilight as this was no time for indoors: and Bevill, recognising that for two hours at least it would be folly to seek his bed with any hope of sleeping, went forth after his supper to take the air. Or rather, since his ride had given him sufficient of that, to observe what might be doing in the little town.
Of French troops he observed that there were few about, though some men of the Régiment de Monsieur (the Duc d'Orléans) and some others of the Artillery were drinking outside an inn while being regarded with lowering looks by groups of the inhabitants.
"French--French always!" he heard one man say to the other. "French always and everywhere! When will the English or our own troops come?"
"Have patience," another said. "Already, a month ago, even before the war was declared, was not Kaiserswörth besieged by the English general Athlone? The city will soon fall now."
"English? Dutch--our countryman--you should say. Is not the Lord Athlone a Dutchman? Is he not Ginkell?"
"What matters, so that one or the other does it? Soon Marlborough will be here. Then we shall see."
"Meanwhile, he is not here, and the French are; and they eat us out of house and home, and do not pay too well."
"They will pay with their skins ere long."
But Bevill knew as much as this himself, so, continuing his walk, he soon returned towards the inns in which, he on the one side theplaceand the Comtesse de Valorme on the other, they were to rest for the night. But when on theplacehe could not refrain from letting his eyes wander to the "Duc de Brabant," while speculating idly as to where his companion might be installed in it.
He soon knew, however, since on the first floor of the house he observed that the long wooden shutters were open, and the windows thrown back, doubtless to admit the cool air of the coming night, while he also saw that Jeanne passed once or twice before them. As he did so he could not prevent his thoughts from turning once more to the mystery in which the Comtesse seemed to be enveloped, or from wondering again and again why she should testify such interest in him, a stranger.
Could he have gazed into one of those rooms in the "Duc de Brabant" could he have seen the Comtesse seated in a deepfauteuilwrapped in meditation; above all, could he have caught the occasional expressions that fell from her lips; or, gazing into her mind, have probed her innermost thoughts, he would have wondered no longer.
"For fourteen years now," he would in such a case have heard her say, or have gathered from the Comtesse de Valorme's thoughts, "we have suffered and borne all from him--and from her who sits by his side. From her, the scourge and curse of France, the snake that sucks the life-blood from all who do not worship as she does. Oh! God," he would have heard the undoubtedly unhappy woman exclaim, as she lifted her eyes, "how long is it to be? How long for all of us? Fathers, mothers, husbands, all--all--dead--done to death, either on the wheel or the gallows, or in the galleys or the dungeons. And for what? Because we desire to worship God in our own way--the way his grandsire promised solemnly that we should worship: the way for following which this one burns us, racks us, destroys our homes, drives us forth to exile and beggary."
Still gazing in at those open windows from the other side of theplace, while unable to see the woman on whom his thoughts rested, Bevill did at last, however, discover that she was there. As he still stood and meditated, her form came suddenly before his eyes and he recognised that she must have suddenly sprung up from some chair or couch; while, from her commencing to pace the room and by her almost distracted appearance, he gathered that her mind was a prey to the most agitating thoughts. Even then, however, he could not divine what those thoughts might be, or that he was the central figure of them. This was as impossible as it was for him to hear her say:
"And now this man, who is, since he does not deny it, an Englishman; this man, disguised as a French soldier, while, in sober truth, I do believe him to be an English one, is on his way to Liége on some secret mission. 'Some work he has to do,' as he avowed. What work? What? Is he a spy of the English generals? Above all, can he help me? Can he bring me to Marlborough, give me the opportunity I have so long desired of throwing myself at his feet, of beseeching him to hurry forward that invasion of the South which can alone save those of us who are still alive? Can he? Can he? Oh, if I did but know!"
Suddenly, as Bevill stood there gazing at the undoubtedly unhappy, distracted woman there came the ripple of a cool evening breeze through the heated air that the day had left behind. A light breeze that shook the leaves of the orange trees in their tubs before the inn doors, and also those of the pollards which grew round theplace. A moment later he saw Jeanne pull to the wooden shutters. Except for a streak of light that issued from the air slits at the top of them, all was now dark and veiled.
"Poor lady!" Bevill said to himself, as now, in the same manner as he had done overnight, and as he would do every night whenever he might be on the road, or on any journey--and as, perhaps, he would do should he and Sylvia Thorne be able to make their way out of Liége, in the endeavour to fall in with any of the English or Dutch forces--he directed his steps towards the stables of the "Prince d'Orange" to see that all was well with his horse.
Those stables were reached by passing down a small alley orruellethat ran by the side of the "Prince d'Orange," and lay behind the house, entrance being obtained by a turn to the right when the end of the alley was attained.
Finding an ostler, or horse-watcher, in this alley, Bevill requested the man to accompany him to the door and unlock it; but, learning that the stables were not yet closed and would not be for yet another hour, and that there was a lanthorn hanging on the hook inside, he proceeded alone.
A moment later he pushed open the door and called to the mare, who by now knew not only his voice, but the new name he had given her, and learnt by her whimper that she had recognised his presence.
p318"'I, too, go to Liége about a workI have to do.'"--p. 318.
But as he advanced to see that all was well with her, he heard a rustle in the straw of an empty stall close by the door, and the next instant saw a man walk swiftly out of that stall and through the door into the alley--a man whose cloak was thrown across his face and held by his right hand, and whose slouching hat fell over the upper part of it. Yet this attempted and almost successful disguise did not altogether serve to cloak the whole of his features. His eyes, dark and flashing, appeared above the edging of the cloak. Where his hand held the folds together there protruded a wisp of grizzled beard.
"Where have I seen those eyes, that beard before?" Bevill wondered, while remembering a moment later.
"It is Sparmann!" he said. "Sparmann! And he is following either the Comtesse or me--or both."
After which he went swiftly to the mare and made a rapid but thorough inspection of her, thereby to discover if she was injured in any part; and also looked to see if the fodder remained untampered with in the manger; while, taking up next the half-emptied bucket, he threw the water that remained in it away, and, going out into the alley, refilled it.
"I will stay here until the stables are locked for the night," he said, approaching the horse-watcher. "I mistrust that fellow I saw creep out from here but a moment ago."
"This threatens danger," Bevill thought to himself after he had spoken to the man in the alley, and had received from him a surly grunt and the information that the other was, like himself, a traveller having his own horse in another stall. But the ostler did not add the words that Bevill had expected to hear--viz., that this traveller was, also like himself, a Frenchman. He remembered, however, a moment later, that though Sparmann was now undoubtedly a French spy, he was absolutely as much a Dutchman as any native of St. Trond, and could, consequently, pass easily as a man who was voyaging from one part of the Netherlands to another.
In recollecting this, there came suddenly into his mind a thought--an inspiration--a reflection that, in such a circumstance lay the chance of outwitting, of silencing--though only for a time, yet perhaps for long enough--this fellow who, beyond almost all possibility of doubt, was here with the view of causing harm to him.
"He is a Hollander," Bevill thought to himself as he stood outside the courtyard of "Le Prince d'Orange," while undecided as to whether he should endeavour to see, or at least to communicate with, the Comtesse. "A Hollander, yet one who is now in the service of France, and, consequently, an enemy to all things Dutch. If--if--I denounced him to-night to some of the burghers of this place, to some native magistrate here, as he will endeavour to denounce me to some of the French who hold the place, it will go hard with him. These Dutch may, because they must at present, tolerate the French army, but they will not tolerate a spy who is their own countryman amongst them. Yet how to do it? Above all, how to do it at once? Let me reflect."
As he so reflected, however, he was already crossing theplace, and in a moment was in front of the courtyard of "Le Duc de Brabant," which, although it was similar to that of the inn where he had put up, was nevertheless considerably larger than the latter. Halting, however, under the archway that led into this yard, he saw the great coach of Madame de Valorme standing out in the dark, and observed that, from some of the lower windows of the inn, there still gleamed the rays of a lamp or other light, as well as the beams from a lanthorn hung on a hook outside the stable door. Thus the coach and the baggage on the top of it stood clearly out, thin and weakly though the rays of light might be, and by their aid he was able to perceive other things.
He saw that Joseph, the coachman, on account of whose ill-treatment by the Brabant peasants that afternoon he had lodged a bullet in the shoulder of one of them, was now strapping up a valise on the roof of the coach; a valise that he divined easily had already been used this evening and repacked and closed, and then sent down to be put in its place in time for the morning's departure. Near the coachman, who now seemed to be entirely recovered from his slight injury--which had been only prevented by an inch from being a fatal one--there stood afacchin, or porter of the inn, who had evidently brought down the valise and was now going away to, in all probability, fetch another.
"Joseph," Bevill said now to the man as he descended from the box on which he had been standing while strapping the valise, "Joseph, come down. I wish to speak to you on a matter of serious concern."
Astonished at seeing beneath him the dashing horseman who, at a critical moment for all concerned, had suddenly appeared amongst the boors who had attacked his mistress's coach, and--which he did not overlook--nearly killed him, Joseph sprang to the ground, while doffing the hat he wore and instantly commencing a long series of thanks and utterances of gratitude to Bevill, all of which he had previously uttered many times during the continuation of the journey.
"No matter for that," said Bevill, while looking round to see that they were out of earshot, and remarking that thefacchinhad disappeared. "I need no more thanks, nor have needed any. But, Joseph--your mistress? Where is she? If it may be so, if it can be compassed, I must speak with her to-night."
"To-night, monsieur?Helas!it is impossible. She has retired; the necessaries are all distributed there," glancing up at the roof of the vehicle, "save one small chest that remains in the rooms for use in the morning. It is impossible, monsieur," he repeated. "But," the man went on, "if monsieur has anything to confide, if he requires any service which one so humble as I can give, monsieur knows where he can obtain it. Monsieur punished the ruffians who endeavoured to slay me. If one so poor as I can----"
"Nay, no matter; yet--yet--it is of grave import. There has happened that which thrusts against my hopes of reaching Liége, of reaching that city in company of--almost, may I say, in charge of Madame----"
"What, monsieur, what?" the man exclaimed in a low voice. "Monsieur is in some peril? And he, our preserver----"
"Listen," Bevill` said, thinking it best to at once tell this man the worst. "It may be that ere morning I shall no longer be able to accompany Madame La Comtesse on her road."
"Oh, monsieur!" Joseph exclaimed. "Oh, monsieur! Monsieur is indeed in some peril. What is it, monsieur?"
"There is a man now staying at the inn where I am, at 'Le Prince d'Orange,' who knows a secret of mine which may undo me if divulged. He is a Dutchman, yet now he serves France--our country--as the basest of creatures. He is a spy, one employed by France. What's that?" Bevill broke off to say, hearing a slight noise in the stable close by.
"I heard nothing, monsieur. Doubtless one of the horses moving. It is nothing. Please go on, monsieur."
"Yet also is he, as I say, an enemy of mine. He may denounce me as one having sympathy with these Dutch, as one favourable to this Grand Alliance. Ha!" Bevill exclaimed, breaking off again. "Look! Did'st? see. That man who passed outside the entry but now, his cloak about him! One with dark, piercing eyes and a flash of grey beard showing. That is the man. I will follow him, prevent him, if possible, from carrying out his intentions to-night."
"And so also will I, monsieur. Let me but get my coat and whinyard, and I will be with you. But an instant, monsieur. But an instant."
"Nay," Bevill called, even as the man sped towards the great wooden staircase that led out of the courtyard up to the balconies outside the various floors; "nay, stay here, I command you. Stay here by your mistress to whom your service is due. I need no assistance. It is man to man, as," he muttered grimly through set teeth, "it was two years ago in England."
Then, seeing that Joseph had disappeared up the stairs, Bevill went swiftly out of the courtyard and under the arch into the street.
But he did not know that, as he did so, another man had followed in his footsteps.
A man who, almost ere he was outside the entrance, had softly pushed open the stable door and then, after looking round stealthily to make sure that he was not observed, had come out himself, while thrusting into the folds of his coarse shirt something that gleamed for an instant in the rays of the lanthorn.
"What was it he said?" this man muttered to himself in a hoarse, raucous voice. "What? I could not hear all--yet enough. A Dutchman! One of us--who has joined these accursed French as a spy on us. On us--ach! Himmel!On us, his countrymen. Ha! Let me but find him, and he spies no more in this world."
And now this man was also in theplace--the deserted place in which glittered but one or two oil lamps hung on chains stretched across the road, yet which was well lighted now by a late risen moon that was in her third quarter--a moon that was topping now the pointed, crenellated roofs of the old houses and flooding the whole space with its beams. By this light the man saw that he was not yet too late.