The Scarlet Pimpernel Series – All 35 Titles in One Edition. Emma Orczy
peerless commander. Whether he had communicated that project to this besotted oaf was another matter.
Stoutenburg searched the blind man's face with an intent glance that seemed to probe the innermost thoughts behind that fine, wide brow. For the moment, the face told him nothing. It was just vacant, the sightless eyes shone with delight, and the tankard raised to the lips effectually hid all expression around the mouth.
Well, there was not much harm done, the waste of a few moments, if the information proved futile. Jan was ready with the rope, if the whole thing proved to be a mere trick for putting off the fateful hour. As the Lord of Stoutenburg gazed on the blind man, trying vainly to curb his burning impatience, he instinctively thought of Gilda. Gilda, and his hopeless wooing of her, her coldness toward him and her passionate adherence to this miserable caitiff, who, in truth, had thrown dust in her eyes by an outward show of physical courage and a mock display of spurious chivalry.
What if the varlet had been initiated in the Stadtholder's projects? What if he betrayed them now -- sold them in exchange for his own worthless life, and stood revealed, before all the world, as an abject coward, as base as any Judas who would sell his master for thirty pieces of silver? The thought turned the miscreant giddy, so dazzling did this issue appear before his mental vision. What a revelation for a fond and loyal woman, who had placed so worthless an object on a pinnacle of valour! What a disillusionment! She had staunchly believed in his integrity up to now. But after this?
In truth, what more can a man desire than to see the honour of a rival smirched in the eyes of a woman who spurns him? That was the main thought that coursed through Stoutenburg's brain, driving before it all obstinacy and choler, ay, even soothing his exacerbated nerves.
He gave a sign to Jan.
"Bring that varlet here to me," he commanded. "I'll speak to him myself."
The sound of his voice chased the look of beatitude from the blind man's face, which took on an expression of bewildered surprise.
"I had no thought his lordship was here," he said, with a self-conscious, inane laugh.
The men were murmuring audibly. Some of them had seen visions of good reward, shared amongst them all, after the blind man had been made to speak. But Jan paid no heed to their discontent. In a trice he had seen the blind man secure once more, with arms tied as before behind his back. Diogenes had uttered a loud cry of protest when the empty tankard was torn out of his hand.
"Jan," he shouted, in a thick, hoarse voice, "if thou'rt a knave and dost not keep faith with me, the devil himself will run away with thee."
"His Magnificence will hear what thou hast to say," Jan retorted gruffly. "After that, we'll see."
He led the prisoner through into the banqueting-hall, and despite the men's murmurings, he closed the door upon them. He sat the blind man down in a chair, opposite his lordship. The poor loon had begun to whimper softly, just like a child, and continued to appeal pitiably to Jan.
"If his lordship is satisfied," he murmured confidingly, "you'll see to it, Jan, that I do not hang."
"Jan has his orders!" his lordship put in roughly. "But take heed, sirrah! If your information is worth having, you may go to hell your own way; I care nought! But remember," he added, with slow and stern emphasis, "if you trick me in this, 'twil not be the rope for you at dawn -- but the stake!
Diogenes gave a quick shudder.
"By the lord," he said blandly, "how very unpleasant! But I am a man of my word. Jan put good wine into me. He shall be paid for it. And I'll tell you what the Stadtholder hath planned for the defeat of the Lord of Stoutenburg."
"Well," his lordship retorted curtly. "I wait!"
There was silence for a moment whilst the blind man apparently collected his thoughts. He sat, trussed and helpless in the chair, with his head thrown back, and the full light of the candles playing upon his pale face -- the latter still vacant and with a childish expression of excitement about those weird, dark orbs. The Lord of Stoutenburg, master of the situation, sat in a high-backed chair opposite him, his chin resting in his hand, his eyes, glowering and fierce, searching that strange, mysterious face before him. Strange and mysterious, in truth, with those sightless eyes, that glittered uncannily whenever the flickering candle-light caught the abnormally dilated pupils, and those quavering lips which every moment broke into a whimsical and inane smile.
"Jan, my friend," the blind man asked after a while, "art here?"
"Ay!" Jan replied gruffly. "I'm here right enough to see that thou'rt up to no mischief."
"How can I be that, worthy Jan?" the other retorted blandly, "since thou hast again trussed me like a capon?"
"Well, the sooner thou hast satisfied his lordship," Jan rejoined with stolid indifference, "the sooner thou wilt be free ---"
"To go to hell mine own way!" Diogenes put in with a hiccough. "So his lordship hath pledged his word. Let all those who are my friends bear witness that his lordship did pledge his word."
He paused, and once again a look of impish cunning over-spread his face. He seemed to be preparing for a fateful moment which literally would mean life or death for him. An exclamation of angry impatience from Stoutenburg recalled him to himself.
"I am ready," he protested with eager servility, "to do his lordship's pleasure."
"Then speak, man!" Stoutenburg retorted savagely, "ere I wring the words from thee with torture!"
"I was only thinking how to put the matter clearly," Diogenes protested blandly. "The Stadtholder only outlined his plan to me. There was so little time. My friend Klaas will remember that after his Highness's horse bolted across the moor I was able to stop it ---"
"Yes -- curse your interference!" Stoutenburg muttered between his teeth.
"Amen to that!" the blind man assented. "But for it, I should still have the privilege of beholding your lordship's pleasing countenance. But at the moment I had no thought save to stop a runaway horse. The Stadtholder was mightily excited, scented that a trap had been laid for him. My friend Klaas again will remember that, after his Highness dismounted he stopped to parley with me upon the moor."
Nicolaes nodded.
"Then it was," Diogenes went on, "that he told what he meant to do. I was, of course, to bear my part in the new project, which was to make a feint upon Ede ---"
"A feint upon Ede?"
"Ay! A surprise attack, which would keep De Berg, who is in Ede, busy whilst the Stadtholder ---"
"Bah!" Stoutenburg broke in contemptuously, "De Berg is too wary to be caught by a feint."
"So he is, my lord, so he is!" Diogenes rejoined with solemn gravity. "But if I were to tell you that the surprise attack is to be made in full force, and that the weight will fall on the south side of the town, what then?"
"I do not see with what object."
"Yet you, my lord, would know the Stadtholder's tactics of old. You fought under his banner -- once."
"Before he murdered my father, yes!" Stoutenburg broke in impatiently. He did not relish this allusion to his former fighting days, before black treachery had made him betray the ruler he once served. "But what of that?"
"For then your lordship would remember," the blind man went on placidly, "that the Stadtholder's favorite plan was always to draw the enemy away by a ruse from his own chief point of attack."
"But where would the chief point of attack be in this case?" Stoutenburg queried with a frown.
"At a certain molen your lordship wot of on the Veluwe."
"Impossible!"
"Oh, impossible? Your lordship is pleased to jest. Some days ago, spies came into Utrecht with the information that the Lord of Stoutenburg had his camp at an old molen, which stands disused and isolated on the highest point of the Veluwe, somewhere between Apeldoorn and Barneveld."
"My camp?