"Now then, you Flemish s.l.u.t," he said harshly, "show me to your best parlour, and don"t stand there gaping."
Perforce she had to show him the way out of the public _tapperij_ to the private room reserved for n.o.ble guests.
"Send one of your men to fetch the wench away in about half an hour, provost," called don Ramon loudly over his shoulder, "I shall have got tired of her by then."
Loud laughter greeted this sally and a general clapping of mugs against the table. Grete more dead than alive nearly fell over the threshold.
IV
The private room was on the opposite side of the narrow tiled hall and was dimly lighted by a small iron lamp that hung from a beam of the ceiling above. The door was half open and Grete pushed it open still further and then stood aside to allow the senor captain to pa.s.s.
"Will your Magnificence be pleased to walk in," she whispered.
Great tears were in her eyes; don Ramon paused under the lintel of the door, and with a rough gesture pinched her cheek and ear.
"Not ugly for a Flemish heifer," he said with a laugh. "Come along, girl! Let"s see if your heretical father hath taught you how to pay due respect to your superiors."
"My humblest respect I do offer your Magnificence," said Grete, who was bravely trying to suppress her tears.
"Come! that"s better," he retorted, as he pushed the girl into the room and swaggered in behind her, closing the door after him. "Now, Grete,"
he added, as he threw himself into a chair and stretched his legs out before him, "come and sit on my knee, and if I like the way you kiss me, why, my girl, there"s no knowing what I might not do to please you.
Come here, Grete!" he reiterated more peremptorily, for the girl had retreated to a dark corner of the room and was cowering there just like a frightened dog.
"Come here, Grete," he called loudly for the third time. But Grete was much too frightened to move.
With a savage oath don Ramon jumped to his feet, and kicked the chair on which he had been sitting so that it flew with a loud clatter half way across the room. Grete fell on her knees.
"Good Lord deliver me!" she murmured.
Don Ramon seized her by her two hands that were clasped together in prayer, he dragged her up from her knees, and toward the table which stood in the centre of the small, square room. Then he let her fall backwards against the table, and laughed because she continued to pray to G.o.d to help her.
"As if G.o.d would take any notice of heretics and rebels and Netherlanders generally," he said with a sneer. "Stand up, girl, and go back to my men. I have had enough of you already. Ye G.o.ds! what a vile crowd these Netherlanders are! Go back into the tap-room, do you hear, girl? and see that you and your ugly sister entertain my men as you should. For if you don"t, and I hear of any psalm-singing or simpering nonsense I"ll hand you over to the Inquisition as avowed heretics to-morrow."
But truly Grete was by now almost paralysed with fear; she was no brave heroine of romance who could stand up before a tyrant and browbeat him by the very force of her character and personality, she was but a mere wreckage of humanity whom any rough hand could send hopelessly adrift upon the sea of life. Her one refuge was her tears, her only armour of defence her own utter helplessness.
But this helplessness which would appeal to the most elementary sense of chivalry, had not the power to stir a single kind instinct in don Ramon de Linea. It must be admitted that it would not have appealed to a single Spaniard these days. They were all bred in the one school which taught them from infancy an utter contempt for this subject race and a deadly hatred against the heretics and rebels of the Low Countries.
They were taught to look upon these people as little better than cattle, without any truth, honesty or loyalty in them, as being false and treacherous, murderous and dishonest. Don Ramon, who at this moment was behaving as scurrilously as any man, not absolutely born in the gutter, could possibly do, was only following the traditions of his race, of his country and its tyrannical government.
Therefore when Grete wept he laughed, when she murmured the little prayers which her father had taught her, he felt nothing but irritation and unmeasured contempt. He tried to silence the girl by loud shouts and peremptory commands, when these were of no avail he threatened, to call for a.s.sistance from his sergeant. Still the girl made no attempt either to move or to stem the flood of tears. Then don Ramon called aloud: "Hallo there, sergeant!" and receiving no answer, he went to the door, in order to reiterate his call from there.
V
His hand was on the latch, when the door was suddenly opened from without; so violently that don Ramon was nearly thrown off his balance, and would probably have measured his length on the floor, but that he fell up against the table and remained there, leaning against it with one hand in order to steady himself, and turning a wrathful glance on the intruder.
"By the Ma.s.s!" he said peremptorily, "who is this malapert who..."
But the words died on his lips; the look of wrath in his eyes gave way to one of sudden terror. He stared straight out before him at the sombre figure which had just crossed the threshold. It was the tall figure of a man dressed in dark tightly-fitting clothes, wearing high boots to the top of his thighs, a hood over his head and a mask of untanned leather on his face. He was unarmed.
Don Ramon, already a prey to that superst.i.tious fear of the unknown and of the mysterious which characterised even the boldest of his country and of his race, felt all his arrogance giving way in the presence of this extraordinary apparition, which by the dim and flickering light of the lamp appeared to him to be preternaturally tall and strangely menacing in its grim att.i.tude of silence. Thus a moment or two went by.
The stranger now turned and carefully closed and locked the door behind him. Key in hand he went up to the girl--Grete--who, no less terrified than her tormentor, was cowering in a corner of the room.
"Where is Katrine," he asked quickly; then, as the girl almost paralysed by fear seemed quite unable to speak, he added more peremptorily:
"Pull yourself together, wench; your life and Katrine"s depend on your courage now. Where is she?"
"In ... in ... the cellar ... I think," stammered Grete almost inaudibly and making a brave effort to conquer her terror.
"Can you reach her without crossing the tap-room?"
The girl nodded.
"Well, then, run to her at once. Don"t stop to collect any of your belongings, except what money you have; then go ... go at once.... Have you a friend or relative in this city to whom you could go at this late hour?"
Again the girl nodded, and looked up more boldly this time: "My father"s sister..." she whispered.
"Where does she live?"
"At the sign of the "Merry Beggars" in Dendermonde."
"Then go to her at once--you and Katrine. You will be safe there for awhile. If any further danger threatens you or your kinsfolk, you shall be advised ... in that case you would have to leave the country."
"I shouldn"t be afraid," murmured the girl.
"That"s good!" he concluded. "Come, Grete!"
He turned back to the door, unlocked it, and let the girl slip out of the room. Then he relocked the door.
VI
While this brief colloquy had been going on, don Ramon was making great efforts to recover his scattered wits and to steady his overstrung nerves. The superst.i.tious fear which had gripped him by the throat, yielded at first to another equally terrifying thought: the hood and mask suggested an emissary of the Inquisition, one of those silent, nameless beings who seemed to have the power of omnipresence, who glided through closed doors and barred windows, appeared suddenly in tavern, church or street corner, and were invariably the precursors of arrest, torture-chamber and death. No man or woman--however high-born, however highly placed, however influential or however poor and humble, was immune from the watchful eye of the Inquisition; a thoughtless word, a careless jest--or the mere denunciation of an enemy--and the accusation of treason, heresy or rebellion was trumped up and gibbet or fire claimed yet another victim. Don Ramon--a Spanish grandee--could not of course be denounced as a heretic, but he knew that the eyes of de Vargas were upon him, that he might he thought importune or in the way now that other projects had been formed for donna Lenora--and he also knew that de Vargas would as ruthlessly sweep him out of the way as he would a troublesome fly.
Thus fear of real, concrete danger had succeeded that of the supernatural; but now that the stranger moved and spoke kindly with Grete--the daughter of an heretic--it was evident that he was no spy of the Inquisition: he was either an avowed enemy who chose this theatrical manner of accomplishing a petty vengeance, or in actual fact that extraordinary creature who professed to be the special protector of the Prince of Orange and whom popular superst.i.tion among the soldiery had nicknamed Leatherface.
The latter was by far the most likely, and as the stranger whoever he was, was unarmed, don Ramon felt that he had no longer any cause for fear. Though his sword--in its scabbard--was lying on the table, his dagger was in his belt. With a quick movement he unsheathed it, and at the precise moment when the masked man had his back to him in order to relock the door, don Ramon--dagger in hand--made a swift and sudden dash for him. But the stranger had felt rather than seen or heard the danger which threatened him. As quick as any feline creature he turned on his a.s.sailant and gripped his upraised hand by the wrist with such a vice-like grip that don Ramon uttered a cry of rage and pain: his fingers opened out nervelessly and the dagger fell with a clatter to the ground.
Then the two men closed with one another. It was a fight, each for the other"s throat--a savage, primitive fight--man against man--with no weapon save sinewy hands, hatred and the primeval instinct to kill. The masked man was by far the more powerful and the more cool. Within a very few moments he had don Ramon down on his knees, his own strong hands gripping the other"s throat. The Spaniard felt that he was doomed: he--of that race which was sending thousands of innocent and defenceless creatures to a hideous death--he, who had so often and so mercilessly lent a hand to outrage, to pillage and to murder, who but a few moments ago was condemning two helpless girls to insults and outrage worse than death, was in his turn a defenceless atom in the hands of a justiciary. The breath was being squeezed out of his body, his limbs felt inert and stiff, his mind became clouded over as by a crimson mist.
He tried to call for help, but the cry died in his throat. And through the mist which gradually obscured his vision he could still see the silhouette of that closely-hooded head and a pair of eyes shining down on him through the holes of the leather mask.
"Let me go, miscreant," he gasped as for one moment the grip on his throat seemed to relax. "By heaven you shall suffer for this outrage."