LYSBETH by H. RIDER HAGGARD (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

Let us look at this man as he goes gnawing his hand in rage and disappointment. There is something familiar about his face and bearing, still gallant enough in a fashion, yet the most observant would find it difficult to recognise in the Senor Ramiro the handsome and courtly Count Juan de Montalvo of over twenty years before. A long spell of the galleys changes the hardiest man, and by ill luck Montalvo, or Ramiro, to call him by his new name, had been forced to serve nearly his full time. He would have escaped earlier indeed, had he not been foolish enough to join in a mutiny, which was discovered and suppressed. It was in the course of this savage struggle for freedom that he lost his eye, knocked out with a belaying pin by an officer whom he had just stabbed. The innocent officer died and the rascal Ramiro died, but without his good looks.

To a person of gentle birth, however great a scoundrel he might be, the galleys, which represented penal servitude in the sixteenth century, were a very rough school. Indeed for the most part the man who went into them blameless became bad, and the man who went into them bad became worse, for, as the proverb says, those who have dwelt in hell always smell of brimstone. Who can imagine the awfulness of it --the chains, the arduous and continual labour, the whip of the quarter-masters, the company of thieves and outcast ruffians, all dreadful in its squalid sameness?

Well, his strength and constitution, coupled with a sort of grim philosophy, brought him through, and at length Ramiro found himself a free man, middle-aged indeed, but intelligent and still strong, the world once more before him. Yet what a world! His wife, believing him dead, or perhaps wishing to believe it, had remarried and gone with her husband to New Spain, taking his children with her, and his friends, such of them as lived, turned their backs upon him. But although he had been an unlucky man, for with him wickedness had not prospered, he still had resource and courage.

The Count Montalvo was a penniless outlaw, a byword and a scorn, and so the Count Montalvo--died, and was buried publicly in the church of his native village. Strangely enough, however, about the same time the Senor Ramiro appeared in another part of Spain, where with success he practised as a notary and man of affairs. Some years went by thus, till at length, having realised a considerable sum of money by the help of an ingenious fraud, of which the details are superfluous, an inspiration took him and he sailed for the Netherlands.

In those dreadful days, in order to further the ends of religious persecution and of legalised theft, informers were rewarded with a portion of the goods of heretics. Ramiro's idea--a great one in its way--was to organise this informing business, and, by interesting a number of confederates who practically were shareholders in the venture, to sweep into his net more fortunes, or shares of fortunes, than a single individual, however industrious, could hope to secure. As he had expected, soon he found plenty of worthy companions, and the company was floated. For a while, with the help of local agencies and spies, such as Black Meg and the Butcher, with whom, forgetting past injuries, he had secretly renewed his acquaintance, it did very well, the dividends being large and regular. In such times handsome sums were realised, without risk, out of the properties of unfortunates who were brought to the stake, and still more was secured by a splendid system of blackmail extracted from those who wished to avoid execution, and who, when they had been sucked dry, could either be burnt or let go, as might prove most convenient.

Also there were other methods of making money--by an intelligent method of robbery, by contracts to collect fines and taxes and so forth. Thus things went well, and, at length, after many years of suffering and poverty, the Senor Ramiro, that experienced man of affairs, began to grow rich, until, indeed, driven forward by a natural but unwise ambition, a fault inherent to daring minds, he entered upon a dangerous path.

The wealth of Hendrik Brant, the goldsmith, was a matter of common report, and glorious would be the fortune of him who could secure its reversion. This Ramiro wished to win; indeed, there was no ostensible reason why he should not do so, since Brant was undoubtedly a heretic, and, therefore, legitimate game for any honourable servant of the Church and King. Yet there were lions in the path, two large and formidable lions, or rather a lion and the ghost of a lion, for one was material and the other spiritual. The material lion was that the Government, or in other words, his august kingship Philip, desired the goldsmith's thousands for himself, and was therefore likely to be irritated by an interloper. The spiritual lion was that Brant was connected with Lysbeth van Goorl, once known as Lysbeth de Montalvo, a lady who had brought her reputed husband no luck. Often and often during dreary hours of reflection beneath tropic suns, for which the profession of galley-slave gave great leisure, the Senor Ramiro remembered that very energetic curse which his new affianced wife had bestowed upon him, a curse in which she prayed that through her he might live in heavy labour, that through her and hers he might be haunted by fears and misfortunes, and at the last die in misery. Looking back upon the past it would certainly seem that there had been virtue in this curse, for already through Lysbeth and his dealings with her, he had suffered the last degradation and the toil, which could not be called light, of nearly fourteen years of daily occupation in the galleys.

Well, he was clear of them, and thenceforward, the curse having exhausted itself for the time being, he had prospered--at any rate to a moderate extent. But if once more he began to interfere with Lysbeth van Goorl and her relatives, might it not re-assert its power? That was one question. Was it worth while to take his risk on the chance of securing Brant's fortune? That was another. Brant, it was true, was only a cousin of Lysbeth's husband, but when once you meddled with a member of the family, it was impossible to know how soon other members would become mixed up in the affair.

The end may be guessed. The treasure was at hand and enormous, whereas the wrath of a Heavenly or an earthly king was problematical and far away. So greed, outstripping caution and superstitious fear, won the race, and Ramiro threw himself into the adventure with a resource and energy which in their way were splendid.

Now, as always, he was a man who hated violence for its own sake. It was no wish of his that the worthy Heer Brant should be unnecessarily burnt or tortured. Therefore through his intermediaries, as Brant had narrated in his letter, he approached him with a proposal which, under the circumstances, was liberal enough--that Brant should hand over two-thirds of his fortune to him and his confederates, on condition that he was assisted to escape with the remaining third. To his disgust, however, this obstinate Dutchman refused to buy his safety at the price of a single stiver. Indeed, he answered with rude energy that now as always he was in the hands of God, and if it pleased God that his life should be sacrificed and his great wealth divided amongst thieves, well, it must be so, but he, at least, would be no party to the arrangement.

The details of the plots and counter-plots, the attack of the Ramiro company, the defences of Brant, the internecine struggles between the members of the company and the agents of the Government, if set out at length, would fill a considerable book. Of these we already know something, and the rest may be divined.

In the course of the affair Ramiro had made but one mistake, and that sprang from what he was wont to consider the weakness of his nature. Needless to say, it was that he had winked at the escape of Brant's daughter, Elsa. It may have been superstition that prompted him, or it may have been pity, or perhaps it was a certain oath of mercy which he had taken in an hour of need; at any rate, he was content that the girl should not share the doom which overshadowed her father. He did not think it at all likely that she would take with her any documents of importance, and the treasure, of course, she could not take; still, to provide against accidents he arranged for her to be searched upon the road.

As we know this search was a failure, and when on the morrow Black Meg arrived to make report and to warn him that Dirk van Goorl's son and his great serving-man, whose strength was known throughout the Netherlands, were on their road to The Hague, he was sure that after all the girl had carried with her some paper or message.

By this time the whereabouts of Brant's treasure had been practically solved. It was believed to lie in the string of vessels, although it was not known that one of these was laden with powder as well as gold. The plan of the Government agents was to search the vessels as they passed out to sea and seize the treasure as contraband, which would save much legal trouble, since under the law or the edicts wealth might not be shipped abroad by heretics. The plan of Ramiro and his friends was to facilitate the escape of the treasure to the open sea, where they proposed to swoop down upon it and convey it to more peaceful shores.

When Foy and his party started down the canal in the boat Ramiro knew that his opportunity had come, and at once unmoored the big ship and followed. The attempted stabbing of Foy was not done by his orders, as he wished the party to go unmolested and to be kept in sight. That was a piece of private malice on the part of Black Meg, for it was she who was dressed as a man. On various occasions in Leyden Foy had made remarks upon Meg's character which she resented, and about her personal appearance, which she resented much more, and this was an attempt to pay off old scores that in the issue cost her a finger, a good knife, and a gold ring which had associations connected with her youth.

At first everything had gone well. By one of the most daring and masterly manoeuvres that Ramiro had ever seen in his long and varied experience upon the seas, the little /Swallow/, with her crew of three men, had run the gauntlet of the fort which was warned and waiting for her; had sunk and sailed through the big Government boat and her crew of lubberly soldiers, many of whom, he was glad to reflect, were drowned; had crushed the officer, against whom he had a personal grudge, like an egg-shell, and won through to the open sea. There he thought he was sure of her, for he took it for granted that she would run for the Norfolk coast, and knew that in the gale of wind which was blowing his larger and well-manned vessel could pull her down. But then the ill-luck--that ancient ill-luck which always dogged him when he began to interfere with the affairs of Lysbeth and her relatives-- declared itself.

Instead of attempting to cross the North Sea the little /Swallow/ hugged the coast, where, for various nautical reasons connected with the wind, the water, and the build