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1

GILDA had refused her brother's escort, preferring to follow Jan; and Nicolaes, half indifferent, half ashamed, watched her progress up the stairs, and when she had disappeared in the gloom of the corridor above, he went back to his friend.

The two old serving-men were now busy in the banqueting-hall, bringing in the supper. They set the table with silver and crystal goblets, with jugs of Spanish and Rhenish wines, and dishes of cooked meats. They came and went about their business expeditiously and silently, brought in two more heavy candelabra with a dozen or more lighted candles in their sconces, so that the vast room was brilliantly lit. They threw fresh logs upon the fire, so that the whole place looked cosy and inviting.

Stoutenburg had once more taken up his stand beside the open window. Leaning his arm against the mullion, he rested his head upon it. Bitterness and rage had brought hot tears to his eyes. Somehow it seemed to him as if in the overflowing cup of his triumph something had turned to gall. Gilda eluded him. He could not understand her. The experience which he had of women had taught him that these beautiful and shallow creatures, soulless for the most part and heartless, were easily to be cajoled with soft words and bribed with wealth and promises. Yet he had dangled before Gilda's eyes such a vision of glory and exalted position as should have captured, quite unconditionally, the citadel of her affections, and she had remained indifferent to it all.

He had owned himself still in love with her, and she had remained quite callous to his ardour. He had tried indifference, and had only been paid back in his own coin. To a man of Stoutenburg's intensely egotistical temperament, there could only be one explanation to this seeming coldness. The wench's senses -- it could be nothing more -- were still under the thrall of that miserable adventurer who, thank Beelzebub and his horde, had at last been rendered powerless to wreak further mischief. There could be, he argued to himself, no aversion in her heart for one who was so ready to share prosperity, power, and honour with her, to forgive and forget all that was past, to raise her from comparative obscurity to the most exalted state that had ever dazzled a woman's fancy and stormed the inmost recesses of her soul.

She was still infatuated with the varlet, and that was all. A wholly ununderstandable fact. Stoutenburg never could imagine how she had ever looked with favour on such an adventurer, whose English parentage and reputed wealth were, to say the least, problematical. Beresteyn had been a fool to allow his only daughter to bestow her beauty and her riches on a stranger, about whom in truth he knew less than nothing. The girl, bewitched by the rascallion, had cajoled her father and obtained his consent. Now she was still under the spell of a handsome presence, a resonant voice, a provoking eye. It was, it could be, nothing more than that. When once she understood what she had gained, how utterly inglorious that once brilliant soldier of fortune had become, she would descend from her high attitude of disdain and kiss the hand which she now spurned.

But, in anticipation of that happy hour, the Lord of Stoutenburg felt moody and discontented.

2

Nicolaes' voice, close to his elbow, roused him from his gloomy meditations.

"You must be indulgent, my friend," he was saying in a smooth conciliatory voice. "Gilda had always a wilful temper."

"And a tenacious one," Stoutenburg retorted. "She is still in love with that rogue."

"Bah!" the other rejoined, with a note of spite in his tone. "It is mere infatuation! A woman's whimsey for a good-looking face and a pair of broad shoulders! She should have seen the scrubby rascal as I last caught sight of him -- grimy, unshaven, broken. No woman's fancy would survive such a spectacle!"

Then, as Stoutenburg, still unconsoled, continued to stare through the open window, muttering disjointed phrases through obstinately set lips, he went on quite gaily:

"You are not the first by any means, my friend, whose tempestuous wooing hath brought a woman, loving and repentant, to heel. When I was over in England with my father, half a dozen years ago, we saw there a play upon the stage. It had been writ by some low-born mountebank, one William Shakespeare. The name of the play was 'The Taming of the Shrew.' Therein, too, a woman of choleric temper did during several scenes defy the man who wooed her. In the end he conquered; she became his wife, and as tender and submissive an one as e'er you'd wish to see. But, by St. Bavon, how she stormed at first! How she professed to hate him! I was forcibly reminded of that play when I saw Gilda defying you awhile ago; and I could have wished that you had displayed the same good-humour over the wrangle as did the gallant Petruchio -- the hero of the piece."

Stoutenburg was interested.

"How did he succeed in the end?" he queried. "Your Petruchio, I mean."

"He starved the ranting virago into submission," Nicolaes replied, with an easy laugh. "Gave her nothing to eat for a day and a night; swore at her lackeys; beat her waiting-maids. She was disdainful at first, then terrified. Finally, she admired him, because he had mastered her."

"A good moral, friend Nicolaes!"

"Ay! One you would do well to follow. Women reserve their disdain for weaklings, and their love for their masters."

"And think you that Gilda ---"

"Gilda, my friend, is but a woman after all. Have no fear, she'll be your willing slave in a week."

Stoutenburg's eyes glittered at the thought.

"A week is a long time to wait," he murmured. "I wish that now---"

He paused. Something that was happening down below on the quay had attracted his attention -- unusual merriment, loud laughter, the strains of a bibulous song. For a minute or two his keen eyes searched the gloom for the cause of all this hilarity. He leaned far out the window, called peremptorily to a group of soldiers who were squatting around their bivouac fire.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Peter! Willem! -- whatever your confounded names may be! What is that rascallion doing over there?"

"Making us all laugh, so please your lordship," one of the soldiers gave reply; "by the drollest stories and quips any of us have ever heard."

"Where does he come from?"

"From nowhere, apparently," the man averred. "He just fell among us. The man is blind, so please you," he added after a moment's hesitation.

Stoutenburg swore.

"How many times must I give orders," he demanded roughly, "that every blind beggar who comes prowling round the camps be hanged to the nearest post?"

"We did intend to hang him," the soldier replied coolly; "but when first he came along he was so nimble that, ere we could capture him, he gave us the slip."

"Well," Stoutenburg rejoined harshly, "it is not too late. You have him now."

"So we have, Magnificence," the man replied, hesitated for a second or two, then added: "But he is so amusing, and he seems a gentleman of quality, too proud for the hangman's rope."

"Too proud is he?" his lordship retorted with a sneer. "A gentleman of quality, and amusing to boot? Well, let us see how his humour will accommodate itself to the gallows. Here, let me have a look at the loon.

There was much hustling down below after this; shouting and prolonged laughter; a confused din, through which it was impossible to distinguish individual sounds. Stoutenburg's nerves were tingling. He was quite sure by now that he had recognised that irrepressible merry voice. A gentleman of quality! Blind! Amusing! But, if Nicolaes' report of yesterday's events were true, the man was hopelessly stricken. And what could induce him to put his head in the jackal's mouth, to affront his triumphing enemy, when he himself was so utterly helpless and abject?

Not long was the Lord of Stoutenburg left in suspense. Even whilst he gazed down upon the merry, excited throng, he was able to distinguish in the midst of them all a pair of broad shoulders that could only belong to one man. The soldiers, laughing, thoroughly enjoying the frolic, were jostling him not a little for the sheer pleasure of measuring their valour against so hefty a fellow. And he, despite his blindness, gave as good as he got; fought valiantly with fist and boot and gave his tormentors many a hard knock, until, with a loud shout of glee, some of the men succeeded in seizing hold of him, and hoisted him up on their shoulders and brought him into the circle of light formed by the resin torches.

A double cry came in response -- one of amazement from Stoutenburg and one of horror from Nicolaes. But neither of them spoke. Stoutenburg's lips were tightly set; a puzzled frown appeared between his brows. In truth, for once in the course of his devilish career, he was completely taken aback and uncertain what to do. The man whom he saw there before him, in ragged clothes, unshaved and grimy, blinking with sightless eyes, was the man whom he detested above every other thing or creature on earth -- the reckless soldier of fortune of the past, for awhile the proud and successful rival; now just a wreck of humanity, broken, ay, and degraded, and henceforth an object of pity rather than a menace to his rival's plans. His doublet was in rags, his plumed hat battered, his toes shone through the holes in his boots. The upper part of his face was swathed in a soiled linen bandage. This had, no doubt, been originally intended to shield the stricken eyes; but it had slipped, and those same eyes, with their horrible fixed look, glittered with unearthly weirdness in the flickering light.

"Salute his Magnificence, the lord and master of Amersfoort and of all that in it lies!" one of the soldiers shouted gaily.

And the blind man forthwith made a gesture of obeisance swept with a wide flourish his battered plumed hat from off his head.

"To his Magnificence!" he called out in response. "Though mine eyes cannot see him, my voice is raised in praise of his nobility and his valour. May the recording angels give him his full deserts."

3

The feeling of sheer horror which had caused Nicolaes to utter a sudden cry was, in truth, fully justified.

"It can't be!" he murmured, appalled at what he saw.

Stoutenburg answered with a hoarse laugh. "Nay, by Satan and all his myrmidons it is!"

Already he was leaning out of the window, giving quick orders to the men down below to bring that drunken vagabond forthwith into his presence. After which he turned once more to his friend.

"We'll soon see," he said, "if it is true, or if our eyes have played us both an elusive trick. Yet, methinks," he added thoughtfully, "that the pigwidgeon who of late hath taken my destiny in hand is apparently intent on doing me a good turn."

"In what way?" the other asked.

"By throwing my enemy across my path," Stoutenburg replied drily.

"You'll hang him of course?" Nicolaes rejoined.

"Yes; I'll hang him!" Stoutenburg retorted, with a snarl. "But I must make use of him first."

"Make use of him? How?"

"That I do not know as yet. But inspiration will come, never you fear, my friend. All that I want is a leverage for bringing the Stadtholder to his knees and for winning Gilda's love."

"Then, in Heaven's name, man," Nicolaes rejoined earnestly, "begin by ridding yourself of the only danger-spoke in your wheel!"

"Danger-spoke?" Stoutenburg exclaimed, threw back his head and laughed. "Would you really call that miserable oaf a serious bar to mine ambition or a possible rival in your sister's regard?"

And, with outstretched hand he pointed to the door.

There, under the lintel -- pushed on by Jan and two or three men who, powerfully built though they were, looked like pigmies beside the stricken giant, drunk as an owl, his hat awry above that hideous bandage, dirty, unkempt, and ragged -- appeared the man who had once been the brilliant inspiration of Franz Hals' immortal "Laughing Cavalier."

At sight of him Nicolaes Beresteyn gave a loud groan and collapsed into a chair; burying his face in his hand. He was ever a coward, even in villainy; and when the man whom he had once hated so bitterly, and whom his craven hand had struck in such a dastardly manner, lurched into the room, and as he fell against the table uttered an inane and bibulous laugh, his nerve completely forsook him.

At a peremptory sign from Stoutenburg, Jan closed the doors which gave on the hall; but he and two of the men remained at attention inside the room.

The blind man groped with his hands till they found a chair, into which he sank, with powerful limbs outstretched, snorting like a dog just come out of the water. With an awkward gesture he pushed his hat from off his head, and in so doing he dislodged the grimy bandage so that it sat like a scullion's cap across his white forehead.

Stoutenburg watched him with an expression of cruel satisfaction. It is not often given to a man to have an enemy and a rival so completely in his power, and the exultation in Stoutenburg's heart was so great that he was content to savour it in silence for awhile. Nicolaes was beyond the power of speech, and so the silence for a moment or two remained absolute.

Then the blind man suddenly sat up, craning his neck and rolling his sightless eyes.

"I wonder where the devil I am!" he murmured through set lips. He appeared to listen intently; no doubt caught the sound of life around him, for he added quickly: "Is anybody here?"

"I am here," Stoutenburg replied curtly. "Do you know whom I am, sirrah?"

"In truth, I do not," Diogenes replied. "But by your accent I would judge you to be a man who at this moment is mightily afraid."

"Afraid?" Stoutenburg retorted, with a loud laugh. I, afraid of a helpless vagabond who has been fool enough to run his head into a noose which I had not even thought of preparing for him?"

"Yet you are afraid my lord," the other rejoined quietly, "else you would not have ordered your bodyguard to watch over your precious person whilst you parleyed with a blind man."

"My bodyguard is only waiting for final orders to take you to the gallows," Stoutenburg rejoined roughly. "You may as well know now as later that it is my intention to hang you."

"As well now as later," the blind man assented, with easy philosophy. "I understand that for the nonce, whoever you Magnificence may be, you are master in Amersfoort. As such, you have a right to hang anyone you choose. Me or another. What matters? I was very nearly hung once, you must know, by the Lord of Stoutenburg. I did not mind much then; I'd mind it still less now. People talk of a hereafter. Well, whatever it is, it must be a better world that this, so I would just as soon as not, go and find out for myself."

He struggled to his feet, still groping with his hands for support, found the edge of the table and leaned up against it.

"Let's to the hangman, my lord," he said thickly. "If I'm to hang, I prefer it to be done at once. And if we tarry too long I might get sober ere I embark on the last adventure. But," he added, and once more appeared to search the room with eyes that could not see, "there's someone else here besides your lordship. Who is it?"

"My friend and yours," Stoutenburg replied. "Mynheer Nicolaes Beresteyn."

There was a second or two of silence. Nicolaes made as if he would speak, but Stoutenburg quickly put a finger up to his lips, enjoining him to remain still. The blind man passed his trembling hand once or twice in front of his eyes as if to draw aside an unseen veil that hid the outer world from his gaze.

"Ah!" he murmured contentedly. "My friend Klaas! He is here too, is he? That is indeed good news. For Nicolaes was ever my friend. That time three months ago -- or was it three years, or three centuries? I really have lost count -- that time that the Lord of Stoutenburg was on the point of hanging me, Klaas would have interposed on my behalf, only something went wrong with his heart at the moment, or his nerves, I forget which."

" 'Twere no use to rely on mynheer's interference this time," Stoutenburg put in drily. "There is but one person in the world now who can save you from the gallows."

"You mean the Lord of Stoutenburg himself?" the blind man queried blandly.

"Nay! He is determined to hang you. But there is another."

"Then I pray your lordship to tell me who that other is," Diogenes replied.

"You might find one, sirrah, in the jongejuffrouw Gilda Beresteyn, the Lord of Stoutenburg's promised wife."

Diogenes made no reply to this. He was facing the table now, still clinging to it with one hand, whilst the other wandered over the objects on the table. Suddenly they encountered a crystal jug which was full of wine. An expression of serene beatitude overspread his face. He raised the goblet to his lips, but ere he drank he said carelessly:

"Ah, the jongejuffrouw Beresteyn is the promised wife of the Lord of Stoutenburg?"

"My promised wife!" Stoutenburg put in roughly. "Methought you would ere this have recognized the man whom you tried to rob of all that he held most precious."

"Your lordship must forgive me," the blind man rejoined drily. "But some unknown miscreant -- whom may the gods punish -- interfered with me yesterday forenoon, when I was trying to render assistance to my friend Klaas. In the scuffle that ensued, I received a cloud of stinking fumes in the face, which has totally robbed me of sight."

As he spoke he raised his eyes, blinking in that pathetic and inconsequent manner peculiar to the blind. Nicolaes gave an audible groan. He could not bear to look on those sightless orbs, which in the flickering light of the wax candles appeared weird and unearthly.

"Oh," Stoutenburg put in carelessly, "is that how the -- er -- accident occurred?"

"So, please your lordship, yes," Diogenes replied. "And I was left stranded on the moor, since those two unreclaimed varlets, Pythagoras and Socrates by name, did effectually ride off in the wake of the Stadtholder, leaving me in the lurch. A pitiable plight, your lordship will admit."

"So pitiable," the other retorted with a sneer, "that you thought to improve your condition by bearding the Lord of Stoutenburg in his lair."

"I did not know your lordship was in Amersfoort," Diogenes replied imperturbably. "I thought -- I hoped ---"

He paused, and Stoutenburg tried in vain to read what went on behind that seemingly unclouded brow. The blind man appeared serene, detached, perfectly good-humoured. His slender hand, which looked hard beneath its coating of grime, was closed lovingly around the crystal jug. Stoutenburg vaguely wondered how far the man was really drunk, or whether his misfortune had slightly addled his brain. So much unconcern in the face of an imminent and shameful death gave an uncanny air to the whole appearance of the man. Even now, with a gently apologetic smile, he raised the jug once more to his lips. Stoutenburg placed a peremptory hand upon his arm.

"Put that down, man," he said harshly. "You are drunk enough as it is, and you'll have need of all your wits to-night."

"There you are wrong my lord," Diogenes retorted, and quietly transferred the jug to his other hand. "A man, meseems, needs no wits to hang gracefully. And I feel that I could do that best if I might quench my thirst ere I met my friend the hangman."

"You may not meet him at all."

"But just now you said ---"

"That it was my intention to hang you," Stoutenburg assented. "So it is. But I am in rare good humour to-night, and ---"

"So it seems, my lord," the blind man put in carelessly. "So it seems."

He appeared to be swaying on his feet, and to have some difficulty in retaining his balance. He still clung to the edge of the table with one hand. In the other he had the jug fill of wine.

"The jongejuffrouw Gilda Beresteyn," Stoutenburg went on, "will sup with me this night to celebrate our betrothal. The fulfillment of this, my great desire, hath caused me to feel lenient toward mine enemies."

"Have I not always asserted," Diogenes broke in with comical solemnity -- "always ass-asserted that your lordship was a noble and true gentleman?"

"Women, we know," his lordship continued, ignoring the interruption, "are wont to be tenderhearted where their -- their former swains are concerned. And I feel that if the jongejuffrouw herself did make appeal to me on your behalf, I would relent towards you."

"B-b-but would that not be an awkward -- a very awkward decision for your lordship?" Diogenes riposted, turning round vacant eyes on Stoutenburg.

"Awkward? How so?

"If I do not hang, the jongejuffrouw, 'stead of being my widow, would still be my wife. And the laws of this country ---"

"I have no concern with the laws of this country" Stoutenburg rejoined drily, "in which, anyhow, you are an alien. As soon as the Archduchess our Liege Lady is once more mistress here, we shall again be at war with England."

"Poor England!"

Diogenes sighed, and solemnly wiped a tear from his blinking eyes.

"And every English plepshurk will be kicked out of the country. But that is neither here nor there."

"Neither here nor there," the other assented, with owlish gravity. "But before England is s-sh-s-swept off the map, my lordship, what will happen?"

"My marriage to the jongejuffrouw," Stoutenburg replied curtly. "She hath consented to be my wife, and my wife she will be as soon as I have mind to take her. So you may drink to our union, sirrah. I'll e'en pledge you in a cup."

He poured himself out a goblet of wine, laughing to himself at his own ingenuity. That was the way to treat the smeerlap. Make him feel what a pitiable, abject knave he was! Then show him up before Gilda, just as he was -- drunk, ragged, unkempt, an object of derision in his misfortune rather than of pity.

"Nay," the rascal objected, his speech waxing thicker and his hand more unsteady, "I cannot pledge you, my lord, in drinking to your union with my own wife, unless -- unless my friend Klaas will drink to that union, too. Mine own brother by the law, you see, my lord, and ---"

"Mynheer Nicolaes will indeed drink to his sister's happy union with me," Stoutenburg retorted, with a sneer. "His presence here is a witness to my good intentions toward the wench. So you may drink, sirrah. The jongejuffrouw herself is overwilling to submit to my pleasure ---"

But the imperious words were smothered in his throat, giving place to a fierce exclamation of choler. The blind man had at his invitation raised the jug of wine to his lips, but in the act his feet apparently slipped away from under him. The jug flew out of his hand, would have caught the Lord of Stoutenburg on the head had he not ducked just in time. But even so his Magnificence was hit on the shoulder by the heavy crystal vessel, and splashed from head to foot with the wine, whilst Diogenes collapsed on the floor with a shamed and bibulous laugh.

A string of savage oaths and tempestuous abuse poured from Stoutenburg's lips, which were in truth livid with rage. Already Jan had rushed to his assistance, snatched up a serviette from the table, and soon contrived to wipe his lordship's doublet clean.

The blind man in the meanwhile did his best to hoist himself up on his feet once more, clung to the edge of the table; but the sight of him released the last floodgate of Stoutenburg's tempestuous wrath. He turned with a vicious snarl upon the unfortunate man, and it would indeed have fared ill with the defenceless creature, for the Lord of Stoutenburg was not wont to measure his blows by the helplessness of his victims, had not a sudden exclamation from Nicolaes stayed the hand that was raised to strike.

"Gilda!" the young man cried impulsively.

Stoutenburg's arm dropped to his side. He turned toward the door. Gilda had just entered with her father, and was coming slowly down the room.