Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders. Emma Orczy
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voice was deep and mellow and even the guttural Spanish consonants sounded quite soft when he spoke them. Through half-closed lids his glance swept from time to time over the eager faces around the board, and his slender hands emphasised the hideous narrative with a few graceful gestures. He looked just the true type of grand seigneur telling a tale of mild adventure and of sport, and now and then he laughed displaying his teeth, sharp and white like the fangs of a leopard's cub.
No one interrupted him, and Councillor Hessels fell gradually-as was his wont-into a gentle doze from which he roused himself now and again in order to murmur drowsily: "To the gallows with them all!"
Viglius and Hopper and de Berlaymont tried hard to repress a shudder. They were slaves of Spain, these gentlemen of the Low Countries, but not Spanish born, and were not accustomed from earliest childhood to listen-not only unmoved but with a certain measure of delight-to these tales of horror. But there was nothing in what don Ramon said of which they disapproved. They were-all of them-loyal subjects of the King, and the very thought of rebellion was abhorrent to them.
But it was passing strange that the Duke of Alva made no comment on the young captain's report. There he sat, at the head of the table, silent and moody, with one bony fist clenched above a letter which lay open beneath his hand, and which bore a large red seal with the royal arms of Spain impressed upon it. Not a word of praise or blame did he speak. His heavy brows were contracted in a sullen frown, and his protruding eyes were veiled beneath the drooping lids.
De Vargas, too, was silent-de Vargas who loved to gloat over such tales as don Ramon had to tell, de Vargas who believed that these rebellious Low Countries could only be brought into subjection by such acts of demoniacal outrage as the Spanish soldiery had just perpetrated in Mons and in Mechlin. He, too, appeared moody to-day, and the story of sick women and young children being dragged out of their beds and driven out to perish in the streets while their homes were being pillaged and devastated, left him taciturn and unmoved.
Don Ramon made vain pretence not to notice the Lieutenant-Governor's moodiness, nor yet de Vargas' silence, but those who knew him best-and de Vargas was among these-plainly saw that irritation had seized upon his nerves. He was talking more volubly, and his voice had lost its smoothness, whilst the languor of his gestures had given place to sharp, febrile movements of hands and shoulders which he tried vainly to disguise.
"Our soldiers," he was saying loudly, "did not leave a loaf of bread in the bakeries, or a bushel of wheat in the stores of Mechlin. The rich citizens we hanged at the rate of twenty a day, and I drew orders for the confiscation of their estates to the benefit of our Most Gracious King and suzerain Lord. I tell you we made quick work of all the rebels: stone no longer stands on stone in Mechlin to-day: its patricians are beggars, its citizens are scattered. We have put to the torture and burned at the stake those who refused to give us their all. A month ago Mechlin was a prosperous city: she gave of her wealth and of her hospitality to the rebel troops of Orange. To-day she and her children have ceased to be. Are you not satisfied?"
He brought his clenched fist crashing down upon the table: surely a very unusual loss of restraint in a grandee of Spain: but obviously he found it more and more difficult to keep his temper under control, and those dark eyes of his were now fixed with a kind of fierce resentment upon the impassive face of the Duke.
Councillor Hessels, only half awake, reiterated with drowsy emphasis: "To the gallows with them! Send them all to the gallows!"
Still the Duke of Alva was silent and de Vargas did not speak. Yet it was the Duke himself who had given the order for the destruction of Mechlin: "as a warning to other cities," he had said. And now he sat at the head of the table sullen, moody and frowning, and don Ramon felt an icy pang of fear gripping him by the throat: the thought that censure of his conduct was brewing in the Lieutenant-Governor's mind caused him to lose the last vestige of self-control, for he knew that censure could have but one sequel-quick judgment and the headman's axe.
"Are you not satisfied?" he cried hoarsely. "What more did you expect? What more ought we to have done? What other proof of zeal does King Philip ask of me?"
Thus directly challenged the Duke raised his head and looked the young man sternly in the face.
"What you have done, Messire," he said slowly-and the cold glitter in his steely eyes held in it more real and calculating cruelty than the feline savagery of the other man, "what you have done is good, but it is not enough. What use is there in laying low an entire city, when the one man whose personality holds the whole of this abominable rebellion together still remains unscathed? You hanged twenty noted citizens a day in Mechlin, you say," he added with a cynical shrug of the shoulders, "I would gladly see every one of them spared, so long as Orange's head fell on the scaffold."
"Orange has disbanded his army and has fled almost alone into Holland," said don Ramon sullenly. "My orders were to punish Mechlin and not to run after the Prince of Orange."
"The order to bring the Prince of Orange alive or dead to Brussels and to me takes precedence of every other order, as you well know, Messire," retorted Alva roughly. "We decided on that unanimously at the meeting of the Grand Council on the day that I sent Egmont and Horn to the scaffold and Orange refused to walk into the trap which I had set for him."
"He always escapes from the traps which are set for him," now broke in de Vargas in his calm, even, expressionless voice. "During the siege of Mons, according to don Frederic's report, no fewer than six surprise night-attacks-all admirably planned-failed, because Orange appeared to have received timely warning."
"Who should know that better than I, señor?" queried don Ramon hotly, "seeing that I led most of those attacks myself-they were splendidly planned, our men as silent as ghosts, the night darker than hell. Not a word of the plan was breathed until I gave the order to start. Yet someone gave the alarm. We found Orange's camp astir-every time we had to retire. Who but the devil could have given the warning?"
"A spy more astute than yourselves," quoth Alva dryly.
"Nay!" here interposed del Rio blandly, "I am of the same opinion as don Ramon de Linea; there is a subtle agency at work which appears to guard the life of the Prince of Orange. I myself was foiled many a time when I was on his track-with Ribeiras who wields a dagger in the dark more deftly than any man I know. I also employed Loronzo, who graduated in Venice in the art of poisons, but invariably the Prince slipped through our fingers just as if he had been put on his guard by some mysterious emissary."
"The loyalists in Flanders," quoth President Viglius under his breath, "declare that the agency which works for the safety of the Prince of Orange is a supernatural one. They speak of a tall, manlike figure whose face is hidden by a mask, and who invariably appears whenever the Prince of Orange's life is in danger. Some people call this mysterious being 'Leatherface,' but no one seems actually to have seen him. It sounds as if he were truly an emissary of the devil."
And as the President spoke, a strange silence fell around the council board: every cheek had become pale, every lip quivered. De Vargas made a quick sign of the Cross over his chest: Alva drew a small medal from the inside of his doublet and kissed it devoutly. These men who talked airily of rapine and of violence perpetrated against innocent people, who gloated over torture and misery which they loved to inflict, were held in the cold grip of superstitious fear, and their trembling lips uttered abject prayers for mercy to the God whom they outraged by every act of their infamous lives.
When the Duke of Alva spoke again, his voice was still unsteady: "Devil or no devil," he said with an attempt at dignified composure, "His majesty's latest orders are quite peremptory. He desires the death of Orange. He will have no more cities destroyed, no more wholesale massacres until that great object is attained. Pressure has been brought to bear upon him: the Emperor, it seems, has spoken authoritatively, and with no uncertain voice. It seems that the destruction of Flemish cities is abhorrent to the rest of Europe."
"Rebel cities!" ejaculated de Berlaymont hotly.
"Aye! we know well enough that they are rebel cities," quoth Alva fiercely, "but what can we do, when a milk-livered weakling wears the Imperial crown? Our gracious King himself dares not disregard the Emperor's protests-and in his last letter to me he commands that we should hold our hand and neither massacre