The Greatest Works of Emma Orczy. Emma Orczy
and one of them, kneeling beside the hearth, plied the huge bellows, coaxing the dying embers into flame. After which they stood respectfully by, awaiting further commands. Obviously they had had their orders -- absolute obedience and all those outward forms of respect which they were able to accord. Nicolaes looked at them with a fierce, defying glance. He knew them both well. Greybeards in the service of his father, they had seen the young master grow up from cradle to this hour when he stood, a rebel and a skunk, on the paternal hearth.
But they did not flinch under his glance. They knew that they had been specially chosen for the unpleasant task of waiting upon the enemy commanders because their tempers had no longer the ebullience of youth, and they might be trusted to remain calm in the face of arrogance or even of savagery -- even in the face of Mynheer Nicolaes, the child they had loved, the youth they had admired, now a branded traitor, who had come like a thief in the night to barter his honour for a crown of shame.
4
A certain commotion outside on the quay proclaimed the fact that the commander of the troops, the Lord of Stoutenburg, had entered the town at the head of his bodyguard, and followed by his master of the camp and his equerries.
He, too, made straight for the burgomaster's house, brought his horse to a halt at the foot of the stone steps. With a curt nod, Nicolaes bade the old crones to run to the front door and receive his Magnificence. In this, as in everything else, the men obeyed at once and in silence.
But already Stoutenburg, preceded by his equerries and his torchbearers, had stepped across the threshold. He knew his way well about the house. As boys, he and his brother Groeneveld had played their games in and around the intricate passages and stairs. As a young man he had sat in the deep window embrasures, holding Gilda's hand, taking delight in terrifying her with his impetuous love, and forcing her consent to his suit by his masterful wooing. A world of memories, grave and gay, swept over him as he entered the banqueting-hall, where, but for his many misfortunes -- as he callously called h is crimes -- he would one day have sat at the bridegroom's table beside Gilda, his plighted wife.
Both he and Nicolaes felt unaccountably relieved at meeting one another here. For both of them, no doubt, the silence and gloom of this memory-haunted house would in the long run have proved unendurable.
"I did not know that I should meet you here," Stoutenburg exclaimed, as he grasped his friend by the hand.
"I thought it would be best," Nicolaes replied curtly.
But this warm greeting from the infamous arch-traitor, in the presence of the two loyal old servants, brought a hot flush to the young man's brow. The last faint warning from his drugged conscience, mayhap. But the feeling of shame faded away as swiftly as it had come, and the next moment he was standing by, impassive and seemingly unconcerned, while the Lord of Stoutenburg gave his orders to the men.
These orders were to prepare the necessary beds for my lord and for Mynheer Nicolaes Beresteyn, also for the equerries, and proper accommodation for my lord's bodyguard, which consisted of twenty musketeers with their captain. Moreover, to provide supper for his Magnificence and mynheer in the banqueting-hall, and for the rest of the company in some other suitable room, without delay.
The two old crones took the orders in silence, bowed, and prepared to leave the room.
"Stay," my lord commanded. "Where is the burgomaster?"
"In his private apartments, so please you," one of the men replied.
"And his daughter?"
"The jongejuffrouw is with Mynheer the Burgomaster."
"Tell them both I want them to sup here with me and Mynheer Nicolaes."
Again the men bowed with the same silent dignity. It was impossible to gather from their stolid, mask-like faces what their thoughts might be at this hour. When they had gone, Stoutenburg peremptorily dismissed his equerries.
"If you have anything to complain of in this house," he said curtly, "come and report to me at once. To-morrow we leave at dawn."
Both the equerries gave a gasp of astonishment.
"To-morrow?" one of them murmured, apparently quite taken aback by this order.
"At dawn," Stoutenburg reiterated briefly.
This was enough. Neither did the equerries venture on further remarks. They had served for some time now under his Magnificence, knew his obstinacy and the irrevocableness of his decisions when once he had spoken.
"No further commands until then, my lord?" was all that the spokesman said.
"None for you," Stoutenburg replied curtly. "But tell Jan that the moment -- the moment, you understand -- that the burgomaster enters this room, he is to be prevented from doing any mischief. If he carries a weapon, he must at once be disarmed; if he resists, there should be a length of rope handy wherewith to tie his hands behind his back. But otherwise I'll not have him hurt. Understand?"
"Perfectly, my lord," the equerry gave answer. " 'Tis simple enough."
5
Now the two friends -- brothers in crime -- were alone in the vast, panelled hall.
Nicolaes had said nothing, made no movement of indignation or protest, when the other delivered his monstrous and treacherous commands against the personal liberty of the burgomaster. He had sat sullen and glowering, his head resting against his hand.
Stoutenburg looked down on him for a moment or two, his deep-set eyes full of that contempt which he felt for this weak-kneed and conscience-plagued waverer. Then he curtly advised him to leave the room.
"You might not think it seemly," he remarked with a sneer, "to be present when I take certain preventive measures against your father. These measures are necessary, else I would not take them. You would not have him spitting some of our men, or mayhap do himself or Gilda some injury, would you?"
"I was not complaining," Nicolaes retorted dryly.
Indeed, he obeyed readily enough. Now that the time had come to meet his father, he shrank from the ordeal with horror. It would have come, of course; but, like all weak natures, Nicolaes was always on the side of procrastination. He rose without another word, and, avoiding the main door of the banqueting-hall, he went out by the back one, which gave on a narrow antechamber and thence on the service staircase.
"I'll remain in the ante-chamber," he said. "Call me when you wish."
Stoutenburg shrugged his shoulders. He was glad to remain alone for awhile -- alone with that wealth of memories which would not be chased away. Memories of childhood, of adolescence, of youth untainted with crime; of love, before greed and ambition had caused him to betray so basely the girl who had believed in him.
"If Gilda had remained true to me," he sighed, with almost cynical inconsequence, exacting fidelity where he had given none. "If she had stuck to me that night in Haarlem everything would have been different."
He went up to the open window, and, leaning his arm against the mullion, he gazed upon the busy scene below. The current of cold, humid air appeared to do him good. His arquebusiers and pikemen, bivouacking round the spluttering fires, striving to keep the damp air out of their stiffening limbs; the shouts, the songs, the peremptory calls; the shrieks of frightened women and children; the loud Spanish oaths; the medley of curses in every tongue -- all this confused din pertaining to strife seemed to work like a tonic upon his brooding spirit. A blind beggar soliciting alms among the soldiery chased all softer thoughts away.
"Hey, there!" he shouted fiercely, to one of the soldiers who happened just then to have caught his eye, "Have I not given orders that every blind beggar lurking around the city be hung to the nearest tree?"
The men laughed. A monstrously tyrannical order such as that suited their present mood.
"But this one was inside the city, so please your Magnificence," one of them protested with a cynical laugh, "when we arrived."
"All the more reason why he should be hung forthwith!" Stoutenburg riposted savagely in reply.
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