His theme was the revolt, his arguments, the grim bleak facts that bulked large in the brain of a leader of men. He dealt with realism, with iron detail, and the strong suggestions of success. Revolt, in the flesh, bubbled like lava at a crater's brim, seething to overflow and scorch the land. It was plain that the speaker had great schemes, and a will of adamant. His ardour ran down like a cataract, smiting into foam the duller courage of the multitude.
When he had ended his heroic challenge to the world, he took by the hand a girl who stood unmasked at his side. She was clad all in white with a cross of gold over her bosom, and her face shone nigh as pallid as her mantle. The men around the table craned forward to get the better view of her. Nor was it her temporal beauty alone that set the fanatical chins straining towards her figure. There was a radiance as of other worlds upon her forehead, a glamour of sanctity as though some sacred lamp shed a divine lustre through all her flesh.
At the moment that the man in the red mask had drawn the girl forward beside him on the dais, Balthasar, with a stifled cry, had plucked the Lady Duessa by the sleeve. She had started, and stared in the friar's face as he spoke to her in a whisper, a scintillant malice gathering in her eyes. Balthasar held her close to him by the wrist. They were observed of none save by Fulviac, whose care it was to watch all men.
As Balthasar muttered to her, Duessa's frame seemed to straighten, to dilate, to stiffen. She did not glance at the friar, but sat staring at the girl in white upon the dais. The Madonna of the chapel of Avalon had risen before her as by magic; her dispossessor stood before her in the flesh. Balthasar's tongue bore witness to the truth. In the packed passion of a moment, Duessa remembered her shame, her dishonour, her hunger for revenge.
The girl upon the dais had been speaking to the men assembled round her with the simple calm of one whose soul is assured of faith. For all her fierce distraction each word had fallen into Duessa's brain like pebbles into a well. A mocking, riotous scorn chuckled and leapt in her like the laughter of some lewd faun. She heard not the zealous mutterings that eddied through the room. Her eyes were fixed on the man in the red cloak, as he bent to kiss the girl's slim hand.
She saw Fulviac turn and point to a roll of parchment on the table.
"We swim, sirs, or sink together," were his words; "there can be no traitors to the cause. In three days we hoist our banner. In three days Gilderoy shall rise. Sign, gentlemen, sign, in the name of God and of our Lady."
The leaders of Gilderoy crowded about the table where Prosper the Preacher waited with quill and testament, Sforza standing with drawn sword beside him. Fulviac had headed those who took the oath, and had drawn back from the press on to the dais. Meanwhile Duessa, with Balthasar muttering discretions in her ear, had skirted the black knot of conspirators and come close upon Fulviac. While Sforza and the rest were intent upon the scroll, she plucked the man in red by the sleeve, and spoke to him in an undertone.
"A word with you in an alcove."
Fulviac stared, but drew aside from the group none the less and followed her. She had moved to an oriel and sat down on the cushioned seat, her black robe sweeping the crimson cloth. Fulviac stood and faced her, thus closing her escape from the oriel. Midway between them and the table, Balthasar stood biting his nails in sullen vexation, ignorant of where the woman's headstrong passions might be bearing them.