The Laughing Cavalier · Chapter 24 (1/2)

XXIV

The Birth of Hate

Here the three men parted; Beresteyn and Jan to go to the Lame Cow where the latter was to begin his work of keeping track of Diogenes, and Stoutenburg to find his way to that squalid lodging house which was situate at the bottom of the Kleine Hout Straat where it abuts on the Oude Gracht.

It had been somewhat impulsively that he had suggested to Beresteyn that he would endeavour to obtain some information from the Spanish wench as to Diogenes’ plans and movements and the whereabouts of Gilda, and now that he was alone with more sober thoughts he realised that the suggestion had not been over-backed by reason. Still as Beresteyn had said: there could be no harm in seeking out the girl. Stoutenburg was quite satisfied in his mind that she must be the rascal’s sweetheart, else she had not lent him an helping hand in the abduction of Gilda, and since he himself was well supplied with money through the generosity of his rich friends in Haarlem, he had no doubt that if the wench knew anything at all about the rogue, she could easily be threatened first, then bribed and cajoled into telling all that she knew.

Luck in this chose to favour the Lord of Stoutenburg, for the girl was on the doorstep when he finally reached the house where two nights ago a young soldier of fortune had so generously given up his lodgings to a miserable pair of beggars. He had just been vaguely wondering how best he could⁠—without endangering his own safety⁠—obtain information as to which particular warren in the house she and her father inhabited, when he saw her standing under the lintel of the door, her meagre figure faintly lit up by the glimmer of a streetlamp fixed in the wall just above her head.

“I would have speech with thee,” he said in his usual peremptory manner as soon as he had approached her, “show me the way to thy room.”

Then as, like a frightened rabbit, she made ready to run away to her burrow as quickly as she could, he seized hold of her arm and reiterated roughly:

“I would have speech of thee, dost hear? Show me the way to thy room at once. Thy safety and that of thy father depend on thy obedience. There is close search in the city just now for Spanish spies.”

The girl’s pale cheeks took on a more ashen hue, her lips parted with a quickly smothered cry of terror. She knew⁠—as did every stranger in these Dutch cities just now⁠—that the words “Spanish spy” had a magical effect on the placid tempers of their inhabitants, and that many a harmless foreign wayfarer had suffered imprisonment, aye and torture too, on the mere suspicion of being a “Spanish spy.”

“I have nothing to fear,” she murmured under her breath.

“Perhaps not,” he rejoined, “but the man who shelters and protects thee is under suspicion of abetting Spanish spies. For his sake ’twere wiser if thou didst obey me.”

Stoutenburg had every reason to congratulate himself on his shrewd guess, for at his words all resistance on the girl’s part vanished, and though she began to tremble in every limb and even for a moment seemed ready to swoon, she murmured words which if incoherent certainly sounded submissive, and then silently led the way upstairs. He followed her closely, stumbling behind her in the dark, and as he mounted the rickety steps he was rapidly rehearsing in his mind what he would say to the wench.

That the girl was that abominable villain’s sweetheart he was not for a moment in doubt, her submission just now, at the mere hint of the fellow’s danger, showed the depth of her love for him. Stoutenburg felt therefore that his success in obtaining what information he wanted would depend only on how much she knew. In any case she must be amenable to a bribe for she seemed wretchedly poor; even in that brief glimpse which he had had of her by the dim light of the street-door lamp, he could not help but see how ragged was her kirtle and how pinched and wan her face.

On the landing she paused and taking a key from between the folds of her shift she opened the door of her lodging and humbly begged the gracious mynheer to enter. A tallow candle placed upon a chair threw its feeble light upon the squalid abode, the whitewashed walls, the primitive bedstead in the corner made up of deal planks and covered with a paillasse and a thin blanket. From beneath that same blanket came the gentle and fretful moanings of the old cripple.

But Stoutenburg was far too deeply engrossed in his own affairs to take much note of his surroundings; as soon as the girl had closed the door behind her, he called her roughly to him and she⁠—frightened and obedient⁠—came forward without a word, standing now before him, with hanging arms and bowed head, whilst a slight shiver shook her girlish form from time to time.

He dragged a chair out to the middle of the room and sat himself astride upon it, his arms resting across the back, his booted and spurred feet thrust out in front of him, whilst his hollow, purple-rimmed eyes with their feverish glow of ever-present inward excitement were fixed upon the girl.

“I must tell thee, wench,” he began abruptly, “that I mean to be thy friend. No harm shall come to thee if thou wilt answer truthfully certain questions which I would ask of thee.”

Then as she appeared too frightened to reply and only cast a furtive, timorous glance on him, he continued after a slight pause:

“The man who protected thee against the rabble the other night, and who gave thee shelter afterwards, the man in whose bed thy crippled father lies at this moment⁠—he is thy sweetheart, is he not?”

“What is that to you?” she retorted sullenly.

“Nothing in itself,” he said quietly. “I merely spoke of it to show thee how much I know. Let me tell thee at once that I was in the tavern with him on New Year’s Eve when his boon-companions told the tale of how he had protected thee against a crowd; and that I was in this very street not twenty paces away when in response to thy appeal he gave up his room and his bed to thee, and for thy sake paced the streets for several hours in the middle of the night and in weather that must have frozen the marrow in his bones.”

“Well? What of that?” said the girl simply. “He is kind and good, and hath that pity for the poor and homeless which would grace many a noble gentleman.”

“No doubt,” he retorted dryly, “but a man will not do all that for a wench, save in expectation of adequate payment for his trouble and discomfort.”

“What is that to you?” she reiterated, with the same sullen earnestness.

“Thou art in love with that fine gallant, eh, my girl?” he continued with a harsh, flippant laugh, “and art not prepared to own to it. Well! I’ll not press thee for a confession. I am quite satisfied with thine evasive answers. Let me but tell thee this; that the man whom thou lovest is in deadly danger of his life.”

“Great God, have pity on him!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

“In a spirit of wanton mischief⁠—for he is not so faithful to thee as thou wouldst wish⁠—he has abducted a lady from this city, as thou well knowest, since thou didst lend him thy help in the committal of this crime. Thou seest,” he added roughly, “that denials on thy part were worse than useless, since I know everything. The lady’s father is an important magistrate in this city, he has moved every process of the law so that he may mete out an exemplary punishment to the blackguard who has dared to filch his daughter. Hanging will be the most merciful ending to thy lover’s life, but Mynheer Beresteyn talks of the rack, of quartering and of the stake, and he is a man of boundless influence in the administration of the law.”

“Lord, have mercy upon us,” once again murmured the wretched girl whose cheeks now looked grey and shrunken; her lips were white and quivering and her eyes with dilated pupils were fixed in horror on the harbinger of this terrible news.

“He will have none on thy sweetheart, I’ll warrant thee unless⁠ ⁠…”

He paused significantly, measuring the effect of his words and of that dramatic pause upon the tense sensibilities of the girl.

“Unless⁠ ⁠… what?” came almost as a dying murmur from her parched throat.

“Unless thou wilt lend a hand to save him.”

“I?” she exclaimed pathetically, “I would give my hand⁠ ⁠… my tongue⁠ ⁠… my sight⁠ ⁠… my life to save him.”

“Come!” he said, “that’s brave! but it will not be necessary to make quite so violent a sacrifice. I have great power too in this city and great influence over the bereaved father,” he continued, lying unblushingly, “I know that if I can restore his daughter to him within the next four and twenty hours, I could prevail upon him to give up pursuit of the villain who abducted her, and to let him go free.”

But these words were not yet fully out of his mouth, before she had fallen on her knees before him, clasping her thin hands together and raising up to his hard face large, dark eyes that were brimful of tears.

“Will you do that then, O my gracious lord,” she pleaded. “Oh! God will reward you if you will do this.”

“How can I, thou crazy wench,” he retorted, “how can I restore the damsel to her sorrowing father when I do not know where she is?”

“But⁠—”

“It is from thee I want to hear where the lady is.”

“From me?”

“Why yes! of course! Thou art in the confidence of thy lover, and knowest where he keeps the lady hidden. Tell me where she is, and I will pledge thee my word that thou and he will have nothing more to fear.”

“He is not my lover,” she murmured dully, “nor am I in his confidence.”

She was still on her knees, but had fallen back on her heels, with arms hanging limp and helpless by her side. Hope so suddenly arisen had equally quickly died out of her heart, and her pinched face expressed in every line the despair and misery which had come in its wake.

“Come!” he cried harshly, “play no tricks with me, wench. Thou didst own to being the rascal’s sweetheart.”

“I owned to my love for him,” she said simply, “not to his love for me.”

“I told thee that he will hang or burn unless thou art willing to help him.”

“And I told thee, gracious sir, that I would give my life for him.”

“Which is quite unnecessary. All I want is the knowledge of where he keeps the lady whom he has outraged.”

“I cannot help you, mynheer, in that.”

“Thou wilt not!” he cried.

“I cannot,” she reiterated gently. “I do not know where she is.”

“Will fifty guilders help thy memory?” he sneered.

“Fifty guilders would mean ease and comfort to my father and to me for many months to come. I would do much for fifty guilders but I cannot tell that which I do not know.”

“An hundred guilders, girl, and the safety of thy lover. Will that not tempt thee?”

“Indeed, indeed, gracious sir,” she moaned piteously, “I swear to you that I do not know.”

“Then dost perjure thyself and wilt rue it, wench,” he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet, and with a loud curse kicked the chair away from him.

The Lord of Stoutenburg was not a man who had been taught to curb his temper; he had always given way to his passions, allowing them as the years went on to master every tender feeling within him; for years now he had sacrificed everything to them, to his ambition, to his revenge, to his loves and hates. Now that this fool of a girl tried to thwart him as he thought, he allowed his fury against her full rein, to the exclusion of reason, of prudence, or ordinary instincts of chivalry. He stooped over her like a great, gaunt bird of prey and his thin claw-like hand fastened itself on her thin shoulder.

“Thou liest, girl,” he said hoarsely, “or art playing with me? Money thou shalt have. Name thy price. I’ll pay thee all that thou wouldst ask. I’ll not believe that thou dost not know! Think of thy lover under torture, on the rack, burnt at the stake. Hast ever seen a man after he has been broken on the wheel? his limbs torn from their sockets, his chest sunken under the weights⁠—and the stake? hast seen a heretic burnt alive⁠ ⁠… ?”

She gave a loud scream of agony: her hands went up to her ears, her eyes stared out of her head like those of one in a frenzy of terror.

“Pity! pity! my lord, have pity! I swear that I do not know.”

“Verdomme!” he cried out in the madness of his rage as with a cruel twist of his hand he threw the wretched girl off her balance and sent her half-fainting, cowering on the floor.

“Verdommt be thou, plepshurk,” came in a ringing voice from behind him.

The next moment he felt as if two grapnels made of steel had fastened themselves on his shoulders and as if a weight of irresistible power was pressing him down, down on to his knees. His legs shook under him, his bones seemed literally to be cracking beneath that iron grip, and he had not the power to turn round in order to see who his assailant was. The attack had taken him wholly by surprise and it was only when his knees finally gave way under him, and he too was down on the ground, licking the dust of the floor⁠—as he had forced the wretched girl to do⁠—that he had a moment’s respite from that cruel pressure and was able to turn in the direction whence it had come.

Diogenes with those wide shoulders of his squared out to their full breadth, legs apart and arms crossed over his mighty chest was standing over him, his eyes aflame and his moustache bristling till it stood out like the tusks of a boar.

“Dondersteen!” he exclaimed as he watched the other man’s long, lean figure thus sprawling on the ground, “this is a pretty pass to which to bring this highly civilized and cultured country. Men are beginning to browbeat and strike the women now! Dondersteen!”

Stoutenburg, whose vocabulary of oaths was at least as comprehensive as that of any foreign adventurer, had⁠—to its accompaniment⁠—struggled at last to his feet.

“You⁠ ⁠…” he began as soon as he had partially recovered his breath. But Diogenes putting up his hand hastily interrupted him:

“Do not speak just now, mynheer,” he said with his wonted good-humour. “Were you to speak now, I feel that your words would not be characterized by that dignity and courtesy which one would expect from so noble a gentleman.”

“Smeerlap!⁠—” began Stoutenburg once more.

“There now,” rejoined the other with imperturbable bonhomie, “what did I tell you? Believe me, sir, ’tis much the best to be silent if pleasant words fail to reach one’s lips.”

“A truce on this nonsense,” quoth Stoutenburg hotly, “you took me unawares⁠—like a coward.⁠ ⁠…”

“Well said, mynheer! Like a coward⁠—that is just how I took you⁠—in the act of striking a miserable atom of humanity⁠—who is as defenceless as a sparrow.”

“ ’Tis ludicrous indeed to see a man of your calling posing as the protector of women,” retorted Stoutenburg with a sneer. “But enough of this. You find me unarmed at this moment, else you had already paid for this impudent interference.”

“I thank you, sir,” said Diogenes as he swept the Lord of Stoutenburg a deep, ironical bow, “I thank you for thus momentarily withholding chastisement from my unworthiness. When may I have the honour of calling on your Magnificence in order that you might mete unto me the punishment which I have so amply deserved?”

“That chastisement will lose nothing by waiting, since indeed your insolence passes belief,” quoth Stoutenburg hotly. “Now go!” he added, choosing not to notice the wilfully impertinent attitude of the other man, “leave me alone with this wench. My business is with her.”

“So is mine, gracious lord,” rejoined Diogenes with a bland smile, “else I were not here. This room is mine⁠—perhaps your Magnificence did not know that⁠—you would not like surely to remain my guest a moment longer than you need.”

“Of a truth I knew that the baggage was your sweetheart⁠—else I had not come at all.”