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

forgotten, a thing that had burst the kindly mould of its humanity, and wrapt itself in the robe and mask of such a wolf as might raven about the cliffs of hell. Only there was fear on the face of the wolf, that inhuman face which, this side of the grave, she was yet destined to see once more.

The fit passed, and Montalvo sank down gasping, while even in her woe and agony Lysbeth shuddered at this naked vision of a Satan-haunted soul.

“I have one more thing to ask,” she said. “Since my husband must die, suffer that I die with him. Will you refuse this also, and cause the cup of your crimes to flow over, and the last angel of God’s mercy to flee away?”

“Yes,” he answered. “You, woman with the evil eye, do you suppose that I wish you here to bring all the ills you prate of upon my head? I say that I am afraid of you. Why, for your sake, once, years ago, I made a vow to the Blessed Virgin that, whatever I worked on men, I would never again lift a hand against a woman. To that oath I look to help me at the last, for I have kept it sacredly, and am keeping it now, else by this time both you and the girl, Elsa, might have been stretched upon the rack. No, Lysbeth, get you gone, and take your curses with you,” and he snatched and rang the bell.

A soldier entered the room, saluted, and asked his commands.

“Take this order,” he said, “to the officer in charge of the heretic, Dirk van Goorl; it details the method of his execution. Let it be strictly adhered to, and report made to me each morning of the condition of the prisoner. Stay, show this lady from the prison.”

The man saluted again and went out of the door. After him followed Lysbeth. She spoke no more, but as she passed she looked at Montalvo, and he knew well that though she might be gone, yet her curse remained behind.

The plague was on her, the plague was on her, her head and bones were racked with pain, and the swords of sorrow pierced her poor heart. But Lysbeth’s mind was still clear, and her limbs still supported her. She reached her home and walked upstairs to the sitting room, commanding the servant to find the Heer Adrian and bid him join her there.

In the room was Elsa, who ran to her crying,

“Is it true? Is it true?”

“It is true, daughter, that Foy and Martin have escaped——”

“Oh! God is good!” wept the girl.

“And that my husband is a prisoner and condemned to death.”

“Ah!” gasped Elsa, “I am selfish.”

“It is natural that a woman should think first of the man she loves. No, do not come near me; I fear that I am stricken with the pest.”

“I am not afraid of that,” answered Elsa. “Did I never tell you? As a child I had it in The Hague.”

“That, at least, is good news among much that is very ill; but be silent, here comes Adrian, to whom I wish to speak. Nay, you need not leave us; it is best that you should learn the truth.”

Presently Adrian entered, and Elsa, watching everything, noticed that he looked sadly changed and ill.

“You sent for me, mother,” he began, with some attempt at his old pompous air. Then he caught sight of her face and was silent.

“I have been to the Gevangenhuis, Adrian,” she said, “and I have news to tell you. As you may have heard, your brother Foy and our servant Martin have escaped, I know not whither. They escaped out of the very jaws of worse than death, out of the torture-chamber, indeed, by killing that wretch who was known as the Professor, and the warden of the gate, Martin carrying Foy, who is wounded, upon his back.”

“I am indeed rejoiced,” cried Adrian excitedly.

“Hypocrite, be silent,” hissed his mother, and he knew that the worst had overtaken him.

“My husband, your stepfather, has not escaped; he is in the prison still, for there I have just bidden him farewell, and the sentence upon him is that he shall be starved to death in a cell overlooking the kitchen.”

“Oh! oh!” cried Elsa, and Adrian groaned.

“It was my good, or my evil, fortune,” went on Lysbeth, in a voice of ice, “to see the written evidence upon which my husband, your brother Foy, and Martin were condemned to death, on the grounds of heresy, rebellion, and the killing of the king’s servants. At the foot of it, duly witnessed, stands the signature of—Adrian van Goorl.”

Elsa’s jaw fell. She stared at the traitor like one paralysed, while Adrian, seizing the back of a chair, rested upon it, and rocked his body to and fro.

“Have you anything to say?” asked Lysbeth.

There was still one chance for the wretched man—had he been more dishonest than he was. He might have denied all knowledge of the signature. But to do this never occurred to him. Instead, he plunged into a wandering, scarcely intelligible, explanation, for even in his dreadful plight his vanity would not permit him to tell all the truth before Elsa. Moreover, in that fearful silence, soon he became utterly bewildered, till at length he hardly knew what he was saying, and in the end came to a full stop.

“I understand you to admit that you signed this paper in the house of Hague Simon, and in the presence of a man called Ramiro, who is Governor of the prison, and who showed it to me,” said Lysbeth, lifting her head which had sunk upon her breast.

“Yes, mother, I signed something, but——”

“I wish to hear no more,” interrupted Lysbeth. “Whether your motive was jealousy, or greed, or wickedness of heart, or fear, you signed that which, had you been a man, you would have suffered yourself to be torn to pieces with redhot pincers before you put a pen to it. Moreover, you gave your evidence fully and freely, for I have read it, and supported it with the severed finger of the woman Meg which you stole from Foy’s room. You are the murderer of your benefactor and of your mother’s heart, and the would-be murderer of your brother and of Martin Roos. When you were born, the mad wife, Martha, who nursed me, counselled that you should be put to death, lest you should live to bring evil upon me and mine. I refused, and you have brought the evil upon us all, but most, I think, upon your own soul. I do not curse you, I call down no ill upon you; Adrian, I give you over into the hands of God to deal with as He sees fit. Here is money”—and, going to her desk, she took from it a heavy purse of gold which had been prepared for their flight, and thrust it into the pocket of his doublet, wiping her fingers upon her kerchief after she had touched him. “Go hence and never let me see your face again. You were born of my body, you are my flesh and blood, but for this world and the next I renounce you, Adrian. Bastard, I know you not. Murderer, get you gone.”

Adrian fell upon the ground; he grovelled before his mother trying to kiss the hem of her dress, while Elsa sobbed aloud hysterically. But Lysbeth spurned him in the face with her foot, saying,

“Get you gone before I call up such servants as are left to me to thrust you to the street.”

Then Adrian rose and with great gasps of agony, like some sore-wounded thing, crept from that awful and majestic presence of outraged motherhood, crept down the stairs and away into the city.

When he had gone Lysbeth took pen and paper and wrote in large letters these words:—

“Notice to all the good citizens of Leyden. Adrian, called van Goorl, upon whose written evidence his stepfather, Dirk van Goorl, his half-brother, Foy van Goorl, and the serving-man, Martin Roos, have been condemned to death in the Gevangenhuis by torment, starvation, water, fire, and sword, is known here no longer. Lysbeth van Goorl.”

Then she called a servant and gave orders that this paper should be nailed upon the front door of the house where every passer-by might read it.

“It is done,” she said. “Cease weeping, Elsa, and lead me to my bed, whence I pray God that I may never rise again.”

Two days went by, and a fugitive rode into the city, a worn and wounded man of Leyden, with horror stamped upon his face.

“What news?” cried the people in the market-place, recognising him.

“Mechlin! Mechlin!” he gasped. “I come from Mechlin.”

“What of Mechlin and its citizens?” asked Pieter van de Werff, stepping forward.

“Don Frederic has taken it; the Spaniards have butchered them; everyone, old and young, men, women, and children, they are all butchered. I escaped, but for two leagues and more I heard the sound of the death-wail of Mechlin. Give me wine.”

They gave him wine, and by slow degrees, in broken sentences, he told the tale of one of the most awful crimes ever committed in the name of Christ by cruel man against God and his own fellows. It was written large in history: we need not repeat it here.

Then, when they knew the truth, up from that multitude of the men of Leyden went a roar of wrath, and a cry to vengeance for their slaughtered kin. They took arms, each what he had, the burgher his sword, the fisherman his fish-spear, the boor his ox-goad or his pick; leaders sprang up to command them, and there arose a shout of “To the gates! To the Gevangenhuis! Free the prisoners!”

They surged round the hateful place, thousands of them. The drawbridge was up, but they bridged the moat. Some shots were fired at them, then the defence ceased. They battered in the massive doors, and, when these fell, rushed to the dens and loosed those who remained alive within them.

But they found no Spaniards, for by now Ramiro and his garrison had vanished away, whither they knew not. A voice cried, “Dirk van Goorl, seek for Dirk van Goorl,” and they came to the chamber overlooking the courtyard, shouting, “Van Goorl, we are here!”

They broke in the door, and there they found him, lying upon his pallet, his hands clasped, his face upturned, smitten suddenly dead, not by man, but by the poison of the plague.

Unfed and untended, the end had overtaken him very swiftly.