The First Sir Percy Baroness Orczy (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📖

gruffly. “I’m here right enough to see that thou’rt up to no mischief.”

“How can I be that, worthy Jan?” the other retorted blandly, “since thou hast again trussed me like a capon?”

“Well, the sooner thou hast satisfied his lordship,” Jan rejoined with stolid indifference, “the sooner thou wilt be free⁠—”

“To go to hell mine own way!” Diogenes put in with a hiccup. “So his lordship hath pledged his word. Let all those who are my friends bear witness that his lordship did pledge his word.”

He paused, and once again a look of impish cunning overspread his face. He seemed to be preparing for a fateful moment which literally would mean life or death for him. An exclamation of angry impatience from Stoutenburg recalled him to himself.

“I am ready,” he protested with eager servility, “to do his lordship’s pleasure.”

“Then speak, man!” Stoutenburg retorted savagely, “ere I wring the words from thee with torture!”

“I was only thinking how to put the matter clearly,” Diogenes protested blandly. “The Stadtholder only outlined his plan to me. There was so little time. My friend Klaas will remember that after his Highness’s horse bolted across the moor I was able to stop it⁠—”

“Yes⁠—curse your interference!” Stoutenburg muttered between his teeth.

“Amen to that!” the blind man assented. “But for it, I should still have the privilege of beholding your lordship’s pleasing countenance. But at the moment I had no thought save to stop a runaway horse. The Stadtholder was mightily excited, scented that a trap had been laid for him. My friend Klaas again will remember that, after his Highness dismounted he stopped to parley with me upon the moor.”

Nicolaes nodded.

“Then it was,” Diogenes went on, “that he told what he meant to do. I was, of course, to bear my part in the new project, which was to make a feint upon Ede⁠—”

“A feint upon Ede?”

“Ay! A surprise attack, which would keep De Berg, who is in Ede, busy whilst the Stadtholder⁠—”

“Bah!” Stoutenburg broke in contemptuously, “De Berg is too wary to be caught by a feint.”

“So he is, my lord, so he is!” Diogenes rejoined with solemn gravity. “But if I were to tell you that the surprise attack is to be made in full force, and that the weight will fall on the south side of the town, what then?”

“I do not see with what object.”

“Yet you, my lord, would know the Stadtholder’s tactics of old. You fought under his banner⁠—once.”

“Before he murdered my father, yes!” Stoutenburg broke in impatiently. He did not relish this allusion to his former fighting days, before black treachery had made him betray the ruler he once served. “But what of that?”

“For then your lordship would remember,” the blind man went on placidly, “that the Stadtholder’s favorite plan was always to draw the enemy away by a ruse from his own chief point of attack.”

“But where would the chief point of attack be in this case?” Stoutenburg queried with a frown.

“At a certain molen your lordship wot of on the Veluwe.”

“Impossible!”

“Oh, impossible? Your lordship is pleased to jest. Some days ago, spies came into Utrecht with the information that the Lord of Stoutenburg had his camp at an old molen, which stands disused and isolated on the highest point of the Veluwe, somewhere between Apeldoorn and Barneveld.”

“My camp? Bah! The mill was only a halting place⁠—”

“The spies averred, my lord,” the blind man broke in blandly, “that vast stores of arms and ammunition are accumulated in that halting-place. And that the attack on Amersfoort was planned within its rickety walls.”

Then, as the Lord of Stoutenburg made no comment on this⁠—indeed, he had cast a rapid, significant glance on Nicolaes, who throughout this colloquy had appeared as keen, as interested, as his friend⁠—the blind man went on slowly:

“The Stadtholder’s objective is the molen on the Veluwe.”

“What? From Ede!” Nicolaes exclaimed.

“No, no! Have I not said that the attack on Ede would be a feint? It will be the Stadtholder himself who, with a comparatively small force, will push on toward Barneveld and the molen, and at once cut off all communication between Ede and Amersfoort.”

“I understand,” Stoutenburg rejoined, with a grave nod. “But if it is a small force we can easily⁠—”

“You can now,” Diogenes assented coolly, “since you are warned.”

“Quite right! Eh, friend Nicolaes?” his lordship retorted, and strove to let his harsh voice express a world of withering contempt. “If all this is not a trick you varlet hath served us well. What say you? Shall we let him go to hell his own way, and save the hangman a deal of pother?”

“If it all prove true,” Nicolaes put in cautiously. “But what proof have we?”

“None, in truth. Nor would I let this craven vagabond out of Jan’s sight until we do make sure that he hath not lied. But there’ll be no harm in being prepared. Here, sirrah!” his lordship continued, once more addressing the blind man. “With how strong a force doth the Stadtholder propose to cut us off from Ede?”

But, during this brief colloquy between the two friends, the blind man had begun to nod. His head fell forward on his chest, the heavy lids veiled the stricken eyes, and anon a peaceable snore came through the partially open mouth. Stoutenburg swore, as was his wont, the moment his choler was roused, and Jan shook the prisoner roughly by the shoulder.

“Eh? Eh? What?” the latter queried, blinked his sightless eyes, and turned a pale and startled face vaguely from side to side. “What is it? Where’s that confounded⁠—?

“Answer his lordship’s question!” Jan commanded briefly.

“Question? What question? Your lordship must forgive me. I am so fatigued, and that tankard of⁠—”

“I asked thee, knave,” Stoutenburg broke in impatiently, “with how strong a force the Stadtholder proposed to cut us off from Ede?”

“Call it four thousand, my lord,” the blind man babbled, “and let me go to sleep.”

“You shall sleep till Judgement Day when I’ve done with you, sirrah! Will