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

Dirk nodded, for this Professor was well known in Leyden. "And then?" he asked.

"And then? Why, Mother in Heaven! they came out, that's all--the big man stripped and carrying the other on his back. Yes, they killed the Professor with the branding iron, and out they came--like ripe peas from a pod."

"Impossible!" said Dirk.

"Very well, perhaps you know better than I do; perhaps it is impossible also that they should have pushed the door to, let all those Spanish cocks inside do what they might, and bolted them in; perhaps it is impossible that they should have spitted the porter and got clean away through the outside guards, the big one still carrying the other upon his back. Perhaps all these things are impossible, but they're true nevertheless, and if you don't believe me, after they get away from the whipping-post, just ask the bridge guard why they ran so fast when they saw that great, naked, blue-eyed fellow come at them roaring like a lion, with his big sword flashing above his head. Oh! there's a pretty to-do, I can tell you, a pretty to-do, and in meal or malt we shall all pay the price of it, from the Governor down. Indeed, some backs are paying it now."

"But, friend, were they not taken outside the gaol?"

"Taken? Who was to take them when the rascally mob made them an escort five hundred strong as they went down the street? No, they are far away from Leyden now, you may swear to that. I must be going, but if there is anything you'd like while you're here just tell me, and as you are so liberal I'll try and see that you get what you want."

As the bolts were shot home behind the man Dirk clasped his hands and almost laughed aloud with joy. So Martin was free and Foy was free, and until they could be taken again the secret of the treasure remained safe. Montalvo would never have it, of that he was sure. And as for his own fate? Well, he cared little about it, especially as the Inquisitor had decreed that, being a man of so much importance, he was not to be put to the "question." This order, however, was prompted, not by mercy, but by discretion, since the fellow knew that, like other of the Holland towns, Leyden was on the verge of open revolt, and feared lest, should it leak out that one of the wealthiest and most respected of its burghers was actually being tormented for his faith's sake, the populace might step over the boundary line.

When Adrian had seen the wounded Spanish soldiers and their bearers torn to pieces by the rabble, and had heard the great door of the Gevangenhuis close upon Foy and Martin, he turned to go home with his evil news. But for a long while the mob would not go home, and had it not been that the drawbridge over the moat in front of the prison was up, and that they had no means of crossing it, probably they would have attacked the building then and there. Presently, however, rain began to fall and they melted away, wondering, not too happily, whether, in that time of daily slaughter, the Duke of Alva would think a few common soldiers worth while making a stir about.

Adrian entered the upper room to tell his tidings, since they must be told, and found it occupied by his mother alone. She was sitting straight upright in her chair, her hands resting upon her knees, staring out of the window with a face like marble.

"I cannot find him," he began, "but Foy and Martin are taken after a great fight in which Foy was wounded. They are in the Gevangenhuis."

"I know all," interrupted Lysbeth in a cold, heavy voice. "My husband is taken also. Someone must have betrayed them. May God reward him! Leave me, Adrian."

Then Adrian turned and crept away to his own chamber, his heart so full of remorse and shame that at times he thought that it must burst. Weak as he was, wicked as he was, he had never intended this, but now, oh Heaven! his brother Foy and the man who had been his benefactor, whom his mother loved more than her life, were through him given over to a death worse than the mind could conceive. Somehow that night wore away, and of this we may be sure, that it did not go half as heavily with the victims in their dungeon as with the betrayer in his free comfort. Thrice during its dark hours, indeed, Adrian was on the point of destroying himself; once even he set the hilt of his sword upon the floor and its edge against his breast, and then at the prick of steel shrank back.

Better would it have been for him, perhaps, could he have kept his courage; at least he would have been spared much added shame and misery.

So soon as Adrian had left her Lysbeth rose, robed herself, and took her way to the house of her cousin, van de Werff, now a successful citizen of middle age and the burgomaster-elect of Leyden.

"You have heard the news?" she said.

"Alas! cousin, I have," he answered, "and it is very terrible. Is it true that this treasure of Hendrik Brant's is at the bottom of it all?"

She nodded, and answered, "I believe so."

"Then could they not bargain for their lives by surrendering its secret?"

"Perhaps. That is, Foy and Martin might--Dirk does not know its whereabouts--he refused to know, but they have sworn that they will die first."

"Why, cousin?"

"Because they promised as much to Hendrik Brant, who believed that if his gold could be kept from the Spaniards it would do some mighty service to his country in time to come, and who has persuaded them all that is so."

"Then God grant it may be true," said van de Werff with a sigh, "for otherwise it is sad to think that more lives should be sacrificed for the sake of a heap of pelf."

"I know it, cousin, but I come to you to save those lives."

"How?"

"How?" she answered fiercely. "Why, by raising the town; by attacking the Gevangenhuis and rescuing them, by driving the Spaniards out of Leyden----"

"And thereby bringing upon ourselves the fate of Mons. Would you see this place also given over to sack by the soldiers of Noircarmes and Don Frederic?"

"I care not what I see so long as I save my son and my husband," she answered desperately.

"There speaks the woman, not the patriot. It is better that three men should die than a whole city full."

"That is a strange argument to find in your mouth, cousin, the argument of Caiaphas the Jew."

"Nay, Lysbeth, be not wroth with me, for what can I say? The Spanish troops in Leyden are not many, it is true, but more have been sent for from Haarlem and elsewhere after the troubles of yesterday arising out of the capture of Foy and Martin, and in forty-eight hours at the longest they will be here. This town is not provisioned for a siege, its citizens are not trained to arms, and we have little powder stored. Moreover, the city council is divided. For the killing of the Spanish soldiers we may compound, but if we attack the Gevangenhuis, that is open rebellion, and we shall bring the army of Don Frederic down upon us."

"What matter, cousin? It will come sooner or later."

"Then let it come later, when we are more prepared to beat it off. Oh! do not reproach me, for I can bear it ill, I who am working day and night to make ready for the hour of trial. I love your husband and your son, my heart bleeds for your sorrow and their doom, but at present I can do nothing, nothing. You must bear your burden, they must bear theirs, I must bear mine; we must all wander through the night not knowing where we wander till God causes the dawn to break, the dawn of freedom and retribution."

Lysbeth made no answer, only she rose and stumbled from the house, while van de Werff sat down groaning bitterly and praying for help and light.

Lysbeth did not sleep that night, for even if her misery would have let her sleep, she could not because of the physical fire that burnt in her veins, and the strange pangs of agony which pierced her head. At first she thought little of them, but when at last the cold light of the autumn morning dawned she went to a mirror and examined herself, and there upon her neck she found a hard red swelling of the size of a nut. Then Lysbeth knew that she had caught the plague from the Vrouw Jansen, and laughed aloud, a dreary little laugh, since if all she loved were to die, it seemed to her good that she should die also. Elsa was abed prostrated with grief, and, shutting herself in her room, Lysbeth suffered none to come near her except one woman who she knew had recovered from the plague in past years, but even to her she said nothing of her sickness.

About eleven o'clock in the morning this woman rushed into her chamber crying, "They have escaped! They have escaped!"

"Who?" gasped Lysbeth, springing from her chair.

"Your son Foy and Red Martin," and she told the tale of how the naked man with the naked sword, carrying the wounded Foy upon his back, burst his way roaring from the Gevangenhuis, and, protected by the people, had run through the town and out of the Morsch poort, heading for the Haarlemer Meer.

As she listened Lysbeth's eyes flamed up with a fire of pride.

"Oh! good and faithful servant," she murmured, "you have saved my son, but alas! your master you could not save."

Another hour passed, and the woman appeared again bearing a letter.

"Who brought this?" she asked.

"A Spanish soldier, mistress."

Then she cut the silk and read it. It was unsigned, and ran:--

"One in authority sends greetings to the Vrouw van Goorl. If the Vrouw van Goorl would save the life of the man who is dearest to her, she is prayed to veil herself and follow the bearer of this letter. For her own safety she need have no fear; it is assured hereby."

Lysbeth thought awhile. This might be a trick; very probably it was a trick to take her. Well, if so, what did it matter since she would rather die with her husband than live on without him; moreover, why should she turn aside from death, she in whose veins the plague was burning? But there was another thing worse than that. She could guess who had penned this letter; it even seemed to her, after all