The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

with me, scold me! curse me! I deserve it: the idiot that killed the man she loved better than herself. Ah I am a murderess. The worst in all the world. Help! help! I have murdered him. Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!”

      She tore her hair, and uttered shriek after shriek, so wild, so piercing, they fell like a knell upon the ears of Dierich Brower and his men. All started to their feet and looked at one another.

      CHAPTER XVI

       Table of Contents

      Martin Wittenhaagen, standing at the foot of the stairs with his arrow drawn nearly to the head and his knife behind him, was struck with amazement to see the men come back without Gerard: he lowered his bow and looked open-mouthed at them. They, for their part, were equally puzzled at the attitude they had caught him in.

      “Why, mates, was the old fellow making ready to shoot at us?”

      “Stuff!” said Martin, recovering his stolid composure; “I was but trying my new string. There! I'll unstring my bow, if you think that.”

      “Humph!” said Dierich suspiciously, “there is something more in you than I understand: put a log on, and let us dry our hides a bit ere we go.”

      A blazing fire was soon made, and the men gathered round it, and their clothes and long hair were soon smoking from the cheerful blaze. Then it was that the shrieks were heard in Margaret's room. They all started up, and one of them seized the candle and ran up the steps that led to the bedrooms.

      Martin rose hastily too, and being confused by these sudden screams, and apprehending danger from the man's curiosity, tried to prevent him from going there.

      At this Dierich threw his arms round him from behind, and called on the others to keep him. The man that had the candle got clear away, and all the rest fell upon Martin, and after a long and fierce struggle, in the course of which they were more than once all rolling on the floor, with Martin in the middle, they succeeded in mastering the old Samson, and binding him hand and foot with a rope they had brought for Gerard.

      Martin groaned aloud. He saw the man had made his way to Margaret's room during the struggle, and here was he powerless.

      “Ay, grind your teeth, you old rogue,” said Dierich, panting with the struggle. “You shan't use them.”

      “It is my belief, mates, that our lives were scarce safe while this old fellow's bones were free.”

      “He makes me think this Gerard is not far off,” put in another.

      “No such luck,” replied Dierich. “Hallo, mates. Jorian Ketel is a long time in that girl's bedroom. Best go and see after him, some of us.”

      The rude laugh caused by this remark had hardly subsided, when hasty footsteps were heard running along over head.

      “Oh, here he comes, at last. Well, Jorian, what is to do now up there?”

      CHAPTER XVII

       Table of Contents

      Jorian Ketel went straight to Margaret's room, and there, to his infinite surprise, he found the man he had been in search of, pale and motionless, his head in Margaret's lap, and she kneeling over him, mute now, and stricken to stone. Her eyes were dilated yet glazed, and she neither saw the light nor heard the man, nor cared for anything on earth, but the white face in her lap.

      Jorian stood awe-struck, the candle shaking in his hand.

      “Why, where was he, then, all the time?”

      Margaret heeded him not. Jorian went to the empty chest and inspected it. He began to comprehend. The girl's dumb and frozen despair moved him.

      “This is a sorry sight,” said he; “it is a black night's work: all for a few skins! Better have gone with us than so. She is past answering me, poor wench. Stop! let us try whether—”

      He took down a little round mirror, no bigger than his hand, and put it to Gerard's mouth and nostrils, and held it there. When he withdrew it, it was dull.

      “THERE IS LIFE IN HIM!” said Jorian Ketel to himself.

      Margaret caught the words instantly, though only muttered, and it was if a statue should start into life and passion. She rose and flung her arms round Jorian's neck.

      “Oh, bless the tongue that tells me so!” and she clasped the great rough fellow again and again, eagerly, almost fiercely.

      “There, there! let us lay him warm, said Jorian; and in a moment he raised Gerard and laid him on the bed-clothes. Then he took out a flask he carried, and filled his hand twice with Schiedamze, and flung it sharply each time in Gerard's face. The pungent liquor co-operated with his recovery—he gave a faint sigh. Oh, never was sound so joyful to human ear! She flew towards him, but then stopped, quivering for fear she should hurt him. She had lost all confidence in herself.

      “That is right—let him alone,” said Jorian; “don't go cuddling him as you did me, or you'll drive his breath back again. Let him alone: he is sure to come to. 'Tisn't like as if he was an old man.”

      Gerard sighed deeply, and a faint streak of colour stole to his lips. Jorian made for the door. He had hardly reached it, when he found his legs seized from behind.

      It was Margaret! She curled round his knees like a serpent, and kissed his hand, and fawned on him. “You won't tell? You have saved his life; you have not the heart to thrust him back into his grave, to undo your own good work?”

      “No, no! It is not the first time I have done you two a good turn; 'twas I told you in the church whither we had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan and the children, you know.”

      “Ah! they shall have those hundred crowns.

      “What! are the things in the house?” asked Jorian eagerly.

      “No; but I know where they are; and by God and St. Bavon I swear you shall have them to-morrow. Come to me for them when you will, but come alone.”

      “I were made else. What! share the hundred crowns with Dirk Brower? And now may my bones rot in my skin if I let a soul know the poor boy is here.”

      He then ran off, lest by staying longer he should excite suspicion, and have them all after him. And Margaret knelt, quivering from head to foot, and prayed beside Gerard and for Gerard.

      “What is to do?” replied Jorian to Dierich Brower's query; “why, we have scared the girl out of her wits. She was in a kind of fit.”

      “We had better all go and doctor her, then.”

      “Oh, yes! and frighten her into the churchyard. Her father is a doctor, and I have roused him, and set him to bring her round. Let us see the fire, will ye?”

      His off-hand way disarmed all suspicion. And soon after the party agreed that the kitchen of the “Three Kings” was much warmer than Peter's house, and they departed, having first untied Martin.

      “Take note, mate, that I was right, and the burgomaster wrong,” said Dierich Brower at the door; “I said we should be too late to catch him, and we were too late.”

      Thus Gerard, in one terrible night, grazed the prison and the grave.

      And how did he get clear at last? Not by his cunningly contrived hiding-place, nor by Margaret's ready wit; but by a good impulse in one of his captors, by the bit of humanity left in a somewhat reckless fellow's heart, aided by his desire of gain. So mixed and seemingly incongruous are human motives, so shortsighted our shrewdest counsels.

      They whose moderate natures