else a blow from those sharp blades might have ended his life more kindly than the Lord of Stoutenburg hath planned to do.
A merry devil too! full of quaint jokes and tales of gay adventure! By Gad! a real soldier of fortune! devil-may-care! eat and drink and make merry for to-morrow we may die. Jan has ordered him to be kept tied to a beam! God-verdomme! but 'tis hard on a wounded man, but he seems tougher than the beams, and laughter in his throat quickly smothers groans.
Tied to a beam, he is excellent company! Ye gods, how his hands itch to grip his sword. Piet the Red over there! let him feel the metal against his palms, 'twill ease his temper for sure! Jan is too severe: but 'tis my lord's rage that was unbridled. Ugh! to strike a prisoner in the face. 'Twas a dirty trick and many saw it.
Heigh-ho, but what matter! To-morrow we fight, to-morrow he hangs! What of that? To-morrow most of us mayhap will be lying stark and stiff upon the frozen ground, staring up at next night's moon, with eyes that no longer see! A rope round the neck, a hole in the side, a cracked skull! what matters which mode Dame Death will choose for our ultimate end. But 'tis a pity about the prisoner! A true fighter if there was one, a stoic and a philosopher. "The Cavalier" we pretty soon call him.
"What ho!" he shouts, "call me the Laughing Cavalier!"
Poor devil! he tries not to show his hurts. He suffers much what with that damnable wind and those ropes that cut into his tough sinews, but he smiles at every twinge of pain: smiles and laughs and cracks the broadest jokes that have e'er made these worm-eaten beams ring with their echo.
The Laughing Cavalier in sooth!
There! now we can ease him somewhat. Jan's back is turned: we dare not touch the ropes, but a cloak put between his back and the beam, and another just against his head.
Is that not better, old compeer?
Aye! but is it not good to be a villain and a rogue and herd with other villains and other rogues who are so infinitely more kind and gentle than all those noble lords?
Diogenes — his head propped against the rude cushion placed there by the hand of some rough Samaritan — has fallen into a fitful doze.
Whispers around him wake him with a start. Ye gods! was there ever so black a night? The whispers become more eager, more insistent.
"Let us but speak with him. We'll do no harm!"
St. Bavon tell us how those two scarecrows have got here! For they are here in the flesh, both of them, Diogenes would have spotted his brother philosophers through darkness darker than the blackest hell. Pythagoras rolling in fat and Socrates lean and hungry-looking, peering like a huge gaunt bird through the gloom. Someone is holding up a lanthorn and Pythagoras' tip-tilted nose shines with a ruddy glow.
"But how did you get here, you old mushroom-face?" asks one of the men.
"We had business with him at Rotterdam," quoth Socrates with one of his choicest oaths and nodding in the direction of the prisoner. "All day we have wondered what has become of him."
"Then in the afternoon," breaks in Pythagoras, to the accompaniment of a rival set of expletives, "we saw him trussed like a fowl and tied into a sledge drawn by a single horse, which started in the wake of a larger one wherein sat a lovely jongejuffrouw."
"Then what did you do?" queries some one.
"Do?" exclaimed the philosophers simultaneously and in a tone of deep disgust.
"Followed on his trail as best we could," rejoins Socrates simply, "borrowed some skates, ran down the Schie in the wake of the two sledges and their escort."
"And after that?"
"After that we traced him to this solitary God-forsaken hole, but presently we saw that this molens was not so deserted as it seemed, so we hung about until now ... then we ventured nearer ... and here we are."
Here they were of course, but how was it possible to contravene the orders of Jan? What could these scarecrows have to say to the Laughing Cavalier?
"Just to ask him if there's anything we can do," murmurs Socrates persuasively. "He's like to hang to-morrow, you said, well! grant something then to a dying man."
Grave heads shake in the gloom.
"Our orders are strict...."
"'Tis a matter of life and death it seems...."
"Bah!" quoth Pythagoras more insinuatingly still, "we are two to your thirty! What have ye all to fear?"
"Here! tie my hands behind my back," suggests Socrates. "I only want to speak with him. How could we help him to escape?"
"We would not think of such a thing," murmurs Pythagoras piously.
Anxious glances meet one another in consultation. More than one kindly heart beats beneath these ragged doublets. Bah! the man is to hang to-morrow, why not give pleasure to a dying man?
If indeed it be pleasure to look on such hideous scarecrows a few hours before death.
Jan is not here. He is with my lord, helping with those heavy boxes.
"Five minutes, you old mushroom-face," suggests he who has been left in charge.
And all the others nod approval.
But they will take no risks about the prisoner. Pleasure and five minutes' conversation with his friends, yes! but no attempt at escape. So the men make a wide circle sitting out of ear-shot, but shoulder to shoulder the thirty of them who happen to be awake. In the centre of the circle is the Laughing Cavalier tied to a beam, trussed like a fowl since he is to hang on the morrow.
Close beside his feet is the lanthorn so that he may have a last look at his friends, and some few paces away his naked sword which Jan took from him when the men brought him down.
He has listened to the whispered conversation — he knows that his brother philosophers are here. May the God of rogues and villains bless them for their loyalty.
"And now St. Bavon show me the best way to make use of them!"
There is still something to be done, which hath been left undone, a word hath been given and that pledge must be fulfilled, and the promised fortune still awaits him who will bring the jongejuffrouw safely to her father!
"My God, if it were not for that broken shoulder and that torn hip! ... there are many hours yet before the morrow."
"Old compeer!" came in a hoarse whisper close to his ear, "how did you come to such a pass?"
"They came and took the jongejuffrouw away from Rotterdam," he replied also speaking in a whisper. "I had just returned from Delft, where I had business to transact and I recognized Jan beside the sledge into which the jongejuffrouw was stepping even then. He had ten or a dozen men with him. I felt that they meant mischief — but I had to follow ... I had to find out whither they were taking her...."
"Verdommt!" growled Socrates under his breath. "Why did you not take us along?"
"I meant to come back for you, as soon as I knew ... but in the dark ... and from behind, seven of these fellows fell upon me ... they used their skates like javelins ... mine were still on my feet ... I had only Bucephalus.... A blow from one of the heaviest blades cracked my shoulder, another caught me on the hip. There were seven of them," he reiterated with a careless laugh, "it was only a question of time, they were bound to bring me down in the end."
"But who has done this?" queried Pythagoras with an oath.
"A lucky rogue on whom God hath chosen to smile. But," he added more seriously and sinking his voice to the lowest possible whisper, "never mind about the past. Let us think of the future, old compeers."
"We are ready," they replied simultaneously.
"A knife?" he murmured, "can you cut these confounded ropes?"
"They took everything from us," growled Socrates, "ere they let us approach you."
"Try with your hands to loosen the knots."
"What