A Modern Mercenary Part 44

'You can deceive me no more, my lord Sagan!' he cried in a high excited voice. 'You took Colendorp from me, you would now take Rallywood, one by one all my faithful Guard! But I am sovereign still! You shall not tamper any longer with my loyal State; you shall never bring your traitorous German schemes to an issue!'

But there were things impossible for Count Simon of Sagan to endure.

Never before had he been twitted with impotence and failure. He could not survive so utter a defeat. A man to bear these things must be less thorough than the Count. He was too fierce, too imperious, to bear so great a reverse. If he must be put to shame before the world, if even a paltry captain of the Guard were to be permitted to negative his will, why then life had best be over!

He seemed to struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his pa.s.sion leaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at the Duke--the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with his tongue! The old hate fired the new fury as he clutched Gustave.

The Duke gave a shrill feeble cry, not such a cry as one would have expected from a man of his age, and then Selpdorf was between them shouting for the Guard.

'You false hound!' Sagan gnashed his teeth in Selpdorf's face as the Chancellor threw himself upon him.

Shouts and shots, and the wild turmoil of a deadly struggle. Then the Guard had secured Sagan. The Duke stood trembling and incoherent, leaning upon the table, and between them, face downwards on the floor, the Chancellor with a bullet in his groin and for once playing a _role_ he had not prepared.

Sagacious, supple, self-seeking, yet not utterly seared, in the last resort he offered up his life for the master he had almost betrayed.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

FOR A SEASON.

Queens Fain lies upon the inner edge of Lincolns.h.i.+re, in an undulating countryside amongst great old trees, where of an evening the sun throws bars of light across the levels of turf, where homing rooks fly in scattered lines against a gleaming sky, the air breathes coolness and peace, and the scene lays that ineffable spell upon the heart of which only the exile can ever know the full pathetic power.

Round the house tall fences of yew and holly fend off the colder winds.

On an evening in early spring Rallywood and Counsellor strolled under the shelter of a ma.s.sive black wall of yew. The daffodils were blowing about the border of the lake below them, and along the distant hedges furry catkins were already nodding and floating on the crisp breeze.

'I have found it necessary once or twice before to say that you were a fool, John,' said Counsellor, looking up at a corner of the great stone-built mansion, its cold aspect yellowed and mellowed by the strengthening suns.h.i.+ne.

'Always or on occasion?' Rallywood laughed easily.

'Mostly. You will not leave the Guard. If I were you I should go to-morrow. Marry the girl as soon as she will let you, and bring her here. Then sit down and shoot partridges. She will like it. It is better than Maasau.'

'It is altogether good to own the old place again,' Rallywood said, 'and we'll do our duty by the partridges, Major, you and I, I hope, by-and-by, but to do that and nothing else--not yet!'

'You've stalked bigger game and that has spoilt you,' grumbled the Major. 'After Count Sagan, partridges pall. Yet it is a pity.'

'I shall bring Valerie here sometimes, of course. I think she'll like the old place almost as much as I do.'

'More, since it is the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' said Counsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeserving beggar! So Selpdorf's gone. A queer compound.'

'His death redeemed--much,' said Rallywood, shortly.

'Yes,' Counsellor puffed out a great cloud of smoke, 'yes, but we have no reason to forget the fact that he was very ready to secure himself at a heavy cost to you.'

'For the sake of Maasau,' interposed Rallywood.

'Hum--for the sake of Maasau! And you were an inconvenient personality also. Well, well, let it pa.s.s. But it was touch and go with you, John, for no one could have foreseen that shaky old Gustave would rise to the occasion as he did. And what has he done for you after all?'

'He saved my life first, and gave me the Gold Star of Maasau afterwards,' said Rallywood, 'an honour which I share with some monarchs--and Major Counsellor.'

'Dirt cheap, too!' grunted Counsellor. 'I hear that Madame de Sagan sent you a very neat congratulation.

"A genoux sur la terre Nous rendons graces a Dieu Et nous lui faisons voeux D'une double priere."

You can take your own meaning out of it,' ended the Major.

'And the people being chiefly malicious will take the wrong one.'

'That is as it may be. But for you I hope a fine morning will follow the stormy evening. You will grow fat and selfish, John, like many a better man.'

Rallywood smiled. He was thinking of a certain elderly diplomat who, rumour said, had been moved out of his usual composure on one occasion only. It was at the moment when he heard that Captain Rallywood of the Maasaun Guard was sentenced to be shot.

'By the way,' resumed Counsellor, 'did I tell you that I saw von Elmur yesterday at Charing Cross? He said he was starting for Constantinople.

I bade him good-bye, but he corrected me, "Au revoir, my dear Major,"

and kissed the tips of his fingers to me as the train pa.s.sed. So perhaps the end is not yet.'

'G.o.d bless the present!' said Rallywood.

And while they walk and talk over the past and the future in the pleasant places of England, the surf is beating round an island off the Maasaun coast, upon which a storm-stricken fortification has been adapted to the use of a certain political prisoner, Count Simon of Sagan. There he frets, and schemes, and longs through the endless afternoons. He does not accept his destiny as final, his hopes are unimpaired, his resolves as strong as in the old keen days at Sagan. He clings to a blind conviction that Time and the Man must inevitably meet together, and he lives for that meeting.

There, too, Anthony Unziar serves his country and his sovereign, relentlessly watchful through the dead monotony of the days. At his own urgent request he was given charge of the lonely prison, its solitude appearing to him the one bearable condition of life. He has his work to do and he does it well, and always between Count Sagan and his dreams stands the irrevocable figure of the young Maasaun.

Sometimes Sagan taunts him with his hopeless love, but he only answers by a look. And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find the other standing up against him--the fierce imbruted prisoner with his royal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.

They are waiting. They have each his dream. Sagan's of empire and revenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, a man who could never be compelled to cry 'Enough' to evil fortune.

Sometimes deep in the night, while the two enemies play their long games together, Sagan flings down the cards and laughs and speaks of another game which will find its conclusion in the dim paths of the future. But Unziar only smiles. If that day should ever come it will find him ready.

But to-day is not to-morrow, and 'G.o.d bless the present!' as Rallywood said.