The Scarlet Pimpernel Series – All 35 Titles in One Edition. Emma Orczy
was still infatuated with the varlet, and that was all. A wholly ununderstandable fact. Stoutenburg never could imagine how she had ever looked with favour on such an adventurer, whose English parentage and reputed wealth were, to say the least, problematical. Beresteyn had been a fool to allow his only daughter to bestow her beauty and her riches on a stranger, about whom in truth he knew less than nothing. The girl, bewitched by the rascallion, had cajoled her father and obtained his consent. Now she was still under the spell of a handsome presence, a resonant voice, a provoking eye. It was, it could be, nothing more than that. When once she understood what she had gained, how utterly inglorious that once brilliant soldier of fortune had become, she would descend from her high attitude of disdain and kiss the hand which she now spurned.
But, in anticipation of that happy hour, the Lord of Stoutenburg felt moody and discontented.
2
Nicolaes' voice, close to his elbow, roused him from his gloomy meditations.
"You must be indulgent, my friend," he was saying in a smooth conciliatory voice. "Gilda had always a wilful temper."
"And a tenacious one," Stoutenburg retorted. "She is still in love with that rogue."
"Bah!" the other rejoined, with a note of spite in his tone. "It is mere infatuation! A woman's whimsey for a good-looking face and a pair of broad shoulders! She should have seen the scrubby rascal as I last caught sight of him -- grimy, unshaven, broken. No woman's fancy would survive such a spectacle!"
Then, as Stoutenburg, still unconsoled, continued to stare through the open window, muttering disjointed phrases through obstinately set lips, he went on quite gaily:
"You are not the first by any means, my friend, whose tempestuous wooing hath brought a woman, loving and repentant, to heel. When I was over in England with my father, half a dozen years ago, we saw there a play upon the stage. It had been writ by some low-born mountebank, one William Shakespeare. The name of the play was 'The Taming of the Shrew.' Therein, too, a woman of choleric temper did during several scenes defy the man who wooed her. In the end he conquered; she became his wife, and as tender and submissive an one as e'er you'd wish to see. But, by St. Bavon, how she stormed at first! How she professed to hate him! I was forcibly reminded of that play when I saw Gilda defying you awhile ago; and I could have wished that you had displayed the same good-humour over the wrangle as did the gallant Petruchio -- the hero of the piece."
Stoutenburg was interested.
"How did he succeed in the end?" he queried. "Your Petruchio, I mean."
"He starved the ranting virago into submission," Nicolaes replied, with an easy laugh. "Gave her nothing to eat for a day and a night; swore at her lackeys; beat her waiting-maids. She was disdainful at first, then terrified. Finally, she admired him, because he had mastered her."
"A good moral, friend Nicolaes!"
"Ay! One you would do well to follow. Women reserve their disdain for weaklings, and their love for their masters."
"And think you that Gilda ---"
"Gilda, my friend, is but a woman after all. Have no fear, she'll be your willing slave in a week."
Stoutenburg's eyes glittered at the thought.
"A week is a long time to wait," he murmured. "I wish that now---"
He paused. Something that was happening down below on the quay had attracted his attention -- unusual merriment, loud laughter, the strains of a bibulous song. For a minute or two his keen eyes searched the gloom for the cause of all this hilarity. He leaned far out the window, called peremptorily to a group of soldiers who were squatting around their bivouac fire.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Peter! Willem! -- whatever your confounded names may be! What is that rascallion doing over there?"
"Making us all laugh, so please your lordship," one of the soldiers gave reply; "by the drollest stories and quips any of us have ever heard."
"Where does he come from?"
"From nowhere, apparently," the man averred. "He just fell among us. The man is blind, so please you," he added after a moment's hesitation.
Stoutenburg swore.
"How many times must I give orders," he demanded roughly, "that every blind beggar who comes prowling round the camps be hanged to the nearest post?"
"We did intend to hang him," the soldier replied coolly; "but when first he came along he was so nimble that, ere we could capture him, he gave us the slip."
"Well," Stoutenburg rejoined harshly, "it is not too late. You have him now."
"So we have, Magnificence," the man replied, hesitated for a second or two, then added: "But he is so amusing, and he seems a gentleman of quality, too proud for the hangman's rope."
"Too proud is he?" his lordship retorted with a sneer. "A gentleman of quality, and amusing to boot? Well, let us see how his humour will accommodate itself to the gallows. Here, let me have a look at the loon.
There was much hustling down below after this; shouting and prolonged laughter; a confused din, through which it was impossible to distinguish individual sounds. Stoutenburg's nerves were tingling. He was quite sure by now that he had recognised that irrepressible merry voice. A gentleman of quality! Blind! Amusing! But, if Nicolaes' report of yesterday's events were true, the man was hopelessly stricken. And what could induce him to put his head in the jackal's mouth, to affront his triumphing enemy, when he himself was so utterly helpless and abject?
Not long was the Lord of Stoutenburg left in suspense. Even whilst he gazed down upon the merry, excited throng, he was able to distinguish in the midst of them all a pair of broad shoulders that could only belong to one man. The soldiers, laughing, thoroughly enjoying the frolic, were jostling him not a little for the sheer pleasure of measuring their valour against so hefty a fellow. And he, despite his blindness, gave as good as he got; fought valiantly with fist and boot and gave his tormentors many a hard knock, until, with a loud shout of glee, some of the men succeeded in seizing hold of him, and hoisted him up on their shoulders and brought him into the circle of light formed by the resin torches.
A double cry came in response -- one of amazement from Stoutenburg and one of horror from Nicolaes. But neither of them spoke. Stoutenburg's lips were tightly set; a puzzled frown appeared between his brows. In truth, for once in the course of his devilish career, he was completely taken aback and uncertain what to do. The man whom he saw there before him, in ragged clothes, unshaved and grimy, blinking with sightless eyes, was the man whom he detested above every other thing or creature on earth -- the reckless soldier of fortune of the past, for awhile the proud and successful rival; now just a wreck of humanity, broken, ay, and degraded, and henceforth an object of pity rather than a menace to his rival's plans. His doublet was in rags, his plumed hat battered, his toes shone through the holes in his boots. The upper part of his face was swathed in a soiled linen bandage. This had, no doubt, been originally intended to shield the stricken eyes; but it had slipped, and those same eyes, with their horrible fixed look, glittered with unearthly weirdness in the flickering light.
"Salute his Magnificence, the lord and master of Amersfoort and of all that in it lies!" one of the soldiers shouted gaily.
And the blind man forthwith made a gesture of obeisance swept with a wide flourish his battered plumed hat from off his head.
"To his Magnificence!" he called out in response. "Though mine eyes cannot see him, my voice is raised in praise of his nobility and his valour. May the recording angels give him his full deserts."
3
The feeling of sheer horror which had caused Nicolaes to utter a sudden cry was, in truth, fully justified.
"It can't be!" he murmured, appalled at what he saw.
Stoutenburg answered with a hoarse laugh. "Nay, by Satan and all his myrmidons it is!"
Already he was leaning out of the window, giving quick orders to the men down below to bring that drunken vagabond forthwith into his presence. After which he turned once more