Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders

"Then what can we do? what can we do?"

"Do?" he reiterates for the hundredth time to-day, "do? Fight to the last man, die to the last man, until God, wearied of the tyrant's obstinacy, will crush him and give us grace."

"But we cannot win in the end."

"No! but we can die as we have lived, clean, undaunted, unconquered."

"But our wives, our daughters?"

"Ask them," he retorts boldly. "It is not the women who would lick the tyrant's shoes."

The hour drags wearily on. In imagination every one inside and around the cathedral follows the burghers on their weary pilgrimage. Half an hour to walk to the Kasteel, half an hour for the audience with the Duke, half an hour to return … unforeseen delay in obtaining admittance … it may be two hours before they return. Great many of the men have returned to the gloomy task of burying the dead, others to that of clearing the streets from the litter which encumbers them: but even those who work the hardest keep their attention fixed upon the cathedral and its approach.

Van Rycke had suggested that the great bell be rung when the burghers came back with the Duke's answer, so that all who wished could come and hear.

III

And now the answer has come.

The High-Bailiff has returned with Fathers van der Schlicht and Laurent Toch, with Aldermen de Buck and de Wetteren and with the others. They have walked back from the Kasteel bareheaded and shoeless with their hands tied behind their back, and a rope around their neck.

That was the Duke of Alva's answer to the deputation of Flemish patricians and burghers who had presented themselves before him in order to sue for his mercy. They had not even been admitted into his presence. The provost at the gate-house had curtly demanded their business, had then taken their message to the Duke, and returned five minutes later with orders to "send back the beggars whence they came, bareheaded and shoeless and with a rope around their necks in token of the only mercy which they might expect from him!"

The bridge had been lowered for them when they arrived, but they were kept parleying with a provost at the gate-house: not a single officer-even of lower rank-deigned to come out to speak with them; the yard was filled with soldiers who insulted and jeered at them: the High-Bailiff was hit on the cheek by a stone which had been aimed at him, and Father Laurent Toch's soutane was almost torn off his back. Every one of them had suffered violence at the hands of the soldiery whilst the Duke's abominable orders were being carried out with appalling brutality: every one of them was bleeding from a cut or a blow dealt by that infamous crowd who were not ashamed thus to maltreat defenceless and elderly men.

When they crossed the open tract of country between the castle moat and the Schelde a shower of caked mud was hurled after them from the ramparts; not a single insult was spared them, not a sting to their pride, not a crown to their humiliation. It was only when they reached the shelter of the streets that they found some peace. In silence they made their way toward the cathedral. The crowds of men and women at work amongst the dead and the wounded made way for them to allow them to pass, but no one questioned them: the abject condition in which they returned told its own pitiable tale.

The cathedral bell had tolled, and from everywhere the men came back to hear the full account of the miserable mission. The crowd was dense and not every one had a view of the burghers as they stood beside the altar rail in all their humiliation, but those who were nearest told their neighbours and soon every one knew what had happened.

The younger leaders ground their heels into the floor, and Jan van Migrode, sick and weak as he was, was the first to stand up and to ask the citizens of Ghent if the events of to-day had shaken them in their resolve.

"You know now what to expect from that fiend. Will you still die like heroes, or be slaughtered like cattle?" he called out loudly ere he fell back exhausted and faint.

Horror had kept every one dumb until then, and grim resolve did not break into loud enthusiasm now, but on the fringe of the crowd there were a number of young men-artisans and apprentices-who at first sight of the returned messengers had loudly murmured and cursed. Now one of them lifted up his voice. It raised strange echoes in the mutilated church.

"We are ready enough to die," he said, "and we'll fight to the end, never fear. But before the last of us is killed, before that execrable tyrant has his triumph over us, lads of Ghent, I ask you are we not to have our revenge?"

"Yes! yes!" came from a number of voices, still from the fringe of the crowd where the young artisans were massed together, "well spoken, Peter Balde! let us have revenge first!"

"Revenge! Revenge!" echoed from those same ranks.

Every word echoed from pillar to pillar in the great, bare, crowded church; and now it was from the altar rails that Mark van Rycke's voice rang out clear and firm:

"What revenge dost propose to take, Peter Balde?" he asked.

The other, thus directly challenged by the man whose influence was paramount in Ghent just now, looked round at his friends for approval. Seeing nothing but eager, flushed faces and eyes that glowed in response to his suggestion, the pride of leadership entered his soul. He was a fine, tall lad who yesterday had done prodigies of valour against the Spanish cavalry. Now he had been gesticulating with both arms above his head so that he was easily distinguishable in the crowd by those who had a clear view, and in order to emphasize his spokesmanship his friends hoisted him upon their shoulders and bearing him aloft they forged their way through the throng until they reached the centre of the main aisle. Here they paused, and Peter Balde could sweep the entire crowd with his enthusiastic glance.

"What I revenge would take?" he said boldly. "Nay! let me rather ask: what revenge must we take, citizens of Ghent? The tyrant even now has abused the most sacred laws of humanity which bid every man to respect the messengers of peace. He is disloyal and ignoble and false. Why should we be honourable and just? He neither appreciates our loyalty nor respects our valour-let us then act in the only way which he can understand. Citizens, we have two thousand prisoners in the cellars of our guildhouses-two thousand Walloons who under the banner of our common tyrant have fought against us … their nearest kindred. I propose that we kill those two thousand prisoners and send their heads to the tyrant as a direct answer to this last outrage."

"Yes! yes! Well said!" came from every side, from the younger artisans and the apprentices, the hot-headed faction amongst all these brave men-brave themselves but writhing under the terrible humiliation which they had just endured and thirsting for anything that savoured of revenge.

"Yes! yes! the axe for them! send their heads to the tyrant! Well spoken, Peter Balde," they cried.

The others remained silent. Many even amongst the older men perhaps would have echoed the younger ones' call: cruelty breeds cruelty and oppression breeds callous thoughts of revenge. Individually there was hardly a man there who was capable of such an act of atrocious barbarism as the murder of a defenceless prisoner, but for years now these people had groaned under such abominable tyranny, had seen such acts of wanton outrage perpetrated against them and all those they held dear, that-collectively-their sense of rightful retribution had been warped and they had imbibed some of the lessons of reprisals from their execrable masters.

At the foot of the altar rails the group of leaders who stood as a phalanx around Mark van Rycke their chief, waited quietly whilst the wave of enthusiasm for Balde's proposal rose and swelled and mounted higher and higher until it seemed to pervade the whole of the sacred edifice, and then gradually subsided into more restrained if not less enthusiastic determination.

"We will do it," said one of Balde's most fervent adherents. "It is only justice, and it is the only law which the tyrant understands-the law of might."

"It is the law which he himself has taught us," said another, "the law of retributive justice."

"The law of treachery, of rapine, and of outrage," now broke in Mark's firm, clear voice once more; it rose above the tumult, above the hubbub which centred round the person of Peter Balde; it rang against the pillars and echoed from end to end of the aisle. "Are we miserable rabble that we even dream of murder?"

"Not of murder," cried Balde in challenge, "only of vengeance!"

"Your vengeance!" thundered Mark, "do you dare speak of it in the house of Him who says 'I will repay!'"

"God is on our side, He will forgive!" cried some of them.

"Everything, except outrage! … what you propose is a deed worthy only of hell!"

"No! no! Balde is right! Magnanimity has had its day! But for this truce to-day who knows? we might have been masters of the Kasteel!"

"Will the murdering of helpless prisoners aid your cause, then?"

"It will at least satisfy our craving for revenge!"

"Right, right, Balde!" they all exclaimed, "do not heed what van Rycke says."

"We will fight to-morrow!"

"Die to-morrow!" they cried.

"And blacken your souls to-day!" retorted Mark.

The tumult grew more wild. Dissension had begun to sow its ugly seed among these men whom a common danger, united heroism, and courage had knit so closely together. The grim, silent, majestic determination of a while ago was giving place slowly to rabid, frenzied calls of hatred, to ugly oaths, glowing eyes and faces heated with passion. The presence of the dozen elderly patricians and burghers still bare-headed and shoeless, still with the rope around their necks, helped to fan up the passions which their misfortunes had aroused. For the moment, however, the hot-headed malcontents were still greatly in the minority, but the danger of dissent, of mutiny was there, and the set expression on the faces of the leaders, the stern look in Mark van Rycke's eyes testified that they were conscious of its presence.

IV

Then it was that right through this tumult which had spread from the building itself to the precincts and even beyond, a woman's cry rang out with appalling clearness. It was not a cry of terror, rather one of command, but so piercing was it that for the moment every other cry was stilled: Peter Balde's adherents were silenced, and suddenly over this vast assembly, wherein but a few seconds ago passions ran riot, there fell a hush-a tension of every nerve, a momentary lull of every heart-beat as with the prescience of something momentous to which that woman's cry was only the presage.

And in the midst of that sudden hush the cry was heard again-more clearly this time and closer to the cathedral porch, so that the words came quite distinctly:

"Let me get to him … take me to your leader … I must speak with him at once!"

And like distant thunder, the clamour rose again: men and women shouted and called; the words: "Spaniard!" and "Spy!" were easily distinguishable: the crowd could be seen to sway, to be moving like a huge wave, all in one direction toward the porch: hundreds of faces showed plainly in the dull grey light as necks were craned to catch a glimpse of the woman who had screamed.

But evidently with but rare exceptions the crowd was not hostile: those who had cried out the word "Spy!" were obviously in the minority. With death looming so near, with deadly danger to every woman in the city within sight, every instinct of chivalry toward the weak was at its greatest height. Those inside the cathedral could see that the crowd was parting in order to let two women move along, and that the men in the forefront elbowed a way for them so that they should not be hindered on their way. It was the taller of the two women who had uttered the piteous yet commanding appeal: "Let me go to him! – take me to your leader! – I must speak with him!"