Leatherface Part 48

"Burghers and artisans of Ghent," he called loudly, "we have two hours before us. The perjured tyrant is bringing five thousand fresh troops against us. If by nightfall we have not conquered, our city is doomed and all of us who have survived, and all our women and children will be slaughtered like sheep."

"To arms!" cried the leaders: Jan van Migrode and Lievin van Deynse, Pierre Deynoot and the others.

"To arms!" was echoed by a goodly number of the crowd.

But a great many were silent--despair had gripped them with its icy talon--the hopelessness of it all had damped their enthusiasm.

"Five thousand fresh troops," they murmured, "and there are less than four thousand of us all told."

"We cannot conquer," came from Peter Balde's friends at the west end of the church, "let us at least take our revenge!"

"Yes! Revenge! Death to the Walloons!" they cried.

"Revenge! yes!" exclaimed Mark van Rycke. "Let us be revenged on the liar, the tyrant, the perjurer, let us show him no mercy and extort from him by brute force that which he has refused us all these years--civil and religious freedom."

"Van Rycke, thou art raving!" broke in the men who stood nearest to him--some of them his most ardent supporters. "Alva by nightfall will have three times the numbers we have. The gates will be opened to his fresh troops."

"We must seize the Kasteel and the gates before then!" he retorted.

"How can we? We made several a.s.saults yesterday. We have not enough men."

"We have half an hour wherein to increase their numbers."

"Thou art raving," they cried.

"Not one able-bodied man but was fighting yesterday--not half their number knew how to handle pike or lance, musket or crossbow."

"Then we must find two thousand men who are trained soldiers and know all that there is to know about fighting. That would make it a two to one fight. Burghers of Ghent, which one of you cannot account for two Spaniards when the lives of your women and your children depend on the strength of your arm?"

"Two thousand men?" The cry came from everywhere--cry of doubt, of hope, of irony or of defiance.

"How are we to get them? Where can we get them from?"

"Come with me and I'll show you!" retorts Mark and he immediately makes for the door.

The other leaders stick close to him as one man, as do all those who have been standing near the altar rails and those who saw him even when first he turned to them all, with eyes glowing with the fire of the most ardent patriotism, with the determination to die if need be, but by G.o.d!

to try and conquer first!

It was only those who were in the rear of the crowd or in the side aisles who did not come immediately under the spell of that magnetic personality, of that burning enthusiasm which from its lexicon had erased the word "Failure!" but even they were carried off their feet by the human wave which now swept out of the cathedral--by the south door--bearing upon it the group of rebel leaders with Mark's broad shoulders and closely cropped head towering above the others.

The throng was soon swelled to huge proportions by all those who had been hanging about in the precincts all the afternoon unable to push their way into the crowded edifice. The tumult and the clamour which they made--added to the cries of those who were running in terror through the streets--made a pandemonium of sounds which was almost h.e.l.lish in its awful suggestion of terror, of confusion and of misery.

But those who still believed in the help of G.o.d, those in whom faith in the justice of their cause was allied with the sublime determination of martyrs were content to follow their hero blindly--vaguely marvelling what his purpose could be--whilst the malcontents in the rear, rallying round Peter Balde once more began to murmur of death and of revenge!

Mark led the crowd across the wide cathedral square to the guild-house of the armourers--the fine building with the tall, crow-step gables and the magnificent carved portico to which a double flight of fifteen stone steps and wrought-iron bal.u.s.trade gave access. He ran up the steps and stood with his back to the portico fronting the crowd. Every one could see him now, from the remotest corners of the square--many had invaded the houses round, and heads appeared at all the windows.

"Burghers of Ghent," he called aloud, "we have to conquer or we must die. There are less than four thousand of us at this moment fit to bear arms against Alva's hordes which still number seven. Five thousand more of them are on their way to complete the destruction of our city, to murder our wives and our children, and to desecrate our homes. We want two thousand well-trained soldiers to oppose them and inflict on the tyrant such a defeat as will force him to grant us all that we fight for: Liberty!"

"How wilt do that, friend of the leather mask?" queried some of the men ironically.

"How wilt find two thousand well-trained soldiers?"

"Follow me, and I will show you."

He turned and went into the building, the whole crowd following him as one man. The huge vaulted hall of the guild-house was filled in every corner with Walloon prisoners--the fruit of the first day's victory.

They were lying or sitting about the floor, some of them playing hazard with sc.r.a.ps of leather cut from their belts; others watched them, or merely stared straight in front of them, with a sullen look of hopelessness: they were the ones who had wives and children at home, or merely who had served some time under Alva's banner and had learned from him how prisoners should be treated. When the leaders of the insurrection with Mark van Rycke at their head made irruption into the hall followed by a tumultuous throng, the Walloons, as if moved by a blind instinct, threw aside their games and all retreated to the furthest end of the hall, like a phalanx of frightened men who have not even the power to sell their lives. Many of those who had rushed in, in Mark's wake, were the malcontents whose temper Peter Balde's hot-headed words had inflamed. Awed by the presence of their leaders they still held themselves in check, but the Walloons, from their place of retreat, crowded together and terrified, saw many a glowing face, distorted by the pa.s.sion to kill, many an eye fixed upon them with glowering hatred and an obvious longing for revenge.

Then Mark called out:

"Now then, friends: in two hours' time the tyrant will have twelve thousand troops ma.s.sed against us. We have two thousand well-trained soldiers within our guild-houses who are idle at this moment. Here are five hundred of them--the others are close by! with their help we can crush the tyrant--fight him till we conquer, and treat him as he would have treated us. Here is your revenge for his insults! Get your brothers to forswear their allegiance and to fight by your side!"

A gasp went right through the hall which now was packed closely with men--the five hundred Walloon prisoners huddled together at one end, and some four thousand men of Ghent filling every corner of the vast arcaded hall. In the very midst of them all Mark van Rycke hoisted up on the shoulders of his friends--with gleaming eyes and quivering voice--awaited their reply.

The malcontents were the first to make their voices heard:

"These traitors," they shouted, "the paid mercenaries of Alva! Art crazy, van Rycke?"

"The Spanish woman hath cajoled thee!" some of them exclaimed with a curse.

"Or offered thee a bribe from the tyrant," cried others.

"We'll hang thee along with the prisoners if thou darest to turn against us," added Peter Balde spitefully.

"Hang me then, friends, an ye list," he said with a loud laugh, "but let me speak while ye get the gallows ready. Walloons," he added, turning to the prisoners who were regarding him with utter bewilderment, in which past terror still held sway, "ye are our kith and kin. Together we have groaned under the most execrable tyrant the world has even known.

To-day I offer you the power to strike one blow at the tyrant--a blow from which he will never recover--a blow which will help you to win that which every Netherlander craves for: Liberty! Will ye help us to strike that blow and cover yourselves with glory?"

"Aye! aye!" came from the Walloons with one stupendous cry of hope and of relief.

"Will you fight with us?"

"Yes!"

"Die with us?"

"Yes!"

"For the freedom of the Netherlands?"

"For Liberty!" they cried.

But all the while murmurings were going on among the Flemings. Their hatred of the Walloons who had borne arms against their own native land and for its subjugation under the heel of an alien master was greater almost than their hatred against the Spaniards.

"The Walloons? Horror!" they shouted, even whilst Mark was infusing some of his own ardent enthusiasm into the veins of those five hundred prisoners. "Shame on thee, van Rycke!" whilst one man who has remained nameless to history cried out loudly: "Traitor!"

"Aye! traitor thou!" retorted van Rycke, "who wouldst prefer the l.u.s.t of killing to that of victory!"

"Burghers of Ghent," he continued, "in the name of our sacred Motherland, I entreat you release these men; let me have them as soldiers under our banner ... let me have them as brothers to fight by our side ... you would shed their blood and steep your souls in crime, let them shed theirs for Liberty, and cover themselves with glory!"