The Story of Francis Cludde

Penruddocke saved me by a buffet which sent me reeling against the wall, so that the villain's thrust was spent on air. Before he could repeat it, four or five men flung themselves upon him from behind. For a moment there was a great uproar, while the group surrounding him swayed to and fro as he dragged his captors up and down with a strength I should not have expected. But the end was certain, and we stood looking on quietly. In a minute or two they had him down, and disarming him, bound his hands.

For me he seemed to have a special hatred. "Curse you!" he panted, glaring at me as he lay helpless. "You have been my evil angel! From the first day I saw you, you have thwarted me in every plan, and now you have brought me to this!"

"Not I, but yourself," I answered.

"My curse upon you!" he cried again, the rage and hate in his face so terrible that I turned away shuddering and sick at heart. "If I could have killed you," he cried, "I would have died contented."

"Enough!" interposed Penruddocke briskly. "It is well for us that Master Bertie and his friend came here to-night. Heaven grant it be not too late! We do not need," he added, looking round, "any more evidence, I think?"

The dissent was loud, and, save for Kingston, who still sat sulking apart, unanimous.

"Death?" said the Cornishman quietly.

No one spoke, but each man gave a brief stern nod.

"Very well," the leader continued; "then I propose-"

"One moment," said Master Bertie, interrupting him. "A word with you apart, with our friends' permission. You can repeat it to them afterward."

He drew Sir Thomas aside, and they retired into the corner by the door, where they stood talking in whispers. I had small reason to feel sympathy for the man who lay there tied and doomed to die like a calf. Yet even I shuddered-yes, and some of the hardened men round me shuddered also at the awful expression in his eyes as, without moving his head, he followed the motions of the two by the door. Some faint hope springing into being wrung his soul, and brought the perspiration in great drops to his forehead. I turned away, thinking gravely of the early morning three years ago when he had tortured me by the very same hopes and fears which now racked his own spirit.

Penruddocke came back, Master Bertie following him.

"It must not be done to-night," he announced quietly, with a nod which meant that he would explain the reason afterward. "We will meet again to-morrow at four in the afternoon instead of at eight in the evening. Until then two must remain on guard with him. It is right he should have some time to repent, and he shall have it."

This did not at once find favor.

"Why not run him through now?" said one bluntly. "And meet to-morrow at some place unknown to him? If we come here again we shall, likely enough, walk straight into the trap."

"Well, have it that way, if you please," answered Sir Thomas, shrugging his shoulders. "But do not blame me afterward if you find we have let slip a golden opportunity. Be fools if you like. I dare say it will not make much difference in the end!"

He spoke at random, but he knew how to deal with his crew, it seemed, for on this those who had objected assented reluctantly to the course he proposed. "Barnes and Walters are here in hiding, so they had better be the two to guard him," he continued. "There is no fear that they will be inclined to let him go!" I looked at the men whom the glances of their fellows singled out, and found them to belong to the little knot of fanatics I had before remarked: dark, stern men, worth, if the matter ever came to fighting, all the rest of the band put together.

"At four, to-morrow, then, we meet," Sir Thomas concluded lightly. "Then we will deal with him, never fear! Now it is near midnight, and we must be going. But not all together, or we shall attract attention."

Half an hour later Master Bertie and I rode softly out of the courtyard and turned our faces toward the city. The night wind came sweeping across the valley of the Thames, and met us full in the face as we reached the brow of the hill. It seemed laden with melancholy whispers. The wretched enterprise, ill-conceived, ill-ordered, and in its very nature desperate, to which we were in honor committed, would have accounted of itself for any degree of foreboding. But the scene through which we had just passed, and on my part the knowledge that I had given up a fellow-being to death, had their depressing influences. For some distance we rode in silence, which I was the first to break.

"Why did you put off his punishment?" I asked.

"Because I think he will give us information in the interval," Bertie answered briefly. "Information which may help us. A spy is generally ready to betray his own side upon occasion."

"And you will spare him if he does?" I asked. It seemed to me neither justice nor mercy.

"No," he said, "there is no fear of that. Those who go with ropes round their necks know no mercy. But drowning men will catch at straws; and ten to one he will babble!"

I shivered. "It is a bad business," I said.

He thought I referred to the conspiracy, and he inveighed bitterly against it, reproaching himself for bringing me into it, and for his folly in believing the rosy accounts of men who had all to win, and nothing save their worthless lives to lose. "There is only one thing gained," he said. "We are likely to pay dearly for that, so we may think the more of it. We have been the means of punishing a villain."

"Yes," I said, "that is true. It was a strange meeting and a strange recognition. Strangest of all that I should be called up to swear with him."

"Not strange," Master Bertie answered gravely. "I would rather call it providential. Let us think of that, and be of better courage, friend. We have been used; we shall not be cast away before our time."

I looked back. For some minutes I had thought I heard behind us a light footstep, more like the pattering of a dog than anything else. I could see nothing, but that was not wonderful, for the moon was young and the sky overcast. "Do you hear some one following us?" I said.

Master Bertie drew rein suddenly, and turning in the saddle we listened. For a second I thought I still heard the sound. The next it ceased, and only the wind toying with the November leaves and sighing away in the distance, came to our ears. "No," he said, "I think it must have been your fancy. I hear nothing."

But when we rode on the sound began again, though at first more faintly, as if our follower had learned prudence and fallen farther behind. "Do not stop, but listen!" I said softly. "Cannot you hear the pattering of a naked foot now?"

"I hear something," he answered. "I am afraid you are right, and that we are followed."

"What is to be done?" I said, my thoughts busy.

"There is Caen wood in front," he answered, "with a little open ground on this side of it. We will ride under the trees and then stop suddenly. Perhaps we shall be able to distinguish him as he crosses the open behind us." We made the experiment; but as if our follower had divined the plan, his footstep ceased to sound before we had stopped our horses. He had fallen farther behind. "We might ride quickly back," I suggested, "and surprise him."

"It would be useless," Bertie answered. "There is too much cover close to the road. Let us rather trot on and outstrip him."

We did trot on; and what with the tramp of our horses as they swung along the road, and the sharp passage of the wind by our ears, we heard no more of the footstep behind. But when we presently pulled up to breathe our horses-or rather within a few minutes of our doing so-there it was behind us, nearer and louder than before. I shivered as I listened; and presently, acting on a sudden impulse, I wheeled my horse round and spurred him back a dozen paces along the road.

I pulled up.

There was a movement in the shadow of the trees on my right, and I leaned forward, peering in that direction. Gradually, I made out the lines of a figure standing still as though gazing at me; a strange, distorted figure, crooked, short, and in some way, though no lineament of the face was visible, expressive of a strange and weird malevolence. It was the witch! The witch whom I had seen in the kitchen at the Gatehouse. How, then, had she come hither? How had she, old, lame, decrepit, kept up with us?

I trembled as she raised her hand, and, standing otherwise motionless, pointed at me out of the gloom. The horse under me was trembling too, trembling violently, with its ears laid back, and, as she moved, its terror increased, it plunged wildly. I had to give for a moment all my attention to it, and though I tried, in mere revolt against the fear which I felt was overcoming me, to urge it nearer, my efforts were vain. After nearly unseating me, the beast whirled round and, getting the better of me, galloped down the road toward London.

"What is it?" cried Master Bertie, as I came speedily up with him; he had ridden slowly on. "What is the matter?"

"Something in the hedge startled it," I explained, trying to soothe the horse. "I could not clearly see what it was."

"A rabbit, I dare say," he remarked, deceived by my manner.

"Perhaps it was," I answered. Some impulse, not unnatural, led me to say nothing about what I had seen. I was not quite sure that my eyes had not deceived me. I feared his ridicule, too, though he was not very prone to ridicule. And above all I shrank from explaining the medley of superstitious fear, distrust, and abhorrence in which I held the creature who had shown so strange a knowledge of my life.

We were already near Holborn, and reaching without further adventure a modest inn near the Bars, we retired to a room we had engaged, and lay down with none of the gallant hopes which had last night formed the subject of our talk. Yet we slept well, for depression goes better with sleep than does the tumult of anticipation; and I was up early, and down in the yard looking to the horses before London was well awake. As I entered the stable a man lying curled up in the straw rolled lazily over and, shading his eyes, glanced up. Apparently he recognized me, for he got slowly to his feet. "Morning!" he said gruffly.

I stood staring at him, wondering if I had made a mistake.

"What are you doing here, my man?" I said sharply, when I had made certain I knew him, and that he was really the surly ostler from the Gatehouse tavern at Highgate. "Why did you come here? Why have you followed us?"

"Come about your business," he answered. "To give you that."

I took the note he held out to me. "From whom?" I said. "Who sent it by you?"

"Cannot tell," he replied, shaking his head.

"Cannot, or will not?" I retorted.

"Both," he said doggedly. "But there, if you want to know what sort of a kernel is in a nut, you don't shake the tree, master-you crack the nut."

I looked at the note he had given me. It was but a slip of paper folded thrice. The sender had not addressed, or sealed, or fastened it in anyway; had taken no care either to insure its reaching its destination or to prevent prying eyes seeing the contents. If one of our associates had sent it, he had been guilty of the grossest carelessness. "You are sure it is for me?" I said.

"As sure as mortal can be," he answered. "Only that it was given me for a man, and not a mouse! You are not afraid, master?"

I was not; but he edged away as he spoke, and looked with so much alarm at the scrap of paper that it was abundantly clear he was very much afraid himself, even while he derided me. I saw that if I had offered to return the note he would have backed out of the stable and gone off there and then as fast as his lame foot would let him. This puzzled me. However, I read the note. There was nothing in it to frighten me. Yet, as I read, the color came into my face, for it contained one name to which I had long been a stranger.

"To Francis Cludde," it ran. "If you would not do a thing of which you will miserably repent all your life, and which will stain you in the eyes of all Christian men, meet me two hours before noon at the cross street by St. Botolph's, where you first saw Mistress Bertram. And tell no one. Fail not to come. In Heaven's name, fail not!"

The note had nothing to do with the conspiracy, then, on the face of it; mysterious as it was, and mysteriously as it came. "Look here!" I said to the man. "Tell me who sent it, and I will give you a crown."

"I would not tell you," he answered stubbornly, "if you could make me King of England! No, nor King of Spain too! You might rack me and you would not get it from me!"

His one eye glowed with so obstinate a resolve that I gave up the attempt to persuade him, and turned to examine the message itself. But here I fared no better. I did not know the handwriting, and there was no peculiarity in the paper. I was no wiser than before. "Are you to take back any answer?" I said.

"No," he replied, "the saints be thanked for the same! But you will bear me witness," he went on anxiously, "that I gave you the letter. You will not forget that, or say that you have not had it? But there!" he added to himself as he turned away, speaking in a low voice, so that I barely caught the sense of the words, "what is the use? she will know!"

She will know! It had something to do with a woman then, even if a woman were not the writer. I went in to breakfast in two minds about going. I longed to tell Master Bertie and take his advice, though the unknown had enjoined me not to do so. But for the time I refrained, and explaining my absence of mind as well as I could, I presently stole away on some excuse or other, and started in good time, and on foot, into the city. I reached the rendezvous a quarter of an hour before the time named, and strolling between the church and the baker's shop, tried to look as much like a chance passer-by as I could, keeping the while a wary lookout for any one who might turn out to be my correspondent.

The morning was cold and gray. A drizzling rain was falling. The passers were few, and the appearance of the streets dirty and, with littered kennels, was dreary indeed. I found it hard at once to keep myself warm and to avoid observation as I hung about. Ten o'clock had rung from more than one steeple, and I was beginning to think myself a fool for my pains, when a woman of middle height, slender and young in figure, but wearing a shabby brown cloak, and with her head muffled in a hood, as though she had the toothache or dreaded the weather more than ordinary, turned the corner of the belfry and made straight toward me. She drew near, and seemed about to pass me without notice. But when abreast of me she glanced up suddenly, her eyes the only features I could see.

"Follow me to the church!" she murmured gently. And she swept on to the porch.

I obeyed reluctantly; very reluctantly, my feet seeming like lead. For I knew who she was. Though I had only seen her eyes, I had recognized them, and guessed already what her business with me was. She led the way resolutely to a quiet corner. The church was empty and still, with only the scent of incense in the air to tell of a recent service. It was no surprise to me when she turned abruptly, and, removing her hood, looked me in the face.

"What have you done with him?" she panted, laying her hand on my arm. "Speak! Tell me what you have done with him?"

The question, the very question, I had foreseen! Yet I tried to fence with her. I said, "With whom?"

"With whom?" she repeated bitterly. "You know me! I am not so changed in three years that you do not recognize me?"

"No; I know you," I said.

There was a hectic flush on her cheeks, and it seemed to me that the dark hair was thinner on her thin temples than when I had seen her last. But the eyes were the same.

"Then why ask with whom?" she cried passionately. "What have you done with the man you called Clarence?"

"Done with him?" I said feebly.

"Ay, done with him? Come, speak and tell me!" she repeated in fierce accents, her hand clutching my wrist, her eyes probing my face with merciless glances. "Have you killed him? Tell me!"

"Killed him, Mistress Anne?" I said sullenly. "No, I have not killed him."

"He is alive?" she cried.

"For all I know, he is alive."

She glared at me for some seconds to assure herself that I was telling the truth. Then she heaved a great sigh; her hands fell from my wrists, the color faded out of her face, and she lowered her eyes. I glanced round with a momentary idea of escape-I so shrank from that which was to come. But before I had well entertained the notion she looked up, her face grown calm.

"Then what have you done with him?" she asked.

"I have done nothing with him," I answered.

She laughed; a mirthless laugh. "Bah!" she said, "do not tell me lies! That is your honor, I suppose-your honor to your friends down in the cellar there! Do you think that I do not know all about them? Shall I give you the list? He is a very dangerous conspirator, is Sir Thomas Penruddocke, is he not? And that scented dandy Master Kingston! Or Master Crewdson-tell me of him! Tell me of him, I say!" she exclaimed, with a sudden return from irony to a fierce eagerness, a breathless impatience. "Why did he not come up last night? What have you done with him?"

I shook my head, sick and trembling. How could I tell her?

"I see," she said. "You will not tell me. But you swear he is yet alive, Master Cludde? Good. Then you are holding him for a hostage? Is that it?" with a piercing glance at my face. "Or, you have condemned him, but for some reason the sentence has not been executed!" She drew a long, deep breath, for I fear my face betrayed me. "That is it, is it? Then there is still time."

She turned from me and looked toward the end of the aisle, where a dull red lamp hanging before the altar glowed feebly in the warm scented air. She seemed so to turn and so to look in thankfulness, as if the news she had learned were good instead of what it was. "What is the hour fixed?" she asked suddenly.

I shook my head.

"You will not tell me? Well, it matters not," she answered briskly. "He must be saved. Do you hear? He must be saved, Master Cludde. That is your business."

I shook my head.

"You think it is not?" she said. "Well, I can show you it is! Listen!"

She raised herself on a step of the font, and looked me harshly in the face. "If he be not given up to me safe and sound by sunset this evening, I will betray you all! All! I have the list here," she muttered sternly, touching her bosom. "You, Master Bertie, Penruddocke, Fleming, Barnes-all. All, do you hear? Give him up or you shall hang!"

"You would not do it!" I cried aghast, peering into her burning eyes.

"Would not do it? Fool!" she hissed. "If all the world but he had one head, I would cut it off to save his! He is my husband! Do you hear? He is my husband-my all! Do you think I have given up everything, friends and honor and safety, for him, to lose him now? No! You say I would not do it? Do you know what I have done? You have a scar there."

She touched me lightly on the breast. "I did it," she said.

"You?" I muttered.

"Yes, I, you blind fool! I did it," she answered. "You escaped then, and I was glad of it, since the wound answered my purpose. But you will not escape again. The cord is surer."

Something in her last words crossed my memory and enlightened me.

"You were the woman I saw last night," I said. "You followed us from High gate."

"What matter! What matter!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Better be footsore than heartsore. Will you do now what I want? Will you answer for his life?"

"I can do nothing without the others," I said.

"But the others know nothing," she answered. "They do not know their own danger. Where will you find them?"

"I shall find them," I replied resolutely. "And in any case I must consult Master Bertie. Will you come and see him?"

"And be locked up too?" she said sternly, and in a different tone. "No. It is you must do this, and you must answer for it, Francis Cludde. You, and no one else."

"I can do nothing by myself," I repeated.

"Ay, but you can-you must!" she retorted, "or Heaven's curse will be upon you! You think me mad to say that. Listen! Listen, fool! The man whom you have condemned, whom you have left to die, is not only my husband, wedded to me these three years, but your father-your father, Ferdinand Cludde!"