My astonishment was so complete that several minutes passed before I could find voice enough to ask what this deception meant. Annetje soon quieted her laughter and was ready to explain.

“My dear mistress,” she began, “is an angel out of heaven. She is always making chances for me to see Pierre. To-day, when she would not go to Yorke with you, I begged her to let me go in her place. She is so sweet. She can never bear to say ‘no’ to anything unless someone does wrong.”

Annetje indicated what would happen then by a disconsolate shrug of her shoulders.

“I don’t know why she should have taken such a liking to you. I dare say now, if you had been here longer—oh, I don’t mean that at all. I think you are very—very—Shall we ride towards Yorke?”

I could not help laughing a little at Annetje’s embarrassment.

“Mistress Annetje,” I said.

“I’m a bond-servant, sir. Plain Annetje, if you please.”

“Plain Annetje, then, what is your purpose now?”

“To put on my mask again. Now, I have it placed; will you tie it in the back? Look, here in my face; is it right? Do my ears show under the bottom?”

All this occurred on the Kissing Bridge. I made sure as I tied Annetje’s ribbons that she was still chuckling behind her mask, though she spoke like a Puritan.

“If you had kissed me I should have told my mistress. No I should not, neither. We never do anything she does not like. Do you know how you touched her heart by crying over that dear little Ruth we all loved so much? There you go again. You must be soft indeed. Mistress was telling me all about it. But here comes Pierre; I knew we should meet him.”

Sure enough, my friend Pierre was riding on the road ahead of us, and would meet us in a moment.

“I am going to play the mistress,” continued Annetje. “You two must ride behind me just the same.”

I did not know what to make of this meeting with Pierre. It was not his custom, as I knew very well, to ride a good horse. He could not be here by appointment or Annetje would not try to fool him as to who she really was. Perhaps he had ridden out in the mere hope of stumbling across me. He was on a horse I had seen in the Marmaduke stables, which fact confirmed me in this opinion. Perhaps he had matters of importance for my ear.

“Ha, Pierre,” I heard his sweetheart say in a high unnatural voice as they passed. “You see I ride in disguise now. Will you turn and accompany us? I have a new groom. Monsieur St. Vincent, this is Pierre, the barber.”

Pierre looked surprised. Evidently Annetje was not copying with success her gentle mistress’ manner. She seemed to know this fact, for her next words contained a half apology for her behavior.

“Don’t look amazed, my little friend. You see I have a disguise to keep up now, and I practice by the way. I should have brought Annetje to accompany me—ah, you wish I had? My father could not spare us both. You waste too much time on the little flirt, Pierre.”

“She is severe at times,” he answered mournfully. “I sometimes grow so weary waiting for her to come round.”

“Bah! You are a milky lover to say so. I’d wait a life-time if I were you. Alas, all men are alike! She is right when she says that you are a white-livered, chicken-hearted snip of a coward not worth the cheese in a mousetrap. Pooh, you are a fine lover. Good Lord deliver me!”

“Oh, Mistress Miriam, does she say all that? If you only knew how I do everything she tells me, and stand on my toes from morning till night when she is around, and I have corns to boot, and fetch her ribbons, and she won’t even cross the Kissing Bridge, where everybody does if they are no nearer than half a mile.”

“To the kennels with your love if that is all it’s worth.”

In her last exclamation Annetje had dropped into her natural voice. Pierre was so down-hearted that he did not notice the change; but Annetje, fearing to expose herself further, galloped ahead and Pierre took his place by my side. As for me, I had little enough of sympathy for him, and felt more in a mood for laughing. If there is anything on this earth I cannot abide it is a whiny lover. I remember once a fellow whose opinion of himself was better than most folks’ and he used to go about from morning to night with his face as long as a cucumber thinking all the while of what he might have been doing while another fellow came in and ran off with the prize before his eyes. I was minded to tell Pierre the story of this fellow and how he went into a decline and died without as much sympathy as would go to make an ordinary case of the blues, but he got so quick to work upon his other concerns that I forgot all about it till the time was past.

“This is an odd manner for the young mistress,” he said. “But I suppose she is glad to get out again. Annetje says that the patroon keeps her close. I told her that I should ride along the road here every day. I did not know when I should meet you, but I knew that you would come along some day. I wish Annetje had come.”

“There were strange happenings at the manor-house to-day, Pierre.”

“So there were at Marmaduke Hall. I was walking in the crowd on the Slip when someone put his hand into my pocket. There were so many people that I could not make out who it was, but I found that he had left your letter in my pocket.”

“My letter! In your pocket!”

“Yes, the letter you wrote last night.”

“I wrote no letter.”

“Yes you did. I received it.”

“Not from me. What was it like?”

“It was very short and said that the excuse of going to Albany would not do; that a messenger was coming from the manor-house to inquire after you and must find you dead. We thought it a piece of foolery at first, though who but you knew enough to write the letter. But first thing we knew, Mistress Miriam rode up to ask where you were. Lady Marmaduke saw her coming and suspected that the letter was true. So she rubbed my face with flour, found me a false beard that they used to act with when they gave plays there, and made me into your corpse in the twinkling of an eye. If the tender-hearted mistress had not been full of tears, she would never have taken me for you, nor for a corpse either, for I jumped when one of her tears fell plump into my eye. She just turned away, saying something about your sister had she been alive.”

I stifled a sob at this. Everyone but me was free to mourn aloud for Ruth.

“I sent no such letter, Pierre. What do you suppose it means?”

He had no explanation to give and I offered none of my own. But I knew beyond a doubt that Louis was true to his word. Who but Louis could have warned the Marmadukes in this way? If he had done so, then he must know who I was. Verily I was on slippery ground, but there I was, and there was neither drawing back nor going forward beyond a certain pace, and that pace was not in my own ruling. I began to think that the patroon had an enemy besides myself in the bosom of his household. Perhaps, after all, it would be through Louis that I should win out in the end; but I little foresaw the truth, or the trouble that was to come before the end, when the clouds should clear above the band of fallen troopers.

“Yonder is the city wall,” said Pierre. “I had best not go into town by your side. We should not be seen together, so I will just take my leave.”

He left me abruptly and turned down a side lane almost before I knew that he was gone; then I galloped ahead to overtake Annetje Dorn. We entered the city, riding one abreast the other. We had no sooner reached the open space before the Stadt Huys than a new adventure presented itself, an adventure which tested my companion’s nerve to the utmost.

“There is the Earl of Bellamont,” she said. “He will take me for my mistress and speak to me. What shall I do?”

“You must stick it out,” I answered. “Look sharp now. This must be gone through with.”

When we first spied the Earl we were in the midst of a large open place near the fort. Even at that distance I could mark the easy, erect bearing that made him the envy of all the horseback riders in the province. He was bowing right and left to the many persons he met on every hand, and so did not see us until we were quite upon him. When he did see us, however, he bowed low as if he had met a queen. He was much different in this respect from his wife. The Earl, in fact, was free with the ladies and cordial to everyone, but it was a well-known piece of gossip that he would not let his wife stir from the fort without a watch. She had been wild in her youth, and had married him when she was but a child. Now he was jealous as a woman about her, but with himself it was a different matter altogether.

“A welcome greeting, Mistress Van Volkenberg.” He knew her well enough by the trappings of her horse, and by the red band on my arm. “I must tell my Lady Bellamont that you ride now with a mask. It has always been her wish, you know, that the maidens of the province should not be so free with their pretty faces.”

“Your Excellency speaks sweet flattery,” answered Annetje. The bridle trembled in her hand, but her voice rang like metal.

“And your father—is the patroon well?”

His face clouded a bit, I thought, as he said this; but there were gentlemen in Yorke in those days that have passed away, and the Earl of Bellamont never failed in courtesy to a woman.

“My father is well, your Excellency. This is a new retainer of his—Monsieur St. Vincent.”

“Ah, Monsieur St. Vincent, you are welcome to the province. It is always our wish to obtain such men as you. Broad shoulders and a true heart, they are the strength of Yorke.” He turned to Annetje. “We must see your pretty face unmasked at the Assembly Ball—and Monsieur St. Vincent also,” bowing to me.

He would have invited the devil himself if he had come in company with a lady; but had he known what a revelation I should bring to that public ball the color would have left his cheeks. But that is to come. A few more commonplace remarks passed between us and then we parted.

“I can understand it now,” said Annetje as we rode towards home. “I often wonder how he keeps it all away from our sweet mistress; but if all the men are like that—no wonder. Who would have thought that he was talking to the daughter of his worst enemy? Yet she—God bless her innocent heart—she does not even know that her father is in disgrace with the privy-council.”

“But you seem to.”

“Ay, Pierre,” she answered, indicating the source of her information.

She turned towards me, taking off her mask as she did so. We were out in the country again, following a by-path north of the city where there was no longer any danger of meeting folk to recognize us. I had been used to see in her a merry face sparkling with humor. Now, when she unmasked, her brows were puckered up, and her childish face wore a sober, puzzled look.

“Ay, Pierre. I love him if I do tease him. What is more, I trust him, too. He knows me well. Your secret is safe with me, Monsieur Le Bourse. You see that I know all about you. I brought you out this afternoon because I knew that we should meet Pierre. I dare say you had something for his ear if he had none for yours. I do not know why you are here. I do not even ask. Pierre is your safety and I am satisfied. But beware; I am a watchdog to my mistress. If you do anything against her I’ll cut your throat.”

“Annetje,” I cried. “You can trust me there. I shall protect her with my life for the love she bore my sister. Tell me one thing. How is it that she can stand what is going on at Hanging Rock?”

“She does not know it.”

“How can she help knowing it?”

“Because we all love her. Even the patroon would lay down his life for her. Do you suppose he is afraid to have her know the truth? It is because he loves her and would save her pain.”

“I have seen him try to strike her with a glass.”

“It was in anger. He has a strange infirmity that comes upon him suddenly. He does not know what he is doing when it has got hold of him. She forgives all that, her heart is so big.”

“But last night—the death of Ronald Guy?”

“Hush, not a word of that before her. She knows nothing of all that.”

“But she does know it. She was on the terrace. I saw her with my own eyes.”

“Yet she does not know it. We are used to the Red Band drilling at night. I knew what was coming yesterday, and at night I drew her curtains close so she could not see what was going on. When the guns went off she sprang out of bed. She heard her father’s cry. I could not stop her before she threw on a cloak and ran down stairs in her bare feet. She met her father in the doorway taken with one of his strange fits. She had no eyes for anything but him. She did not see poor Ronald lying in a heap, nor Meg.”

“She cannot be kept in ignorance forever. How long has this thing been going on?”

“Not long. The Red Band is a new thing. It will bring ruin upon the house. My poor mistress, when she learns the truth! The truth will break her heart, she is so strong for right.” The tears were streaming out of the poor girl’s eyes. “Promise me you will do nothing to harm my mistress.”

“I swear before God I shall protect her.”

Then we fell to musing and rode for half an hour before Annetje asked me to tie her mask again.

“It is time we were going home,” she said. “There is some distance yet, for I have led you round about and we are scarcely a quarter of a mile from the city wall.”

A hundred yards brought us to the Post Road, along which we turned to the left, galloping rapidly northward towards the Hanging Rock. On our right, not more than a mile from the town was, and is for aught I know to the contrary, an old tumble-down tannery. We were approaching this ramshackle building when five men suddenly dashed out on us. They were all rough looking fellows, and each one of them wore a black mask over his face. In spite of this disguise, I recognized the hindmost man. The jumbled figure like a mass of jelly in the saddle—so unlike the stiffness with which he sometimes rode—proclaimed him to be Louis Van Ramm. Because of his presence I could hardly believe this sortie to be an attack upon me till I heard the cry of the foremost rider caught up and repeated by the others.

“Down with him. Down with the Red Band. Fire.”

Four of their muskets rang out at once. I heard Annetje scream, and expected to fall dead, but I was not even hurt. The fifth man had got so close to me that he shot off his gun at my very breast. Then Louis raised the butt end of his musket and struck me on the head. All this happened so suddenly that I had not had time even to draw my sword. When Louis’s gun fell, I reeled. I just remember Annetje’s shriek, and the hoofbeats of her horse like a great echoing drum. Next I felt myself sliding from the saddle, and then all is a blank to this day.

My grandfather used to say, “Telling dreams is but another name for lying;” so I shall not speak of the glorious visions of war and battle that thronged through my brain before I came to myself again. But regain consciousness I did, and in the following manner.

I remembered the drumbeats of Annetje’s horse as I reeled from the saddle, and when I came to myself again the first sound that fell on my ear was the sound of a hammer. I was lying on my back on the floor of a dimly lit outhouse. Ten feet away from me two men were making a box.

Luckily I had come to my senses quietly and had made no noise to attract their attention. For all the two workmen knew I might be still asleep—or dead, as they doubtless supposed. I made haste to stretch myself in that half sort of way which is as good as none, for I did not really move a muscle; I only strained a little here and there to make sure I was still alive.

The effect of the blow that had rendered me unconscious had passed away. Save for the ringing in my ears and the dull heavy pain in the crown of my head, I was all right and my wit was as clear as ever. So soon as I ascertained this fact, and had recollected the fight on the road, I set myself to unravel the present situation.

It must have been about sundown, and I soon discovered that the place where I lay was the old disused tannery. One of the two workmen I did not know; the other was Louis Van Ramm. Now for the first time I had a chance to think what his presence here meant. Evidently this attack had been instigated by the patroon—how otherwise could the dwarf be mixed up in it? But what part was he really playing? Were all his protestations of the morning false, or had he joined them only to hinder the execution of their plans? Then I remembered that it was his blow that had struck me down. I cursed him in my heart for it; but I was soon to learn that I was unjust in this suspicion.

However, despite my efforts to be still, I soon made a slight noise.

“My God!” cried the workman. “Was that him?”

“Couldn’t be,” replied Louis. “But I’ll look again and make sure.”

He dropped his hammer and came mincing to my side. As he bent over me I opened my eyes and looked square into his face. He hissed between his teeth for silence and laid his clumsy hand over my mouth for an instant. Then he got up and rejoined his companion.

“He’s as dead as a rock, and getting stiff. No fear of him, Barker.”

“If he’s dead,” returned Barker, “devil a fear have I. I’ll risk his ghost.” Then he added after a pause: “I hope we shall get out of here before night.”

“Little chance of that,” said Louis. “This is not a job the patroon will have finished in daylight.”

“Is he coming himself to see us bury him?”

“Yes. Get to work. This isn’t much of a coffin; but, such as it is, it must be finished against his coming back.”

So they were making my coffin and were going to bury me. “If they could,” I thought. But perhaps they had reckoned without me. If I made a sudden spring I could easily master Barker, or both of them if Louis proved my enemy. But Louis knew not only that I was alive, but also that I was conscious. Had he been playing me false he would not have deceived his partner. So I observed his warning to be silent, and lay perfectly still for some time.

Soon they finished their job, and Barker suggested that they box me up. Louis assented, and they came over to my side. I squinted between my lids and awaited some sign from the dwarf. I felt sure that he had planned something and that it was my cue to wait. Barker took hold of my hand.

“Why, he’s warm, Van Ramm.”

“Warm,” said Louis. “Nonsense; feel his heart.”

The fellow bent over me. At the very instant, Louis gave him a prodigious shove from behind that tumbled him down across my chest.

“Grip him, Vincent,” cried the dwarf. “Grip him tight.”

I threw up my arms and locked them round the fellow’s back. Then I felt a sharp twinge of pain, for Louis had driven his dagger clean through my enemy’s back and half an inch into my own flesh. Barker gave a convulsive sob and was dead almost before I knew that he had been struck.

“Get up, get up,” cried the dwarf, who was tugging at the body. “Give him a push; I cannot lift the wretch. There—now get up.”

With that I got up. Louis grasped my hand and spoke of my narrow escape.

“But we must be quick,” he went on. “Take off that boot while I do the other. Good. Now for his coat and waistcoat.”

In five minutes we had the dead man stripped of his outer clothes. I hardly understood what we were doing till Louis told me to take off my own clothes and dress myself in the others. This I did in a moment, but it was slower work putting my garments on the body of the dead man. We succeeded, however, and soon Barker lay in the coffin and the lid was nailed down. I sat safe and sound.

“Now put on his mask,” said Louis, “and we can talk till the hell-cat comes. What, you tremble! On my life, your hands are cold. Take this.”

He put a flask of whisky to my mouth and I gulped down a stifling draught. It was well I did so, for my spirit was weak and we were not done with this adventure by more than half. It is a hard thing to strike a man down like that, even to save one’s life. I could not reconcile myself to the shame of having struck him from the back and while he was defenceless. But Louis had saved my life and I did not upbraid him with the way he had chosen to do it.

“Louis,” I said—we were sitting side by side on the coffin. “What does all this mean? Why did you call your master a hell-cat?”

“He gave orders for us to lie in wait and kill you. He thought you were Le Bourse.”

“Thought, or thinks?”

“Thought. He thinks you are the devil now.”

“Wherefore that compliment?”

“Five muskets discharged at short range, one in your very face; none of them brought you down. I had to club you with the butt end of my musket.”

“Strange how they came to miss me.”

“Not strange at all. I unloaded them. Hush, don’t stop to thank me now. They are coming. I hope he will not want to look into the box.”

A moment later the patroon and one of his men entered.

“Is your work done, Louis?”

“Yes, sir; your orders are always obeyed, though Barker and I had to sweat for it.”

“Good. You shall have your reward.” (This to me.) “Now help us carry this out. We have got the grave all ready.”

The four of us took up the box and marched slowly out with it. We crossed a courtyard into another shed. It was dusk outside, but quite dark where we were going. I could see piles of lumber, boxes and barrels on either side; and, at the far end, a couple of disused vats. Everything was gloomy and still and solemn. Beyond the vats a light was burning, and here we found the fifth man sitting beside my—nay, Barker’s grave. The patroon urged speed, and we were not long in burying the coffin. Then we covered it with boards and debris so as to obliterate all traces of our presence and the grave. When we paused at the end to survey our work, I heard Louis mutter to the patroon:

“’Tis not the first time we have done a piece of work like this.”

There came into Van Volkenberg’s face that dogged look of hate that I had seen in the council chamber the day I had humbled him in the presence of his peers. Had I known nothing about him but that look, I should have known that a day of reckoning was at hand for the henchman. Van Volkenberg’s only reply, however, was: “Remember Ronald Guy.”

We were now ready to go out. As soon as we were on our journey homeward, the patroon touched me on the arm and motioned me silently to drop back with him.

“You have done well, Barker. You have obeyed orders without asking questions. Do you feel no curiosity to know why he died?”

“It is not my place to observe that men are much like women in the matter of trifles.”

“Trifles! Do you call the death of a living man a trifle! Bah; but ’tis a shrewd hint, my honest man. I shall reward you with my confidence. I shall not honor the others so. Even Louis does not know what I am going to tell you. That man was Bellamont’s spy.”

“Spy,” I cried.

“Yes, my trusty Barker. A spy sent by the enemy of the Red Band.”

“So perish all her enemies.”

“Do you think so?” asked the patroon in a tone of condescension, as if he really wanted my corroboration. “If you really believe that, heart and soul, I have some work for you that will raise you high as an officer of mine. There is still another spy in the very bosom of the Red Band.”

“Another! Two of them! Who is he?”

“That prancing ape ahead.”

“Louis Van Ramm?”

“Louis Van Ramm.”

“I am astonished. We all thought he was our master’s dearest man.”

“So he has been. I have found him out at last. He is paid by the Governor-Earl to betray us, and he must die for it. If you will kill him you shall have his place. Will you do it?”

“You have but to command. Shall I ahead and do it now?”

“No, no,” he said quickly, laying his hand on my arm. “There are three of them; besides, this must be done secretly. To-morrow, at nine o’clock exactly, Louis and I shall set out for the Hanging Rock. Be there to meet us. When we are done with him I have a secret to introduce you to in the chamber beneath the rock.”

“I shall be there in waiting, master.”

“Good. Be punctual. Now drop back and do not show yourself in the meantime. I shall join those ahead.”

With that he quickened his step and was soon swallowed in the darkness, while I stood counting his dwindling footsteps.