Book: Lysbeth

H >> H. Rider Haggard >> Lysbeth




"Are those all your terms?" asked Foy.

"Not quite all, worthy Heer van Goorl. Among you I observe a young
gentleman whom doubtless you have managed to carry off against his
will, to wit, my beloved son, Adrian. In his own interests, for he will
scarcely be a welcome guest in Leyden, I ask that, before you depart,
you should place this noble cavalier ashore in a position where we can
see him. Now, what is your answer?"

"That you may go back to hell to look for it," replied Martin rudely,
while Foy added:

"What other answer do you expect from folk who have escaped out of your
clutches in Haarlem?"

As he said the words, at a nod from Martin, Martha, who by now had crept
up to them, under cover of his great form and of surrounding reeds, let
go the stern of the boat and vanished.

"Plain words from plain, uncultivated people, not unnaturally irritated
by the course of political events with which, although Fortune has mixed
me up in them, I have nothing whatever to do," answered Ramiro. "But
once more I beg of you to consider. It is probable that you have no food
upon your boat, whereas we have plenty. Also, in due course, darkness
will fall, which must give us a certain advantage; moreover, I have
reason to hope for assistance. Therefore, in a waiting game like this
the cards are with me, and as I think your poor prisoner, Adrian, will
tell you, I know how to play a hand at cards."

About eight yards from the cutter, in a thick patch of water-lilies,
just at this moment an otter rose to take air--an old dog-otter, for it
was grey-headed. One of the Spaniards in the boat caught sight of the
ring it made, and picking up a stone from the ballast threw it at it
idly. The otter vanished.

"We have been seeking each other a long while, but have never come to
blows yet, although, being a brave man, I know you would wish it,"
said Red Martin modestly. "Senor Ramiro, will you do me the honour to
overlook my humble birth and come ashore with me for a few minutes, man
against man. The odds would be in your favour, for you have armour and I
have nothing but a worn bull's hide, also you have my good sword Silence
and I only a wood-man's axe. Still I will risk it, and, what is more,
trusting to your good faith, we are willing to wager the treasure of
Hendrik Brant upon the issue."

So soon as they understood this challenge a roar of laughter went up
from the Spaniards in the boat, in which Ramiro himself joined heartily.
The idea of anyone voluntarily entering upon a single combat with the
terrible Frisian giant, who for months had been a name of fear among the
thousands that beleaguered Haarlem, struck them as really ludicrous.

But of a sudden they ceased laughing, and one and all stared with a
strange anxiety at the bottom of their boat, much as terrier dogs stare
at the earth beneath which they hear invisible vermin on the move. Then
a great shouting arose among them, and they looked eagerly over the
gunwales; yes, and began to stab at the water with their swords. But all
the while through the tumult and voices came a steady, regular sound as
of a person knocking heavily on the further side of a thick door.

"Mother of Heaven!" screamed someone in the cutter, "we are scuttled,"
and they began to tear at the false bottom of their boat, while others
stabbed still more furiously at the surface of the Mere.

Now, rising one by one to the face of that quiet water, could be seen
bubbles, and the line of them ran from the cutter towards the rowing
boat. Presently, within six feet of it, axe in hand, rose the strange
and dreadful figure of a naked, skeleton-like woman covered with mud and
green weeds, and bleeding from great wounds in the back and sides.

There it stood, shaking an axe at the terror-stricken Spaniards, and
screaming in short gasps,

"Paid back! paid back, Ramiro! Now sink and drown, you dog, or come,
visit Red Martin on the shore."

"Well done, Martha," roared Martin, as he dragged her dying into the
boat. While he spoke, lo! the cutter began to fill and sink.

"There is but one chance for it," cried Ramiro, "overboard and at them.
It is not deep," and springing into the water, which reached to his
neck, he began to wade towards the shore.

"Push off," cried Foy, and they thrust and pulled. But the gold was
heavy, and their boat had settled far into the mud. Do what they might,
she would not stir. Then uttering some strange Frisian oath, Martin
sprang over her stern, and putting out all his mighty strength thrust
at it to loose her. Still she would not move. The Spaniards came up, now
the water reached only to their thighs, and their bright swords flashed
in the sunlight.

"Cut them down!" yelled Ramiro. "At them for your lives' sake."

The boat trembled, but she would not stir.

"Too heavy in the bows," screamed Martha, and struggling to her feet,
with one wild scream she launched herself straight at the throat of the
nearest Spaniard. She gripped him with her long arms, and down they went
together. Once they rose, then fell again, and through a cloud of mud
might be seen struggling upon the bottom of the Mere till presently they
lay still, both of them.

The lightened boat lifted, and in answer to Martin's mighty efforts
glided forward through the clinging mud. Again he thrust, and she was
clear.

"Climb in, Martin, climb in," shouted Foy as he stabbed at a Spaniard.

"By heaven! no," roared Ramiro splashing towards him with the face of a
devil.

For a second Martin stood still. Then he bent, and the sword-cut fell
harmless upon his leather jerkin. Now very suddenly his great arms shot
out; yes, he seized Ramiro by the thighs and lifted, and there was seen
the sight of a man thrown into the air as though he were a ball tossed
by a child at play, to fall headlong upon the casks of treasure in the
skiff prow where he lay still.

Martin sprang forward and gripped the tiller with his outstretched hand
as it glided away from him.

"Row, master, row," he cried, and Foy rowed madly until they were clear
of the last Spaniard, clear by ten yards. Even Elsa snatched a rollock,
and with it struck a soldier on the hand who tried to stay them, forcing
him to loose his grip; a deed of valour she boasted of with pride all
her life through. Then they dragged Martin into the boat.

"Now, you Spanish dogs," the great man roared back at them as he shook
the water from his flaming hair and beard, "go dig for Brant's treasure
and live on ducks' eggs here till Don Frederic sends to fetch you."



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

"Jufvrouw," said Martin presently, "there is another flagon of wine in
that 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 Mother
Martha, who saved us all. Well, she died as she would have wished to
die, taking a Spaniard for company, and her story will live on."

"Amen," said Martin. Then a thought struck him, and, leaving his oars
for a minute, for he rowed two as against Foy's and Adrian's one, he
went forward to where Ramiro lay stricken senseless on the kegs of
specie and jewels in the bows, and took from him the great sword
Silence. 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, since
such cats have many lives. Ah! Senor Ramiro, I told you I would have my
sword back before I was half an hour older, or go where I shouldn't want
one." 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 wonder
my good angel made me mad to get that sword again."

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

For a while they rowed on in silence. All that they had gone through
during the last four and twenty hours and the seven preceding months of
war and privation, had broken their nerve. Even now, although they
had escaped the danger and won back the buried gold, capturing the
arch-villain who had brought them so much death and misery, and their
home, which, for the present moment at any rate, was a strong place of
refuge, lay before them, still they could not be at ease. Where so
many had died, where the risks had been so fearful, it seemed almost
incredible that they four should be living and hale, though weary, with
a 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 wife
whensoever he might wish it, seemed to Foy also a thing too good to
be true. Too good to be true was it, moreover, that his brother, the
wayward, passionate, weak, poetical-minded Adrian, made by nature to be
the tool of others, and bear the burden of their evil doing, should have
been 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 and
self-love. For Foy always loved his brother, and knowing him better than
any others knew him, had found it hard to believe that however black
things 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 the
stern-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 where
he had sat appeared the dreadful countenance of Ramiro, stamped with a
grin of hideous hate such as Satan might wear when souls escape him at
the last. Ramiro recovered and sitting up, for to his feet he could
not rise because of the sword strap, in his hand a thin, deadly-looking
knife.

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

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

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

"No," answered Foy grimly, "let him take his trial in Leyden. Oh! what
accursed 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 to
that 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 the
Virgin and again lifting my hand against a woman." He looked at Elsa and
shuddered, then went on: "It is your hour, make an end of me at once. I
do not wish to appear thus before those boors."

"Gag him," said Foy to Martin, "lest our ears be poisoned," and Martin
obeyed 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 and
sinned so deeply to win, making, as he knew well, his last journey to
death and to whatever may lie beyond that solemn gate.

They were passing the island that, many years ago, had formed the
turning post of the great sledge race in which his passenger had been
the fair Leyden heiress, Lysbeth van Hout. Ramiro could see her now as
she was that day; he could see also how that race, which he just failed
to win, had been for him an augury of disaster. Had not the Hollander
again beaten him at the post, and that Hollander--Lysbeth's own son by
another father--helped to it by her son born of himself, who now lay
there death-stricken by him that gave him life. . . . They would take
him to Lysbeth, he knew it; she would be his judge, that woman against
whom he had piled up injury after injury, whom, even when she seemed
to be in his power, he had feared more than any living being. . . . And
after 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 the
siege of Haarlem, for the man who had brought Dirk van Goorl to
his death, for the father who had just planted a dagger between the
shoulders of his son because, at the last, that son had chosen to be
true 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 his
mind when, for the first time after many years, he met Lysbeth face to
face there in the Gevangenhuis, that dream of the pitiful little man
falling, falling through endless space, and at the bottom of the gulf
two great hands, hands hideous and suggestive, reaching through the
shadows to receive him?



Like his son, Adrian, Ramiro was superstitious; more, his intellect, his
reading, which in youth had been considerable, his observation of men
and women, all led him to the conclusion that death is a wall with many
doors in it; that on this side of the wall we may not linger or sleep,
but must pass each of us through his appointed portal straight to the
domain prepared for us. If so, what would be his lot, and who would be
waiting to greet him yonder? Oh! terrors may attend the wicked after
death, but in the case of some they do not tarry until death; they leap
forward to him whom it is decreed must die, forcing attention with their
eager, craving hands, with their obscure and ominous voices. . . . About
him the sweet breath of the summer afternoon, the skimming swallows,
the meadows starred with flowers; within him every hell at which the
imagination can so much as hint.

Before he passed the gates of Leyden, in those few short hours, Ramiro,
to Elsa's eyes, had aged by twenty years.

Their little boat was heavy laden, the wind was against them, and they
had a dying man and a prisoner aboard. So it came about that the day was
closing before the soldiers challenged them from the watergate, asking
who they were and whither they went. Foy stood up and said:

"We are Foy van Goorl, Red Martin, Elsa Brant, a wounded man and a
prisoner, escaped from Haarlem, and we go to the house of Lysbeth van
Goorl in the Bree Straat."

Then they let them through the watergate, and there, on the further
side, were many gathered who thanked God for their deliverance, and
begged tidings of them.

"Come to the house in the Bree Straat and we will tell you from the
balcony," answered Foy.

So they rowed from one cut and canal to another till at last they came
to the private boat-house of the van Goorls, and entered it, and thus by
the small door into the house.



Lysbeth van Goorl, recovered from her illness now, but aged and grown
stern with suffering, sat in an armchair in the great parlour of
her home in the Bree Straat, the room where as a girl she had cursed
Montalvo; where too not a year ago, she had driven his son, the traitor
Adrian, from her presence. At her side was a table on which stood a
silver bell and two brass holders with candles ready to be lighted. She
rang the bell and a woman-servant entered, the same who, with Elsa, had
nursed her in the plague.

"What is that murmuring in the street?" Lysbeth asked. "I hear the sound
of many voices. Is there more news from Haarlem?"

"Alas! yes," answered the woman. "A fugitive says that the executioners
there are weary, so now they tie the poor prisoners back to back and
throw them into the mere to drown."

A groan burst from Lysbeth's lips. "Foy, my son, is there," she
muttered, "and Elsa Brant his affianced wife, and Martin his servant,
and many another friend. Oh! God, how long, how long?" and her head sank
upon her bosom.

Soon she raised it again and said, "Light the candles, woman, this place
grows dark, and in its gloom I see the ghosts of all my dead."

They burned up--two stars of light in the great room.

"Whose feet are those upon the stairs?" asked Lysbeth, "the feet of men
who bear burdens. Open the large doors, woman, and let that enter which
it pleases God to send us."

So the doors were flung wide, and through them came people carrying
a wounded man, then following him Foy and Elsa, and, lastly, towering
above them all, Red Martin, who thrust before him another man. Lysbeth
rose from her chair to look.

"Do I dream?" she said, "or, son Foy, hath the Angel of the Lord
delivered you out of the hell of Haarlem?"

"We are here, mother," he answered.

"And whom," she said, pointing to the figure covered with a cloak, "do
you bring with you?"

"Adrian, mother, who is dying."

"Then, son Foy, take him hence; alive, dying, or dead, I have done
with----" Here her eyes fell upon Red Martin and the man he held,
"Martin the Frisian," she muttered, "but who----"

Martin heard, and by way of answer lifted up his prisoner so that the
fading light from the balcony windows fell full upon his face.

"What!" she cried. "Juan de Montalvo as well as his son Adrian, and in
this room----" Then she checked herself and added, "Foy, tell me your
story."

In few words and brief he told it, or so much as she need know to
understand. His last words were: "Mother, be merciful to Adrian; from
the first he meant no ill; he saved all our lives, and he lies dying by
that man's dagger."

"Lift him up," she said.

So they lifted him up, and Adrian, who, since the knife pierced him had
uttered no word, spoke for the first and last time, muttering hoarsely:

"Mother, take back your words and forgive me--before I die."

Now the sorrow-frozen heart of Lysbeth melted, and she bent over him and
said, speaking so that all might hear:

"Welcome to your home again, Adrian. You who once were led astray, have
done bravely, and I am proud to call you son. Though you have left the
faith in which you were bred, here and hereafter may God bless you and
reward you, beloved Adrian!" Then she bent down and kissed his dying
lips. Foy and Elsa kissed him also in farewell before they bore him,
smiling happily to himself, to the chamber, his own chamber, where
within some few hours death found him.

Adrian had been borne away, and for a little while there was silence.
Then, none commanding him, but as though an instinct pushed him forward,
Red Martin began to move up the length of the long room, half dragging,
half carrying his captive Ramiro. It was as if some automaton had
suddenly been put in motion, some machine of gigantic strength that
nothing could stop. The man in his grip set his heels in the floor and
hung back, but Martin scarcely seemed to heed his resistance. On he
came, and the victim with him, till they stood together before the oaken
chair and the stern-faced, white-haired woman who sat in it, her
cold countenance lit by the light of the two candles. She looked and
shuddered. Then she spoke, asking:

"Why do you bring this man to me, Martin?"

"For judgment, Lysbeth van Goorl," he answered.

"Who made me a judge over him?" she asked.

"My master, Dirk van Goorl, your son, Adrian, and Hendrik Brant. Their
blood makes you judge of his blood."

"I will have none of it," Lysbeth said passionately, "let the people
judge him." As she spoke, from the crowd in the street below there
swelled a sudden clamour.

"Good," said Martin, "the people shall judge," and he began to turn
towards the window, when suddenly, by a desperate effort, Ramiro
wrenched his doublet from his hand, and flung himself at Lysbeth's feet
and grovelled there.

"What do you seek?" she asked, drawing back her dress so that he should
not touch it.

"Mercy," he gasped.

"Mercy! Look, son and daughter, this man asks for mercy who for many a
year has given none. Well, Juan de Montalvo, take your prayer to God and
to the people. I have done with you."

"Mercy, mercy!" he cried again.

"Eight months ago," she said, "I uttered that prayer to you, begging of
you in the Name of Christ to spare the life of an innocent man, and what
was your answer, Juan de Montalvo?"

"Once you were my wife," he pleaded; "being a woman, does not that weigh
with you?"

"Once he was my husband, being a man did that weigh with you? The last
word is said. Take him, Martin, to those who deal with murderers."

Then that look came upon Montalvo which twice or thrice before Lysbeth
has seen written in his face--once when the race was run and lost, and
once when in after years she had petitioned for the life of her husband.
Lo! it was no longer the face of a man, but such a countenance as might
have been worn by a devil or a beast. The eyeball started, the grey
moustache curled upwards, the cheek-bones grew high and sharp.

"Night after night," he gasped, "you lay at my side, and I might have
killed you, as I have killed that brat of yours--and I spared you, I
spared you."

"God spared me, Juan de Montalvo, that He might bring us to this hour;
let Him spare you also if He will. I do not judge. He judges and the
people," and Lysbeth rose from her chair.

"Stay!" he cried, gnashing his teeth.

"No, I stay not, I go to receive the last breath of him you have
murdered, my son and yours."

He raised himself upon his knees, and for a moment their eyes met for
the last time.

"Do you remember?" she said in a quiet voice, "many years ago, in this
very room, after you had bought me at the cost of Dirk's life, certain
words I spoke to you? Now I do not think that it was I who spoke, Juan
de Montalvo."

And she swept past him and though the wide doorway.



Red Martin stood upon the balcony gripping the man Ramiro. Beneath him
the broad street was packed with people, hundreds and thousands of them,
a dense mass seething in the shadows, save here and again where a torch
or a lantern flared showing their white faces, for the moon, which
shone upon Martin and his captive, scarcely reached those down below. As
gaunt, haggard, and long-haired, he stepped upon the balcony, they saw
him and his burden, and there went up such a yell as shook the very
roofs of Leyden. Martin held up his hand, and there was silence, deep
silence, through which the breath of all that multitude rose in sighs,
like the sighing of a little wind.

"Citizens my Leyden, my masters," the Frisian cried, in a great, deep
voice that echoed down the street, "I have a word to say to you. This
man here--do you know him?"

Back came an answering yell of "_Aye!_"

"He is a Spaniard," went on Martin, "the noble Count Juan de Montalvo,
who many years past forced one Lysbeth van Hout of this city into a
false marriage, buying her at the price of the life of her affianced
husband, Dirk van Goorl, that he might win her fortune."

"We know it," they shouted.

"Afterwards he was sent to the galleys for his crimes. He came back,
and was made Governor of the Gevangenhuis by the bloody Alva, where
he brought to death your brother and past burgomaster, Dirk van Goorl.
Afterwards he kidnapped the person of Elsa Brant, the daughter of
Hendrik Brant, whom the Inquisition murdered at The Hague. We rescued
her from him, my master, Foy van Goorl, and I. Afterwards he served
with the Spaniards as a captain of their forces in the siege of Haarlem
yonder--Haarlem that fell three days ago, and whose citizens they are
murdering to-night, throwing them two by two to drown in the waters of
the Mere."

"Kill him! Cast him down!" roared the mob. "Give him to us, Red Martin."

Again the Frisian lifted his hand and again there was silence; a sudden,
terrible silence.

"This man had a son; my mistress, Lysbeth van Goorl, to her shame and
sorrow, was the mother of him. That son, repenting, saved us from the
sack of Haarlem, yea, through him the three of us, Foy van Goorl, Elsa
Brant, and I, Martin Roos, their servant, are alive to-night. This man
and his Spaniards overtook us on the lake, and there we conquered him
by the help of Martha the Mare, Martha whom they made to carry her own
husband to the fire. We conquered him, but she--she died in the fray;
they stabbed her to death in the water as men stab an otter. Well, that
son, the Heer Adrian, he was murdered in the boat with a knife-blow
given by his own father from behind, and he lies here in this house dead
or dying.

"My master and I, we brought this man, who to-day is called Ramiro, to
be judged by the woman whose husband and son he slew. But she would not
judge him; she said, 'Take him to the people, let them judge.' So judge
now, ye people," and with an effort of his mighty strength Martin swung
the struggling body of Ramiro over the parapet of the balcony and let
him hang there above their heads.

They yelled, they screamed in their ravenous hate and rage; they leapt
up as hounds leap at a wolf upon a wall.

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