"Yes! betrayed!" now said one of the younger men vehemently, "and by whom? Dost know by whom, friend Leatherface?"
And all around the tables, grimly set lips murmured:
"By whom? My G.o.d! by whom were we betrayed?"
And Laurence van Rycke"s glowing eyes were fixed upon the man under the canopy as if he would have torn the mask from off his face and read in those mysterious eyes the confirmation of his own horrible fears.
And Leatherface, looking straight into Laurence"s pale and haggard face, said slowly:
"By one who hath already paid the full price for all the misery which that betrayal will bring in its wake."
"Dead?" came in awed yet eager query from most of them there.
Leatherface bent his head, but gave no direct reply, and all of them there were satisfied, for they believed that the faithful and wary watch-dog--justiciary as well as guardian angel--had discovered the betrayer, and had killed him, making him pay the "full price" for all the misery which he had brought about. Only Laurence hung his head and dared not ask any more.
II
"And now tell us about the Prince," urged Messire van Overbeque, the Vice-Bailiff. "Where is he now?"
"Well on his way to Brugge, please G.o.d," replied the man with the leather mask. "All day I had entreated him to go, but he refused to listen. "You dream of treachery," he said to me, "and see it where none exists!" I spent the day scouting as far as Melle and Wetteren, for I felt that nothing would convince him but actual facts. At four o"clock in the afternoon the advance courier arrived from Alost. Luckily, his horse was less swift than mine. I managed to gain on him and brought in the news of the Duke of Alva"s arrival to His Highness half an hour before the commandant of the garrison knew of it."
"Even then it might have been too late," quoth one of the listeners.
"It very nearly was," retorted Leatherface light-heartedly. "Had the Lieutenant-Governor sent advance orders that his arrival be kept a secret until his troops pa.s.sed through the city gates, the Prince of Orange would still be in Ghent at this hour."
"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Laurence van Rycke, "and what did you do?"
"His Highness donned doublet and hose of common buffle and pulled a tattered felt hat well over his eyes, as did also the Count of Hoogstraaten and young Count Mansfeld. I made myself look as like a draper"s a.s.sistant as I could, and then the four of us joined the crowd.
The rumour of the Duke"s coming had spread all over the city; there were plenty of gaffers about. All round by the Waalpoort they abounded, and as the twilight slowly faded into dusk the approaches to the gate were densely packed. No one was allowed to loiter round the guard-house or upon the bridge, but there were many who, with overwhelming loyalty, desired to greet the Duke of Alva even before he reached the confines of the city. That was our opportunity. The commandant at the Waalpoort happened to be in rare good humour; he thought the idea of meeting the Lieutenant-Governor and his troops some way outside the city an excellent one. He allowed those who wished, to go across the bridge.
The Prince of Orange, his two friends and I were merged in that crowd, and no one took notice of us. Directly we reached Meirelbeke we struck across the fields. In ten minutes we left the crowd a long way behind us, and had skirted the town as far as Wondelghem. We were in no danger then, but His Highness was greatly fatigued. There was a difficulty too about getting horses; young Count Mansfeld was footsore and the Count of Hoogstraaten perished with thirst. In short, it was six o"clock before we had the horses ready, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the Prince safely started on his way. When I returned it was close on eight, and the city gates had all been locked."
He gave a light, good-humoured laugh, and one of the men asked: "Then how did you get in?"
"I swam and I scaled the walls," he replied simply.
"But ... how?" asked another.
"Oh! I swim like a fish and climb like an ape...."
"But were you not seen?"
"Oh, yes! and shot at ... but the Spaniards are bad shots and ... I am here."
Again he laughed gaily, light-heartedly like a "prentice after an escapade, and the two men who sat nearest him--the Procurator-General and the Baron van Groobendock--surrept.i.tiously took hold of his hand and pressed it warmly.
III
"So much for the past, seigniors," resumed Leatherface, after awhile: "my duty is done. I leave the planning of the future to wiser heads than mine."
"No! no!" quoth the Vice-Bailiff emphatically. "Have we not said that we want you to lead us?"
"I?" retorted the other gaily. "What do I know of leadership? I am only His Highness" watch-dog. Let me follow a leader and bear my share in the present trouble. I am not fit to command...."
A murmur went round the room, and the Procurator-General rejoined earnestly: "The men will obey no one but you. Take off your mask, friend, and let us all look upon the face of a man."
"You have all despised me too much in the past to heed my counsels now."
"There you spoke a lie, man," said Messire van Deynse, the brewer. "We have all honoured the man whom we called Leatherface, as the bravest amongst us all. We do not know who you are--we only know you as a gallant gentleman to whom next to William of Orange himself we owe every triumph which our cause hath gained over our execrated tyrants.
Therefore I pray you to unmask and let us know at least to whom--next to G.o.d Himself--we owe the life of the n.o.ble Prince of Orange, and also to whom we must look in future for guidance and leadership."
Once more the murmur went round the room: words of warm approval came from every side, whilst among the younger men the cry was raised and repeated insistently: "Unmask!"
"Unmask!" cried Laurence van Rycke. "Be you criminal or ne"er-do-well in the eyes of others, you are a hero in our sight."
"Unmask! unmask!" they reiterated unanimously.
The man with the leather mask then advanced to the very edge of the platform, and, putting up his hand, he asked for silence.
"Seigniors," he began, "I am your servant and will do as you wish. I have told you that I am no leader and am not fit to command ... yet you choose to honour me, and this is no time for false humility and the diffidence which is the attribute of cowards. But--despite your gracious choice of me as your leader in this terrible emergency--will you ere you finally decide to follow me hear from me what plan I should pursue, and to what heights of self-sacrifice I would ask you to rise in the face of the awful calamity which threatens our city. Seigniors," he continued, and indeed now save for the ring of that deep-toned voice, so great was the silence in the vast refectory that every heart-beat might have been heard, "you have heard the decree of our tyrant. Unless we deliver to him the precious person of our n.o.ble Prince, the whole city will be delivered over to the brutal soldiery, who will pillage our houses, desecrate our churches, murder and outrage our wives, our mothers and our children--just as they did in Mons, in Valenciennes and in Mechlin. Seigniors, we are men--all of us here--and at thought of what awaits us and our fellow-citizens our very heart blood seems to freeze with horror. It is of our women that we must think and of our children! Thank G.o.d that the Prince knows nothing of this decree--which hath been framed by the most inhuman monster the world hath ever known--or of a certainty he would have gone straight to the Kasteel and given up his precious life to save our fellow-citizens. Seigniors, what the Prince would have done, we know; and as he would have acted, so must we be prepared to act. But before I parted from him, I had his advice on the plan which I now beg leave to place before you. On my word of honour, seigniors, he approved of it in its entirety, and much that I will submit to you anon hath been framed under his guidance."
He paused awhile and through the holes in the mask his glowing eyes searched the faces of his listeners with a masterful glance that was both challenging and appealing.
"Every one of us here," he said abruptly, "is, I know, ready to sacrifice his life for faith, for freedom and country, and ere we give in to the monstrous tyranny which hath planned the destruction of our city we must fight, seigniors, fight to the death, fight for every inch of our ground, fight for every homestead which we would save from outrage. Death awaits us all anyhow, then at any rate with G.o.d"s help let us die fighting to the end."
Once more he paused in order to draw breath, even whilst from every side there came emphatic words of enthusiasm and of approval. He held his hearers now in the hollow of his hand; they were unemotional, stolid men for the most part, these Flemish burghers and patricians--men who throughout the terrible oppression under which they had groaned for over fifty years had grimly set their teeth and endured where others had fought--because reason and common sense had shown the futility, the irreparableness of the conflict--but they were men, too, who, once roused to action, would never give in until they had won their fight or had been destroyed to the last man of them; and with that inspiring prophet standing there before them, stirring their sluggish blood with his ringing voice, some of that same determination began to creep into their bones which had animated valiant Orange and his brothers and his Dutch followers to carry on the struggle for freedom at all costs and with the last drop of their blood.
"We"ll fight with you and under your standard, friend," said the Procurator-General who was the spokesman of the others. "We are well armed...."
"Aye! ye are well armed," rejoined Leatherface triumphantly. "The guild of armourers are with us to a man; and we have been able to supplement our secret stores with all the treasure in the magnificent armoury which Messire van Beveren has placed at our disposal in the name of his guild.
Aye! we are well armed and well manned! There are two thousand of us, seigniors, and our numbers will be doubled before noon to-morrow. The Duke hath brought ten thousand soldiers with him! well! it will be a three-to-one fight; but if we were still more completely outnumbered we would still carry on the struggle, seeing that the lives of our children and the honour of our women are at stake."
"We can fight," murmured one of the older men, "but we cannot conquer."
"No! we cannot conquer," said Leatherface earnestly. "We must perish, because might is greater than right, unless G.o.d chooseth to perform a miracle--and I, for one, still believe that He will. But we must not weaken our determination by reckoning childishly on divine interference.
If we fight, we fight because we refuse to die like cowards, because we refuse to go before our Maker shamed at having allowed our homes to be devastated, our women outraged, our children ma.s.sacred without striking a blow--however futile--in their defence. We fight then, seigniors?" he added exultantly. "Is that your decision?"
There was not one dissentient voice. Old and young, grave and gay, prudent and hot-headed, every man there was ready to follow the leader of their choice.
"For freedom, faith and country!" cried Leatherface loudly.
"For freedom, faith and country," came from two thousand panting throats.
"As to our plan of campaign," now resumed the man with the mask as soon as silence and calm was restored once more, "I have not yet had the time to think on all the details soberly. But the main outline of it was dictated to me by the Prince of Orange even whilst we halted at Wondelghem, waiting for horses. He is the finest military strategist the world hath ever known, misfortune hath pursued him, but hath not impaired his marvellous powers of command. I will ask some of you, seigniors, to aid me with your counsels, and with the directions which His Highness hath given me we may yet give such a fine account of ourselves as will force our tyrants to treat with us for peace. There are only two thousand of us now; by to-morrow we can reckon on several thousands more; but of a certainty at the first clash of arms all our young and able-bodied fellow-citizens will take heart and join us in our desperate struggle, and may G.o.d help us all!"