“The truth, do you say, mistress?” cried the impetuous Sir John in a voice of passionate contempt. “The truth....”
Again his Lordship was forced to intervene.
“Have patience, man,” he admonished the knight. “The truth will prevail in the end, never fear, Killigrew.”
“Meanwhile we are wasting time,” grumbled Sir John, and on that fell moodily silent.
“Are we further to understand you to say, mistress,” Lord Henry resumed, “that the prisoner’s disappearance from Penarrow was due not to flight, as was supposed, but to his having been trepanned by order of his brother?”
“That is the truth as I stand here in the sight of Heaven,” she replied in a voice that rang with sincerity and carried conviction to more than one of the officers seated at that table. “By that act the murderer sought not only to save himself from exposure, but to complete his work by succeeding to the Tressilian estates. Sir Oliver was to have been sold into slavery to the Moors of Barbary. Instead the vessel upon which he sailed was captured by Spaniards, and he was sent to the galleys by the Inquisition. When his galley was captured by Muslim corsairs he took the only way of escape that offered. He became a corsair and a leader of corsairs, and then....”
“What else he did we know,” Lord Henry interrupted. “And I assure you it would all weigh very lightly with us or with any court if what else you say is true.”
“It is true. I swear it, my lord,” she repeated.
“Ay,” he answered, nodding gravely. “But can you prove it?”
“What better proof can I offer you than that I love him, and have married him?”
“Bah!” said Sir John.
“That, mistress,” said Lord Henry, his manner extremely gentle, “is proof that yourself you believe this amazing story. But it is not proof that the story itself is true. You had it, I suppose,” he continued smoothly, “from Oliver Tressilian himself?”
“That is so; but in Lionel’s own presence, and Lionel himself confirmed it — admitting its truth.”
“You dare say that?” cried Sir John, and stared at her in incredulous anger. “My God! You dare say that?”
“I dare and do,” she answered him, giving him back look for look.
Lord Henry sat back in his chair, and tugged gently at his ashen tuft of beard, his florid face overcast and thoughtful. There was something here he did not understand at all. “Mistress Rosamund,” he said quietly, “let me exhort you to consider the gravity of your words. You are virtually accusing one who is no longer able to defend himself; if your story is established, infamy will rest for ever upon the memory of Lionel Tressilian. Let me ask you again, and let me entreat you to answer scrupulously. Did Lionel Tressilian admit the truth of this thing with which you say that the prisoner charged him?”
“Once more I solemnly swear that what I have spoken is true; that Lionel Tressilian did in my presence, when charged by Sir Oliver with the murder of my brother and the kidnapping of himself, admit those charges. Can I make it any plainer, sirs?”
Lord Henry spread his hands. “After that, Killigrew, I do not think we can go further in this matter. Sir Oliver must go with us to England, and there take his trial.”
But there was one present — that officer named Youldon — whose wits, it seems, were of keener temper.
“By your leave, my lord,” he now interposed, and he turned to question the witness. “What was the occasion on which Sir Oliver forced this admission from his brother?”
Truthfully she answered. “At his house in Algiers on the night he....” She checked suddenly, perceiving then the trap that had been set for her. And the others perceived it also. Sir John leapt into the breach which Youldon had so shrewdly made in her defences.
“Continue, pray,” he bade her. “On the night he....”
“On the night we arrived there,” she answered desperately, the colour now receding slowly from her face.
“And that, of course,” said Sir John slowly, mockingly almost, “was the first occasion on which you heard this explanation of Sir Oliver’s conduct?”
“It was,” she faltered — perforce.
“So that,” insisted Sir John, determined to leave her no loophole whatsoever, “so that until that night you had naturally continued to believe Sir Oliver to be the murderer of your brother?”
She hung her head in silence, realizing that the truth could not prevail here since she had hampered it with a falsehood, which was now being dragged into the light.
“Answer me!” Sir John commanded.
“There is no need to answer,” said Lord Henry slowly, in a voice of pain, his eyes lowered to the table. “There can, of course, be but one answer. Mistress Rosamund has told us that he did not abduct her forcibly; that she went with him of her own free will and married him; and she has urged that circumstance as a proof of her conviction of his innocence. Yet now it becomes plain that at the time she left England with him she still believed him to be her brother’s slayer. Yet she asks us to believe that he did not abduct her.” He spread his hands again and pursed his lips in a sort of grieved contempt.
“Let us make an end, a’ God’s name!” said Sir John, rising.
“Ah, wait!” she cried. “I swear that all that I have told you is true — all but the matter of the abduction. I admit that, but I condoned it in view of what I have since learnt.”
“She admits it!” mocked Sir John.
But she went on without heeding him. “Knowing what he has suffered through the evil of others, I gladly own him my husband, hoping to make some amends to him for the part I had in his wrongs. You must believe me, sirs. But if you will not, I ask you is his action of yesterday to count for naught? Are you not to remember that but for him you would have had no knowledge of my whereabouts?”
They stared at her in fresh surprise.
“To what do you refer now, mistress? What action of his is responsible for this?”
“Do you need to ask? Are you so set on murdering him that you affect ignorance? Surely you know that it was he dispatched Lionel to inform you of my whereabouts?”
Lord Henry tells us that at this he smote the table with his open palm, displaying an anger he could no longer curb. “This is too much!” he cried. “Hitherto I have believed you sincere but misguided and mistaken. But so deliberate a falsehood transcends all bounds. What has come to you, girl? Why, Lionel himself told us the circumstances of his escape from the galeasse. Himself he told us how that villain had him flogged and then flung him into the sea for dead.”
“Ah!” said Sir Oliver between his teeth. “I recognize Lionel there! He would be false to the end, of course. I should have thought of that.”
Rosamund at bay, in a burst of regal anger leaned forward to face Lord Henry and the others. “He lied, the base, treacherous dog!” she cried.
“Madam,” Sir John rebuked her, “you are speaking of one who is all but dead.”
“And more than damned,” added Sir Oliver. “Sirs,” he cried, “you prove naught but your own stupidity when you accuse this gentle lady of falsehood.”
“We have heard enough, sir,” Lord Henry interrupted.
“Have you so, by God!” he roared, stung suddenly to anger. “You shall hear yet a little more. The truth will prevail, you have said yourself; and prevail the truth shall since this sweet lady so desires it.”
He was flushed, and his light eyes played over them like points of steel, and like points of steel they carried a certain measure of compulsion. He had stood before them half-mocking and indifferent, resigned to hang and desiring the thing might be over and ended as speedily as possible. But all that was before he suspected that life could still have anything to offer him, whilst he conceived that Rosamund was definitely lost to him. True, he had the memory of a certain tenderness she had shown him yesternight aboard the galley, but he had deemed that tenderness to be no more than such as the situation itself begot. Almost he had deemed the same to be here the case until
he had witnessed her fierceness and despair in fighting for his life, until he had heard and gauged the sincerity of her avowal that she loved him and desired to make some amends to him for all that he had suffered in the past. That had spurred him, and had a further spur been needed, it was afforded him when they branded her words with falsehood, mocked her to her face with what they supposed to be her lies. Anger had taken him at that to stiffen his resolve to make a stand against them and use the one weapon that remained him — that a merciful chance, a just God had placed within his power almost despite himself.
“I little knew, sirs,” he said, “that Sir John was guided by the hand of destiny itself when last night, in violation of the terms of my surrender, he took a prisoner from my galeasse. That man is, as I have said, a sometime English seaman, named Jasper Leigh. He fell into my hands some months ago, and took the same road to escape from thraldom that I took myself under the like circumstances. I was merciful in that I permitted him to do so, for he is the very skipper who was suborned by Lionel to kidnap me and carry me into Barbary. With me he fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Have him brought hither, and question him.”
In silence they all looked at him, but on more than one face he saw the reflection of amazement at his impudence, as they conceived it.
It was Lord Henry who spoke at last. “Surely, sir, this is most oddly, most suspiciously apt,” he said, and there could be no doubt that he was faintly sneering. “The very man to be here aboard, and taken prisoner thus, almost by chance....”
“Not quite by chance, though very nearly. He conceives that he has a grudge against Lionel, for it was through Lionel that misfortune overtook him. Last night when Lionel so rashly leapt aboard the galley, Jasper Leigh saw his opportunity to settle an old score and took it. It was as a consequence of that that he was arrested.”
“Even so, the chance is still miraculous.”
“Miracles, my lord, must happen sometimes if the truth is to prevail,” Sir Oliver replied with a tinge of his earlier mockery. “Fetch him hither, and question him. He knows naught of what has passed here. It were a madness to suppose him primed for a situation which none could have foreseen. Fetch him hither, then.”
Steps sounded outside but went unheeded at the moment.
“Surely,” said Sir John, “we have been trifled with by liars long enough!”
The door was flung open, and the lean black figure of the surgeon made its appearance.
“Sir John!” he called urgently, breaking without ceremony into the proceedings, and never heeding Lord Henry’s scowl. “Master Tressilian has recovered consciousness. He is asking for you and for his brother. Quick, sirs! He is sinking fast.”
CHAPTER XXVI. THE JUDGMENT
To that cabin below the whole company repaired in all speed in the surgeon’s wake, Sir Oliver coming last between his guards. They assembled about the couch where Lionel lay, leaden-hued of face, his breathing laboured, his eyes dull and glazing.
Sir John ran to him, went down upon one knee to put loving arms about that chilling clay, and very gently raised him in them, and held him so resting against his breast.
“Lionel!” he cried in stricken accents. And then as if thoughts of vengeance were to soothe and comfort his sinking friend’s last moments, he added: “We have the villain fast.”
Very slowly and with obvious effort Lionel turned his head to the right, and his dull eyes went beyond Sir John and made quest in the ranks of those that stood about him.
“Oliver?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Where is Oliver?”
“There is not the need to distress you....” Sir John was beginning, when Lionel interrupted him.
“Wait!” he commanded in a louder tone. “Is Oliver safe?”
“I am here,” said Sir Oliver’s deep voice, and those who stood between him and his brother drew aside that they might cease from screening him.
Lionel looked at him for a long moment in silence, sitting up a little. Then he sank back again slowly against Sir John’s breast.
“God has been merciful to me a sinner,” he said, “since He accords me the means to make amends, tardily though it be.”
Then he struggled up again, and held out his arms to Sir Oliver, and his voice came in a great pleading cry. “Noll! My brother! Forgive!”
Oliver advanced, none hindering until, with his hands still pinioned behind him he stood towering there above his brother, so tall that his turban brushed the low ceiling of the cabin. His countenance was stern and grim.
“What is it that you ask me to forgive?” he asked. Lionel struggled to answer, and sank back again into Sir John’s arms, fighting for breath; there was a trace of blood-stained foam about his lips.
“Speak! Oh, speak, in God’s name!” Rosamund exhorted him from the other side, and her voice was wrung with agony.
He looked at her, and smiled faintly. “Never fear,” he whispered, “I shall speak. God has spared me to that end. Take your arms from me, Killigrew. I am the... the vilest of men. It... it was I who killed Peter Godolphin.”
“My God!” groaned Sir John, whilst Lord Henry drew a sharp breath of dismay and realization.
“Ah, but that is not my sin,” Lionel continued. “There was no sin in that. We fought, and in self-defence I slew him — fighting fair. My sin came afterwards. When suspicion fell on Oliver, I nourished it...Oliver knew the deed was mine, and kept silent that he might screen me. I feared the truth might become known for all that... and... and I was jealous of him, and... and I had him kidnapped to be sold....”
His fading voice trailed away into silence. A cough shook him, and the faint crimson foam on his lips was increased. But he rallied again, and lay there panting, his fingers plucking at the coverlet.
“Tell them,” said Rosamund, who in her desperate fight for Sir Oliver’s life kept her mind cool and steady and directed towards essentials, “tell them the name of the man you hired to kidnap him.”
“Jasper Leigh, the skipper of the Swallow,” he answered, whereupon she flashed upon Lord Henry a look that contained a gleam of triumph for all that her face was ashen and her lips trembled.
Then she turned again to the dying man, relentlessly almost in her determination to extract all vital truth from him ere he fell silent.
“Tell them,” she bade him, “under what circumstances Sir Oliver sent you last night to the Silver Heron.”
“Nay, there is no need to harass him,” Lord Henry interposed. “He has said enough already. May God forgive us our blindness, Killigrew!”
Sir John bowed his head in silence over Lionel.
“Is it you, Sir John?” whispered the dying man. “What? Still there? Ha!” he seemed to laugh faintly, then checked. “I am going....” he muttered, and again his voice grew stronger, obeying the last flicker of his shrinking will. “Noll! I am going! I...I have made reparation... all that I could. Give me... give me thy hand!” Gropingly he put forth his right.
“I should have given it you ere this but that my wrists are bound,” cried Oliver in a sudden frenzy. And then exerting that colossal strength of his, he suddenly snapped the cords that pinioned him as if they had been thread. He caught his brother’s extended hand, and dropped upon his knees beside him. “Lionel...Boy!” he cried. It was as if all that had befallen in the last five years had been wiped out of existence. His fierce relentless hatred of his half-brother, his burning sense of wrong, his parching thirst for vengeance, became on the instant all dead, buried, and forgotten. More, it was as if they had never been. Lionel in that moment was again the weak, comely, beloved brother whom he had cherished and screened and guarded, and for whom when the hour arrived he had sacrificed his good name, and the woman he loved, and placed his life itself in jeopardy.
“Lionel, boy!” was all that for a moment he could say. Then: “Poor lad! Poor lad!” he added. “Temptation was too strong for thee.” And reaching forth he took the other white hand that lay beyond the couch, and so held both tight-clasped withi
n his own.
From one of the ports a ray of sunshine was creeping upwards towards the dying man’s face. But the radiance that now overspread it was from an inward source. Feebly he returned the clasp of his brother’s hands.
“Oliver, Oliver!” he whispered. “There is none like thee! I ever knew thee as noble as I was base. Have I said enough to make you safe? Say that he will be safe now,” he appealed to the others, “that no....”
“He will be safe,” said Lord Henry stoutly. “My word on’t.”
“It is well. The past is past. The future is in your hands, Oliver. God’s blessing on’t.” He seemed to collapse, to rally yet again. He smiled pensively, his mind already wandering. “That was a long swim last night — the longest I ever swam. From Penarrow to Trefusis — a fine long swim. But you were with me, Noll. Had my strength given out...I could have depended on you. I am still chill from it, for it was cold... cold... ugh!” He shuddered, and lay still.
Gently Sir John lowered him to his couch. Beyond it Rosamund fell upon her knees and covered her face, whilst by Sir John’s side Oliver continued to kneel, clasping in his own his brother’s chilling hands.
There ensued a long spell of silence. Then with a heavy sigh Sir Oliver folded Lionel’s hands across his breast, and slowly, heavily rose to his feet.
The others seemed to take this for a signal. It was as if they had but waited mute and still out of deference to Oliver. Lord Henry moved softly round to Rosamund and touched her lightly upon the shoulder. She rose and went out in the wake of the others, Lord Henry following her, and none remaining but the surgeon.
Outside in the sunshine they checked. Sir John stood with bent head and hunched shoulders, his eyes upon the white deck. Timidly almost — a thing never seen before in this bold man — he looked at Sir Oliver.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 310
