Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch

  The island had melted away into a mist of other islands. No living thingwas to be seen save the wild creatures and birds of the great lake, andno sound was to be heard except their calling and the voices of thewind and water. They were alone--alone and safe, and there at a distancetowards the skyline rose the church towers of Leyden, for which theyheaded.

  "Jufvrouw," said Martin presently, "there is another flagon of wine inthat locker, and we should be glad of a pull at it."

  Elsa, who was steering the boat, rose and found the wine and a horn mug,which she filled and handed first to Foy.

  "Here's a health," said Foy as he drank, "to the memory of MotherMartha, who saved us all. Well, she died as she would have wished todie, taking a Spaniard for company, and her story will live on."

  "Amen," said Martin. Then a thought struck him, and, leaving his oarsfor a minute, for he rowed two as against Foy's and Adrian's one, hewent forward to where Ramiro lay stricken senseless on the kegs ofspecie and jewels in the bows, and took from him the great swordSilence. But he strapped the Spaniard's legs together with his belt.

  "That crack on the head keeps him quiet enough," he said in explanation,"but he might come to and give trouble, or try to swim for it, sincesuch cats have many lives. Ah! Senor Ramiro, I told you I would have mysword back before I was half an hour older, or go where I shouldn't wantone." Then he touched the spring in the hilt and examined the cavity."Why," he said, "here's my legacy left in it safe and sound. No wondermy good angel made me mad to get that sword again."

  "No wonder," echoed Foy, "especially as you got Ramiro with it," and heglanced at Adrian, who was labouring at the bow oar, looking, now thatthe excitement of the fight had gone by, most downcast and wretched.Well he might, seeing the welcome that, as he feared, awaited him inLeyden.

  For a while they rowed on in silence. All that they had gone throughduring the last four and twenty hours and the seven preceding months ofwar and privation, had broken their nerve. Even now, although theyhad escaped the danger and won back the buried gold, capturing thearch-villain who had brought them so much death and misery, and theirhome, which, for the present moment at any rate, was a strong place ofrefuge, lay before them, still they could not be at ease. Where somany had died, where the risks had been so fearful, it seemed almostincredible that they four should be living and hale, though weary, witha prospect of continuing to live for many years.

  That the girl whom he loved so dearly, and whom he had so nearly lost,should be sitting before him safe and sound, ready to become his wifewhensoever he might wish it, seemed to Foy also a thing too good tobe true. Too good to be true was it, moreover, that his brother, thewayward, passionate, weak, poetical-minded Adrian, made by nature to bethe tool of others, and bear the burden of their evil doing, should havebeen dragged before it was over late, out of the net of the fowler,have repented of his sins and follies, and, at the risk of his own life,shown that he was still a man, no longer the base slave of passion andself-love. For Foy always loved his brother, and knowing him better thanany others knew him, had found it hard to believe that however blackthings might look against him, he was at heart a villain.

  Thus he thought, and Elsa too had her thoughts, which may be guessed.They were silent all of them, till of a sudden, Elsa seated in thestern-sheets, saw Adrian suddenly let fall his oar, throw his arms wide,and pitch forward against the back of Martin. Yes, and in place of wherehe had sat appeared the dreadful countenance of Ramiro, stamped with agrin of hideous hate such as Satan might wear when souls escape him atthe last. Ramiro recovered and sitting up, for to his feet he couldnot rise because of the sword strap, in his hand a thin, deadly-lookingknife.

  "_Habet!_" he said with a short laugh, "_habes_, Weather-cock!" and heturned the knife against himself.

  But Martin was on him, and in five more seconds he lay trussed like afowl in the bottom of the boat.

  "Shall I kill him?" said Martin to Foy, who with Elsa was bending overAdrian.

  "No," answered Foy grimly, "let him take his trial in Leyden. Oh! whataccursed fools were we not to search him!"

  Ramiro's face turned a shade more ghastly.

  "It is your hour," he said in a hoarse voice, "you have won, thanks tothat dog of a son of mine, who, I trust, may linger long before he dies,as die he must. Ah! well, this is what comes of breaking my oath to theVirgin and again lifting my hand against a woman." He looked at Elsa andshuddered, then went on: "It is your hour, make an end of me at once. Ido not wish to appear thus before those boors."

  "Gag him," said Foy to Martin, "lest our ears be poisoned," and Martinobeyed with good will. Then he flung him down, and there the man lay,his back supported by the kegs of treasure he had worked so hard andsinned so deeply to win, making, as he knew well, his last journey todeath and to whatever may lie beyond that solemn gate.

  They were passing the island that, many years ago, had formed theturning post of the great sledge race in which his passenger had beenthe fair Leyden heiress, Lysbeth van Hout. Ramiro could see her now asshe was that day; he could see also how that race, which he just failedto win, had been for him an augury of disaster. Had not the Hollanderagain beaten him at the post, and that Hollander--Lysbeth's own son byanother father--helped to it by her son born of himself, who now laythere death-stricken by him that gave him life. . . . They would takehim to Lysbeth, he knew it; she would be his judge, that woman againstwhom he had piled up injury after injury, whom, even when she seemedto be in his power, he had feared more than any living being. . . . Andafter he had met her eyes for the last time, then would come the end.What sort of an end would it be for the captain red-handed from thesiege of Haarlem, for the man who had brought Dirk van Goorl tohis death, for the father who had just planted a dagger between theshoulders of his son because, at the last, that son had chosen to betrue to his own people, and to deliver them from a dreadful doom? . . .Why did it come back to him, that horrible dream which had risen in hismind when, for the first time after many years, he met Lysbeth face toface there in the Gevangenhuis, that dream of the pitiful little manfalling, falling through endless space, and at the bottom of the gulftwo great hands, hands hideous and suggestive, reaching through theshadows to receive him?