BARONESS ORCZY Ultimate Collection: 130+ Action-Adventure Novels, Thrillers & Detective Stories. Emma Orczy
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I listened for quite a long while: your conversation greatly interested me. I only interfered when I thought it necessary."
"So then I need not repeat what I said," quoth the other lightly. "Hanging for you, my man, unless you tell me where you have hidden Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn."
"I? What have I to do with that noble lady, pray?"
"It is futile to bandy words with me. I know every circumstance of the disappearance of the lady, and could denounce you to the authorities within half an hour, and see you hanged for the outrage before sunrise."
"Then I do wonder," said Diogenes suavely, "that your Magnificence doth not do this, for of a truth you must hate me fairly thoroughly by now."
"Hate you, man? I'd gladly see you hang, or better still broken on the wheel. But I must know from you first where you have hidden the jongejuffrouw."
"If I am to hang anyway, sir, why should I trouble to tell you?"
"The lady is my affianced wife," said Stoutenburg haughtily, "I have every right to demand an explanation from you, why you are here when by the terms of your contract with my friend Nicolaes Beresteyn you should at this moment be on your way to Rotterdam, escorting the jongejuffrouw to the house of Ben Isaje, the banker.... You see that I am well informed," he added impatiently, seeing that Diogenes had become suddenly silent, and that a curious shadow had spread over his persistently smiling face.
"So well informed, sir," rejoined the latter after a slight pause, and speaking more seriously than he had done hitherto, "so well informed that I marvel you do not know that by the terms of that same contract I pledged my word to convey the jongejuffrouw safely to a certain spot and with all possible speed, but that further actions on my part were to remain for mine own guidance. I also pledged my word of honour that I would remain silent about all these matters."
"Bah!" broke in Stoutenburg roughly, "knaves like you have no honour to pledge."
"No doubt, sir, you are the best judge of what a knave would do."
"Insolent ... do you dare...?"
"If you like it better, sir, I'll say that I have parleyed long enough with you to suit my temper. This room is mine," he added, speaking every whit as haughtily as did the other man. "I have business with this wench, and came here, desirous to speak with her alone, so I pray you go! this roof is too lowly to shelter the Lord of Stoutenburg."
At mention of his name Stoutenburg's sunken cheeks took on the colour of lead, and with a swift, instinctive gesture, his hand flew to the hilt of the dagger under his doublet. During this hot and brief quarrel with this man, the thought had never entered his mind that his identity might be known to his antagonist, that he — a fugitive from justice and with a heavy price still upon his head — was even now at the mercy of this contemptible adventurer whom he had learnt to hate as he had never hated a single human soul before now.
Prudence, however, was quick enough to warn him not to betray himself completely. The knave obviously suspected his identity — how he did that, Stoutenburg could not conjecture, but after all he might only have drawn a bow at a venture: it was important above all not to let him see that that bow had struck home. Therefore after the first instant of terror and surprise he resumed as best he could his former haughty attitude, and said with well-feigned carelessness:
"The Lord of Stoutenburg? Do you expect his visit then? What have you to do with him? 'Tis dangerous, you know, to court his friendship just now."
"I do not court his friendship, sir," replied Diogenes with his gently ironical smile; "the Lord of Stoutenburg hath many enemies these days; and, methinks, that if it came to a question of hanging he would stand at least as good a chance of the gallows as I."
"No doubt, an you knew how to lay hands on him; you would be over ready to denounce him to the Stadtholder for the sake of the blood-money which you would receive for this act."
"Well played, my lord," retorted Diogenes with a ringing laugh. "Dondersteen! but you apparently think me a fool as well as a knave. Lay my hands on the Lord of Stoutenburg did you say? By St. Bavon, have I not done so already? aye! and made him lick the dust, too, at my feet? I could sell him to the Stadtholder without further trouble — denounce him even now to the authorities only that I do not happen to be a vendor of swine-flesh — or else...."
A double cry interrupted the flow of Diogenes' wrathful eloquence: a cry of rage from Stoutenburg and one of terror from the girl, who all this while — not understanding the cause and purport of the quarrel between the two men — had been cowering in a remote corner of the room anxious only to avoid observation, fearful lest she should be seen.
But now she suddenly ran forward, swift as a deer, unerring as a cat, and the next moment she had thrown herself on the upraised arm of Stoutenburg in whose hand gleamed the sharp steel of his dagger.
"Murder!" she cried in a frenzy of borrow. "Save thyself! he will murder thee!"
Diogenes, as was his wont, threw back his head and sent his merry laugh echoing through the tumble-down house from floor to floor, until, in response to that light-heartedness which had burst forth in such a ringing laugh, pallid faces were lifted wearily from toil, and around thin, pinched lips the reflex of a smile came creeping over the furrows caused by starvation and misery.
"Let go his arm, wench," he cried gaily; "he'll not hurt me, never fear. Hatred has drawn a film over his eyes and caused his hand to tremble. Put back your poniard, my lord," he added lightly, "the penniless adventurer and paid hireling is unworthy of your steel. Keep it whetted for your own defence and for the protection of the gracious lady who has plighted her troth to you."
"Name her not, man!" cried Stoutenburg, whose arm had dropped by his side, but whose voice was still hoarse with the passion of hate which now consumed him.
"Is her name polluted through passing my lips? Yet is she under my protection, placed there by those who should have guarded her honour with their life."
"Touch my future wife but with the tips of thy fingers, plepshurk, and I'll hang thee on the nearest tree with mine own hands."
"Wait to threaten, my lord, until you have the power: until then go your way. I — the miserable rascal whom you abhor, the knave whom you despise — do give you your life and your freedom which, as you well know, I hold at this moment in the hollow of my hand. But remember that I give it you only because to my mind one innocent woman has already suffered quite enough because of you, without having to mourn the man whom she loves and being widowed ere she is a wife. Because of that you may go out of this room a free man — free to pursue your tortuous aims and your ambitious scheme. They are naught to me and I know nothing about them. But this I do know — that a woman has been placed in my charge by one who should deem her honour more sacred than his own; in this infamy I now see that you too, my lord, have had a hand. The lady, you say, is your future wife, yet you placed her under my care — a knave, a rascal — miserable plepshurk was the last epithet which you applied to me — you! who also should have guarded her good name with your very life. To suit your own ends, you entrusted her to me! Well! to suit mine own I'll not let you approach her, until — having accomplished the errand for which I am being paid — I will myself escort the lady back to her father. To this am I also pledged! and both these pledges do I mean to fulfil and you, my lord, do but waste your time in arguing with me."
The Lord of Stoutenburg had not attempted to interrupt Diogenes in his long peroration. All the thoughts of hatred and revenge that sprang in his mind with every word which this man uttered, he apparently thought wisest to conceal for the moment.
Now that Diogenes, after he had finished speaking, turned unceremoniously on his heel and left Stoutenburg standing in the middle of the room, the latter hesitated for a few minutes longer. Angry and contemptuous words were all ready to his lips, but Diogenes was paying no heed to him; he had drawn the girl with him to the bedside of the cripple, and there began talking quietly in whispers to her. Stoutenburg saw that he gave the wench some money.
Smothering a final, comprehensive oath the noble lord went quietly out of the room.
"How that