Later in the day of Van Volkenberg’s disgrace, Lady Marmaduke and I were talking together in no very pleasant frame of mind. We both knew the far-reaching power of the Red Band, and the extremes to which the patroon would go in order to carry out his designs. He now knew that it was I who had brought his disgrace upon him. People are always likely to suspect and hate those whom they have injured beyond repair. The death of Ruth was enough to account for any blow that the patroon might aim at me. Add to this motive the fact that I had brought humiliation upon him, that I had been the cause of his expulsion from the council, and one can easily imagine how little reason there was to believe that I should be overlooked in his subsequent meditations. The injury I had done to the patroon not only held him up to ridicule and scorn, but also, by removing him from the governor’s council, deprived him of his most potent means of plotting against the Earl. Take it all in all, I was treading in dangerous water, and both Lady Marmaduke and I knew it.

“How do you expect to escape his vengeance?” she said in a significantly despondent tone. “How 155will you keep your head on your shoulders till tomorrow morning or next day?”

I smiled grimly, but made no reply to her question. In fact, I was all at sea as to what to do, and I knew that she was in the same state of mind. For several minutes there was silence between us; neither of us had a word further to say. Of a sudden my mistress snapped her fingers and a light as of a new idea began to sparkle in her eyes.

“He is a Catholic,” she said. “I wish the laws that apply to priests would apply to him.” She muttered these words half aloud as if she was talking to herself. But her next sentence was addressed to me. “You know that when a Jesuit priest steps across the boundary of our province we hang him. That is our law.” She dropped her eyes again and seemed, as before, to muse aloud. “Poor little Ruth. Such sweet, sweet eyes; so sad. They were not sad at first—they grew sad. Had it been only trouble that won her young life away! But to be robbed of it by a Roman Catholic. If you could have seen her face, so cold and pale when I went to see the mark of the hot iron!” She turned her eyes towards me suddenly. “Have you ever smelt burning flesh?” she demanded.

“For God’s sake!” I cried. “You pierce me to the heart.”

Words cannot express the agony I felt at this mention of the manner of my sister’s death; but, 156in spite of my misery, Lady Marmaduke went on without pity.

“He did not brand her, but he did worse. He went to her room at night and murdered her in bed. Why? Because—”

I put out my hand in a gesture of appeal. She left the sentence unfinished and began anew.

“Can you not see, friend Michael, why I twist this knife of recollection till it galls you to the quick? Le Bourse, did you love your sister?”

“What of that?” I answered hoarsely, wondering why she asked me such a question.

“Do you think that you will be able to keep your life in your body for a week now that you have given such offense to the leader of the Red Band? You hesitate. Nay, answer me honestly. Unless you skulk like a coward and hide yourself inside my house, how long will you escape their vengeance?”

I shook my head. Indeed there was no limit of time too brief to suit the truth.

“Did you love your sister?”

“Why do you ask that question as if you doubted it?” I answered petulantly. “Do you not know that—”

“Tut, tut, I do not doubt you, but I wonder whether you will stand the test. This is no common enemy you have to deal with. He is a wily man and wields much power. By your own reckoning your life is not worth that.” She snapped her fingers. 157“You must take the game into your own hands. If you should die, who would avenge Ruth?”

“Or Sir Evelin?” I responded.

Her brows darkened. A flush spread slowly over her swarthy features like a storm cloud. I knew that I was standing before the Black Lady Marmaduke, and from that moment I understood why they had given her that name. She was the very image of deep passion, yet of passion that was under control withal. She was such a leader as a man could trust himself to in full confidence of finding bravery, loyalty and—for I had no doubt of the result—victory.

“Yes,” she answered. “Or Sir Evelin! Ruth and Sir Evelin! You and I must keep alive. Will you make a desperate cast for the prize? Will you stake all upon one bold throw?”

The swift nervous clutch of her hand on my shoulder which accompanied her last words, and the sound of her breath, hard and rasping like a person in a trance, told me better than words why she had been probing me to the depths of my misery. I knew that the plan she was about to propose would be full to the brim of peril.

“I’ll play it,” I answered, responding in every nerve to the spell of her fierce passions. “What is the cast?”

“Your life.”

“Explain.”

158“You cannot live as it is. Assume a disguise. Be someone else.”

“That is easy, but to what does it lead?”

“To the house of the Red Band. You have still the silver buttons that the buccaneer gave you. Take them boldly, according to your first intention, and present them to the patroon. Tell him you want to enlist in the Red Band. With you in the very center of the board, we can soon sweep it clean.”

She had suggested a desperate enterprise indeed, one that took my breath away. Yet, upon consideration, I found it no more desperate than the situation as it stood at that moment. Of course I should not consent to hide myself away from danger, in which course, according to Lady Marmaduke, lay my only hope of safety. Nor could I expect to escape the patroon’s wrath in any other way. The members of the Red Band were not above the secret blow under cover of the night, and I might fall at any moment. Perhaps, after all, it was really safer for me to go boldly into the midst of my enemies than to let them come at me from a distance. Yet I hesitated.

“Are you afraid?” flashed Lady Marmaduke in scornful anger.

“Had I been afraid, madam, I had never hesitated,” I replied.

“SHE THRUST HER HAND
INTO THE CANDLE FLAME.”—p. 160

What really troubled me and made it hard for me to decide was not the danger, nor even a doubt 159of my success. On the contrary, I hesitated over a point of honor. I knew very well that the Earl would not approve of this. Could I? I had never, save on the night before, played the part of a spy, and my own name was the last thing in the world I should be ashamed to own. I could fight; but no—I could never be capable of this kind of work. Then I glanced at Lady Marmaduke. There were tears in her eyes, and I knew she must be thinking of her husband. Could I desert her now? I had sworn to be her man. Was it honest and just to turn away from her in the critical moment—the first time she had desired my help? My mind was swaying in the opposite direction when the thought of what Ruth would have said clutched my wavering mind back to the side of truth and honor.

Lady Marmaduke must have seen all this passing in my mind or shadowed in my face. It was time for her to put her firm hand upon me and force me the way she would have me go, whether I would or not. It was to my brute passions she appealed, not to my reason.

When I had entered the room ten minutes before, she was writing letters, and the candle she used to soften her wax with was still burning upon the table. She took a step towards me and as she did so I noticed the candle flame wave delicately to one side.

“Michael,” she said, putting her hand upon my shoulder. “You hesitate and I am ashamed of 160you.” Her hand moved along my shoulder till her fingers played upon my neck. “I said that I saw no mark upon her body. What if there were prints upon her neck?” At that instant her iron fingers closed on my throat with a grip that made me cry out.

“Hush, fool,” she said fiercely, relaxing her grip. “I am not going to choke you; but her throat was delicate and you know how it feels.” Then her manner changed. She spoke quickly and looked towards the candle. “He said he branded her. Perhaps he did. It was night when I looked at her body. One cannot see plain by night. Perhaps he did after all. Did you ever see a person branded? Smell, Michael, smell.”

She thrust her left hand into the candle flame.

“For God’s sake!” I cried, trying to snatch her hand away.

“Stop,” she replied, in her terrible deep voice. At the same moment she caught my rescuing hand and held it in a vise.

“Smell. This is what it is like to be branded.”

A spell seemed to take hold of me. I had no power to move, but stood still watching her finger scorch in the tall flame. Once I saw it tremble, but she bit her lip and grew steady again. The flesh began to shrivel and then—my God! I caught that horrible stench of burning flesh.

“Stop,” I shrieked.

“Oh Ruth, Ruth, how I pity you in your pain,” 161cried my mistress, who held on, enduring that bitter agony to make me succumb to her will.

Then the sickening smell came again stronger than ever.

“Ruth, Ruth, Ruth! The bloodhound! Stop. I’ll go, I’ll go. Oh my God, my God, my God!”

I threw up my hands with a cry of horror and shut my eyes upon the terrible suggestion of that cruel sight. Lady Marmaduke bent close to me and spoke in my ear.

“Methinks I can hear her scream in agony. God, how she must have suffered!”

My mistress told me afterwards that I groaned and reeled backward. I should have fallen had she not caught me by the arm. In a moment the passion spent itself and I was sane once more. But the temptation of that smell had prevailed against the prompting of my conscience. I determined to run the risk. My life if it must be! Yes, my life, but his too.

So I resolved to join the Red Band. The elaborate precautions I took before I assumed my disguise were not excessive. There were many accidents to be provided against. In the first place, though Lady Marmaduke would be able to account plausibly for my disappearance from New York, I might be tolerably sure that the patroon would scent danger in the circumstance. I must be doubly careful not to leave any tracks that would 162point either forward or backward from the moment I changed my identity.

Paradoxical as it sounds, I must accomplish my disguise without the help of any disguise at all. If my bold plan succeeded and resulted in my becoming a member of the Red Band, I must be able to strip and wash myself before my fellow members, or to stand a merry bout of leapfrog or wrestling in the servants’ quarters. In such a situation I could not guard myself against discovery by means of a painted face ............