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The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series

R >> Rafael Sabatini >> The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series




"Nay," said Sir Lewis, "I am not yet bidden to escort you. But as
Vice-Admiral of Devon I may at any moment be so bidden. It were
wiser, I hold, not to await such an order. Though even if it
come," he made haste to add, "you may still count upon my
friendship. I am your kinsman first, and Vice-Admiral after."

With a smile that irradiated his handsome, virile countenance,
Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin's in token of
appreciation. Captain King expressed no opinion save what might
be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug.

Guided now unreservedly by his cousin's counsel, Sir Walter set
out with him upon that journey to London. Captain King went with
them, as well as Sir Walter's body-servant, Cotterell, and a
Frenchman named Manourie, who had made his first appearance in
the Plymouth household on the previous day. Stukeley explained
the fellow as a gifted man of medicine, whom he had sent for to
cure him of a trivial but inconvenient ailment by which he was
afflicted.

Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, they came
at last to Brentford. Sir Walter, had he followed his own bent,
would have journeyed more slowly still, for in a measure, as he
neared London, apprehensions of what might await him there grew
ever darker. He spoke of them to King, and the blunt Captain said
nothing to dispel them.

"You are being led like a sheep to the shambles," he declared,
"and you go like a sheep. You should have landed in France, where
you have friends. Even now it is not too late. A ship could be
procured . . ."

"And my honour could be sunk at sea," Sir Walter harshly
concluded, in reproof of such counsel.

But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a visitor, who
brought him the like advice in rather different terms. This was
De Chesne, the secretary of the French envoy, Le Clerc. Cordially
welcomed by Ralegh, the Frenchman expressed his deep concern to
see Sir Walter under arrest.

"You conclude too hastily," laughed Sir Walter.

"Monsieur, I do not conclude. I speak of what I am inform'."

"Misinformed, sir. I am not a prisoner--at least, not yet," he
added, with a sigh. "I travel of my own free will to London with
my good friend and kinsman Stukeley to lay the account of my
voyage before the King."

"Of your own free will? You travel of your own frets will? And
you are not a prisoner? Ha !" There was bitter mockery in De
Chesne's short laugh. "C'est bien drole!" And he explained:
"Milord the Duke o Buckingham, he has write in his master's name
to the ambassador Gondomar that you are taken and held at the
disposal of the King of Spain. Gondomar is to inform him whether
King Philip wish that you be sent to Spain to essay the justice
of his Catholic Majesty, or that you suffer here. Meanwhile your
quarters are being made ready in the Tower. Yet you tell me you
are not prisoner! You go of your own free will to London. Sir
Walter, do not be deceive'. If you reach London, you are lost."

Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter's last illusion. Yet
desperately he clung to the fragments of it. The envoy's secretary
must be at fault.

"'Tis yourself are at fault, Sir Walter, in that you trust those
about you," the Frenchman insisted.

Sir Walter stared at him, frowning. "D'ye mean Stukeley?" quoth
he, half-indignant already at the mere suggestion.

"Sir Lewis, he is your kinsman." De Chesne shrugged. "You should
know your family better than I. But who is this Manourie who
accompanies you? Where is he come from? What you know of him?"

Sir Walter confessed that he knew nothing.

"But I know much. He is a fellow of evil reputation. A spy who
does not scruple to sell his own people. And I know that letters
of commission from the Privy Council for your arrest were give'
to him in London ten days ago. Whether those letters were to
himself, or he was just the messenger to another, imports
nothing. The fact is everything. The warrant against you exists,
and it is in the hands of one or another of those that accompany
you. I say no more. As I have tol' you, you should know your own
family. But of this be sure, they mean that you go to the Tower,
and so to your death. And now, Sir Walter, if I show you the
disease I also bring the remedy. I am command' by my master to
offer you a French barque which is in the Thames, and a safe
conduct to the Governor of Calais. In France you will find safety
and honour, as your worth deserve'."

Up sprang Sir Walter from his chair, and flung off the cloak of
thought in which he had been mantled.

"Impossible," he said. "Impossible! There is my plighted word to
return, and there are my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who are
sureties for me. I cannot leave them to suffer by my default."

"They will not suffer at all," De Chesne assured him. He was very
well informed. "King James has yielded to Spain partly because he
fears, partly because he will have a Spanish marriage for Prince
Charles, and will do nothing to trouble his good relations with
King Philip. But, after all, you have friends, whom his Majesty
also fears. If you escape' you would resolve all his perplexities.
I do not believe that any obstacle will be offer' to your escape--
else why they permit you to travel thus without any guard, and to
retain your sword?"

Half distracted as he was by what he had learnt, yet Sir Walter
clung stoutly and obstinately to what he believed to be the only
course for a man of honour. And so he dismissed De Chesne with
messages of gratitude but refusal to his master, and sent for
Captain King. Together they considered all that the secretary had
stated, and King agreed with De Chesne's implied opinion that it
was Sir Lewis himself who held the warrant.

They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed him with
it. Sir Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when King thereupon
charged him with deceit he showed no anger, but only the
profoundest grief. He sank into a chair, and took his head in his
hands.

"What could I do? What could I do?" he cried. "The warrant came
in the very moment we were setting out. At first I thought of
telling you; and then I bethought me that to do so would be but
to trouble your mind, without being able to offer you help."

Sir Walter understood what was implied. "Did you not say," he
asked, "that you were my kinsman first and Vice-Admiral of Devon
after?"

"Ay--and so I am. Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral,
which has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape,
I'd never hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as
closely as he watches you, and would baulk us at the last. And
that is why I have held my peace on the score of this warrant.
What can it help that I should trouble you with the matter until
at the same time I can offer you some way out?"

"The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit," said the
downright King.

"So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them," returned
Sir Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first
argument, using now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity
that Sir Walter was convinced. He was no less convinced, too, of
the peril in which he stood. He plied those wits of his, which
had rarely failed him in an extremity. Manourie was the
difficulty. But in his time he had known many of these agents
who, without sentimental interest and purely for the sake of
gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had he known
one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he desired
Manourie's company in the room above stairs that had been set
apart for Sir Walter's use. Facing him across the table at which
both were seated, Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the
board, and, suddenly opening it, dazzled the Frenchman's beady
eyes with the jewel sparkling in his palm.

"Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?"

Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, sharp-
featured fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into Sir Walter's
grimly smiling eyes, then again at the white diamond, from which
the candlelight was striking every colour of the rainbow. He made
a shrewd estimate of its price, and shook his black head. He had
quite recovered from the shock of Sir Walter's question.

"Not half as much," he confessed, with impudence.

"Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me," said the
knight. "This jewel is to be earned."

The agent's eyes flickered; he passed his tongue over his lips.
"As how?" quoth he.

"Briefly thus: I have but learnt of the trammel in which I am
taken. I must have time to concert my measures of escape, and
time is almost at an end. You are skilled in drugs, so my kinsman
tells me. Can you so drug me as to deceive physicians that I am
in extremis?"

Manourie considered awhile.

"I . . . I think I could," he answered presently.

"And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say .. two such
stones?"

The venal knave gasped in amazement. This was not generosity; it
was prodigality. He recovered again, and swore himself Sir
Walter's.

"About it, then." Sir Walter rolled the gem across the board into
the clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it. "Keep that in
earnest. The other will follow when we have cozened them."

Next morning Sir Walter could not resume the journey. When
Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken with
vomits, and reeling like a drunkard. The valet ran to fetch Sir
Lewis, and when they returned together they found Sir Walter on
all fours gnawing the rushes on the floor, his face livid and
horribly distorted, his brow glistening with sweat.

Stukeley, in alarm, ordered Cotterell to get his master back to
bed and to foment him, which was done. But on the next day there
was no improvement, and on the third things were in far more
serious case. The skin of his brow and arms and breast was
inflamed, and covered with horrible purple blotches--the result
of an otherwise harmless ointment with which the French empiric
had supplied him.

When Stukeley beheld him thus disfigured, and lying apparently
inert and but half-conscious upon his bed, he backed away in
terror. The Vice-Admiral had seen afore-time the horrible
manifestations of the plague, and could not be mistaken here. He
fled from the infected air of his kinsman's chamber, and summoned
what physicians were available to pronounce and prescribe. The
physicians came--three in number--but manifested no eagerness to
approach the patient closely. The mere sight of him was enough to
lead them to the decision that he was afflicted with the plague
in a singularly virulent form.

Presently one of them plucked up courage so far as to feel the
pulse of the apparently delirious patient. Its feebleness
confirmed his diagnosis; moreover the hand he held was cold and
turgid. He was not to know that Sir Walter had tightly wrapped
about his upper arm the ribbon from his poniard, and so he was
entirely deceived.

The physicians withdrew, and delivered their verdict, whereupon
Sir Lewis at once sent word of it to the Privy Council.

That afternoon the faithful Captain King, sorely afflicted by the
news, came to visit his master, and was introduced to Sir Walter's
chamber by Manourie, who was in attendance upon him. To the seaman's
amazement he found Sir Walter sitting up in bed, surveying in a
hand-mirror a face that was horrible beyond description with the
complacent smile of one who takes satisfaction in his appearance.
Yet there was no fevered madness in the smiling eyes. They were
alive with intelligence, amounting, indeed, to craft.

"Ah, King!" was the glad welcome "The prophet David did make
himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to
escape from the hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay,
and others as memorable who have descended to such artifice."

Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to excuse an
unworthiness of which he was conscious.

"Artifice?" quoth King, aghast. "Is this artifice?"

"Ay--a hedge against my enemies, who will be afraid to approach
me."

King sat himself down by his master's bed. "A better hedge
against your enemies, Sir Walter, would have been the strip of
sea 'twixt here and France. Would to Heaven you had done as I
advised ere you set foot in this ungrateful land."

"The omission may be repaired," said Sir Walter.

Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to him, Sir
Walter had been reconsidering De Chesne's assurance touching my
Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, and he had come to conclude--the
more readily, perhaps because it was as he would have it--that De
Chesne was right; that to break faith with them were no such
great matter after all, nor one for which they would be called
upon to suffer. And so, now, when it was all but too late, he
yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and consented to save
himself by flight to France. King was to go about the business of
procuring a ship without loss of time. Yet there was no need of
desperate haste, as was shown when presently orders came to
Brentford for the disposal of the prisoner. The King, who was at
Salisbury, desired that Sir Walter should be conveyed to his own
house in London. Stukeley reported this to him, proclaiming it a
sign of royal favour. Sir Walter was not deceived. He knew the
reason to be fear lest he should infect the Tower with the plague
by which he was reported stricken.

So the journey was resumed, and Sir Walter was brought to London,
and safely bestowed in his own house, but ever in the care of his
loving friend and kinsman. Manourie's part being fulfilled and
the aim accomplished, Sir Walter completed the promised payment
by bestowing upon him the second diamond--a form of eminently
portable currency with which the knight was well supplied. On the
morrow Manourie was gone, dismissed as a consequence of the part
he had played.

It was Stukeley who told Sir Walter this--a very well informed
and injured Stukeley, who asked to know what he had done to
forfeit the knight's confidence that behind his back Sir Walter
secretly concerted means of escape. Had his cousin ceased to
trust him?

Sir Walter wondered. Looking into that lean, crafty face, he
considered King's unquenchable mistrust of the man, bethought him
of his kinsman's general neediness, remembered past events that
shed light upon his ways and nature, and began now at last to have
a sense of the man's hypocrisy and double-dealing. Yet he reasoned
in regard to him precisely as he had reasoned in regard to Manourie.
The fellow was acquisitive, and therefore corruptible. If, indeed,
he was so base that he had been bought to betray Sir Walter, then
he could be bought again to betray those who had so bought him.

"Nay, nay," said Sir Walter easily. "It is not lack of trust in
you, my good friend. But you are the holder of an office, and
knowing as I do the upright honesty of your character I feared to
embarrass you with things whose very knowledge must give you the
parlous choice of being false to that office or false to me."

Stukeley broke forth into imprecations. He was, he vowed, the
most accursed and miserable of men that such a task as this
should have fallen to his lot. And he was a poor man, too,
he would have his cousin remember. It was unthinkable that he
should use the knowledge he had gained to attempt to frustrate
Sir Walter's plans of escape to France. And this notwithstanding
that if Sir Walter escaped, it is certain he would lose his
office of Vice-Admiral and the six hundred pounds he had paid for
it.

"As to that, you shall be at no loss," Sir Walter assured him. "I
could not suffer it. I pledge you my honour, Lewis, that you
shall have a thousand pounds from my wife on the day that I am
safely landed in France or Holland. Meanwhile, in earnest of what
is to come, here is a toy of value for you." And he presented Sir
Lewis with a jewel of price, a great ruby encrusted in diamonds.

Thus reassured that he would be immune from pecuniary loss, Sir
Lewis was ready to throw himself whole-heartedly into Sir
Walter's plans, and to render him all possible assistance. True,
this assistance was a costly matter; there was this person to be
bought and that one; there were expenses here and expenses there,
incurred by Sir Lewis on his kinsman's behalf; and there were odd
presents, too, which Stukeley seemed to expect and which Sir
Walter could not deny him. He had no illusions now that King had
been right; that here he was dealing with a rogue who would exact
the uttermost farthing for his services, but he was gratified at
the shrewdness with which he had taken his cousin's measure, and
did not grudge the bribes by which he was to escape the scaffold.

De Chesne came again to the house in London, to renew his
master's offer of a ship to carry Sir Walter overseas, and such
other assistance as Sir Walter might require But by now the
knight's arrangements were complete. His servant Cotterell had
come to inform him that his own boatswain, now in London, was the
owner of a ketch, at present lying at Tilbury, admirably suited
for the enterprise and entirely at Sir Walter's disposal. It had
been decided, then, with the agreement of Captain King, that they
should avail themselves of this; and accordingly Cotterell was
bidden desire the boatswain to have the craft made ready for sea
at once. In view of this, and anxious to avoid unnecessarily
compromising the French envoy, Sir Walter gratefully declined the
latter's offer.

And so we come at last to that July evening appointed for the
flight. Ralegh, who, having for some time discarded the use of
Manourie's ointment, had practically recovered his normal
appearance, covering his long white hair under a Spanish hat, and
muffling the half of his face in the folds of a cloak, came to
Wapping Stairs--that ill-omened place of execution of pirates and
sea-rovers--accompanied by Cotterell, who carried the knight's
cloak-bag, and by Sir Lewis and Sir Lewis's son. Out of
solicitude for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could
not part from him until he was safely launched upon his voyage.
At the head of the stairs they were met by Captain King; at the
foot of them a boat was waiting, as concerted, the boatswain at
the tiller.

King greeted them with an air of obvious relief.

"You feared perhaps we should not come," said Stukeley, with a
sneer at the Captain's avowed mistrust of him. "Yet now, I trust,
you'll do me the justice to admit that I have shown myself an
honest man."

The uncompromising King looked at him and frowned, misliking the
words.

"I hope that you'll continue so," he answered stiffly.

They went down the slippery steps to the boat, and then the shore
glided slowly past them as they pushed off into the stream of the
ebbing tide.

A moment later, King, whose suspicious eyes kept a sharp look-
out, observed another boat put off some two hundred yards higher
up the river. At first he saw it breast the stream as if
proceeding towards London Bridge, then abruptly swing about and
follow them. Instantly he drew the attention of Sir Walter to
that pursuing wherry.

"What's this?" quoth Sir Walter harshly. "Are we betrayed?"

The watermen, taking fright at the words, hung now upon their
oars.

"Put back," Sir Walter bade them. "I'll not betray my friends to
no purpose. Put back, and let us home again."

"Nay, now," said Stukeley gravely, himself watching the wherry.
"We are more than a match for them in oars, even if their purpose
be such as you suspect--for which suspicion, when all is said,
there is no ground. On then!" He addressed himself to the
watermen, whipping out a pistol, and growing truculent in mien
and voice. "To your oars! Row, you dogs, or I'll pistol you where
you sit."

The men bent their backs forthwith, and the boat swept on. But
Sir Walter was still full of apprehensions, still questioning the
wisdom of keeping to their down-stream course if they were being
followed.

"But are we followed?" cried the impatient Sir Lewis. "'Sdeath,
cousin, is not the river a highway for all the world to use, and
must every wherry that chances to go our way be in pursuit of us?
If you are to halt at every shadow, faith, you'll never
accomplish anything. I vow I am unfortunate in having a friend
whom I would save so full of doubts and fears."

Sir Walter gave him reason, and even King came to conclude that
he had suspected him unjustly, whilst the rowers, under
Stukeley's suasion, now threw themselves heartily into their
task, and onward sped the boat through the deepening night,
taking but little account of that other wherry that hung ever in
their wake. In this wise they came at length to Greenwich on the
last of the ebb. But here finding the water beginning to grow
against them, and wearied by the exertion into which Stukeley's
enthusiasm had flogged them, the watermen paused again, declaring
that they could not reach Gravesend before morning.

Followed a brief discussion, at the end of which Sir Walter bade
them put him ashore at Purfleet.

"And that's the soundest counsel," quoth the boatswain. "For at
Purfleet we can get horses on to Tilbury."

Stukeley was of the same opinion; but not so the more practical
Captain King.

"'Tis useless," he declared to them. "At this hour how shall you
get horses to go by land?"

And now, Sir Walter, looking over his shoulder, saw the other
wherry bearing down upon them through the faintly opalescent
mists of dawn. A hail came to them across the water.

"Oh, 'Sdeath! We are betrayed!" cried Ralegh bitterly, and
Stukeley swore more fiercely still. Sir Walter turned to him.
"Put ashore," he said shortly, "and let us home."

"Ay, perhaps 'twere best. For to-night there's an end to the
enterprise, and if I am taken in your company now, what shall be
said to me for this active assistance in your escape?" His voice
was gloomy, his face drawn and white.

"Could you not plead that you had but pretended to go with me to
seize on my private papers?" suggested the ingenious mind of
Ralegh.

"I could. But shall I be believed? Shall I?" His loom was
deepening to despair.

Ralegh was stricken almost with remorse on his cousin's account.
His generous heart was now more concerned with the harm to his
friends than with his own doom. He desired to make amends to
Stukeley, but had no means save such as lay in the power of that
currency he used. Having naught else to give, he must give that.
He plunged his hand into an inner pocket, and brought forth a
handful of jewels, which he thrust upon his kinsman.

"Courage," he urged him. "Up now, and we may yet win out and
home, so that all will be well with you at least, and you shall
not suffer for your friendship to me."

Stukeley embraced him then, protesting his love and desire to
serve him.

They came to land at last, just below Greenwich bridge, and
almost at the same moment the other wherry grounded immediately
above them. Men sprang from her, with the obvious intent of
cutting off their retreat.

"Too late!" said Ralegh, and sighed, entirely without passion
now that the dice had fallen and showed that the game was lost.
"You must act on my suggestion to explain your presence, Lewis."

"Indeed, there is no other course," Sir Lewis agreed. "And you are
in the same case, Captain King. You must confess that you joined
with me but to betray Sir Walter. I'll bear you out. Thus, each
supporting the other . . ."

"I'll roast in Hell before I brand myself a traitor," roared the
Captain furiously. "And were you an honest man, Sir Lewis, you'ld
understand my meaning."

"So, so?" said Stukeley, in a quiet, wicked voice. And it was
observed that his son and one or two of the watermen had taken
their stand beside him as if in readiness for action. "Why, then,
since you will have it so, Captain, I arrest you, in the King's
name, on a charge of abetting treason."

The Captain fell back a step, stricken a moment by sheer
amazement. Then he groped for a pistol to do at last what he
realized he should have done long since. Instantly he was
overpowered. It was only then that Sir Walter understood the
thing that had happened, and with understanding came fury. The
old adventurer flung back his cloak, and snatched at his rapier
to put it through the vitals of his dear friend and kinsman. But
he was too late. Hands seized upon him, and he found himself held
by the men from the wherry, confronted by a Mr. William Herbert,
whom he knew for Stukeley's cousin, and he heard Mr. Herbert
formally asking him for the surrender of his sword.

Instantly he governed himself, repressed his fury. He looked
coldly at his kinsman, whose face showed white and evil in the
growing light of the early summer dawn "Sir Lewis," was all he
said, "these actions will not turn out to your credit."

He had no illusion left. His understanding was now a very full
one. His dear friend and kinsman had played him false throughout,
intending first to drain him of his resources before finally
flinging the empty husk to the executioner. Manourie had been in
the plot; he had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds;
and Sir Walter's own servant Cotterell had done no less. Amongst
them they had "cozened the great cozener"--to use Stukeley's own
cynical expression. Even so, it was only on his trial that Sir
Walter plumbed the full depth of Stukeley's baseness; for it was
only then he learnt that his kinsman had been armed by a warrant
of immunity to assist his projects of escape, so that he might
the more effectively incriminate and betray him; and Sir Walter
discovered also that the ship in which he had landed, and other
matters, were to provide additional Judas' fees to this
acquisitive betrayer.

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