MEANWHILE the crowd in the Place below went on increasing. Some cried one thing, some another. Austen and Marie, or at least Marie, gave little heed to them. The awful strain began to tell upon her. Her thoughts grew confused; horrors, past, present, and to come, coursed wildly through her and then gradually grew confused and dim, no longer realized in their full force. More and more all thought, all feeling gravitated towards one center—the agonizing wish for her brother’s return. He would know what to do. She, like him, was able to rise at a sudden call to an unexpected height of heroism, but she resembled him also in the reaction sure to follow.
She was going over to herself, in a kind of dull half stupor, the words she would say to him to explain all—when Austen turned suddenly, rushed at the locked door between the two rooms, burst it open with his foot, and was free.
She had not thought of securing the other door of the inner room, Adrian’s study. Austen sprang, not downstairs, but up, with the speed of lightning. Quickly as she followed him, he was nowhere to be seen; she searched in vain through the upper rooms. She did not think, indeed she did not know, of the window through which Marchemont had once escaped from his pursuers, climbing out upon the roof. It seemed Austen did: —it must have been very difficult for him to climb on account of his disabled arm, but what will not a man do for his life?
Marie believed afterward that during part of that terrible day she actually was, what Austen called her, mad. She began to be haunted with the thought that she was herself an accomplice in his crime, and that her brother would kill her when he knew it. Or was it Edward who would kill her, or was it she herself who had killed Edward? Only one thing was stamped in letters of fire upon her bewildered brain—she must tell all to Adrian, and to Adrian alone. No one else could understand, or judge her.
By and by she heard steps and voices, Neeltje’s, Dame Catherine’s, and others. Determined to escape them all, she bolted herself into her own sleeping room, knelt down by the side of her bed and waited. Few words of prayer, or none, passed her lips; but she had a dim feeling that, by taking the attitude of prayer, she was in some sort making her appeal to the mercy of God.
The day drew to a close, but she neither stirred from her place, nor noticed the growing darkness. People came to the door, knocked, shook it, called to her, but she gave no heed. They cried to her through the key-hole— she did not understand what they said. At last she heard the step and the voice that all her faculties were absorbed in watching for. She rose, and opened the door. Adrian came in, a small lamp which he carried showing his tired, anxious face. ‘Brother,’ she said in a strange, hard voice quite unlike her own, ‘Brother, Austen Wallingford helped to kill him.’
‘But he is not dead, thank God!’ said Adrian.
Marie raised her hand to her head in a bewildered way. ‘Was it then all a horrible dream?’ she asked. ‘Has not the Prince been shot?’
‘Yes—but, thank God, he lives still!’ Adrian said, laying down his lamp on the one chair the room contained. Then first he saw his sister’s face. ‘Marie, you look like death. Sit down yonder on your bed, and I will tell you all. I have been till now at the Prinsen-hof, with the other physicians.’
‘But he lives?’ Marie gasped, obeying him.
‘He hovers between life and death. The ball went in at the right cheek and passed out beneath the left ear. But what was that wild word you said about Edward Wallingford?’
‘Not Edward, Austen.’ Then, in a confused, incoherent, disjointed way, Marie poured out her story. Adrian listened with growing amazement and with growing horror. Still, he felt instinctively that every word she said was true; he even found in the tale, wild though it seemed, the explanation of much that had been perplexing him of late. Moreover, a fragment of corroborative evidence occurred to his mind. No one had been able to identify the assassin; so his body had been placed on a stretcher, and exposed in the Square to await recognition. Adrian at once saw in him the ill-looking youth who had brought him the tidings of Wallingford’s broken arm, and whom he understood to be a clerk in the employment of the Spanish merchant, Anastro.
‘I locked the traitor in, till you should come,’ Marie concluded, ‘and I stayed by him, lest he should escape through the window, and the people below, not knowing the truth, should let him pass. Because I thought you could make him tell everything.’
‘My poor little sister!’ Adrian said, with deepest pity. ‘So weak, yet so strong.’
Marie burst suddenly into a passion of tears, at the sight of which Adrian was exceedingly glad.
‘Weak—weak!’ she wailed, wringing her hands. ‘Adrian, you ought to kill me: I have betrayed the Prince. But how could I ever dream he was planning such villainy as that? —I would not have kept silence, no, not a moment. I had rather Edward died a hundred times—so would he!’
Adrian sought to comfort her. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘it is not proved that this Jesuit spy and traitor was concerned in the plot at all. Though a double-dyed villain indeed he must be!—We will have him sought for everywhere. But trust in God, my poor Marie, there can nothing happen without His will.’
She grew a little calmer in appearance. ‘Tell me, I pray thee,’ she said, ‘is there any hope?’
In Adrian’s own heart there was none. But he would not tell her so. ‘God only knows,’ he said.
‘And that sweet lady who was so kind to us in Utrecht, how is she bearing it?’ Marie asked, raising herself, and looking at him.
Then he saw with dismay that her eyes were wild, and her cheeks burning. ‘She will be in a fever to-morrow,’ he thought as physician. ‘And unable to give her evidence,’ he added as patriot. ‘Lie down, dear sister,’ he said to her soothingly. ‘Keep still, and try to rest.’
‘If you would tell me all about it, perhaps I might rest,’ she answered excitedly. ‘I cannot rest now for fancying things. The Princess?’
‘Told at the first that he was dead, the Princess swooned repeatedly, and they that saw her, with the poor little children weeping round her, could not restrain their tears—though lunch need there was, and is, for self-control in all of us. But when at last she was made to understand that he lived, and was conscious —then, Marie, she rose up calm and brave, as such women will. God giving her strength, she took the place that belongs to the true wife, whether of prince or peasant, by her husband’s side. There she sits now, and will sit through the long watches of this night—which may be his last on earth.’ And Adrian found himself suddenly, to his own amazement, choking with sobs.
With a strong effort he recovered his composure. ‘Pray for him, and for her!’ he said. ‘And, I entreat of thee, try to sleep. As for me, I must go forth again.’
‘Stay, brother. In pity, tell me more. Tell me truly how it all happened. Else shall I do nothing all night but make pictures of it in my brain.’
Adrian thought it might be best to do so. He sat down again, and spoke slowly and quietly. As his wont is on Sundays, the Prince dined in public, many guests, French and Flemish, the Burgomaster among them, being there, and also young Count Maurice and his cousins. Dinner was over, and the Prince going forth from the hall, when he stopped show some of the tapestry to M. de Laval, from whose lips I have the story. Then the murderer stepped forward, petition in his hand. As the Prince was taking it, he drew a pistol from under his cloak, and fired so close to his head that the flame burned his face. For an instant he stood as one stunned, but as soon as he knew he had been shot, he cried aloud, “Do not kill him; I forgive him my death,” his first instinctive thought being for his murderer. Then he grew faint, and those around him supported him in their arms. Yet he had still strength to say to the Burgomaster, “If God is calling me hence, I submit with patience to His will, and I commend my wife and children unto you.” Later, they laid him on his bed, and examined and dressed his wound. They found a strange thing. Death must have followed immediately, had not the murderer held the pistol so close that the flame of it actually cauterized the wound, preventing, for the time, a fatal hæmorrhage. But I must needs go now. Put your trust in God, who is above all—and pray. Dame Catherine and Neeltje will watch over you.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where, but back again to the Prinsen-hof? I have been told to be at hand. I may be wanted.’
He did not care to say that he was going first to the Town Hall, to tell Marie’s story to the Council, who would sit all night. ‘Where is Dirk?’
‘He has volunteered for the extra town guard, to help in keeping the peace. The town is in a state of excitement I cannot describe. A few hours ago there was terrible danger of a massacre of Frenchmen and Papists. That is over; thanks to St. Aldegonde’s firmness and presence of mind, and to the reassuring words the Prince contrived to write, being forbidden to speak, on peril of his life. Once more farewell, my sister.’ He stooped down, kissed her, and left the room. Meeting Neeltje below stairs, he exhorted her to take good care of Juffrouw Marie, who was; and was himself exhorted, by the faithful handmaiden, to partake of some food before going out again.
‘It’s ill marketing with empty pockets, and worse working supperless,’ said she.
Not many eyes closed in sleep that night. Some were kept awake by selfish fears, others by the imperative claims of duty. If one most precious life must be sacrificed, still it should be only one. Antwerp should not be the scene of a second. St. Bartholomew, in which Frenchmen and Catholics would be victims not murderers, if St. Aldegonde and Duplessis Mornay, and the Burgomaster and the Guard, above all, if the Prince himself, even with the touch of a dying hand, could prevent it.
It was prevented. And thus most of the wakeful eyes in Antwerp were held from sleep by no thought of personal danger, bit by love and sympathy, as the eyes of children who watch beside a dying father.
Meanwhile, over that chamber in the Prinsen-hof, where the lights burned low and hushed footsteps came and went, the angel of death was hovering. Charlotte of Bourbon and the friend that was to her as a sister, Madame Duplessis Mornay, kept their unceasing ward, and stayed their sinking hearts with prayer. The Prince was fully conscious and occupied, as ever, with the welfare of others. He wrote, with his feeble hand, imploring the people, in case God should call him to Himself, to ‘hold him in kind remembrance; to make no tumult; and to serve the Duke obediently and faithfully.’ Upon this obedience to the Duke he insisted once and again. He thought it essential to the deliverance of ‘this poor people,’ dearer to him than life.
But for himself, was he not about to enter the presence a greater Sovereign than Duke, or King, or Emperor? Those around, who loved him as prince or peasant has been seldom loved, still dared to hope for his life. He did not hope. Suddenly, as he thought, in the midst of toils and cares, of mighty plans and vast achievements, he thought he heard the call, ‘Arise, and go hence.’ He saw death face to face; but he was not afraid, for beyond the face of death he saw the Face of Christ.
Once indeed a shadow crossed that calm serenity. Breaking through the absolute command of his physician, he spoke. With death so near, what could it matter now? He had been like David, a man of war from his youth, and as he thought of appearing before God, a question arose in his heart which must needs find utterance. ‘How,’ said he, ‘shall I render account for all the blood I have been the means of shedding?’
His chaplain, De Villiers, was at hand, and spoke words to comfort. The blood shed in earlier years was at the command of his own sovereign, with whom therefore the, responsibility rested. Later, he was fighting in a righteous cause, in defense of religion and liberty.
But he felt the insufficiency of all such comfort, and turned from it instinctively, as deep souls will. ‘Unto mercy, M. de Villiers, my friend! Unto mercy, unto mercy! That is my refuge—and there is no other.’