The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 40

A wooden settle stood against the wall just beneath the window, and I knelt on it and drove at the shutters with my shoulder. They gave a little at first, and I heard a whispered call for help. The pressure from without was redoubled; I was forced back; a bar fell across them outside and was fitted into a socket. Thrust as I might I could not break it; the window was securely barricadoed.

Meanwhile Ilga had not spoken. "Ilga!" I called.

She did not answer me, nor in the blackness of the pavilion could I discover where she stood.

"Ilga!"

The same empty silence. I could not even hear her breathing, and yet she was in the pavilion, within a few feet of me. There was something horrible in her quietude, and a great fear of I knew not what caught at my heart and turned my blood cold.

"This is the priest's doing," I cried, and I drew my sword and made towards the door.

A startled cry burst from the gloom behind me.

"Stop! If you open it, you will be killed."

I stopped as she bade me, body and brain numbed in a common inaction.

I could hear her breathing now plainly enough.

"This is not the priest's doing," she said, at length. "It is the wife's." Her voice steadied and became even as she spoke. "From the hour I found Count Lukstein dead I have lived only for this night."

I let my sword slip from my grasp, and it clattered and rang on the floor.

'Twas not surprise that I felt; ever since the shutters had been slammed I seemed to have known that she would speak those words. And 'twas no longer fear. Nor did I as yet wonder how she came by her knowledge. Indeed, I had but one thought, one thought of overwhelming sadness, and I voiced it in utter despondency.

"So all this time--in London, here, a minute ago, you were tricking me! Tricking me into loving you; then tricking my love for you!"

"A minute ago!" she caught me up, and there was a quiver in her voice of some deep feeling. Then she broke off, and said, in a hard, clear tone: "I was a woman, and alone. I used a woman's weapons."

Again she paused, but I made no answer. I had none to make. She resumed, with a flash of anger, as though my silence accused her:

"And was there no trickery on your side, too?"

They were almost the same words as those which Marston had levelled at me, and I imagined that they conveyed the same charge. However, it seemed of little use or profit to defend myself at length, and I answered:

"I have played no part. It might have fared better with me if I had.

What deceit I have practised may be set down to love's account. 'Twas my fear of losing you that locked my lips. Had I not loved you, what need to tell you my secret? 'Twas no crime that I committed. But since I loved you, I was bound in very truth to speak. I have known that from the first, and I pledged myself to speak at the moment that I told you of my love. I dared not disclose the matter before. There was so little chance that I should win your favour, even had every circ.u.mstance seconded my suit. But this very night I should have told you the truth."

"No doubt! no doubt!" she answered, with the bitterest irony, and I understood what a fatal mistake I had made in pleading my pa.s.sion before disclosing the story of the duel. I should have begun from the other end. "And no doubt you meant also to tell me, with the same open frankness, of the woman for whose sake you killed my--my husband?"

"I fought for no woman, but for my friend."

She laughed; surely the hardest, most biting laugh that ever man heard.

"Tell me your fine story now."

I sank down on the settle, feeling strangely helpless in the face of her contempt.

"This is the priest's doing," I repeated, more to myself than to her.

"It is my doing," she said again; "my doing from first to last"

"Then what was it?" I asked, with a dull, involuntary curiosity. "What was it you had neither the weakness to yield to nor the strength to resist?"

She did not answer me, but it seemed as though she suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall.

"Tell me your story," she said briefly; and sitting there in the darkness, unable to see my mistress, I began the history of that November night.

"It is true that I killed Count Lukstein; but I killed him in open encounter. I fought him fairly and honourably."

"At midnight!" she interrupted. "Without witnesses, upon his wedding-day."

"There was blood upon Count Lukstein's sword," I went on doggedly, "and that blood was mine. I fought him fairly and honourably. I own I compelled him to fight me."

"You and your--companion."

She stressed the word with an extraordinary contempt.

"My companion!" I repeated in surprise. "What know you of my companion? My companion watched our horses in the valley."

"You dare to tell me that?" she cried, ceasing from her contempt, and suddenly lifting her voice in an inexplicable pa.s.sion.

"It is the truth."

"The truth! The truth!" she exclaimed, and then, with a stamp of her foot, and in a ringing tone of decision, "Otto!"

The door was flung open. Otto Krax and Michael Groder blocked the opening, and behind them stood Father Spaur, holding a lighted torch above his head. The Tyrolese servants carried hangers in their hands.

I can see their blades flas.h.i.+ng in the red light now!

Silently they filed into the pavilion. Father Spaur lifted his torch into a bracket, latched the door, and leaned his back against the panels. All three looked at the Countess, waiting her orders. 'Twas plain, from the priest's demeanour, that Ilga had spoken no more than truth. In this matter she was the mistress and the priest the servitor.

I turned and gazed at her. She stood erect against the wall opposite to me, meeting my gaze, her face stern and set, as though carven out of white marble, her eyes dark and glittering with menace.

For my part, I rose from the settle and stood with folded arms. I did not even stoop to pick up my rapier; it seemed to me not worth while.

"The proper att.i.tude of heroical endurance," sneered Father Spaur.

"Perhaps a little more humility might become 'a true son of the Church.' Was not that the phrase?"

The Countess nodded to Otto. He took Groder's sword and stood it with his own, by a low stool in the corner near the door.

"'Tis your own fault," she said sternly. "Even now I would have spared you had you told me the truth. But you presume too much upon my folly."

The next moment the two men sprang at me. The manner of their attack took me by surprise, and in a twinkling they had me down upon the bench. Then, however, a savage fury flamed up within me. 'Twas one thing to be run through at the command of Ilga, and so perish decently by the sword; 'twas quite another to be handled by her servants, and I fought against the indignity with all my strength. But the struggle was too unequal. I should have proved no match for Otto had he stood alone, and I before him, fairly planted on my legs. With the pair of them to master me I was well-nigh as powerless as a child. Moreover, they had already forced me down by the shoulders, so that the edge of the settle cut across my back just below the shoulder-blades, and I could get no more purchase or support than the soles of my feet on the rough flooring gave me.

My single chance lay in regaining possession of my rapier. It lay just within my reach, and struggling violently with my left arm, in order to the better conceal my design, I stretched out the other cautiously towards it.

My fingers were actually on the pommel, I was working it nearer to me so that I might grasp the blade short, before Groder perceived my intention. With an oath he kicked it behind him. Otto set a huge knee calmly upon my chest, and pressed his weight upon it until I thought my spine would snap. Then he seized my arms, jerked them upwards, and held them outstretched above my head, keeping his knee the while jammed down upon my ribs. Groder drew a cord from his pocket, and turning back my sleeves with an ironic deliberation, bound my wrists tightly together.

"'Twas not for nothing Groder went a-valeting," laughed Father Spaur; and then, seeing that I was a.s.sisted in my struggle by the pressure which I got from the floor, "Twere wise to repeat the ceremony with his ankles."