"He is an English knight," replied the servant; "and what he wants he will tell you himself."
"But I am not fond of trusting myself in English knights" hands,"
answered Ned Dyram; "they sometimes use one badly: so tell me his name, or I do not go."
"His name is Sir Simeon of Roydon," replied the man: "a very good name, isn"t it?"
"Oh, yes! I will go to him," replied Ned Dyram. "He used to be about the Court, when I was a greater man than I am now;" and he walked straight up to the spot where Sir Simeon of Roydon had halted his horse, and lowly doffed his bonnet as he approached.
"My knave tells me," said the knight, "that you are a servant of the King"s. Is it so?"
"It was so once, sir," replied Ned Dyram; and then added, looking round to the servant who had followed him, "So, it was he who told you: I do not remember him!"
"Perhaps not," answered the knight; "but you came up with him once, when he was following a young woman in whom I take some interest. Do you know where she is now?"
"It may be so," replied Ned Dyram; "but I talk not of such things in the street, good sir."
Simeon of Roydon paused and mused, gazing in the man"s face the while.
"Whom do you serve now?" he demanded, at length.
"Why, I am employed by no one, at present," said Ned Dyram; not exactly telling a falsehood, but implying one.
"Well, then, come to me to-night, some time after sunset," rejoined Sir Simeon, "and we will speak more. You know the convent of the Dominicans; I am to lodge there, for the prior is my cousin. Ask for Sir Simeon of Roydon, or the English knight, and the porter will show you my lodging."
"At the Dominicans!" cried Ned Dyram; "why, you are not going thither now--at least, that is not the way."
"Is it not?" exclaimed the knight. "Why this fellow agreed to guide me;" and he pointed to a man in the dress of a peasant, who accompanied them.
"Then he is guiding you wrong," replied Ned Dyram. "Go straight up that street, follow the course of the river to the left, and, when you have pa.s.sed the second bridge, turn up to the right, cross the Lys, and you will see the Dominicans right before you. He was taking you to the Carmelites."
"Well, don"t fail to come," rejoined Sir Simeon of Roydon; and he then rode on, pouring no very measured abuse upon the head of his guide.
The moment he was gone, Dyram hurried back to Ella Brune; and a long and eager conversation ensued between them, of a very different tone and character from any which had taken place before. Ella was obliged to trust and to confide in him, to tell her reasons for abhorring and shrinking from the sight of one whom her evil fortune seemed continually to bring across her path, and to consult with him on the means to be employed for the purpose of concealing her presence in Ghent from Roydon"s eyes, and of discovering what chance had brought him to the same city so soon after herself.
Nothing, perhaps, could have given Dyram more satisfaction than this result. The new relations which it established between Ella and himself--the opportunities which it promised of serving, a.s.sisting her, and laying her under obligations--the constant excuse which it afforded for seeing her, and consulting with her on subjects of deep interest to herself--were all points which afforded him much gratification. But that was not all: he fancied that he saw the means of obtaining a power over her--a command as well as an influence.
Vague schemes presented themselves to his mind of entangling her in a chain that she could not break--of binding her to himself by ties that she could not shake off--and of using the haughty and vicious knight, whose character he easily estimated, from the information now given him by Ella, as a tool for the accomplishment of his own purposes. I have said that these schemes were vague; and perhaps they might never have taken any more definite a form, had not other events occurred which led him to carry them out almost against his own will. Man, in the midst of circ.u.mstances, is like one in a Daedalian labyrinth, where a thousand paths are ready to confound him, a thousand turnings to lead him to the same end, and that end disappointment; while but one, of all the many ways, can reach the issue of success.
That night, soon after sunset, Dyram stood before the gate of the Dominican monastery, and, ringing the bell, asked the porter for the lodging of Sir Simeon of Roydon. It was evident to him that orders had been given for his admission, for, without any inquiry, he was immediately shown to a small chamber, where he found the knight alone.
A curious contest of the wits then ensued, for the knight was shrewd, and had determined, if it were within the scope of possibility, to gain from Ned Dyram all the information he could afford; and Dyram, on the contrary, had resolved to give none but that which suited his purpose. Both were keen and cunning men; neither very scrupulous; each selfish in a high degree, though in a somewhat different line; and both eager and fiery in pursuit of their objects.
The first question of the knight to Ned Dyram was, what had brought him to Ghent?
"I came hither," he replied, at once, "with Master Richard of Woodville."
The knight"s brow was covered by a sudden cloud, and he demanded, in a sharp tone, "Is he here now?--Are you his servant, then?"
"He is not here now," answered the man; "he has gone on with the Count de Charolois, and did not think fit to take me with him any further."
"Then you are out of employment?" asked the knight.
"For the present, I am," said Ned Dyram; "but I shall soon find as much as I want. I am never at a loss, sir knight."
"That is lucky for yourself," replied Simeon of Roydon; and then abruptly added, "Will you take service with me?"
"No!" answered Dyram, bluntly. "I will take service with no one any more. I was not meant for a varlet. I can do better things than be the serving-man of any knight or n.o.ble."
"What can you do?" demanded Roydon, with a somewhat sarcastic smile.
"What can I not?" exclaimed Dyram. "I can read better than a priest--write better than a clerk. I can speak languages that would make your ears tingle, without understanding what you heard. I can compound all essences and drugs; I can work in gold, silver, or iron; and I know some secrets that would well nigh raise the dead."
"Indeed!" said the knight. "Then you must be a monk, or a doctor of Oxford."
"Neither," replied the man; "but I see you disbelieve me. Shall I give you a proof of what I can do?"
"Yes," answered Sir Simeon; "I should like to see some spice of your skill."
"In what way shall it be," asked Ned Dyram. "If you will order up some charcoal, with this little instrument and these pinchers I will make you a chain to go round your wrist out of a gold n.o.ble; or, if there be a Greek book in the monastery, I will read you a page therefrom, and expound it, in the presence of whom you will, as a judge; for well I wot you yourself know nothing about it."
"Nor wish to know," replied the knight; "but I will have neither of these experiments; the one would be too long, the other too tedious.
You said that you had secrets that would well nigh raise the dead. I have heard of such things, and I should like to see them tried."
"Would you not be afraid?" asked Ned Dyram.
"No!--Why?" answered Sir Simeon of Roydon. "The dead cannot hurt me."
"a.s.suredly," said Ned Dyram; "but yet, when we call for those who are in their graves, we can never surely tell who may come. It is not always the spirit we wish that answers to our voice; and that man"s heart must be singularly free, who, in the days of fiery youth, has done no deed towards the silent and the cold, that might make him shrink to see them rise from their dull bed of earth, and look him in the face again."
"I am not afraid," said Roydon, after a moment"s thought. "Do it if you can."
"Nay, I said I had secrets that would _well nigh_ raise the dead,"
answered Ned Dyram. "I neither told you that they would, nor that I was willing."
"Ha! it seems to me you are a boaster, my good friend," exclaimed the knight, with a sneer. "Can you do anything in this sort, or can you not?"
"I am no boaster, proud knight," replied Ned Dyram, in an angry tone, "and I only say what I am able to perform. "Tis you that make it more than I ever did say; but if you would know what I can do, I tell you I can raise the dead for my own eye, though not for yours. That last great secret I have not yet obtained; but I trust ere long to do so; and as you are incredulous, like all other ignorant men, I will give you proof this very night."
"But how shall I know, if I do not see the shapes myself?" demanded Sir Simeon of Roydon.
"I will tell you what I behold," rejoined the man, "and you must judge for yourself. Those whom I call up shall all have some reference to you. Have you a mirror there?"
"Yes," replied the knight; and while he rose to search for one, Dyram strewed some small round b.a.l.l.s upon the table, jet black in colour, and apparently soft. The knight brought forward one of the small, round, polished mirrors of the day, which generally formed part of the travelling apparatus of both s.e.xes in the higher cla.s.s; and, setting it upright, Dyram brought each of the little b.a.l.l.s for a single instant to the flame of the lamp, and laid them down before the mirror. A thin white smoke, of a faint, but delicate odour, instantly rose up and spread through the room, producing a feeling of languor in those who breathed the perfume, and giving a ghastly likeness to all things round; and, kneeling down before the table, Ned Dyram gazed into the gla.s.s, p.r.o.nouncing several words in a strange tongue, unintelligible to the knight. The moment after his eyes opened wide, and seemed almost starting from his head; and the knight exclaimed eagerly, "What is it you see?"
"I see," replied the man, "a gentleman in a black robe seated at a table; and he looks very sad. He is young and handsome, too, with coal-black hair curling round his brow."
"Has he no mark by which I can distinguish him?" asked the knight.
"Yes," answered Dyram; "but it matters not for him, as I see he is amongst the living. It is the absent who generally come first, and then the dead. However, here"s a scar upon his right cheek, as if from an old wound."
"Sir Henry Dacre!" murmured Roydon. "Try again, man--try again; and let it be the dead this time."