The Outlaw of Torn | Page 7

crude
instruments of his time.
From this little shop, De Vac threaded his way through the dirty lanes and alleys of
ancient London, lighted at far intervals by an occasional smoky lantern, until he came to
a squalid tenement but a short distance from the palace.
A narrow alley ran past the building, ending abruptly at the bank of the Thames in a
moldering wooden dock, beneath which the inky waters of the river rose and fell, lapping
the decaying piles and surging far beneath the dock to the remote fastnesses inhabited by
the great fierce dock rats and their fiercer human antitypes.
Several times De Vac paced the length of this black alley in search of the little doorway
of the building he sought. At length he came upon it, and, after repeated pounding with
the pommel of his sword, it was opened by a slatternly old hag.
"What would ye of a decent woman at such an ungodly hour ?" she grumbled. "Ah, 'tis ye,
my lord ?" she added, hastily, as the flickering rays of the candle she bore lighted up De
Vac's face. "Welcome, my Lord, thrice welcome. The daughter of the devil welcomes her
brother."
"Silence, old hag," cried De Vac. "Is it not enough that you leech me of good marks of
such a quantity that you may ever after wear mantles of villosa and feast on simnel bread
and malmsey, that you must needs burden me still further with the affliction of thy vile

tongue ?
"Hast thou the clothes ready bundled and the key, also, to this gate to perdition ? And the
room: didst set to rights the furnishings I had delivered here, and sweep the century-old
accumulation of filth and cobwebs from the floor and rafters ? Why, the very air reeked
of the dead Romans who builded London twelve hundred years ago. Methinks, too, from
the stink, they must have been Roman swineherd who habited this sty with their herds,
an' I venture that thou, old sow, hast never touched broom to the place for fear of
disturbing the ancient relics of thy kin."
"Cease thy babbling, Lord Satan," cried the woman. "I would rather hear thy money talk
than thou, for though it come accursed and tainted from thy rogue hand, yet it speaks with
the same sweet and commanding voice as it were fresh from the coffers of the holy
church.
"The bundle is ready," she continued, closing the door after De Vac, who had now
entered, "and here be the key; but first let us have a payment. I know not what thy foul
work may be, but foul it is I know from the secrecy which you have demanded, an' I dare
say there will be some who would pay well to learn the whereabouts of the old woman
and the child, thy sister and her son you tell me they be, who you are so anxious to hide
away in old Til's garret. So it be well for you, my Lord, to pay old Til well and add a few
guilders for the peace of her tongue if you would that your prisoner find peace in old Til's
house."
"Fetch me the bundle, hag," replied De Vac, "and you shall have gold against a final
settlement; more even than we bargained for if all goes well and thou holdest thy vile
tongue."
But the old woman's threats had already caused De Vac a feeling of uneasiness, which
would have been reflected to an exaggerated degree in the old woman had she known the
determination her words had caused in the mind of the old master of fence.
His venture was far too serious, and the results of exposure too fraught with danger, to
permit of his taking any chances with a disloyal fellow-conspirator. True, he had not even
hinted at the enormity of the plot in which he was involving the old woman, but, as she
had said, his stern commands for secrecy had told enough to arouse her suspicions, and
with them her curiosity and cupidity. So it was that old Til might well have quailed in her
tattered sandals had she but even vaguely guessed the thoughts which passed in De Vac's
mind; but the extra gold pieces he dropped into her withered palm as she delivered the
bundle to him, together with the promise of more, quite effectually won her loyalty and
her silence for the time being.
Slipping the key into the pocket of his tunic and covering the bundle with his long surcoat,
De Vac stepped out into the darkness of the alley and hastened toward the dock.
Beneath the planks. he found a skiff which he had moored there earlier in the evening,
and underneath one of the thwarts