CHAPTER XVIII.
We must make our narrative of the events which took place in Ghent precede the arrival of the princess in that city by a few days, as her return did not take place till the evening of the 10th of January, 1477; and it may be necessary to mark particularly some circumstances which occurred on the 8th of that month: premising, however, that the local government had been left in the hands of the Lord of Imbercourt during her absence.
The scene to which we wish to introduce the reader, is a small dark chamber in one of the largest mercantile houses in Ghent, but far removed from the warehouse or the shop, and fitted up with a degree of luxury and elegance only known in Europe, at that time, amongst the great Flemish or Venetian merchants. The walls were hung with rich tapestry; carpets of the same fabric covered the floor. Silver lamps and small round mirrors, then one of the most costly articles of furniture, hung around; and in short, the whole interior of the room presented an aspect of wealth and comfort not to be exceeded by anything of modern days.
At the time I speak of, however, various circumstances combined to show that the apartment was the abode of sorrow. Only one of the lamps was lighted. The cloak and bonnet of a citizen of the time were cast recklessly on the ground, near the door. A small dagger lay upon the table; and, in a seat before it, with his eyes buried in his hands, and his body shaken with convulsive sobs, sat the little druggist, Ganay, displaying that sort of dejected disarray of dress, and careless fall of the limbs, which denotes so strongly that despair has mastered the citadel of hope in the human heart.
From time to time, the sighs and groans which struggled from his bosom gave way to momentary exclamations: sometimes loud and fierce, sometimes muttered and low. "He was my son," he would exclaim, "ay, notwithstanding all, he was my son! He had robbed me, it is true--taken my gold--resisted my authority--scoffed at my rebuke--but still my blood poured through his veins:--and to die such a death--by the common hangman!--like a dog!--to hang over the gate of the city, for the ravens to eat him, like the carrion of a horse!" and once more, he gave way to tears and groans.
Then again he would exclaim--"The fiends! the incarnate fiends! to slaughter my poor boy like a wolf: to refuse prayers, entreaties, gold! Can they be fathers? Out upon them, cold-hearted tigers! he has done no more than many a man has done. What though the woman was wronged? what though her brother was slain in the affray? Do not these proud nobles do worse every day? Besides, she should have had gold, oceans of gold; but now I will have revenge--deep, bitter, insatiable revenge!" and he shook his thin bony hand in the air, while the fire of hell itself seemed gleaming from the bottom of his small dark eyes.
At that moment there was a noise heard without; and the voices of two persons in some degree of contention, as if the one strove to prevent the other from entering, sounded along the passage.
"Out of my way!" cried the one, in a harsh, sharp, grating tone; "I tell you, boy, I must enter; I have business with your master. I enter everywhere, at all times and seasons."
"But don't you know, sir, what has happened?" cried the other voice; "my master is in great affliction, and bade us deny sight of him to every one."
"I know all about it, much better than you do, lad," replied the first. "Out of my way, I say, or I will knock your head against the wall."
The little druggist had started up at the first sounds; and, after gazing upon the door for a moment, with the fierce intensity of the tiger watching his victim before the spring, he seemed to recognise the voice of the speaker who sought to force his way in; and, snatching the dagger hastily from the table, he placed it in his bosom, wiped away the marks of tears from his eyes, and then cast himself back again in his seat.
Almost at the same moment the door opened, and Maillotin du Bac, the Prevot of the Duke of Burgundy, appeared, together with a lad, who seemed to be a serving boy of the druggist's. The Prevot was habited in a different manner, on the present occasion, from that in which we have before depicted him. He was no longer either clad in arms, as he had appeared at the castle of Hannut, or wrapped in bandages, as he had shown himself before the council. His dress was now a rich and costly suit of fine cloth, splendidly embroidered, together with a bonnet of the same colour, in which, as was then very customary amongst the nobles, he wore the brush of a fox, slightly drooping on one side, as it may sometimes be seen in the cap of the successful hunter of the present day. Over his more gaudy apparel, however, he had cast a long black cloak, bordered with sable, which he probably used, in general, on occasions of mourning.
"This person will have entrance," said the youth who accompanied him, addressing the little druggist, "notwithstanding all I can do to prevent him."
"Hinder him not," replied Ganay; "but shut the door, and get thee gone."
The boy readily obeyed the order he received; and Maillotin du Bac, advancing into the room, saluted the druggist with some degree of formal courtesy, not unmixed with that solemnity of aspect wherewith men do reverence to griefs they personally feel but little.
"Health and better cheer to you, Master Ganay!" he said, taking a seat close by the druggist; "health and better cheer to you! This is a sad business, indeed, and I wish to talk over it with you."
The druggist eyed him for a moment or two in bitter silence, while his heavy eyebrows were drawn together till they met, and almost concealed the small piercing eyes beneath.
"You are kind, Sir Prevot," he said, in a sneering tone; "you are mighty kind; but let me tell you, that were it not that I hear there has been something strange--I know not whether to say friendly--in the conduct that you have pursued through all that is gone, I would soon show you how a man deserves to be treated, who forces himself upon a father on the day of his son's death."
"Why now, Master Ganay, I can bear with you a great deal," replied the Prevot; "and therefore say what you will, I shall not be offended: but you very well know, that I would not myself, nor would I suffer any of my men to have anything to do with this bad business, either in regard to the arrest or the execution."
"Murder! call it murder!" cried the druggist, grasping the arm of his chair, with a convulsive motion of his hand.
"Well, murder be it," replied the Prevot; "though they say they did it all by law. But, however, I did not choose to have anything to do with it; not alone from considering the right or wrong of the matter, but because I had a regard for yourself, and that there are two or three little feelings in common between us."
"Ay, indeed!" cried the druggist; "and what may they be?"
Maillotin du Bac laid his large, strong, bony hand upon the arm of the druggist, and fixing his keen hawk-like eyes upon his face, replied--"First and foremost--hatred to Imbercourt."
"Ha!" exclaimed the druggist, almost starting from his seat; "how knew you that I hated him?--at least, before this last dark deed?"
"Because," replied Maillotin du Bac, "some ten years ago, when the people of Ghent were pressing boldly round the duke, and shouting for their privileges, I saw this Imbercourt give a contemptuous buffet to a man who had caught him by the robe. Do you remember such a thing? The man was a rich druggist of Ghent; and in his first fury he got a knife half way out of his bosom--not unlike that which lies in your own, Master Ganay; but a moment after he put it up again, as he saw the duke's horsemen riding down; and, with a smooth face and pleasant smile, said to the man who had struck him, 'We shall meet again, fair sir.'"
"Ay, and we have met again: but how? but how?" cried the druggist, grasping the arm of the Prevot tight as he spoke; "how have we met again? Not as it should have been--for vengeance on the insolent oppressor: no; but to go upon my knees before him, to humble myself to the very dust, to drop my tears at his feet, to beseech him to spare my child's life."
"And he spurned you away from him, of course?" replied Maillotin du Bac, eagerly.
"No, no," answered the druggist; "no, no, he did not spurn me, but he did worse; he pretended to pity me. He declared that what I asked was not in his power, that he had not pronounced the sentence, that it was the eschevins of the city, and that he had no right nor authority to reverse the judgment. Oh! that I should have been the cursed idiot to have humbled myself before him--to be pitied, to be commiserated by him whose buffet was still burning on my cheek--to be called, poor man! unhappy father!--to be prayed to take some wine, as if I had not the wherewithal to buy it for myself. Out upon them all! Eternal curses light upon their heads, and sink them all to hell!" and as he spoke, the unhappy man gave way to one of those fearful fits of wrath which had divided his moments during the whole of that day, with grief as bitter and unavailing.
Maillotin du Bac let the first gust of passion have its way, with that sort of calm indifferent management of the other's grief which showed how familiar his ruthless office had rendered him with every expression of human misery and despair. "Ay," he said, after the tempest had in some degree passed, "it was just like him; a cold calculating person enough he is, and was, and always will be! Much should I like to hear, though, how it happened that he had no power to grant pardon. Did not the princess give him full authority when he went?
"He said not! he said not!" cried the druggist, eagerly; "and if he lied, with a father's tears dewing his feet, a father's agony before his eyes, he has purchased a place for himself as deep as Judas in the fiery abyss--if there be such a place, at least, as monks would have as believe: would it were true, for his sake!"
"But why did you not pray him," demanded the Prevot, "to stay the execution till the return of the princess herself? She would have granted you an easy pardon, and your boy's life might have been saved."
"I did, I did," replied the unhappy father; "I did pray--I did beseech for a day--for an hour; but he would not listen to me. He said that the circumstances of the case would not justify such an action; that the proofs were clear and undoubted; that he--he, my poor luckless boy--had committed an offence heinous in the eyes of God and man; that he had outraged a defenceless woman, and slain a fellow-creature to escape from the punishment of the crime he had committed! Oh! may the time come, that he himself may plead for mercy to ears as deaf and inexorable! Mark me, Sir Prevot, mark me! men say lightly that they would give a right hand for some trifling nothing that they covet in this world: some rare jewel, or some painted hood, or some prancing horse; but I would lay down both these old hands, and bid the hangman strike them off, aye, with a smile, for but one hour of sweet revenge."
"If such be the case--" replied Maillotin du Bac, in his usual common-place tone.
"If such be the case?" exclaimed the other, starting up with a new and violent passion: "if such be the case? I tell thee it is, man! Why came you here? What do you want with me? Beware how you urge a desperate man! What seek you? What offer you? Do you come to give me revenge? If me no ifs, Sir Prevot; come you to give revenge?"
"I do!" replied the Prevot, who had been waiting till the other had run out his hasty exclamations; "I do, Master Ganay, if you can recover your cool tranquillity, and argue some difficult points with me, not forgetting the calm policy with which, I have heard, that you can bend some of your young and inexperienced comrades to your purpose. But recollect yourself--but be determined, collected, and shrewd, and you shall have revenge----As I am a living man!" he added, seeing the druggist's eyes fix upon him with a look of stern inquiry.
"Then I am calm!" answered the old man; "as calm as the dead. I seek but that one thing--revenge! Thou sayest true, Sir Prevot; I have been moved, far too much moved. I, who am wont to stir the minds of others, while I keep my own as tranquil as a still lake, I should not have yielded to such mad despair, but should only have thought how I might repay the mighty debts I owe to some below the moon. Pardon me, and forget what you have seen; but you have never lost a child: you have never seen your only one given to the butchers. But I am calm, as I said, quite calm; and I will be calmer still. Ho, boy! without there!" and rising from the table, he threw open the door, and rang a small silver hand bell which stood beside him, in answer to the tones of which, the boy who had before presented himself, re-appeared.
"Bring me," said the druggist, "that small box of the precious juice of the Thebaid, which the Venetian merchants sent me, so pure and unadulterated. Let us be silent till it comes," he added, speaking to the Prevot; "it will soon quiet all but the settled purpose. I marvel that I thought not of its virtues before."
The boy returned speedily, bringing a small box of sanders wood, in which, wrapped in innumerable covers, to preserve its virtues, was a quantity of pure opium, from the mass of which the druggist pinched off a small portion, and swallowed it, much to the surprise of Maillotin du Bac, who held all drugs in sovereign abhorrence. However violent might be his passions, Ganay, by the influence of a powerful mind, had acquired such complete command over them, in all ordinary circumstances, that seldom, if ever, had they cast off his control in the course of life. On the present occasion, indeed, despair and mental agony had conquered all for a time; but, even before he had swallowed the opium, he had recovered his rule; and, speedily, as that great narcotic began to exercise its soothing influence upon the irritated fibres of his corporeal frame, the mind acquired still greater ascendency, and he felt no little shame and contempt for himself, on account of the weak burst of frenzied violence to which he had given way in the presence of the Prevot.
He was too politic, however, when he had regained his self-command, to show that he did contemn the feelings to which he had given way; and he at once prepared to play with Maillotin du Bac the same shrewd and artificial part which he had laid down as the general rule of his behaviour towards mankind.
The two were fairly matched; for the Prevot was one of those, in whom, a sort of natural instinct, as well as the continual habit of observation, leads to the clear perception of other men's motives, especially where they strive to conceal themselves amongst the dark and tortuous paths of policy. He was, certainly, sometimes wrong in his calculations, but was not often so; and, in the present instance, by placing himself exactly in the situation of the druggist, and conceiving what would have been his own feelings under such circumstances, with a little allowance for the difference of character, he arrived at a very correct conclusion, in regard to the designs and the wishes of his companion, as well as to the obstacles which might impede them from acting together.
One great difficulty, indeed, would have lain in his way on almost any other occasion; for so accustomed was he both to see others attempt to deceive him, and to deceive others himself in return, that he could scarcely deal straight-forwardly with any one. As he was now perfectly sincere, however, in his desire of aiding the druggist's revenge, or rather of accomplishing his own through that of Ganay, he could afford to be candid on the present occasion. All that obstructed their cordial co-operation arose in those doubts and fears of each other, which all villains, however bold, must naturally feel on leaguing themselves together for an evil purpose; and such doubts and fears were undoubtedly felt strongly by the Prevot and his companion.
Nevertheless, these difficulties were to be got over. The jealousies and suspicions were soon very frankly avowed; for as each--though with certain modifications--considered cunning or shrewdness as the height of human wisdom, and, consequently, of human virtue, vanity itself naturally taught them to display rather than to conceal the prudent circumspection, with which they guarded against any danger from each other.
We cannot here detail the whole conversation that ensued; but, in the first instance, the druggist made himself master of all the circumstances which acted as incentives to revenge, in the mind of Maillotin du Bac, against the Lord of Imbercourt, before he committed himself further. By many a keen question, he induced him to unveil, step by step, the manner in which, through many years, that nobleman had thwarted his designs, and incurred his displeasure; how he had cut him off from reward and honour, where he had striven for it by dishonourable means; how he had defended the innocent against his persecution; how he had sternly overturned many of his best laid schemes, and exposed some of his most subtle contrivances, from a period long before, up to the day on which his testimony had freed Albert Maurice from the effects of the Prevot's vindictive hatred. Had there been one defect in the chain--had not the motive for vengeance been clear and evident--the doubts of the druggist might have remained unshaken, and he might have conceived that Maillotin du Bac had visited him as a spy, with the design of betraying the schemes of vengeance which his incautious indignation might breathe, to the ears of those who had refused mercy to his child. But the Prevot, appreciating and revering his suspicions, recapitulated every event with cool, bitter exactness, and dwelt upon the various circumstances with a precision that showed how deeply they were impressed upon his memory. He added, too, a slight glimpse of interested motives, by showing how Imbercourt had stood in the way of his advancement, and how he might be profited in his own office if that nobleman were removed, by any means, from the councils of Burgundy.
The impression thus left upon the mind of the burgher--and it was a correct one--was, that there was a long store of treasured hatred in the mind of the Prevot towards this statesman, Imbercourt, aggravated by thwarted ambition and avarice; and that he had reached that point at which he was ready to run considerable risks for the gratification of his vengeance and the promotion of his interest. As to any moral sentiment standing in the way, it was an objection which neither the Prevot nor the druggist ever dreamed of. Those were ties from which each felt that the other was free, and therefore they were never taken into consideration.
After a long conversation had brought them to this mutual state of good understanding, and after the druggist had pretty plainly pointed out that, before proceeding with any of the deeper and more intricate schemes, which might place the life of each in the power of the other, he should expect that the Prevot would join with him in some act which, though less dangerous, would give him a hold upon that officer, that at present he did not possess, he went on with the calmness of intense but subdued feelings.
"By the sentence of the eschevins," he said, in a low, quiet tone, which was, perhaps, more impressive than even his former bursts of passion; "by the sentence of the eschevins, Sir Prevot, the body--you understand me--the body is to hang in chains over the Ypres gate, till such time as it is consumed by the wind, and the rain, and the foul birds of prey; will it not be sweet for a father's eyes to behold such a sight every time that he rides forth from his own house?"
"Why, truly no, Master Ganay," replied Maillotin du Bac: "good faith, you must take some other road."
"Ay; but would it not be a matter of triumph, rather than shame," asked the druggist, "if I could ride through that gate, and find the body gone? In a word, would it not be proud to show these paltry tyrants that even now they cannot work all their will? What! do you not understand me yet? I would have my son's head laid in the calm ground, man: I would have the body of the thing I loved removed from the place of horror and of shame. What say you? can it be done?"
"I understand you now," answered the Prevot: "let me but think a moment, Master Ganay: let me but think a moment. It can be done--ay, it can be done: but I should think it mattered little to one of your firm mind. The body will rot as soon in the holiest ground that ever priest or bishop blest, as in the wide unholy air."
"Do I not know that?" demanded Ganay, with a curling lip. "Think you that I ever dream of angels or devils, or all the absurd fancies that monks and priestly quacks have built up, on the wild vision of an hereafter? No, no! but I would fain disappoint the tyrants, and teach them that they cannot do all. I would fain, too, remove the memento of my house's shame from before the eyes of my fellow-citizens. Can it be done, I say?"
"It can--it can!" replied Maillotin du Bac; "and, to please you, it shall be done. Hie you away straight to the churchyard of the Minnims, with some one you can trust bearing pickaxe and shovel. Use my name, and the porter will soon let you in. Wait there till I come, and busy the man you take with you in digging a trench. Be quick: for it will take long. I go upon my errand, and will be there in about two hours. After this, Master Ganay, I think we may trust each other. So we will meet again to-morrow night, at this hour; and, if I mistake not, we will soon find means to crush the viper that has stung us both."
The druggist replied not a word, but wrung the hand that the Prevot had given him hard in his own, and suffered him to depart.
It were needless to trace further the proceedings of that night, or to give any more detailed explanations in regard to the events just mentioned, than to say, that early the following morning a party of children and women assembled before the Ypres gate, to gaze--with that fondness for strange and fearful sights which often characterizes that age and that sex--upon the body of young Karl Ganay, the rich druggist's son, who, after a short course of wild profligacy and vice, had been hanged for murder the day before. However much they might expect to have their wonder excited, it was so in a greater degree, though in a different manner from that which they anticipated. There, on the projecting beam from which the unhappy young man had been suspended, hung, indeed, the rope which had terminated his existence, and the chains which marked the additional turpitude of his offence; but the body itself was no longer there; and the tidings of what had occurred soon spread through the city.
Strict search was immediately instituted. The eschevins, and other officers appointed by the Duke of Burgundy, were furious at their authority being set at nought, and both held out threats and offered rewards for the discovery of the body. But it was all in vain: and while some of the more malevolent--remembering the course of young Ganay's life, and into the hands of what Being it had appeared likely to cast him in the end--accounted for the disappearance of his body, by supposing that the great enemy of mankind had carried it off as his due, others, more charitable, but not less superstitious, chose to believe that the father, by some drugs only known to himself, had found means to resuscitate his son, and had sent him away to some distant land, where his crimes and their punishment were equally unknown.
This version of the affair, indeed, obtained by far the most numerous body of supporters; and the tale, swollen and disfigured by tradition, is still to be heard at the firesides of the citizens of Ghent.