Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch by H. Rider Haggard (fantasy books to read txt) 📕

of one of His Majesty’s prisons, occupies an upstairs room.”

“What of him?” asked Lysbeth.

“Dear lady, don’t be over anxious; there is nothing so wearing as anxiety. I was coming to the matter.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added, “It is needful, Lysbeth, that I should set out the situation.”

“What situation do you mean?”

“Well, principally that of the treasure.”

“What treasure?”

“Oh! woman, do not waste time in trying to fool me. The treasure, the vast, the incalculable treasure of Hendrik Brant which Foy van Goorl and Martin, who have escaped”—and he ground his teeth together at the anguish of the thought—“disposed of somewhere in the Haarlemer Meer.”

“Well, what about this treasure?”

“I want it, that is all.”

“Then you had best go to seek it.”

“That is my intention, and I shall begin the search—in the heart of Dirk van Goorl,” he added, slowly crushing the handkerchief he held with his long fingers as though it were a living thing that could be choked to death.

Lysbeth never stirred, she had expected this.

“You will find it a poor mine to dig in,” she said, “for he knows nothing of the whereabouts of this money. Nobody knows anything of it now. Martin hid it, as I understand, and lost the paper, so it will lie there till the Haarlemer Meer is drained.”

“Dear me! Do you know I have heard that story before; yes, from the excellent Martin himself—and, do you know, I don’t quite believe it.”

“I cannot help what you believe or do not believe. You may remember that it was always my habit to speak the truth.”

“Quite so, but others may be less conscientious. See here,” and drawing a paper from his doublet, he held it before her. It was nothing less than the death-warrant of Dirk van Goorl, signed by the Inquisitor, duly authorised thereto.

Mechanically she read it and understood.

“You will observe,” he went on, “that the method of the criminal’s execution is left to the good wisdom of our well-beloved—etc., in plain language, to me. Now might I trouble you so far as to look out of this little window? What do you see in front of you? A kitchen? Quite so; always a homely and pleasant sight in the eyes of an excellent housewife like yourself. And—do you mind bending forward a little? What do you see up there? A small barred window? Well, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that a hungry man, a man who grows hungrier and hungrier, sat behind that window watching the cooks at their work and seeing the meat carried into this kitchen, to come out an hour or two later as hot, steaming, savoury joints, while he wasted, wasted, wasted and starved, starved, starved. Don’t you think, my dear lady, that this would be a very unpleasant experience for that man?”

“Are you a devil?” gasped Lysbeth, springing back.

“I have never regarded myself as such, but if you seek a definition, I should say that I am a hard-working, necessitous, and somewhat unfortunate gentleman who has been driven to rough methods in order to secure a comfortable old age. I can assure you that I do not wish to starve anybody; I wish only to find Hendrik Brant’s treasure, and if your worthy husband won’t tell me where it is, why I must make him, that is all. In six or eight days under my treatment I am convinced that he will become quite fluent on the subject, for there is nothing that should cause a fat burgher, accustomed to good living, to open his heart more than a total lack of the victuals which he can see and smell. Did you ever hear the story of an ancient gentleman called Tantalus? These old fables have a wonderful way of adapting themselves to the needs and circumstances of us moderns, haven’t they?”

Then Lysbeth’s pride broke down, and, in the abandonment of her despair, flinging herself upon her knees before this monster, she begged for her husband’s life, begged, in the name of God, yes, and even in the name of Montalvo’s son, Adrian. So low had her misery brought her that she pleaded with the man by the son of shame whom she had borne to him.

He prayed her to rise. “I want to save your husband’s life,” he said. “I give you my word that if only he will tell me what I desire to know, I will save it; yes, although the risk is great, I will even manage his escape, and I shall ask you to go upstairs presently and explain my amiable intentions to him.” Then he thought a moment and added, “But you mentioned one Adrian. Pray do you mean the gentleman whose signature appears here?” and he handed her another document, saying, “Read it quietly, there is no hurry. The good Dirk is not starving yet; I am informed, indeed, that he has just made an excellent breakfast—not his last by many thousands, let us hope.”

Lysbeth took the sheets and glanced at them. Then her intelligence awoke, and she read on fiercely until her eye came to the well-known signature at the foot of the last page. She cast the roll down with a cry as though a serpent had sprung from its pages and bitten her.

“I fear that you are pained,” said Montalvo sympathetically, “and no wonder, for myself I have gone through such disillusionments, and know how they wound a generous nature. That’s why I showed you this document, because I also am generous and wish to warn you against this young gentleman, who, I understand, you allege is my son. You see the person who would betray his brother might even go a step further and betray his mother, so, if you take my advice, you will keep an eye upon the young man. Also I am bound to remind you that it is more or less your own fault. It is a most unlucky thing to curse a child before it is born—you remember the incident? That curse has come home to roost with a vengeance. What a warning against giving way to the passion of the moment!”

Lysbeth heeded him no longer; she was thinking as she had never thought before. At that moment, as though by an inspiration, there floated into her mind the words of the dead Vrouw Jansen: “The plague, I wish that I had caught it before, for then I would have taken it to him in prison, and they couldn’t have treated him as they did.” Dirk was in prison, and Dirk was to be starved to death, for, whatever Montalvo might think, he did not know the secret, and, therefore, could not tell it. And she—she had the plague on her; she knew its symptoms well, and its poison was burning in her every vein, although she still could think and speak and walk.

Well, why not? It would be no crime. Indeed, if it was a crime, she cared little; it would be better that he should die of the plague in five days, or perhaps in two, if it worked quickly, as it often did with the full-blooded, than that he should linger on starving for twelve or more, and perhaps be tormented besides.

Swiftly, very swiftly, Lysbeth came to her dreadful decision. Then she spoke in a hoarse voice.

“What do you wish me to do?”

“I wish you to reason with your husband, and to persuade him to cease from his obstinacy, and to surrender to me the secret of the hiding-place of Brant’s hoard. In that event, so soon as I have proved the truth of what he tells me, I undertake that he shall be set at liberty unharmed, and that, meanwhile, he shall be well treated.”

“And if I will not, or he will not, or cannot?”

“Then I have told you the alternative, and to show you that I am not joking, I will now write and sign the order. Then, if you decline this mission, or if it is fruitless, I will hand it to the officer before your eyes—and within the next ten days or so let you know the results, or witness them if you wish.”

“I will go,” she said, “but I must see him alone.”

“It is unusual,” he answered, “but provided you satisfy me that you carry no weapon, I do not know that I need object.”

So, when Montalvo had written his order and scattered dust on it from the pounce-box, for he was a man of neat and methodical habits, he himself with every possible courtesy conducted Lysbeth to her husband’s prison. Having ushered her into it, with a cheerful “Friend van Goorl, I bring you a visitor,” he locked the door upon them, and patiently waited outside.

It matters not what passed within. Whether Lysbeth told her husband of her dread yet sacred purpose, or did not tell him; whether he ever learned of the perfidy of Adrian, or did not learn it; what were their parting words—their parting prayers, all these things matter not; indeed, the last are too holy to be written. Let us bow our heads and pass them by in silence, and let the reader imagine them as he will.

Growing impatient at length, Montalvo unlocked the prison door and opened it, to discover Lysbeth and her husband kneeling side by side in the centre of the room like the figures on some ancient marble monument. They heard him and rose. Then Dirk folded his wife in his arms in a long, last embrace, and, loosing her, held one hand above her head in blessing, as with the other he pointed to the door.

So infinitely pathetic was this dumb show of farewell, for no word passed between them while he was present, that not only his barbed gibes, but the questions that he meant to ask, died upon the lips of Montalvo. Try as he might he could not speak them here.

“Come,” he said, and Lysbeth passed out.

At the door she turned to look, and there, in the centre of the room, still stood her husband, tears streaming from his eyes, down a face radiant with an unearthly smile, and his right hand lifted towards the heavens. And so she left him.

Presently Montalvo and Lysbeth were together again in the little room.

“I fear,” he said, “from what I saw just now, that your mission has failed.”

“It has failed,” she answered in such a voice as might be dragged by an evil magic from the lips of a corpse. “He does not know the secret you seek, and, therefore, he cannot tell it.”

“I am sorry that I cannot believe you,” said Montalvo, “so”—and he stretched out his hand towards a bell upon the table.

“Stop,” she said; “for your own sake stop. Man, will you really commit this awful, this useless crime? Think of the reckoning that must be paid here and hereafter; think of me, the woman you dishonoured, standing before the Judgment Seat of God, and bearing witness against your naked, shivering soul. Think of him, the good and harmless man whom you are about cruelly to butcher, crying in the ear of Christ, ‘Look upon Juan de Montalvo, my pitiless murderer——‘”

“Silence,” shouted Montalvo, yet shrinking back against the wall as though to avoid a sword-thrust. “Silence, you ill-omened witch, with your talk of God and judgment. It is too late, I tell you, it is too late; my hands are too red with blood, my heart is too black with sin, upon the tablets of my mind is written too long a record. What more can this one crime matter, and—do you understand?—I must have money, money to buy my pleasures, money to make my last years happy, and my deathbed soft. I have suffered enough, I have toiled enough, and I will win wealth and peace who am now once more a beggar. Yes, had you twenty husbands, I would crush the life out of all of them inch by inch to win the gold that I desire.”

As he spoke and the passions in him broke through their crust of cunning and reserve, his face changed. Now Lysbeth, watching for some sign of pity, knew that hope was dead, for his countenance was as it had been on that day six-and-twenty years ago, when she sat at his side while the great race was run. There was the same starting eyeball, the same shining fangs appeared between the curled lips, and above them the moustachios, now grown grey, touched the high cheekbones. It was as in the fable of the weremen, who, at a magic sign or word, put off their human aspect and become beasts. So it had chanced to the spirit of Montalvo, shining through his flesh like some baleful marsh-light through the mist. It was a thing which God had