The First of the English 6 – Gunter · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The First of the English 6Book 1 · The Drinking Bout at the Painted Inn
18
Literature · Romance
The First of the English 6
Book 1 · The Drinking Bout at the Painted Inn
GunterEnglish
This question seems to stagger the artist. He mutters feebly, “How?” then says: “Let me think. I know the customs of this country,” and meditates with knitted brows.
A few moments thought and he cries: “I have solved the problem.”
“How?” asks the Englishman eagerly.
“How? Why, it is the usage at these drinking bouts when the banquet is at its height for friends of the combatants, for the honor of Bacchus, to send huge drinking beakers full of the finest wine with their compliments to the various contestants. Vasco de Guerra is a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle Bodé Volcker, the fair Mina that I love. That shall be his destruction. After the tenth round, it would not be prudent before—perhaps in his case I had better make it the fifteenth huge goblet that he drinks—I shall send to him a flagon of wine containing this, the poison of the Antilles,” he taps the vial the Englishman has given him, “with the compliments of Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker. De Guerra will not refuse a wine cup with such a message as this, and then—, then—you and I,” he whispers this last, “my dear Guido, in some quiet, happy, peaceful country would be called murderers; but here we are simply playing out the game of life and death. Now to business.”
The two now go to mapping out their plan with the cool precision of men who, having made up their minds, act rapidly upon their resolutions.
“The drinking bout will take place at twelve. It is now ten o’clock. I don’t think De Guerra has yet risen,” says Guy, “but I’ll watch him to see that he doesn’t leave the inn to give your secret to any one. If he makes any effort toward this, by some means I will detain him; while you, my dear friend, go to the Citadel, get word with the lady Hermoine, and arrange the meeting that is necessary, not only to my safety but to my love.”
Then, while Chester secures upon his person the cipher letters of Vitelli and the key furnished by the artist, and perchance with even greater care deposits in his bosom the miniature and letter of his love, Antony Oliver arms himself with sword and pistols and looks carefully to the keen Italian stiletto he always wears ready to his hand.
This done, the two go out together, Oliver leaving word with the barber that his sons can get their meal for themselves when they return, but that Achille is to meet them at the Painted Inn at the hour of noon. Then striding through the narrow alleys into which the sun is but now finding its way, the two pass to the pleasanter portion of the town.
Here the painter takes leave of the Englishman, whispering: “Don’t lose sight of Vasco.”
“While you will do my errand?” suggests Chester wistfully.
“Certainly. I have a good excuse for my interview with Doña Hermoine. Her father only leaves Brussels at noon to-day. Alva will not be here until late this evening, and would wish word of this given to his daughter,” answers Oliver, and takes his way toward the Esplanade, beyond which lies the Citadel.
Going once more to the Painted Inn, Chester discovers that it is now the scene of unusual animation.
The wine room is crowded so that he can hardly get a seat to order his breakfast, appetite having by this time obtained temporary ascendency over love. By some deft questioning and pumping of the waiter who attends him, the Englishman soon learns that the man he is in search of only left his late carouse at three o’clock in the morning, and has not yet arisen; probably thinking that retirement will best fit him for a supremely great feat at the shrine of Bacchus.
The conversation at the neighboring tables naturally turns upon the drinking bout. The room is full of burghers and artists, some of whom have come to enjoy the artist’s triumph, others to sorrow at the genius that is being killed with wine. There is also a goodly delegation of his creditors, who are here with anxiety in their hearts and on their lips, for Frans Floris’s life is worth a large sum to them on account of the paintings his facile brush creates; but Frans Floris dead is of very little use to them, and they fear that some day he will kill himself by the enormous quantity of wine he may imbibe in his effort to place his competitors beneath the table.
“Ah, Mijn Heer Dirk Coornhert, this is a sad day,” remarks a fat, adipose citizen, whose smell of the malt-house proclaims the brewer.
“Yes,” replies a man evidently of artistic tastes and education. “Have you seen the poem I’ve printed to warn Floris of the danger of his dissolute habits, not only to his genius but to his life? I read it to him last night. It was an inspiration in which I depicted a dream wherein the spirit of Albert Durer appeared to me and spoke in melancholy and ghostly tones of the spirit sadness that was brought to him even after a hundred years in the other world by an artist of Floris’s ability becoming a drunkard.”
“And did it reform him?” jeers the other.
“Reform him!” cries Dirk Coornhert. “No, he swore he’d drink the health of Albert Durer’s ghost to-day, and laughed in my face: ‘When I’m drunk, I’m happy; I forget my creditors. When I’m sober my creditors don’t let me forget them.’”
“Verdomd! And I’m one of them,” growls the brewer. “Two thousand carolus guilders for malt beer consumed at his house. A painter building the greatest palace in Antwerp! Above its portal that drunken conceit he’s painted: himself standing brush in hand and the muses flying from all over the heavens to crown him. And out of it he drives each day with four white horses in state, everybody doffing their hats to him, his creditors bowing most humbly of all. If I didn’t think the populace would mob me, I’d have him in the debtors’ prison. And then his wife! Faugh! her dandy airs—as if she were a countess.”
“Yes, she has ruined him,” murmurs the painter. “A woman’s ambition to flaunt it with the noblesse, which a painter cannot do, though some of our burghers seem to think it an easy task. There’s poor Bodé Volcker! Have you heard of his daughter? They say the fair Wilhelmina aspires to consort with the nobility, and has been taught to shake her feet under the rod of a French dancing master and play on the harpsichord and spinet, and sing with rare shakes and quavers and high-screeching notes like a lewd Italian masquer. Ah! the days of Antwerp are changing. What would her poor mother say? But old Niklaas is up in arms, and swears his daughter shall go into his shop and sell his silks and satins behind his counter, as her mother did, though they say he’s worth a million crowns or more.”
“Donder en Bliksem!” growls the brewer, “what’s a million crowns, or two million, either, now—it’s only so much more for the accursed tenth penny tax to eat up.”
“Yes, God help every one,” assents the printer. “The tenth penny tax will in time take all we have.”
Then the brewer shakes his head sadly over a mug of strongest Flemish ale and the printer sips his Rhine wine in silence; for Alva has just levied his celebrated tenth penny tax, which decrees that every transfer of merchandise in the Netherlands shall yield one-tenth of its amount to the royal treasury, each and every time it is bought or sold. This, of course, on active business means ultimately complete confiscation and absolute ruin to the great trading classes of Brabant, Flanders and Holland.
This tenth penny tax does not make the crowd very loving to the smattering of Spanish and Italian officers of the garrison, who stride about with jingling spurs and clattering swords and armor, caring very little whether they tread on burghers’ toes or not, and burying every now and then their fiercely curled mustachios in flagons of Spanish wine, mine host and his assistants serving them with greatest deference and humility; for Antwerp writhed and groaned, but still lay prone under the iron heel of Spanish military rule—from noble to peasant, from merchant to fisherman.
Among these military gallants none swagger more proudly than Ensign de Busaco. Seeing Guy, this ferocious little dandy strides over, and, slapping the Englishman cordially on the shoulder, cries: “What do you wager, Capitan Guido, on the drinking bout? I am offering even doubloons on the Drunkards of Brussels.”
“That’s hardly fair,” says Guy, “six drunkards to one drunkard. But sit down, and remember your promise of last night to join me in a friendly beaker.”
“Gracios, Señor Capitan,” murmurs the young officer, and soon he and Chester are chatting over the juice of the grape.
“You have come, I suppose, from the Middelburg garrison,” remarks the Spaniard, “to see about your back pay. We haven’t had a stiver here, one of us, for a good many months, and I imagine you are no better off. But the tenth penny, my boy, will open up the paymaster’s department of the army If it doesn’t—” he looks savagely round, “we intend to take things into our own hands. This is a rich city, eh, for looting; the spoils of the Indies and Peru right here within our grasp. Some day we’ll make mincemeat of these burghers and take their goods and chattels and wives and daughters into our keeping for a day or two, eh! Booty and beauty!”
“God help them,” thinks Guy, looking round the place, and into his mind coming a vision of that awful “Spanish Fury” that broke forth on Antwerp a few years afterwards. But he turns the conversation, murmuring: “Of course we haven’t been paid, but still I have a few doubloons in my pocket!” then cries: “Boy, another flask of wine!”
This the two discuss together, the Spaniard telling the Englishman that, though Floris is owned to be the greatest wine bibber in the world, it is thought that the Six Drunkards of Brussels have some extraordinary plan for defeating him, at least so it is whispered about, and that if he has any money to venture on the game, to put it against the artist.
“They’ll win, my boy,” he laughs. “I’ve seen little Tomasito himself drink eighteen flagons and never flinch a hair. Fancy what he will do when stimulated by the magnificent banquet that is going in there,” he points to the great wedding room at the rear, “and with the chance of winning five hundred guilders and side bets as well. Besides, De Guerra has been strangely happy for the last day, and he is never chuckling except when he sees the ducats ahead. But I think I can get a bet from Valdes, of our regiment. He has seen Floris drink, and swears that no man under heaven is his equal. Excuse me on this little matter of business,” and Ensign de Busaco rises and joins a group of Spanish officers at the other end of the room, much to Guy’s pleasure, for he sees that the painter, Antony Oliver, has returned and is anxiously looking at him.
As the Spaniard turns his back the Flemish artist is by Chester’s side whispering: “I have done your errand.”
“She will come?”
“Yes, but I had great difficulty. She was as chilly as an iceberg at first, asking how I dared bring such an audacious message.”
“And then?” queries Guy eagerly.
“Then I gave her the ring and told her that it was necessary for your safety that she meet you; that you had periled yourself coming to this town for her escort when you were absent from your garrison without leave.”
“What next?” says Chester.
“Next she said nonchalantly: ‘I shall be at the house of the burgher Bodé Volcker at three o’clock this day. My duenna, the Countess de Pariza, thinks she would like to see the merchant’s daughter dance again.’”
“Anything else?” mutters Guy, discontentedly.
“Oh, yes, she also remarked that her duenna would probably spend some of her time, as she usually did, cheapening the silks, laces and velvets in the merchant’s stock, while she would remain in the burgomaster’s house and enjoy herself with the arts and graces of Señorita Wilhelmina. ‘Where you will be, too, I suppose?’ she laughed, ‘Señor Oliver, and, perchance, the gentleman whose messenger and envoy you are. Have you transferred your service from my father to the Capitan Guido?’ At this,” says Oliver, with a slight chuckle, “I had the audacity to remark, ‘Perhaps it may be all in the family,’ and left her as red as the ruby ring she was holding in her hand.”
This makes Chester flush with delight, and the room which had been dark and gloomy to him at the painter’s first words, is very sunny and bright.
A moment after it is brighter still, as Oliver remarks: “I never saw Hermoine de Alva blush at the mention of a human being before. Neither do I think, my audacious gallant, there is a man in this world, saving her own father, to whom she would accord a meeting. But you’d better stop drinking,” he adds, “or you’ll be considered one of the Drunkards of Brussels yourself, and we’ve something more than a drinking bout on hand. Come, they are going in, I see my enemy and know he has my fate in his hands.” He looks anxiously across the room, for there stands Vasco, surrounded by his five fellow topers, all bearing the arms of Brussels on their doublets.
As De Guerra’s eyes meet those of Oliver a smile of cruel triumph lights them up, and, with one quick, perchance unconscious, gesture, his hand goes to his bosom, as if to reassure himself that something very precious to him is still safe and ready.
“See that movement?” whispers Guy to Antony. “That’s to be certain of the letters that are your ruin if you don’t get them now!”
“And will,” gasps the painter, though his hand trembles slightly, as he feels to make sure on his part that he has the poison of the Antilles.
With this the two join the surging throng that is now squeezing into the great painted room at the rear of the inn, in which the grand weddings of Antwerp are celebrated. This is now set apart for the banquet which is to test the drinking powers of Antwerp’s genius and the Brussels’ society for the prevention of intemperance—by drinking up all the liquor in the world themselves.
A minute later there is a wild cry—“He has come!” the people turning from the dining-room and rushing toward the entrance of the house to see De Vriendt, the artist, riding up upon his white horse, followed by six of his pupils.
This gives Guy and Oliver an easier entrance to the banquet room, of which they take advantage, finding themselves in a high, heavily studded apartment, with beautifully carved balustrades and roof beams, the walls decorated by paintings and frescoes, some of them from the brush of the contesting artist himself.
In the center is a large oaken table, with seats for seven, covered with everything that can increase the thirst and appetite for wine—salt fish, caviare, and viands steeped in oil, which is supposed to develop the capacity of man for liquor—all these decorated and arranged in highest style of Netherland garniture; for there are flowers on the table, and a wreath of roses with which to crown the victor. The whole is a horrible hurly-burly of art, mediæval luxury and barbaric vice.
Six seats about the board are occupied by the Drunkards of Brussels, Vasco de Guerra sitting at the foot of the table as manager and captain of his band of topers. Each man has before him an immense silver frankforter or beaker glass holding a quantity of wine that would put a temperance society in convulsions of righteous indignation.
The seat at the head of the table is reserved for the one man who contests against the many; the glory of Antwerp; the great genius who is going to drown it in drink; the great toper who, in honor of his city and a wager of five hundred guilders, is going to drink these six other topers under the table; while all around this board dedicated to gluttony and to Bacchus stands a melange of the masculine society of the town, from Spanish General Vargas to little Ensign de Busaco; from the fat merchant prince to the brawny representative of the Butchers’ Guild—even to little Achille Touraine, who comes crawling and sneaking in between the legs of the assembly to reach his master, getting viciously kicked and spurred in this business by several dandy officers whose uniforms he disarranges in his transit.
“I am here as you directed, Monsieur Oliver,” he pants. “That is, part of me—one of the officer’s spurs lanced me like my father does his bleeding patients, and my face has been scraped as papa does his shaving customers. But I—I couldn’t get here before, it took so long for Marvedie and me to eat the last of the pigeon pie.”
Here the boy’s voice is drowned by the buzz that greets the entrance of the painter; as De Vriendt comes striding in, his pale Flemish face and mild blue eyes lighted with a convivial smile, while tossing his hat on high he cries: “Welcome, brother junketers of Brussels!” taking his seat at the head of the table.
This is responded to in kind, little Tomasito remarking: “Greeting, brother pig of Antwerp.” A sally of mediæval wit, that makes the crowd roar with laughter, though Floris’s pale face grows red with humiliation—for one moment.
The next he has forgotten all save the pleasure of the wine cup, for a serving man places before him an immense Frankforter of strongest Markobrunner, and in the love of the liquor he forgets his love of the esteem of his fellows and townsmen. Rising from his chair he calls out: “Let us begin, Drunkards of Brussels. The terms of the wager are settled. I drink every one of you under the table, and leave you all there.”
“Those are the terms, Señor Floris,” murmurs De Guerra, a snicker in his voice, and the six topers stand up, each man in his place, and each with flagon in his hand, filled to the brim with the same strong wine that faces De Vriendt.
“Then DOWN!” cries Floris, and each man tosses off his ration with a smack of delight, at which the crowd cries bravo.
But the contestants have hardly seated themselves and got pick at caviare or salted herring or potted anchovy, when the attendants have refilled their beakers, and Floris shouts: “Again!”
With this they rise once more, and down flies the Rhenish wine; then take to eating—for with drunkenness goes gluttony.
So the drinking bout goes on, viewed with varying faces by the crowd, the excitement growing higher; but none have faces like Guy Chester and Antony Oliver, for none, not even the greatest gambler in the town, has so high a stake at risk upon this battle of giants at the shrine of Bacchus.
All the time the crowd gets greater, and dogs creep snarling in—they have scented the feast, and hope for bones and pickings—and the dresses of women can be seen in the great balcony used by musicians at the wedding banquets, that stands at the further end of the hall; and friends commence to send flagons of wine with their compliments and good wishes to the various contestants.
But the drinking is even, flagon for flagon, each man tossing off his goblet at the same moment with the others, and then calling for another—though sometimes the brand of wine is changed to stimulate their appetites by varying flavors. Rothenberger has succeeded Markobrunner and been displaced by Hochheimer.
It is the tenth round. Seven immense silver mugs of strongest Rhine wine are just passing the lips and sizzling down the gullets of the contestants.
“At the fifteenth,” whispers Oliver.
“Why not do it now?” says Guy in his ear.
“No, it wouldn’t be prudent before the fifteenth,” returns the painter. “No one would believe that ten goblets would be the death of him.”
A minute or two and the twelfth turn has passed, and after drinking this one of the contestants, the little weazened Italian, Guisseppi Pisa, attempting to rise from his chair—staggers, and goes down quietly under the table.
“Do it now,” whispers Guy.
“I dare not—not yet,” returns Oliver.
The thirteenth round is quaffed amid laughter and cheers, and as De Guerra takes the goblet from his lips, Oliver’s face grows white and drawn, and Guy’s also, for to their horror they see the man they intended to poison at the fifteenth round, reel and fall insensible beneath the table.
“Too late! My God, he’s escaped me,” falters Antony.
“We can get the documents anyway, from his insensible carcass when the bout is over,” mutters the Englishman, recovering first.
“Yes, but that is only postponing my destruction. Vasco’s suspicions are aroused—the torture chamber gapes for me. I shall have to fly. I can no longer do the work I had laid out for myself.” This is sighed from white lips.
But another shout goes up from the surrounding crowd; at the fourteenth round two of the remaining Drunkards of Brussels have gone down. Two more are left for the painter to vanquish, but these are very tough ones. De Vriendt smiles in triumph; his Flemish face, though red and flushed, appears mocking now; but his legs are a little shaky.
Thus four more rounds pass; another of the Drunkards of Brussels joins the company of those beneath the table. Now only one, little Tomasito, is standing up for the ducats his friends have wagered upon him, and the honor of the capital; when suddenly (for Guy has turned away his head, only awaiting his opportunity at the finish of the bout to rob De Guerra of the papers, and cares but little who wins the contest) the Englishman feels his sleeve plucked, and looking up, sees Antony’s eyes blazing.
“He’s recovering!” whispers Oliver.
“Who?”
“Vasco! See him! He is staggering up to his feet again. He will win the bout. It’s a trick—a trick to gain the advantage of so many flagons over De Vriendt.”
This is the feeling of Floris’s friends; and when De Guerra, staggering up, shouts: “Another stoup of Rhine wine for the Drunkards of Brussels,” they interpose and engage in angry altercation.
But De Vriendt says: “I give him the advantage of five flagons, I will finish him up also.”
Another round is quaffed. Before it little Tomasito goes down as if struck by a cannon ball, leaving only De Guerra and Floris standing fronting each other, looking in each other’s faces, one with the smile of the Fleming, the other filled with that curious rage peculiar to the Spaniard, who, when excited, becomes savage in everything—savage in war, savage in play, savage in love.
Each pours down another beaker, and Floris is reeling.
“Now’s your last chance,” whispers Guy.
Calling a waiter Antony says: “A flagon of your strongest Rhine wine at once.”
While De Vriendt and the Spaniard are appetizing themselves for another bout, one eating caviare savagely and the other lovingly dallying with some pickled cod’s livers, to give him greater thirst, is the opportunity of Oliver.
The waiter, pouring the wine from the flask into the flagon, goes his way, and a moment after, with a hand that has become deft by using the delicate brushes of his art, the hunted artist skillfully unseals the little vial and drops unnoticed a portion of its subtle poison into the beaker.
“Be sure you give him enough,” whispers Guy, who has been standing in front of his friend to screen him, though the crowd is so great and the excitement so intense, bets being offered two to one on the Spaniard, it would have been unnoticed had no precaution been taken.
At this suggestion Oliver pours a double dose into the flagon. Then, handing it to Achille, who has been devoting his time to sucking the oranges thrown from the table by the reeling and unsteady hands of the contestants, he whispers: “Take this to the Spaniard, Vasco de Guerra.”
“Yes!”
“Be sure! The one with the black mustache with the single gray lock!”
“Certainly, the brunette, I’m not a fool!”
“Give it to him with the compliments and good wishes of Mademoiselle Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker. Quick! get it to him at once!”
As the two contestants rise and confront each other for another round, the Spaniard standing up more strongly, for his tactics have given him a great advantage, the boy Achille glides to De Guerra, gives him the beaker prepared for him by the hand of the hunted one, and whispers words into his ear that makes a flush of delight run over the drunken redness of his face.
Tossing aside the goblet that was to his hand, Vasco de Guerra cries: “This is old red Rhine wine; I drink this, my reeling Floris, to the beauty of Antwerp!”
And clapping the flagon to his lips he pours down the whole stoup in one long continued, triumphant gulp. Then looking at his rival the joy of winning comes into Vasco de Guerra’s eye, for the painter, having drunk his flagon, can scarce keep his feet.
“Malediction!” whispers Oliver, “The drug does not work.”
“Wait,” answers Guy.
Then, too anxious to speak, their faces distorted with suspense, the two gaze on while the contesting topers sink into their chairs and fortify themselves with condiments for the next round.
As the Spaniard eats he smiles on the painter, whose hands seem scarce able to do their office.
But their goblets are re-filled, and the two rise once more, Floris supporting himself with one hand, as his feet need help now.
“Drink!” says De Guerra, and the painter manages to get his portion down, his competitor standing firm, erect and mocking.
“Now see me!” and Vasco raises his flagon lightly, easily, triumphantly, his backers giving a shout of joy.
But just as he gets the goblet to his lips a kind of dazed expression comes into De Guerra’s face, his hand falls nerveless by his side, and the beaker, dropping from it, goes clattering to the floor, then clutching with both hands at his throat as if for breath, he sinks down, senseless and inert, upon the bodies of his companions, who lie there in drunken stupor, while a cry of triumph goes up from the assembled backers of Floris.
A moment after De Vriendt, staggering, reeling, surrounded by his friends, gets to the fresh air of the street, which gives him new strength. Assisted by his six pupils, who will take him home and put him to bed and nurse him after his drunken bout, he cries: “Ho! for another stoup of Rhine wine, strong Rhine wine, landlord of the Painted Inn!” and putting one foot in the stirrup, quaffs down a mighty libation to his defeated ones. Then he rides reeling to his palace on the street named after him, surrounded by happy creditors, who think if Floris lives he will paint more pictures and pay some of his debts.
The crowd, as it surges about, gives very little attention to the Drunkards of Brussels, save one who indulges in a sly kick or two at the recumbent forms that have lost him his money; but almost as he fell Guy and Oliver have taken De Guerra, who is breathing heavily, and borne him to an adjoining room.
Here hastily opening his doublet the painter slips his hand in, and sewn between the linings of his garments he feels a little packet.
Ripping this out, he whispers, as he examines it, “Thank God! the six letters from Louis of Nassau!”
A moment after, Guy, putting his hand upon the breast of the Spaniard, mutters: “The spy is dead.” And a great, deep-drawn breath of relief comes from the Fleming—this one of his many dangers has died with Vasco de Guerra.
The color has returned to his face, and he laughs: “It was your lucky coming and the pigeon pie that saved me—for a little while—my friend, my Guido!”
The two go out together, and on the street Oliver again looks serious and mutters: “Alva! Here before his time. He was not to arrive till evening. What has brought him so suddenly from Brussels?”
For a cavalcade is prancing up the street; thirty horsemen armored in steel with long lances bearing the pennon of Vargas. Before these, upon a strong Andalusian charger, rides a man of spare but very tall stature, in complete, glistening, gold-embossed Milan armor. Over the gorget about his neck is the ribbon of the Golden Fleece upon which hangs the Lamb of God, the insignia of that Order. This is covered by a long sable, silvered beard that falls in two peculiar pointed locks upon his breast, his dark hair cut short, is likewise grizzled; so is his mustache, which drapes peculiar lips, the upper thin, firm and determined; the lower sensual—but determined also; his forehead high, pale, blue-veined and strangely intellectual, that of the military mathematician; his nose aquiline and of rare beauty, keen cut, precise, immovable, his cheeks sallow and pallid—altogether a face cold as death, lighted by two blazing, sparkling, unflinching, serpent’s eyes, and yet at times in certain features so like the woman that made Guy’s heart beat with love the night before that he knows it is her father, and murmurs: “Alva!”
The Duke is talking quietly to Alfonso de Ulloa and Pedro Paciotto, his great military engineer, who ride immediately behind him. All are covered with the dust of hasty travel.
As they pass the Painted Inn the Viceroy’s piercing eyes look haughtily upon the crowd that stand upon the steps and throng the pentice of the hostelry with doffed hats to do him reverence. Suddenly reining up, he cries: “Oliver! Antonius Oliver!” and the painter, stepping forth, bows before the Duke of Alva’s charger.
“It is fate I have got word with you so soon. Find for me at once one Vasco de Guerra, ex-Captain in Ladroño’s Musketeers. Tell him I will hear his tale within the hour, and bring him with you to the Citadel at once,” commands the captain-general.
“Under favor, your—your Highness,” returns Oliver, “the—the man you ask for—”
“Yes, speak quickly. What are you stammering about?” says the Viceroy, for the sudden demand for the man he has murdered has staggered the painter, tactician though he is—for a moment.
“I was about to say, your Highness, that this Vasco de Guerra, who is one of the Six Drunkards of Brussels, now lies stupefied from his potations at the drinking bout.”
“What, with that rattle-brain artist Floris!” says Alva; then he suddenly remarks in tones that send a tremor through the frame of Oliver: “And that drunkard thought I would reinstate him in his rank in the army! Some communication he would make to me to-day—something upon which the safety of the realm perhaps depended—something that brought me to Antwerp four hours ahead of my time! Take word to the captain of the provost guard to arrest De Guerra at once. I will speak with him in prison when he recovers his senses—this fool, this drunkard, this wine-bibber. And yet—I wonder what he had to tell me? Forward, gentlemen!”
And the Duke rides on, leaving the painter standing almost as breathless as the corpse inside the Painted Inn; for Oliver knows the hand of death has been almost as near to him as to the dead, and mutters, as he rejoins Guy; “Ehu! truly the lion’s jaws had nearly closed!”
