Leatherface Part 14

"'Tis you will suffer," said the other coldly, "even as you would have made two helpless and innocent women suffer."

"They shall suffer yet!" cried don Ramon with a blasphemous oath, "they and their kith and kin--aye! and this accursed city which hath given _you_ shelter! a.s.sa.s.sin!"

"And it is because you are such an abominable cur," came a voice relentlessly from behind the leather mask, "because you would hunt two unfortunates down, them and their kith and kin and the city that gave them shelter, that you are too vile to live, and that I mean to kill you, like I would any pestilential beast that befouled G.o.d's earth. So make your peace with your Creator now, for you are about to meet Him face to face laden with the heavy burden of your infamies."

In don Ramon now only one instinct remained paramount--the instinct of a final effort for self-defence. When he fell, his knee came in contact with the dagger which he had dropped. It cost him a terrible effort, but nevertheless he succeeded in groping for it with his right hand and in seizing it: another moment of violent struggle for freedom, another convulsive movement and he had lifted the dagger. He struck with ferocious vigour at his powerful opponent and inflicted a gas.h.i.+ng wound upon his left arm--the dagger penetrated to the bone, cutting flesh and muscle through from wrist to elbow.

But even as he struck he knew that it was too late; he had not even the strength to renew the effort. The next moment the vice-like grip tightened round his throat with merciless power. He could neither cry for help nor yet for mercy, nor were his struggles heard beyond these four narrow walls.

The soldiers whom he himself had bidden to be merry and to carouse, were singing and shouting at the top of their voice, and heard neither his struggles nor his cries. The dagger had long since slipped out of his hand, and at last he fell backwards striking his head against the leg of the table as he fell.

VII

In the tap-room the soldiers had soon got tired of waiting for Katrine.

At first some of them amused themselves by reopening the trap-door, then sitting on the top step of the ladder that led to the cellar and thence shouting ribald oaths, coa.r.s.e jests and blasphemies for the benefit of the unfortunate girl down below.

But after a time this entertainment also palled, and a council was held as to who should go down and fetch the girl. The cellar was vastly tempting in itself--with no one to guard it save a couple of wenches--and the captain more than half-inclined to be lenient toward a real bout of drunkenness. It was an opportunity not to be missed; strange that the idea had not occurred to seven thirsty men before.

Now the provost declared that he would go down first, others could follow him in turn, but two must always remain in the tap-room in case the captain called, their comrades would supply them with wine from below. The provost descended--candle in hand--so did four of the men, but Katrine was no longer in the cellar. They hunted for her for awhile, and discovered a window, the shaft of which sloped upwards to a yard at the back of the house. The window was open and there was a ladder resting against the wall of the shaft.

The men swore a little, then went back to investigate the casks of wine.

With what happened in the cellar after that this chronicle hath no concern, but those soldiers who remained up in the tap-room had a curious experience which their fuddled brains did not at first take in altogether. What happened was this: the door which gave on the pa.s.sage was opened, and a man appeared under the lintel. He was dressed in sombre, tight-fitting doublet and hose, with high boots reaching well above his knees; he had a hood over his head and a mask on his face.

The soldiers stared at him with wide-open, somewhat dimmed eyes.

The masked man only spoke a few words:

"Tell your provost," he said, "that senor captain don Ramon de Linea lies dead in the room yonder."

Then he disappeared, as quietly as he had come.

CHAPTER V

VENGEANCE

I

"Satan! Satan! a.s.sa.s.sin!"

Donna Lenora had stood beside the dead body of her lover and kinsman wide-eyed and pale with rigid, set mouth and trembling knees while her father explained to her how don Ramon de Linea had been murdered in the tavern of the "Three Weavers" by an unknown man who wore a leather mask.

She had listened to the whole garbled version of the sordid affair, never thinking to doubt a single one of her father's words: don Ramon de Linea, according to the account given to his daughter by Juan de Vargas, had--while in the execution of his duty--been attacked in a dark pa.s.sage by a mysterious a.s.sa.s.sin, who had fled directly his nefarious work had been accomplished.

The murderer, however, was seen by the provost in command and by two of the soldiers, and was accurately described by them as wearing doublet and high-boots of a dark-brown colour, a hood over his head and a mask of untanned leather on his face. The man had rapidly disappeared in the darkness, evading all pursuit.

And donna Lenora--thus face to face for the first time in her sheltered life with crime, with horror and with grief--had, in the first moment of despairing misery, not even a prayer to G.o.d in her heart, for it was filled with bitter thoughts of resentment and of possible revenge.

She had loved her cousin don Ramon de Linea with all the ardour of her youth, of her warm temperament and of a heart thirsting for the self-sacrifice which women were so ready to offer these days on the altar of their Love. She had never thought him shallow or cruel: to her he had always been just the playmate of childhood's days, the handsome, masterful boy whom she had looked up to as the embodiment of all that was strong and n.o.ble and chivalrous, the first man who had ever whispered the magic word "love" in her ear.

Now an unknown enemy had killed him: not in fair fight, not in the open, on the field of honour, but--as her father said--in a tavern, in the dark, surrept.i.tiously, treacherously; and donna Lenora in an agony of pa.s.sionate resentment had at last broken the silence which had almost frightened her father and had suddenly called out with fierce intensity: "Satan! Satan! a.s.sa.s.sin!" Her father had given her an account of the horrible incident, which was nothing but a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end, and Lenora had listened and believed. How could she doubt her own father? She hardly knew him--and he was all she had in the world on whom to pour out the wealth of her affection and of her faith.

II

Truth to tell, de Vargas had received the news of don Ramon's death with unbounded satisfaction.

Lenora had obeyed him and had been this night publicly affianced to Mark van Rycke; but between her consent to the marriage and her willingness to become Alva's tool as a spy among her husband's people there was the immeasurable abyss of a woman's temperament and a woman's natural pity for the oppressed.

But the outrage to-night--the murder of the man whom she still loved despite paternal prohibitions--was bound to react on the girl's warm and pa.s.sionate nature--and react in the manner which her father desired. He trusted to his own powers of lying, to place the case before his daughter in its most lurid light. He had at once spoken of "spies" and "a.s.sa.s.sins" and his words had been well chosen. Within a few moments after he had told Lenora the news, he felt that he could play like a skilled musician upon every string of her overwrought sensibilities.

Her heart had already been very sore at being forced to part from her first lover; now that the parting had suddenly become irrevocable in this horrible way, all the pent up pa.s.sion, fierce resentment and wrath which she had felt against her future husband and his people could by clever manipulation be easily merged into an equally fierce desire for revenge.

It was a cruel game to play with a young girl who by blood and race was made to feel every emotion with super-acuteness: but de Vargas was not the man who would ever allow pity or chivalry to interfere with his schemes: he saw in his daughter's mental suffering, in the shattering of her nerves and the horror which had well-nigh paralysed her, nothing but a guarantee of success for that comprehensive project which had the death of the Prince of Orange for its ultimate aim.

"It is strange," murmured the girl after awhile, "that when Ramon talked with me in the Town House last night, he said that these Netherlanders had a habit of striking at an enemy in the dark."

"A presentiment, no doubt," rejoined de Vargas with well-feigned gentleness. "Now, my child, you begin to understand--do you not?--why it is that we Spaniards hate these treacherous Netherlanders. They are vile and corrupt to the heart, every single man, woman or child of them.

They fear us and have not the pluck to fight us in the open. Orange and his contemptible little army have sought shelter in Holland--they dare not face the valour and enthusiasm of our troops. But mark you, what Orange hath done! He hath sown the entire country with a crop of spies!

They are here, there, everywhere--not very cunning and certainly not brave--their orders are to strike in the dark when and how they can.

They waylay our Spanish officers in the ill-lighted, and intricate streets of their abominable cities, they dog their footsteps until they meet them in some lowly tavern or a tenebrous archway: then out comes their dagger, swift and sure, and they strike in the gloom--and a gallant Spanish officer's blood stains the cobblestones of one of their towns. It was don Ramon to-day--it will be Julian Romero perhaps to-morrow--or don Juan de Vargas--who knows? or mayhap the duke of Alva one day. Orange and his crowd are out on a campaign of a.s.sa.s.sination--an army of a.s.sa.s.sins has been let loose--and their captain-general wears a mask of leather and our soldiery have dubbed him 'Leatherface'!"

"I have heard of this man 'Leatherface,'" said Lenora slowly. "It is he, you think, who murdered Ramon?"

"Have we not the soldiers' testimony?" he rejoined blandly, "two men and the provost saw him quite clearly. As for me, I am not surprised: more than once our spies have reported that the man undoubtedly hailed from Ghent, and once he was traced to the very gates of this city. But," he added insinuatingly, "here he is surrounded by friends: every burgher in Ghent, no doubt, opens wide his hospitable door to the murderer of Spanish officers."

"Think you it is likely that the High-Bailiff of Ghent or ... or ... my future husband would harbour such an a.s.sa.s.sin?" she asked.

"Well!" he replied evasively, "all Netherlanders are treacherous. The High-Bailiff himself and his son Mark are said to be loyal ... but there's another son ... and the mother ... one never knows. It would be strange," he continued unctuously, "if at some future time the murderer of Ramon should find shelter in your house."

"I shall pray to the saints," she rejoined with pa.s.sionate intensity, "that he and I may meet face to face one day."

Indeed de Vargas had no cause to fear that henceforth his daughter would fail in her vigilance. The a.s.sa.s.sination of her lover had stirred her soul to its inmost depths. Indifference and light-hearted girlishness had suddenly given place to all the violent pa.s.sions of her ardent nature. For the moment desire for vengeance--for justice she called it--and hatred of the a.s.sa.s.sin and his mates had swept every other thought, every soft aspiration away: all her world--the world as seen through the rose-coloured windows of a convent window--had tottered and opened beneath her feet, and through the yawning chasm she now saw evil and l.u.s.t and cruelty dancing a triumphant saraband over Ramon's dead body.

"There is a means," resumed de Vargas after a slight pause, during which through half-closed lids he studied the play of every varying emotion upon his daughter's beautiful face, "there is a means, my child, whereby you or any faithful servant of our King can henceforth recognise at a glance the man who killed your cousin Ramon."

"A means?"

"Yes. He carries upon his arm the brand of his own infamy."

"Will you tell me more clearly what you mean?" she asked.

"Ramon had not breathed his last when the provost found him and ultimately brought him here to my lodgings. He was able to speak and to give a fragmentary account of what had taken place: how he was set upon in the dark and stabbed to death ere he could utter a cry. But at the last moment he made a supreme effort and wrenching his dagger from his belt he struck with it at his a.s.sailant. It seems that he inflicted a very severe wound upon the miscreant: the dagger penetrated into the left forearm close to the elbow and gashed the flesh and muscle as far as the wrist and right through to the bone. It is not likely that at this moment there is more than one man in Ghent who hath such a wound in the left forearm: the wound was deep too, and will take some time to heal, and even when it is healed it will leave a tell-tale scar which will last for years.