CHAPTER XXIV.
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT.
After the first few hours of bitter anguish were over, Reynold Van Straalen rose up a new man. No vain regrets, no curses passed his lips. The terrible weight of sorrow which had overtaken him was to him as the accolade of knighthood, singling him out because of his mighty sorrow and mighty wrong, as the outspoken champion in the cause of liberty and truth.
Before his departure he was summoned again to meet his superior officer.
“I have been thinking, comrade, what I can do to help you. Your case is desperate! Why do you not give up your Protestant notions and join the winning side?”
“Because I have a conscience, and I must heed its dictum or suffer.”
“I expected some such reply as that,” said the general, good humoredly. “You will die for a seruple yet. Now as to myself, the few prayers I say in the course of a year could be spoken in one church as well as another. But probably we shall always differ on that point. Seriously, I think your chances of fulfilling your mission are rather slim, but if any one can help you find your sister, it is that charming creature Doña Isidore de Cisneros.”
“A Spanish lady!” said Reynold in dismay. “Is there a Spaniard in whom one can put faith?”
“You can trust Doña Isidore,” replied General Berlaymont. “She lives in Brussels with her sister, who married a wealthy Fleming. They are all stanch Catholics. If Doña Isidore espouses your Sister’s cause, as I expect she will, your success is assured. She is a born schemer, and her beauty, wealth and wit have made her a leader in the best society in Brussels.”
“She will hardly interest herself in a stranger, and a heretic at that,” replied Reynold.
“Please give Doña Isidore this letter which I have written, and I shall be greatly disappointed if she does not interest herself in your affairs. See here, unbeliever,” he added, throwing back his coat and exhibiting a knot of scarlet ribbon fastened with an opal, “I am privileged to wear Doña Isidore’s colors, and if she has remained faithful, she will be ready to do me this slight favor.”
“I thank you, general, for your kind interest in my case, and hope that success will crown your scheme. I have your permission to depart today?”
“Certainly, but return to me just as soon as your commissions are executed.”
“That is impossible. I herewith tender my resignation as officer in the King’s army. If my sword leaves its scabbard again, it will be to help drive the hated Spaniard from our free soil. It will never be drawn in the service of a perjured and ungrateful King. Hold my resignation a month, and if at the expiration of that time you hear nothing from me, send it to headquarters. I must use my military dress to help me pass unquestioned over the country.”
“I am sorry to lose you, Van Straalen. I am just ordered to send what men I can spare for an expedition into France, to help Catharine de Medici subjugate ‘he Huguenots. I had thought of entrusting you with this mission, although I fancy it would not be to your liking.”
“Decidedly not! I should much rather join hands with the Huguenots than to fight against them. It is time that I left the army, for I cannot slay the defenders of the faith I profess. I will now say good-by, and hasten on my journey. My father’s servant will accompany me.”
Had the country been free of access to travellers, the distance from the French frontier to Brussels could have been traversed in a comparatively short time. The chief danger lay in encountering bands of common soldiers, who were reconnoitering the country and seeking to cut off communication between the towns and cities. These reckless soldiers had but little love for officers of the army or navy, and would have considered it a huge joke to run across a solitary officer and hang him to the limb of a tree.
Both Colonel Van Straalen and the butler were well mounted, and they rode over the French border without encountering any opposition.
The first day and night passed without incident. As they journeyed through Holland, Alva’s footprints were clearly defined in the desolate towns and the ruins of comfortable homes. What had once been a thrifty and populous country was rapidly becoming a wasted and ruined region.
The travellers avoided the main road and followed a circuitous route to avoid observation. The country roads were rough, and their progress was necessarily slow. Toward sunset of the second day a sound of horses’ feet in their rear startled them. Looking back they espied a party of soldiers. The fugitives urged their horses forward, but the jaded beasts could not respond. The soldiers gained on them, and a shot rang out on the still air.
“I am wounded, Master Colonel,” said the butler. “Press forward without me.”
“Never, Jacob. Keep in the saddle a few moments longer, if possible. Our only safety lies in leaving the highway.”
A bend in the road concealed them from observation. The twilight approached rapidly in this latitude, and it was with some difficulty that Reynold spied a faint path leading apparently into the depths of a forest. The increasing darkness would cause this retreat to be overlooked by the soldiers, and without any hesitation both men plunged into the friendly shadows.
After following the windings of the trail for quite a distance, and hearing no indications of pursuit, they dismounted, it being too dark and the path too uneven to continue riding. The sombre shade of interlacing boughs made the darkness intense, and not a sound broke the stillness. After stumbling about in the hope that the path must end somewhere, they came at length upon a little clearing with some indications of civilization. Before them were a few fields, at some time under cultivation, but now neglected and grown up to brush and weeds. In the centre of this clearing were the blackened ruins of what had once been a farmhouse. The chimney and part of the walls remained standing, and the charred fragments of what was once the roof still clung to one corner of the ruins.
In spite of the gruesome look of the place, both men hailed its appearance with thankfulness, It would afford them a comfortable shelter for the night. The butler had taken the precaution before starting of providing himself with flint, steel and tinder, and Reynold, seizing some ‘half-burnt fragments of wood and bits of brush and leaves, soon had a cheerful fire blazing on the wide hearth. The butler had fallen half unconscious to the ground, faint from the loss of blood. Reynold made a hasty examination of the wound. A glance convinced him that the injuries were fatal. It was a question if the old man would ever regain consciousness.
Reynold poured a spoonful of brandy between the closed lips, but the wounded man only moaned. Covering him with his own cape the young officer paced back and forth. The trees rustled softly in the night wind, the stars twinkled overhead, and no sound of life was heard except the occasional neighing of the horses tethered near by. A bat flitted by, chasing moths. The owls began to hoot in the trees; the weird churring of the night-jar and the call of quails in the distant fields thrilled through the air. His reflections were sad. “How strangely ordered are the lives of men and women," he thought. “These walls once sheltered a happy household. Now their home is a pile of blackened ruins and its inmates are scattered or dead.” Then he thought of his own home in the possession of strangers; his father and mother dead and his sister perhaps drinking a cup of anguish bitterer than death, while the woman he loved was sundered forever from him. He groaned as he realized his powerlessness to relieve the terrible situation. “O God!” he cried, “dost thou set no limit to the power of cunning wickedness to entrap and slay the unwary weak? Would that I could avenge my wrongs!”
The words came to him on the night wind, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
A sound from within caused him to hasten to the servant’s side. By the flickering light of the fire he saw that the old man was dying. He lifted his head, and Jacob opened his eyes.
“I thought it was morning!” he murmured in weak tones, and all was over. It truly was the morning for him, on whom the brightness of everlasting day was dawning.
A slight noise from outside caused the officer to glance around. Peering into the ruins was the face of a man, wild, vicious and unkempt, his remnants of clothes hanging in tatters about his wasted body. The semblance of manhood was well-nigh obliterated from the gaunt face, and his expression was that of a famished wild beast, crouching to spring upon his prey. Drawing his sword Reynold advanced upon the strange apparition, which fled with a mocking laugh into the depths of the forest.