Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent

by G. P. R. James

The impatient stamping of their steeds had prevented them from catching the approaching steps of Albert Maurice and his party; and one was saying to the other, at the very moment they came up, in a tone sufficiently loud for his words to be distinguished--"He is very long! I never knew him so long about such a job before!"

"Let them be seized!" exclaimed Albert Maurice, the instant his eye fell upon them; "the rest follow me;" and without waiting to notice the short scuffle that ensued, he sprang on towards the Prevot's prison, and pushed against the door. It was locked, and the key on the inner side, so that his effort to open it was vain.

"Fly to the gate!" he exclaimed, turning to one of his followers; "bring me a battle-axe from the guard-house. Ho! within there!" he added, striking the hilt of his sword violently against the door. "Open the door! beware what you do; you cannot escape me; and you shall find my vengeance terrible. Open the door, I say!"

But he spoke in vain; no answer was returned; and the only sound that he even thought he heard was that of a low groan. After a few moments of painful expectation, the man who had been sent to the gate returned, bearing a ponderous axe, and followed by two or three of the soldiers of the guard. Albert Maurice snatched the weapon from his hands, and in three blows dashed in a large part of the door. The rest was soon hewn down, at least sufficiently to admit the passage of the young burgher and his followers. Entering the small stone hall into which it opened, he caught up a light that had evidently been burning some time untrimmed, and commanding two or three of those who accompanied him to guard the door, he strode forward rapidly to the mouth of a narrow flight of steps, which led to some cells below the ground. At the entrance of one of these dungeons a lantern had been placed upon the ground, and was still burning; and Albert Maurice immediately perceived that the door was not completely closed. He instantly pushed it open, and held up the light, when the sight that presented itself to his eyes was horrible indeed, but not ungrateful.

Seated upon the side of the straw pallet, which had been his only couch since he had been removed from the town-house, appeared Hugh de Mortmar, as we have previously called him, with his right foot pressed heavily upon the body of a man, who, from his dress and appearance, seemed to be one of the jailers in the employ of the Prevot. A little to the right, surrounded by a pool of blood, a stream of which was still flowing from his throat--lay the form of Maillotin du Bac, while the poniard, which, it may be remembered, Albert Maurice had bestowed upon Hugh de Mortmar in the prison of the town-house, now driven tightly in between the gorget plaits and cuirass of the Prevot's armour, showed at once the manner of his death and the arm which had inflicted it.

The young prisoner held in his hand the sword of the dead man, and gazed upon those who entered with a firm and resolute countenance, while he held down beneath his feet the form of the jailer, who was clearly alive, and seemingly uninjured, except from a ghastly contusion on his forehead. The moment that he beheld who were the new comers, Hugh de Mortmar started up; and a few hurried words explained the precise situation in which they all stood. The sight of Albert Maurice and of good old Matthew Gournay was enough to satisfy the young prisoner; and on his part he had only to tell them, that while lying there a few minutes before, thinking of when his captivity might end, he had heard approaching steps, and listened to a low conversation at the door which he felt sure boded him no good. Affecting to sleep, he remained perfectly quiet while the door opened, and the Prevot, setting down his lantern on the outside, approached towards him, accompanied by the jailer who had the care of the prison. Their eyes, however, were not so much accustomed to the darkness as his own; and, seeing evidently that the design of the Prevot was to despatch him, he watched his moment, till the other was stooping over him, and then drove the dagger with which he had been furnished, with the full force of recovered health and strength, under the gorget of the murderer. So hard had he stricken it, however, between the iron plates, that he could not draw it forth again, and he had nothing to trust to but his own corporeal strength in the struggle which succeeded with the jailer. The hard food and the constrained repose to which he had been subjected in the prison, had perhaps contributed to restore him to full vigour in a shorter time than might otherwise have been required for recovering his health; and the jailer, overmatched, had just been cast headlong to the ground when Albert Maurice forced his way into the place of the young noble's confinement.

In the energy of action Albert Maurice had, for the time, found relief from a part of the heavy load that passion and circumstances had piled upon his head; but the moment the necessity of active exertion passed away, the weight returned and crushed him to the earth. He spoke for an instant to the prisoner collectedly and calmly, but gradually his brow grew dark and clouded; and his words became low, harsh, and confined to those necessary to express his wishes or commands. The jailer, freed from the tread of Hugh de Mortmar, was placed in the custody of some of those who had now crowded to the spot; and the President, after giving general orders to the burgher guard, which came up, and a few whispered directions to Matthew Gournay, took the prisoner by the hand, saying, "Come, my lord; let us to the town-house!"

The change which had come over the whole demeanour of the young citizen since last he had seen him, was too great to escape the eyes of Hugh de Mortmar, even at a moment when the excitement of a late struggle was fresh upon him. Nor did he exactly understand how the young President dared to take the bold step of setting him free at once, when he had before seemed most anxious to proceed with scrupulous caution. He made no observation, however, and followed Albert Maurice into the street. By this time, almost all the respectable citizens of Ghent were in their quiet beds; but a number of those who had been entertained in the market-place were still wandering about; some partially inebriated with ale or mead; some half drunk with excitement and pleasure. A number of these had gathered together amongst the guards and attendants, now collected round the door of the prison; and as Albert Maurice led forth his companion, and the flickering glare of a number of lanterns and torches showed the features of the President to the crowd, he was greeted by loud acclamations. But the smile of bitterness and scorn with which Albert Maurice now heard the vivats of the multitude, contrasted strongly with his demeanour in the morning, and showed how completely the talismanic touch of disappointment had changed to his eyes all the fairy splendours of his fate.

Without a word of reply, he passed through the midst of the crowd, sought the narrowest and darkest way; and, apparently buried in sad thoughts, proceeded with a quick and irregular step towards the town-house, maintaining a gloomy and unbroken silence as he went. He avoided the market-place before the building as much as possible; and the only words he spoke, were uttered when he could not avoid seeing the spot where Imbercourt and Hugonet had died, and which was now covered with people, busily removing the traces of the evening's festivity. "It is sad," he said, with a mournful shake of the head; "it is sad!" Then turning into the town-house, he ascended the stairs rapidly, and entered a small withdrawing room by the side of the great hall.

To that very chamber it so happened that the body of Ganay had been removed, after the sword of Matthew Gournay had left him lifeless on the pavement; and the first object that met the eye of Albert Maurice was the corpse stretched upon a table, while one of his own attendants stood near, as if he had been examining the appearance of the dead man. The immediate impulse of the President was to draw back, but the next was the very contrary; and, again advancing, he approached directly to the table, and fixed his eyes upon the face of the corpse, which was uncovered. "He sleeps calm enough!" he said, drawing in his lips, and turning partially to Hugh de Mortmar. "He sleeps calm enough, with all his burning passions at an end. But this is no place for what we have to say." He was then treading back his steps towards the door, when the attendant advanced, and gave him a packet of papers and a small silver box, saying, "These old papers, sir, and this box, which we conceive to contain poison, are all that we have discovered on the dead body."