CHAPTER XX
A SOLDIER'S WAGES
Away we went over the level plain, through the misty air, with the wet brown sand flying up about my ears. Away over the turf, when there was turf, away over the bare sand, away over the heather—northward, northward still. Past the bare hamlets, sucked dry of their food by Alva; past the yellow corn standing in shocks; past peasants that sprang back out of our way and stood looking after us round-eyed. Through Herpt, with its white walls and its red roofs; and there the sun broke out, while still we galloped on till Haring's houses flashed back the light at us. Thundering down the street we came, with the pebbles flying away behind us, and women ran to the windows in fright to look.
"Oh, I am not Alva!" I cried to a girl who fled out of my way; and I sped on with a laugh. Outside the town for a few short minutes we stopped, and we shared a cottager's bread between us and some beer that was cursedly sour. Cordieul! I think the horse loved the race as much as I.
We were off again, through a wood, and out again into the open, on, and on, and on, with a red sky blazing at us in the west and the mist thickening in the hollows. The colour died away, the mist grew darker, and still we pressed on. The bandage slipped down my thigh, and prickly pains came up that leg; but what cared I? We were nearing Breuthe! Yes, but should we reach it together? My brave horse was labouring hard, and his flanks were heaving, so that I knew his last bolt was all but shot. The mist grew blacker and thicker in front, like a wall across the path. I stood up in my saddle.
"Come on, boy, come on!" I cried, and he quickened a little. A sharper pain came in my leg. I seemed to hear shouts all round me.
"Curse it, Vitelli, we win, we win!" and I shook my fist at the darkness behind. In front the mist was very thick; thicker and thicker yet. My eyes would not pierce it. Could it be, could it be?
"Who goes there?" a sharp challenge rang out in front.
"Just an armourer!" I cried wildly; and I laughed.
"Gracious God! 'tis Master Newstead!" shouted a burgher. "Halt, halt, sir, till we open the gate!"
Hardly knowing what I did, I pulled up. The mist parted before me, and with a clatter of bolts the gate fell open, and in we came, through a ring of men with flaring yellow lanterns, and on we went to the burgomaster's house.
"What of Alkmaar? What of Don Frederico?"
"Ask the devil, his father!"
Trotting over the pebbles, weary and half mad both, up to the burgomaster's house we came, and I dropped to the ground and staggered in, crying—
"Wine, wine!"
I burst into a room with lights that dazzled me and men I did not know. They sprang up.
"God in heaven!"
"Can it be"
"In God's name"
But I had caught a bottle from the table and staggered out once more. My horse had fallen. I knelt down on the stones, broke the bottle neck, and poured the wine down his throat. He lifted his head and tried to rise. I patted his neck and pulled at his ears.
"We win, boy; we win, we win!" I cried; and I think he understood.
A little crowd had gathered, and men came running out of the house.
"Come in, sir; come in!" cried the burgomaster.
I looked at him stupidly.
"But we win," I muttered; "curse it, we win!"
"Or you win for us. Come and tell us," said a calm, steady voice.
"Look after the horse," I cried.
"Yes, yes; I will see to the horse, sir," squeaked the burgomaster; and I limped in, leaning on some man's arm, back to that room with lights. The man put me into a chair, and filled a glass with wine. I drank it; and another, and another. Then I looked round. It was the Prince himself at my elbow.
"‘He is back!' she cried"
"Why, it was you, your Highness!" I stammered.
"You came in on my arm. Perhaps you went out on my errand?" quoth he.
My wits were coming back. I could see the men and know them now. There I sat limp in a chair, covered from head to foot with yellow mud, and round me, bending eagerly forward, were Cornput, and the burgomaster, and St. Trond, and Diedrich Sonoy, and the Prince. A light step came into the room.
"He is back!" she cried.
"And perhaps he will tell you what he has done," said the Prince, with a smile.
"Why, I am only an armourer," said I; and I laughed.
"Ah! and whose are the weapons you mend?" quoth the Prince.
"They call him Don Frederico," said I.
"Don Frederico is no jest to us, sir," said the Prince. "Will you tell us your news?"
"Don Frederico has run and the dykes are safe!" I cried.
They looked at one another. Sonoy's stern face broke into a smile; he and St. Trond shook hands. Cornput's mouth fell open, and the Prince murmured:
"Thank God!"
But my eyes went to Gabrielle, and hers came to me.
The burgomaster ran across the room and flung up the window:
"Alkmaar is safe and the dykes are safe!" he cried shrilly, and a cheer rose in the street and rolled away through the town.
"But why was Don Frederico willing to go?" asked the Prince.
"He was not willing to go," said I.
"Then why did he take his men away?"
"They took him," said I.
"Well, sir, will you tell your story your own way?" cried the Prince.
"It is just what I did," said I.
"Is that all you did?"
"Oh no; I mended a dagger and I stole a horse."
The Prince shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, and turned to Gabrielle:
"Will you try a question?" said he.
"Why did you go?" she asked, quickly looking at me.
"The poor country-folk!" I repeated, and her whole face smiled at me. When I could look away I turned to the Prince:
"On the night of the sixth of October, sir, there came to call on Don Frederico a travelling armourer. A worthy German was good enough to give him some work to do, and the armourer was not ungrateful. So that he expounded to a camp-fire that Alva's pay was short measure, that his plunder was a fluctuating wage, and that his success had lately been small. The camp-fire seemed interested. Then to his surprise the armourer discovered that Don Frederico had omitted to inform his men that the dykes were to be broken, and in a truly Christian spirit the armourer repaired his omission. He contrived to hint that Don Frederico did not hold Germans and Spaniards in equal esteem: so that these worthy Germans in some indignation conceived the idea that Don Frederico intended them for a sacrifice to Neptune! They objected: they informed Don Frederico and Chiapin Vitelli of their objections, and they expressed a resolve to depart with or without Don Frederico. That is all. I am only an armourer, your Highness."
They looked at me all in amazement; and at last:
"Is that all, my friend?" quoth the Prince.
"Why, it is true Vitelli said he wished to see the armourer. But the armourer thought that unnecessary. Vitelli and I know one another quite well. That is all."
"That is all," repeated the Prince slowly. "You seem to me to have left out the danger, my friend."
"Would it have been less dangerous to flood the country, your Highness?"
"Yes. To you," said the Prince.
"A foolhardy thing!" cried Cornput. "I would not have done it for ten thousand crowns!"
They all turned on him:
"I believe you," quoth Sonoy drily.
"Some of us have learned," said St. Trond, looking at me and repeating the word, "have learned, like Captain Newstead, to think more of other things than money."
"And some of us, Laurenz—let me take your words—have learned to think more of other things than life," said the Prince.
"Cordieu! Your Highness, I only fight for the man that pays me!"
"How much have you had from me?" he asked, with a smile.
"Well, for my own cause, then," I said.
"Ay, for the cause—that is another thing," said he. "You told me at Delft you could do much and ask little. It was not you, but Holland and I were the gainers when you rode into Delft. And Alva, I think, lost much."
"Perhaps Alva lost less than we gained," quoth St. Trond.
It is little more I remember of that night, for soon, with the weariness and the wine, and the pain in my leg, I fell asleep in the chair.
Late next morning I woke in bed with a stiff leg and beset by a ravening hunger. But my clothes! Cordieu! Where were the clothes? They were not good for much, but better than none at least. Oh yes, the wise servants, they had taken my own away and brought some others. Others! They were made for a babe, I think. Or the burgomaster. Well, there was no choice, and my hunger was clamorous.
Down the stairs I went gingerly, for my leg did not wish to bend, and into a room I peeped where I knew there was hope of breakfast. But the leg bent quickly enough, and I forgot the clothes, when I saw Gabrielle by the table. She turned, and:
"We have all finished but—oh!" she cried, and fell a-laughing.
"Peace, peace, I am not the burgomaster's tailor," I said quickly, and I caught her in my arms.
"Nor—nor the burgomaster," said she, laughing again.
"No, nor wish to be, Gabrielle!" said I, and I kissed her.
"You are contented?" she asked, looking up at me.
"I shall be."
"Oh yes. There is breakfast," said she, with a pout.
"So it is. Let it stay," I answered.
"What do you want?" and a laugh rippled in her eyes.
"Why I have kissed you, and"
"Yes, I could not help that."
"But you can help this." There was a pause.
"And now will you come to breakfast?" she said.
"With you," I answered.
So for the first time she sat opposite me as she has sat many a long year now. Ay, it is long enough if you count; to me it seems a very little while ago, and long or short, however you reckon, our eyes still love to meet as they did in that room at Breuthe.
The days when I fought are gone by now, and Holland is free at last. The blow that was struck outside Alkmaar settled the fate of the land, and afterwards the soldiers that fought for Spain knew always that come what might they could never win. It was a desperate thing we meant to do; they tell me it was a desperate thing I did. Well, I might have died. Would it not have been a death worth dying? If Don Frederico could have kept secret the knowledge he and Vitelli had, perhaps the sea might have come too slow for Alkmaar; and even if not, if it was not I who saved Alkmaar, why, at least it was I who saved the land.
Is mine a poor love-story? You lasses who think love is a kiss and a pretty speech, even you will not gainsay me when I tell you that the love which led me in this thing that I did was a real love after all. The things in my life that I like to think of most are the things I have done since a little scornful laugh rang in my ears by our bivouac at Veermut. I do not know that I am changed: I am very sure that I am no saint, and I doubt not you will find many things in this story of mine to blame. So be it: I am content if you remember why these evil things—if evil they are—were done, and if you believe me when I tell you that I am not ashamed to look into two dark blue eyes.
Perhaps there is one thing more to put at the end of this story. It was a little while afterwards that Gaspar came rollicking back from the Zyp, and though he might have known better, he stalked hastily down the garden one afternoon. Gabrielle ran away.
"Ach, captain," grunted Gaspar, "the Prince talks of how much he gained when we left Alva. Gott! I think you gained more!"
And I laughed.
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