Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch by H. Rider Haggard (reading in the dark .TXT) 📖
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
Book online «Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch by H. Rider Haggard (reading in the dark .TXT) 📖». Author H. Rider Haggard
Sick and half blind with the intensity of her dread, Lysbeth staggered home. She must tell Dirk, that was her one thought; but no, she had been in contact with the plague, first she must purify herself. So she went to her room, and although it was summer, lit a great fire on the hearth, and in it burned her garments. Then she bathed and fumigated her hair and body over a brazier of strong herbs, such as in those days of frequent and virulent sickness housewives kept at hand, after which she dressed herself afresh and went to seek her husband. She found him at a desk in his private room reading some paper, which at her approach he shuffled into a drawer.
“What is that, Dirk?” she asked with sudden suspicion.
He pretended not to hear, and she repeated the query.
“Well, wife, if you wish to know,” he answered in his blunt fashion, “it is my will.”
“Why are you reading your will?” she asked again, beginning to tremble, for her nerves were afire, and this simple accident struck her as something awful and ominous.
“For no particular reason, wife,” he replied quietly, “only that we all must die, early or late. There is no escape from that, and in these times it is more often early than late, so it is as well to be sure that everything is in order for those who come after us. Now, since we are on the subject, which I have never cared to speak about, listen to me.”
“What about, husband?”
“Why, about my will. Look you, Hendrik Brant and his treasure have taught me a lesson. I am not a man of his substance, or a tenth of it, but in some countries I should be called rich, for I have worked hard and God has prospered me. Well, of late I have been realising where I could, also the bulk of my savings is in cash. But the cash is not here, not in this country at all. You know my correspondents, Munt and Brown, of Norwich, in England, to whom we ship our goods for the English market. They are honest folk, and Munt owes me everything, almost to his life. Well, they have the money, it has reached them safely, thanks be to God, and with it a counterpart of this my will duly attested, and here is their letter of acknowledgment stating that they have laid it out carefully at interest upon mortgage on great estates in Norfolk where it lies to my order, or that of my heirs, and that a duplicate acknowledgment has been filed in their English registries in case this should go astray. Little remains here except this house and the factory, and even on those I have raised money. Meanwhile the business is left to live on, and beyond it the rents which will come from England, so that whether I be living or dead you need fear no want. But what is the matter with you, Lysbeth? You look strange.”
“Oh! husband, husband,” she gasped, “Juan de Montalvo is here again. He has appeared as the new governor of the gaol. I saw him this afternoon, I cannot be mistaken, although he has lost an eye and is much changed.”
Dirk’s jaw dropped and his florid face whitened. “Juan de Montalvo!” he said. “I heard that he was dead long ago.”
“You are mistaken, husband, a devil never dies. He is seeking Brant’s treasure, and he knows that we have its secret. You can guess the rest. More, now that I think of it, I have heard that a strange Spaniard is lodging with Hague Simon, he whom they call the Butcher, and Black Meg, of whom we have cause to know. Doubtless it is he, and—Dirk, death overshadows us.”
“Why should he know of Brant’s treasure, wife?”
“Because he is Ramiro, the man who dogged him down, the man who followed the ship Swallow to the Haarlemer Meer. Elsa was with me this afternoon, she knew him again.”
Dirk thought a while, resting his head upon his hand. Then he lifted it and said:
“I am very glad that I sent the money to Munt and Brown, Heaven gave me that thought. Well, wife, what is your counsel now?”
“My counsel is that we should fly from Leyden—all of us, yes, this very night before worse happens.”
He smiled. “That cannot be; there are no means of flight, and under the new laws we could not pass the gates; that trick has been played too often. Still, in a day or two, when I have had time to arrange, we might escape if you still wish to go.”
“To-night, to-night,” she urged, “or some of us stay for ever.”
“I tell you, wife, it is not possible. Am I a rat that I should be bolted from my hole thus by this ferret of a Montalvo? I am a man of peace and no longer young, but let him beware lest I stop here long enough to pass a sword through him.”
“So be it, husband,” she replied, “but I think it is through my heart that the sword will pass,” and she burst out weeping.
Supper that night was a somewhat melancholy meal. Dirk and Lysbeth sat at the ends of the table in silence. On one side of fit were placed Foy and Elsa, who were also silent for a very different reason, while opposite to them was Adrian, who watched Elsa with an anxious and inquiring eye.
That the love potion worked he was certain, for she looked confused and a little flushed; also, as would be natural under the circumstances, she avoided his glance and made pretence to be interested in Foy, who seemed rather more stupid than usual. Well, so soon as he could find his chance all this would be cleared up, but meanwhile the general gloom and silence were affecting his nerves.
“What have you been doing this afternoon, mother?” Adrian asked presently.
“I, son?” she replied with a start, “I have been visiting the unhappy Vrouw Jansen, whom I found very sick.”
“What is the matter with her, mother?”
Lysbeth’s mind, which had wandered away, again returned to the subject at hand with an effort.
“The matter? Oh! she has the plague.”
“The plague!” exclaimed Adrian, springing to his feet, “do you mean to say you have been consorting with a woman who has the plague?”
“I fear so,” she answered with a smile, “but do not be frightened, Adrian, I have burnt my clothes and fumigated myself.”
Still Adrian was frightened. His recent experience of sickness had been ample, and although he was no coward he had a special dislike of infectious diseases, which at the time were many.
“It is horrible,” he said, “horrible. I only hope that we—I mean you—may escape. The house is unbearably close. I am going to walk in the courtyard,” and away he went, for the moment, at any rate, forgetting all about Elsa and the love potion.
FOY SEES A VISION
Never since that day when, many years before, she had bought the safety of the man she loved by promising herself in marriage to his rival, had Lysbeth slept so ill as she did upon this night. Montalvo was alive. Montalvo was here, here to strike down and destroy those whom she loved, and triple armed with power, authority, and desire to do the deed. Well she knew that when there was plunder to be won, he would not step aside or soften until it was in his hands. Yet there was hope in this; he was not a cruel man, as she knew also, that is to say, he had no pleasure in inflicting suffering for its own sake; such methods he used only as a means to an end. If he could get the money, all of it, she was sure that he would leave them alone. Why should he not have it? Why should all their lives be menaced because of this trust which had been thrust upon them?
Unable to endure the torments of her doubts and fears, Lysbeth woke her husband, who was sleeping peacefully at her side, and told him what was passing in her mind.
“It is a true saying,” answered Dirk with a smile, “that even the best of women are never quite honest when their interest pulls the other way. What, wife, would you have us buy our own peace with Brant’s fortune, and thus break faith with a dead man and bring down his curse upon us?”
“The lives of men are more than gold, and Elsa would consent,” she answered sullenly; “already this pelf is stained with blood, the blood of Hendrik Brant himself, and of Hans the pilot.”
“Yes, wife, and since you mention it, with the blood of a good many Spaniards also, who tried to steal the stuff. Let’s see; there must have been several drowned at the mouth of the river, and quite twenty went up with the Swallow, so the loss has not been all on our side. Listen, Lysbeth, listen. It was my cousin, Hendrik Brant’s, belief that in the end this great fortune of his would do some service to our people or our country, for he wrote as much in his will and repeated it to Foy. I know not when or in what fashion this may come about; how can I know? But first will I die before I hand it over to the Spaniard. Moreover, I cannot, since its secret was never told to me.”
“Foy and Martin have it.”
“Lysbeth,” said Dirk sternly, “I charge you as you love me not to work upon them to betray their trust; no, not even to save my life or your own—if we must die, let us die with honour. Do you promise?”
“I promise,” she answered with dry lips, “but on this condition only, that you fly from Leyden with us all, to-night if may be.”
“Good,” answered Dirk, “a halfpenny for a herring; you have made your promise, and I’ll give you mine; that’s fair, although I am old to seek a new home in England. But it can’t be to-night, wife, for I must make arrangements. There is a ship sailing to-day, and we might catch her to-morrow at the river’s mouth, after she has passed the officers, for her captain is a friend of mine. How will that do?”
“I had rather it had been to-night,” said Lysbeth. “While we are in Leyden with that man we are not safe from one hour to the next.”
“Wife, we are never safe. It is all in the hands of God, and, therefore, we should live like soldiers awaiting the hour to march, and rejoice exceedingly when it pleases our Captain to sound the call.”
“I know,” she answered; “but, oh! Dirk, it would be hard—to part.”
He turned his head aside for a moment, then said in a steady voice, “Yes, wife, but it will be sweet to meet again and part no more.”
While it was still early that morning Dirk summoned Foy and Martin to his wife’s chamber. Adrian for his own reasons he did not summon, making the excuse that he was still asleep, and it would be a pity to disturb him; nor Elsa, since as yet there was no necessity to trouble her. Then, briefly, for he was given to few words, he set out the gist of the matter, telling them that the man Ramiro whom they had beaten on the Haarlemer Meer was in Leyden, which Foy knew already, for Elsa had told him as much, and that he was no other than the Spaniard named the Count Juan de Montalvo, the villain who had deceived Lysbeth into a mock marriage by working on her fears, and who was the father of Adrian. All this time Lysbeth sat in a carved oak chair listening with a stony face to the tale of
Comments (0)