Weyman Stanley John
The Story of Francis Cludde

CHAPTER X
THE FACE IN THE PORCH

"This is a serious matter," said Master Bertie thoughtfully, as we sat in conclave an hour later round the table in the parlor. Mistress Anne was attending to Dymphna upstairs, and Van Tree had not returned again; so that we had been unable to tell him of the morning's adventure. But the rest of us were there. "It considerably adds to the danger of our position," Bertie continued.

"Of course it does," his wife said promptly. "But Master Lindstrom here can best judge of that, and of what course it will be safest to take."

"It depends," our host answered slowly, "upon whether the dead man be discovered before night. You see if the body be not found-"

"Well?" said my lady impatiently, as he paused.

"Then we must some of us go after dark and bury him," he decided. "And perhaps, though he will be missed at the next roll-call in the city, his death may not be proved, or traced to this neighborhood. In that case the storm will blow over, and things be no worse than before."

"I fear there is no likelihood of that," I said; "for I am told he had a companion. One of the maids noticed them lurking about the end of the bridge more than once this morning."

Our host's face fell.

"That is bad," he said, looking at me in evident consternation. "Who told you?"

"Mistress Anne. And one of the maids told her. It was that which led me to follow your daughter."

The old man got up for about the fortieth time, and shook my hand, while the tears stood in his eyes and his lip trembled. "Heaven bless you, Master Carey!" he said. "But for you, my girl might not have escaped."

He could not finish. His emotion choked him, and he sat down again. The event of the morning-his daughter's danger, and my share in averting it-had touched him as nothing else could have touched him. I met the Duchess's eyes and they too were soft and shining, wearing an expression very different from that which had greeted me on my return with Dymphna.

"Ah, well! she is safe," Master Lindstrom resumed, when he had regained his composure. "Thanks to Heaven and your friend, madam! Small matter now if house and lands go!"

"Still, let us hope they will not," Master Bertie said. "Do you think these miscreants were watching the island on our account? That some information had been given as to our presence, and they were sent to learn what they could?"

"No, no!" the Dutchman answered confidently. "It was the sight of the girl and her gewgaws yesterday brought them-the villains! There is nothing safe from them and nothing sacred to them. They saw her as they passed up in the boat, you remember."

"But then, supposing the worst to come to the worst?"

"We must escape across the frontier to Wesel, in the Duchy of Cleves," replied Lindstrom in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he had long considered and settled the point. "The distance is not great, and in Wesel we may find shelter, at any rate for a time. Even there, if pressure be brought to bear upon the Government to give us up, I would not trust it. Yet for a time it may do."

"And you would leave all this?" the Duchess said in wonder, her eyes traveling round the room, so clean and warm and comfortable, and settling at length upon the great armoire of plate, which happened to be opposite to her. "You would leave all this at a moment's notice?"

"Yes, madam, all we could not carry with us," he answered simply. "Honor and life, these come first. And I thank Heaven that I live here within reach of a foreign soil, and not in the interior, where escape would be hopeless."

"But if the true facts were known," the Duchess urged, "would you still be in danger? Would not the magistrates protect you? The Schout and Schepen as you call them? They are Dutchmen."

"Against a Spanish governor and a Spanish garrison?" he replied with emphasis. "Ay, they would protect me-as one sheep protects another against the wolves. No! I dare not risk it. Were I in prison, what would become of Dymphna?"

"Master Van Tree?"

"He has the will to shelter her, no doubt. And his father has influence; but such as mine-a broken reed to trust to. Then Dymphna is not all. Once in prison, whatever the charge, there would be questioning about religion; perhaps," with a faint smile, "questioning about my guests."

"I suppose you know best," said the Duchess, with a sigh. "But I hope the worst will not come to the worst."

"Amen to that!" he answered quite cheerfully.

Indeed, it was strange that we seemed to feel more sorrow at the prospect of leaving this haven of a few weeks, than our host of quitting the home of a lifetime. But the necessity had come upon us suddenly, while he had contemplated it for years. So much fear and humiliation had mingled with his enjoyment of his choicest possessions that this long-expected moment brought with it a feeling akin to relief.

For myself I had a present trouble that outweighed any calamity of to-morrow. Perforce, since I alone knew the spot where the man lay, I must be one of the burying party. My nerves had not recovered from the blow which the sight of the Spaniard lying dead at my feet had dealt them so short a time before, and I shrank with a natural repulsion from the task before me. Yet there was no escaping it, no chance of escaping it, I saw.

None the less, throughout the silent meal to which we four sat down together, neither the girls nor Van Tree appearing, were my thoughts taken up with the business which was to follow. I heard our host, who was to go with me, explaining that there was a waterway right up to the dyke, and that we would go by boat; and heard him with apathy. What matter how we went, if such were the object of our journey? I wondered how the man's face would look when we came to turn him over, and pictured it in all ghastliest shapes. I wondered whether I should ever forget the strange spasmodic twitching of his leg, the gurgle-half oath, half cry-which had come with the blood from his throat. When Lindstrom said the moon was up and bade me come with him to the boat, I went mechanically. No one seemed to suspect me of fear. I suppose they thought that, as I had not feared to kill him, I should not fear him dead. And in the general silence and moodiness I escaped notice.

"It is a good night for the purpose," the Dutchman said, looking about when we were outside. "It is light enough for us, yet not so light that we run much risk of being seen."

I assented, shivering. The moon was almost at the full, and the weather was dry, but scud after scud of thin clouds, sweeping across the breezy sky, obscured the light from time to time, and left nothing certain. We loosed the smallest boat in silence, and getting in, pulled gently round the lower end of the island, making for the fringe of rushes which marked the line of division between river and fen. We could hear the frogs croaking in the marsh, and the water lapping the banks, and gurgling among the tree-roots, and making a hundred strange noises to which daylight ears are deaf. Yet as long as I was in the open water I felt bold enough. I kept my tremors for the moment when we should brush through the rustling belt of reeds, and the willows should whisper about our heads, and the rank vegetation, the mysterious darkness of the mere should shut us in.

For a time I was to be spared this. Master Lindstrom suddenly stopped rowing. "We have forgotten to bring a stone, lad," he said in a low voice.

"A stone?" I answered, turning. I was pulling the stroke oar, and my back was toward him. "Do we want a stone?"

"To sink the body," he replied. "We cannot bury it in the marsh, and if we could it were trouble thrown away. We must have a stone."

"What is to be done?" I asked, leaning on my oar and shivering, as much in impatience as nervousness. "Must we go back?"

"No, we are not far from the causeway now," he answered, with Dutch coolness. "There are some big stones, I fancy, by the end of the bridge. If not, there are some lying among the cottages just across the bridge. Your eyes are younger than mine, so you had better go. I will pull on, and land you."

I assented, and the boat's course being changed a point or two, three minutes' rowing laid her bows on the mud, some fifty yards from the landward bend of the bridge, and just in the shadow of the causeway. I sprang ashore and clambered up. "Hist!" he cried, warning me as I was about to start on my errand. "Go about it quietly, Master Francis. The people will probably be in bed. But be secret."

I nodded and moved off, as warily as he could desire. I spent a minute or two peering about the causeway, but I found nothing that would serve our purpose. There was no course left then but to cross the planks, and seek what I wanted in the hamlet. Remembering how the timbers had creaked and clattered when I went over them in the daylight, I stole across on tiptoe. I fancied I had seen a pile of stones near one of the posts at that end, but I could not find them now, and after groping about a while-for this part was at the moment in darkness-I crept cautiously past the first hovel, peering to right and left as I went. I did not like to confess to myself that I was afraid to be alone in the dark, but that was nearly the truth. I was feverishly anxious to find what I wanted and return to my companion.

Suddenly I paused and held my breath. A slight sound had fallen on my ears, nervously ready to catch the slightest. I paused and listened. Yes, there it was again; a whispering of cautious voices close by me, within a few feet of me. I could see no one. But a moment's thought told me that the speakers were hidden by the farther corner of the cottage abreast of which I stood. The sound of human voices, the assurance of living companionship, steadied my nerves, and to some extent rid me of my folly. I took a step to one side, so as to be more completely in the shadow cast by the reed-thatched eaves, and then softly advanced until I commanded a view of the whisperers.

They were two, a man and a woman. And the woman was of all people Dymphna! She had her back to me, but she stood in the moonlight, and I knew her hood in a moment. The man-surely the man was Van Tree then, if the woman was Dymphna? I stared. I felt sure it must be Van Tree. It was wonderful enough that Dymphna should so far have regained nerve and composure as to rise and come out to meet him. But in that case her conduct, though strange, was explicable. If not, however, if the man were not Van Tree-

Well, he certainly was not. Stare as I might, rub my eyes as I might, I could not alter the man's figure, which was of the tallest, whereas I have said that the young Dutchman was short. This man's face, too, though it was obscured as he bent over the girl by his cloak, which was pulled high up about his throat, was swarthy; swarthy and beardless, I made out. More, his cap had a feather, and even as he stood still I thought I read the soldier in his attitude. The soldier and the Spaniard!

What did it mean? On what strange combination had I lit? Dymphna and a Spaniard! Impossible. Yet a thousand doubts and thoughts ran riot in my brain, a thousand conjectures jostled one another to get uppermost. What was I to do? What ought I to do? Go nearer to them, as near as possible, and listen and learn the truth? Or steal back the way I had come, and fetch Master Lindstrom? But first, was it certain that the girl was there of her own free will? Yes, the question was answered as soon as put. The man laid his hand gently on her shoulder. She did not draw back.

Confident of this, and consequently of Dymphna's bodily safety, I hesitated, and was beginning to consider whether the best course might not be to withdraw and say nothing, leaving the question of future proceedings to be decided after I had spoken to her on the morrow, when a movement diverted my thoughts. The man at last raised his head. The moonlight fell cold and bright on his face, displaying every feature as clearly as if it had been day. And though I had only once seen his face before, I knew it again.

And knew him! In a second I was back in England, looking on a far different scene. I saw the Thames, its ebb tide rippling in the sunshine as it ripples past Greenwich, and a small boat gliding over it, and a man in the bow of the boat, a man with a grim lip and a sinister eye. Yes, the tall soldier talking to Dymphna in the moonlight, his cap the cap of a Spanish guard, was Master Clarence! the Duchess's chief enemy!

* * * * *

I stayed my foot. With a strange settling into resolve of all my doubts I felt if my sword, which happily I had brought with me, was loose in its sheath, and leaned forward scanning him. So he had tracked us! He was here! With wonderful vividness I pictured all the dangers which menaced the Duchess, Master Bertie, the Lindstroms, myself, through his discovery of us, all the evils which would befall us if the villain went away with his tale. Forgetting Dymphna's presence, I set my teeth hard together. He should not escape me this time.

But man can only propose. As I took a step forward, I trod on a round piece of wood which turned under my foot, and I stumbled. My eye left the pair for a second. When it returned to them they had taken the alarm. Dymphna had started away, and I saw her figure retreating swiftly in the direction of the house. The man poised himself a moment irresolute opposite to me; then dashed aside and disappeared behind the cottage.

I was after him on the instant, my sword out, and caught sight of his cloak as he whisked round a corner. He dodged me twice round the next cottage, the one nearer the river. Then he broke away and made for the bridge, his object evidently to get off the island. But he seemed at last to see that I was too quick for him-as I certainly was-and should catch him half way across the narrow planking; and changing his mind again he doubled nimbly back and rushed into the open porch of a cottage, and I heard his sword ring out. I had him at bay.

At bay indeed! But ready as I was, and resolute to capture or kill him, I paused. I hesitated to run in on him. The darkness of the porch hid him, while I must attack with the moonlight shining on me. I peered in cautiously. "Come out!" I cried. "Come out, you coward!" Then I heard him move, and for a moment I thought he was coming, and I stood a-tiptoe waiting for his rush. But he only laughed a derisive laugh of triumph. He had the odds, and I saw he would keep them.

I took another cautious step toward him, and shading my eyes with my left hand, tried to make him out. As I did so, gradually his face took dim form and shape, confronting mine in the darkness. I stared yet more intently. The face became more clear. Nay, with a sudden leap into vividness, as it were, it grew white against the dark background-white and whiter. It seemed to be thrust out nearer and nearer, until it almost touched mine. It-his face? No, it was not his face! For one awful moment a terror, which seemed to still my heart, glued me to the ground where I stood, as it flashed upon my brain that it was another face that grinned at me so close to mine, that it was another face I was looking on; the livid, bloodstained face and stony eyes of the man I had killed!

With a wild scream I turned and fled. By instinct, for terror had deprived me of reason, I hied to the bridge, and keeping, I knew not how, my footing upon the loose clattering planks, made one desperate rush across it. The shimmering water below, in which I saw that face a thousand times reflected, the breeze, which seemed the dead man's hand clutching me, lent wings to my flight. I sprang at a bound from the bridge to the bank, from the bank to the boat, and overturning, yet never seeing, my startled companion, shoved off from the shore with all my might-and fell a-crying.

A very learned man, physician to the Queen's Majesty has since told me, when I related this strange story to him, that probably that burst of tears saved my reason. It so far restored me at any rate that I presently knew where I was-cowering in the bottom of the boat, with my eyes covered; and understood that Master Lindstrom was leaning over me in a terrible state of mind, imploring me in mingled Dutch and English to tell him what had happened. "I have seen him!" was all I could say at first, and I scarcely dared remove my hands from my eyes. "I have seen him!" I begged my host to row away from the shore, and after a time was able to tell him what the matter was, he sitting the while with his arm round my shoulder.

"You are sure that it was the Spaniard?" he said kindly, after he had thought a minute.

"Quite sure," I answered shuddering, yet with less violence. "How could I be mistaken? If you had seen him-"

"And you are sure-did you feel his heart this morning? Whether it was beating?"

"His heart?" Something in his voice gave me courage to look up, though I still shunned the water, lest that dreadful visage should rise from the depths. "No, I did not touch him."

"And you tell me that he fell on his face. Did you turn him over?"

"No." I saw his drift now. I was sitting erect. My brain began to work again. "No," I admitted; "I did not."

"Then how-" asked the Dutchman roughly-"how do you know that he was dead, young sir? Tell me that."

When I explained, "Bah!" he cried. "There is nothing in that! You jumped to a conclusion. I thought a Spaniard's head was harder to break. As for the blood coming from his mouth, perhaps he bit his tongue, or did any one of a hundred things-except die, Master Francis. That you may be sure is just what he did not do."

"You think so?" I said gratefully. I began to look about me, yet still with a tremor in my limbs, and an inclination to start at shadows.

"Think?" he rejoined, with a heartiness which brought conviction home tome; "I am sure of it. You may depend upon it that Master Clarence, or the man you take for Master Clarence-who no doubt was the other soldier seen with the scoundrel this morning-found him hurt late in the evening. Then, seeing him in that state, he put him in the porch for shelter, either because he could not get him to Arnheim at once, or because he did not wish to give the alarm before he had made his arrangements for netting your party."

"That is possible!" I allowed, with a sigh of relief. "But what of Master Clarence?"

"Well," the old man said; "let us get home first. We will talk of him afterward."

I felt he had more in his mind than appeared, and I obeyed; growing ashamed now of my panic, and looking forward with no very pleasant feelings to hearing the story narrated. But when we reached the house, and found Master Bertie and the Duchess in the parlor waiting for us-they rose startled at sight of my face-he bade me leave that out, but tell the rest of the story.

I complied, describing how I had seen Dymphna meet Clarence, and what I had observed to pass between them. The astonishment of my hearers may be imagined. "The point is very simple," said our host coolly, when I had, in the face of many exclamations and some incredulity, completed the tale; "it is just this! The woman certainly was not Dymphna. In the first place, she would not be out at night. In the second place, what could she know of your Clarence, an Englishman and a stranger? In the third place, I will warrant she has been in her room all the evening. Then if Master Francis was mistaken in the woman, may he not have been mistaken in the man? That is the point."

"No," I said boldly. "I only saw her back. I saw his face."

"Certainly, that is something," Master Lindstrom admitted reluctantly.

"But how many times had you seen him before?" put in my lady very pertinently. "Only once."

In answer to that I could do no more than give further assurance of my certainty on the point. "It was the man I saw in the boat at Greenwich," I declared positively. "Why should I imagine it?"

"All the same, I trust you have," she rejoined. "For, if it was indeed that arch scoundrel, we are undone."

"Imagination plays us queer tricks sometimes," Master Lindstrom said, with a smile of much meaning. "But come, lad, I will ask Dymphna, though I think it useless to do so. For whether you are right or wrong as to your friend, I will answer for it you are wrong as to my daughter."

He was rising to go from them for the purpose, when Mistress Anne opened the door and came in. She looked somewhat startled at finding us all in conclave. "I thought I heard your voices," she explained timidly, standing between us and the door. "I could not sleep."

She looked indeed as if that were so. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a bright spot of crimson in each cheek. "What is it?" she went on abruptly, looking hard at me and shutting her lips tightly. There was so much to explain that no one had taken it in hand to begin.

"It is just this," the Duchess said, opening her mouth with a snap. "Have you been with Dymphna all the time?"

"Yes, of course," was the prompt answer.

"What is she doing?"

"Doing?" Mistress Anne repeated in surprise. "She is asleep."

"Has she been out since nightfall?" the Duchess continued. "Out of her room? Or out of the house?"

"Out? Certainly not. Before she fell asleep she was in no state to go out, as you know, though I hope she will be all right when she awakes. Who says she has been out?" Anne added sharply. She looked at me with a challenge in her eyes, as much as to say, "Is it you?"

"I am satisfied," I said, "that I was mistaken as to Mistress Dymphna. But I am just as sure as before that I saw Clarence."

"Clarence?" Mistress Anne repeated, starting violently, and the color for an instant fleeing from her cheeks. She sat down on the nearest seat.

"You need not be afraid, Anne," my lady said smiling. She had a wonderfully high courage herself. "I think Master Francis was mistaken, though he is so certain about it."

"But where-where did he see him?" the girl asked. She still trembled.

Once more I had to tell the tale; Mistress Anne, as was natural, listening to it with the liveliest emotions. And this time so much of the ghost story had to be introduced-for she pressed me closely as to where I had left Clarence, and why I had let him go-that my assurances got less credence than ever.

"I think I see how it is," she said, with a saucy scorn that hurt me not a little. "Master Carey's nerves are in much the same state to-night as Dymphna's. He thought he saw a ghost, and he did not. He thought he saw Dymphna, and he did not. And he thought he saw Master Clarence, and he did not."

"Not so fast, child!" cried the Duchess sharply, seeing me wince. "Your tongue runs too freely. No one has had better proofs of Master Carey's courage-for which I will answer myself-than we have!"

"Then he should not say things about Dymphna!" the young lady retorted, her foot tapping the floor, and the red spots back in her cheeks. "Such rubbish I never heard!"