It was about half-past five o'clock that afternoon before the Captainand Acting-Commandant Montalvo returned from some duty to which he hadbeen attending, for it may be explained that he was a zealous officerand a master of detail. As he entered his lodgings the soldier who actedas his servant, a man selected for silence and discretion, saluted andstood at attention.
"Is the woman here?" he asked.
"Excellency, she is here, though I had difficulty enough in persuadingher to come, for I found her in bed and out of humour."
"Peace to your difficulties. Where is she?"
"In the small inner room, Excellency."
"Good, then see that no one disturbs us, and--stay, when she goes outfollow her and note her movements till you trace her home."
The man saluted, and Montalvo passed upstairs into the inner room,carefully shutting both doors behind him. The place was unlighted,but through the large stone-mullioned window the rays of the fullmoon poured brightly, and by them, seated in a straight-backed chair,Montalvo saw a draped form. There was something forbidding, somethingalmost unnatural, in the aspect of this sombre form perched thus upona chair in expectant silence. It reminded him--for he had a touch ofinconvenient imagination--of an evil bird squatted upon the bough ofa dead tree awaiting the dawn that it might go forth to devour someappointed prey.
"Is that you, Mother Meg?" he asked in tones from which most of thejocosity had vanished. "Quite like old times at The Hague--isn't it?"
The moonlit figure turned its head, for he could see the light shineupon the whites of the eyes.
"Who else, Excellency," said a voice hoarse and thick with rheum, avoice like the croak of a crow, "though it is little thanks to yourExcellency. Those must be strong who can bathe in Rhine water through ahole in the ice and take no hurt."
"Don't scold, woman," he answered, "I have no time for it. If you wereducked yesterday, it served you right for losing your cursed temper.Could you not see that I had my own game to play, and you were spoilingit? Must I be flouted before my men, and listen while you warn a ladywith whom I wish to stand well against me?"
"You generally have a game to play, Excellency, but when it ends in mybeing first robbed and then nearly drowned beneath the ice--well, thatis a game which Black Meg does not forget."
"Hush, mother, you are not the only person with a memory. What was thereward? Twelve florins? Well, you shall have them, and five more; that'sgood pay for a lick of cold water. Are you satisfied?"
"No, Excellency. I wanted the life, that heretic's life. I wanted tobaste her while she burned, or to tread her down while she was buried.I have a grudge against the woman because I know, yes, because I know,"she repeated fiercely, "that if I do not kill her she will try to killme. Her husband and her young son were burnt, upon my evidence mostly,but this is the third time she has escaped me."
"Patience, mother, patience, and I dare say that everything will comeright in the end. You have bagged two of the family--Papa heretic andYoung Hopeful. Really you should not grumble if the third takes a littlehunting, or wonder that in the meanwhile you are not popular with Mama.Now, listen. You know the young woman whom it was necessary that Ishould humour yesterday. She is rich, is she not?"
"Yes, I know her, and I knew her father. He left her house, furniture,jewellery, and thirty thousand crowns, which are placed out at goodinterest. A nice fortune for a gallant who wants money, but it will beDirk van Goorl's, not yours."
"Ah! that is just the point. Now what do you know about Dirk van Goorl?"
"A respectable, hard-working burgher, son of well-to-do parents,brass-workers who live at Alkmaar. Honest, but not very clever; the kindof man who grows rich, becomes a Burgomaster, founds a hospital for thepoor, and has a fine monument put up to his memory."
"Mother, the cold water has dulled your wits. When I ask you about a manI want to learn what you know _against_ him."
"Naturally, Excellency, naturally, but against this one I can tell younothing. He has no lovers, he does not gamble, he does not drink excepta glass after dinner. He works in his factory all day, goes to bedearly, rises early, and calls on the Jufvrouw van Hout on Sundays; thatis all."
"Where does he attend Mass?"
"At the Groote Kerke once a week, but he does not take the Sacrament orgo to confession."
"That sounds bad, mother, very bad. You don't mean to say that he is aheretic?"
"Probably he is, Excellency; most of them are about here."
"Dear me, how very shocking. Do you know, I should not like thatexcellent young woman, a good Catholic too, like you and me, mother, tobecome mixed up with one of these dreadful heretics, who might exposeher to all sorts of dangers. For, mother, who can touch pitch and not bedefiled?"
"You waste time, Excellency," replied his visitor with a snort. "What doyou want?"
"Well, in the interests of this young lady, I want to prove that thisman _is_ a heretic, and it has struck me that--as one accustomed to thissort of thing--you might be able to find the evidence."
"Indeed, Excellency, and has it struck you what my face would look likeafter I had thrust my head into a wasp's nest for your amusement? Doyou know what it means to me if I go peering about among the hereticsof Leyden? Well, I will tell you; it means that I should be killed. Theyare a strong lot, and a determined lot, and so long as you leave themalone they will leave you alone, but if you interfere with them, whythen it is good night. Oh! yes, I know all about the law and the priestsand the edicts and the Emperor. But the Emperor cannot burn a wholepeople, and though I hate them, I tell you," she added, standing upsuddenly and speaking in a fierce, convinced voice, "that in the endthe law and the edicts and the priests will get the worst of this fight.Yes, these Hollanders will beat them all and cut the throats of youSpaniards, and thrust those of you who are left alive out of theircountry, and spit upon your memories and worship God in their ownfashion, and be proud and free, when you are dogs gnawing the bones ofyour greatness; dogs kicked back into your kennels to rot there. Thoseare not my own words," said Meg in a changed voice as she sat downagain. "They are the words of that devil, Martha the Mare, which shespoke in my hearing when we had her on the rack, but somehow I thinkthat they will come true, and that is why I always remember them."
"Indeed, her ladyship the Mare is a more interesting person than Ithought, though if she can talk like that, perhaps, after all, it wouldhave been as well to drown her. And now, dropping prophecy and leavingposterity to arrange for itself, let us come to business. How much? Forevidence which would suffice to procure his conviction, mind."
"Five hundred florins, not a stiver less, so, Excellency, you need notwaste your time trying to beat me down. You want good evidence, evidenceon which the Council, or whoever they may appoint, will convict, andthat means the unshaken testimony of two witnesses. Well, I tell you, itisn't easy to come by; there is great danger to the honest folk whoseek it, for these heretics are desperate people, and if they find a spywhile they are engaged in devil-worship at one of their conventicles,why--they kill him."
"I know all that, mother. What are you trying to cover up that you areso talkative? It isn't your usual way of doing business. Well, it is abargain--you shall have your money when you produce the evidence.And now really if we stop here much longer people will begin to makeremarks, for who shall escape aspersion in this censorious world? Sogood-night, mother, good-night," and he turned to leave the room.
"No, Excellency," she croaked with a snort of indignation, "no pay, noplay; I don't work on the faith of your Excellency's word alone."
"How much?" he asked again.
"A hundred florins down."
Then for a while they wrangled hideously, their heads held closetogether in the patch of moonlight, and so loathsome did their faceslook, so plainly was the wicked purpose of their hearts written uponthem, that in that faint luminous glow they might have been mistakenfor emissaries from the under-world chaffering over the price of ahuman soul. At last the bargain was struck for f
ifty florins, and havingreceived it into her hand Black Meg departed.
"Sixty-seven in all," she muttered to herself as she regained thestreet. "Well, it was no use holding out for any more, for he hasn't gotthe cash. The man's as poor as Lazarus, but he wants to live like Dives,and, what is more, he gambles, as I learned at The Hague. Also, there'ssomething queer about his past; I have heard as much as that. It must belooked into, and perhaps the bundle of papers which I helped myself toout of his desk while I was waiting"--and she touched the bosom of herdress to make sure that they were safe--"may tell me a thing or two,though likely enough they are only unpaid bills. Ah! most noble cheatand captain, before you have done with her you may find that Black Megknows how to pay back hot water for cold!"