"Yes! I, a Netherlander," he said. "It is a Flemish woman who is calling for help now."
He turned to go, and she--with the same instinct that was moving him--rose too and followed him:--the same instinct of protection: his--the man"s for the woman who was in distress: hers--the woman"s for the man who would pit his strength alone against superior numbers. She overtook him just as he reached the threshold of the _tapperij_. Beyond it was only the porch, the door of which stood wide open, and beyond that the Grand" Place; the shrieks and the ever-increasing noise of a scuffle came from an adjacent street close by.
"You must not go, Messire," she said insistently, as with both hands she clung to his arms, "what can you do? there is a crowd there ... and the soldiers...."
He smiled and tried very gently to disengage his arm from her clinging, insistent grasp.
"It will not be the first time, Madonna," he said with a light laugh, "that I have had a scuffle with a posse of soldiery ... they sometimes mean no harm," he added rea.s.suringly seeing the look of anxious terror in her eyes, "many a time has a scuffle ended in jollity at a few words of common sense."
"Yes, yes, in Ghent," she urged, "where you are known. But here! ...
where no one knows you ... spies of the Inquisition might be about ...
if they see you interfering in favour of a heretic or a rebel ... or ...
Oh! men have been hanged and burned for lesser crimes than that."
"Ah!" he said looking down with a whimsical smile into her flushed and eager face, "that is part of the benevolent rule which our Sovereign Lord the King exercises over the Low Countries!"
Then seeing that at his flippant words--through which there rang a note of intense bitterness--her eyes had suddenly filled with tears, he murmured tenderly:
"G.o.d bless you, Madonna, for your sweet thoughts of me! I pray you let me go! I"ll come back soon," he added while a look of triumph flashed up in his eyes, "never fear!"
He ran out quickly into the street.
She hesitated, but only for a second: the next she had followed him, without thought that she had neither hood nor mantle, nor that the unseemliness of her conduct would surely have shocked all the great ladies of Spain.
IV
The Grand" Place was deserted and dark, only here and there in the windows of the Cloth Hall there was a glimmer of light. For a moment Lenora paused in the porch peering out into the gloom, trying to trace whence came the noise of the scuffle, for Mark had already disappeared: then she ran out swiftly, turning to her right from the porch till she reached the corner of a narrow street. Here an oil lamp fixed into a wall by an iron bracket threw a dim circle of light, beyond which the shadows appeared almost impenetrable. It was somewhere in amongst those shadows that a melee between shouting soldiers and shrieking women was taking place.
Up to this moment Lenora had never stopped to reflect as to what she meant or wanted to do. Blind instinct had driven her in the wake of Mark, feeling that he was in danger--as indeed he was: a Netherlander these days was in himself always an object of suspicion, and interference with Spanish soldiery under any circ.u.mstances was indeed likely to lead him into very grave trouble. If the soldiers were arresting or merely molesting a heretic or a rebel, any one who interfered with them would at once fall under the searching eye of the Inquisition--and there was never a lack of spies on such occasions: the _seven stiver people_--who for that paltry daily sum spent their lives in reporting treason, listening for it in every tavern, and in every back street of every city.
But now that she stood here at the street corner, hearing the ever-increasing noise of the scuffle close by, hearing the shouts, the cries, the pitiable appeals followed by peremptory commands, she realised how miserably impotent and helpless she was. Yet she could hear Mark"s voice--speaking now in Spanish and now in Flemish, as he tried--obviously--to understand the situation and to plead for those who were in distress. At first his voice had sounded rough and peremptory: indeed Lenora could not help but marvel at its commanding quality, then gradually it became cheerful, and its tone turned to one of merry banter. The incident indeed was evidently one of those which, alas!
were so usual in the cities and villages of the Low Countries these days: two young women coming home down the dark, back streets from some farm or silk-weaving shop where they had been at work, and a posse of half-drunken soldiers to whom a Flemish peasant was an acknowledged prey for ribald sport.
The women had resisted and tried to flee: they were pursued and rough horse-play had ensued: then they had screamed and the men had sworn, and presently other women and children joined in the scuffle while those who were wise stayed quietly indoors.
Horse-play had become a matter of blows followed by threats of arrest and dark hints at heresy, rebellion and the Inquisition: the melee was at its height when Mark interfered. Several blows were still exchanged after that, and there was a good deal of swearing and mutual objurgation. Lenora, listening, wondered with what skill Mark gradually made those curses turn to facetious remarks--ill-natured at first and uncouth--then more light-hearted, and finally grudgingly pleasant.
Within five minutes the tumult began to subside: Lenora could hear the women weeping and the soldiers laughing quite good-humouredly. How it had all been done she did not know: presently from the tramping of feet she gathered that the melee had broken up: a woman"s voice said loudly: "_Gott vergelte!_" and Lenora thought that indeed G.o.d would repay the light-hearted man of the world who had by sheer good-humour and compelling personality turned a drama into pleasing farce.
"Well, friend!" she heard a man"s voice saying in Spanish, "I don"t know who you are, but a right good fellow; an I"m not mistaken. Perhaps it was wisest to leave those women alone."
"I am sure of it, friend," quoth Mark gaily, "the commandant oft makes a to-do about street-brawling, and you might have been blamed and got two days" guard-room arrest just for kissing a pair of Flemish wenches. The game was not worth the candle. Even the devil would have no profit in it."
"Well said, mate," retorted the other l.u.s.tily, "come and have a mug of ale on it with me and my men at the "Duke"s Head" down yonder."
"Thank you, friend, but I put up at the "Merry Beggars" and must return thither now. A little later perhaps."
"At your service, comrade."
There was a pause during which Lenora made up her mind--since all tumult and all danger had pa.s.sed--to go back to that ingle-nook beside the fire and there to wait till Mark returned ... to wait so that she might resume with him that conversation of awhile ago which had interested her so much. But on the point of turning she halted. Three words--spoken by one of the soldiers--had come to her out of the gloom, and caused her heart to stop its beating.
"You are hurt?" one man had said--in a kind, gruff way--evidently in deep concern.
"No! no! it"s nothing," Mark replied, "a small scratch ... in the scuffle just now...."
"But you are bleeding...."
"And if I am, friend, it won"t be the first time in my life. I tell you it"s nothing," added Mark with obvious impatience. "Good-night!"
"Good-night!" came in chorus from the men.
V
The measured tramp of booted feet slowly dying away in the distance down the narrow street, told Lenora that at last the men had gone.
But Mark was hurt and she stood waiting at the street corner for she heard his step coming slowly toward her.
He was hurt and had made light of it, but one of the soldiers had remarked that he was bleeding and she waited now for him, dreading yet vaguely hoping that he was really wounded--oh! only slightly!--but still wounded so that she might wait on him.
So strange is a woman"s heart when first it wakes from the dreams, the unrealities, the fairy-worlds of childhood! With beating heart Lenora listened to that slowly-advancing footstep--how slow it seemed! as if it had lost that elasticity which but a few moments ago had carried Mark bounding down this same street. Now it dragged and finally came to a halt, just as Mark"s figure emerged into the shaft of light thrown along the wall by the street lamp close to which Lenora was standing.
She smothered a little cry and ran forward to meet him, for she had seen his figure sway, and halt, then lean heavily against the wall.
"You are hurt!" she exclaimed, even before she reached him.
At sound of her voice, he pulled himself together, and in a moment had straightened out his shoulders and was walking quite steadily toward her.
"Madonna!" he cried in astonishment, "what are you doing here?"
"Oh! I ... I..." she murmured, a little ashamed now that she met his pleasant, grey eyes fixed so kindly upon her, "I heard the noise ... I became anxious...."
"It was only a street-brawl," he said, "not fit for you to witness."
Even now, though he spoke quite firmly, his voice sounded weary and weak.
"You are hurt!" she reiterated.
"Hurt? No!" He laughed, but the laughter died on his lips: he had to steady himself against the wall, for a sudden dizziness had seized him.
"I pray you take my arm," she insisted. "Can you walk as far as the tavern?"
"Indeed I can," he retorted, "on my honour "tis a mere scratch."
"An you"ll not take my arm," she said peremptorily, "I"ll call for help."