Guy Livingstone Part 13

I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child, and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited.

Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but admirably poised, lay within his reach.

"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns.

Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance.

Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket of water over it, Connell--is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew."

He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very grave and stern.

"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But, mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for _her_. Don't leave her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload; Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword; there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to your posts."

There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke:

"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too--"

I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is _not_, bit his mustache furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered,

"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the wrist."

A shrill howl pealed out from the a.s.sailants, and then the stout oak door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam; in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their chief, Delaney, was not one of them.

"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear part of the hall was crowded with enemies.

I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times, for the barricade was impa.s.sable; and while their shots fell harmlessly on the mattresses, every one of ours told--nothing makes a man shoot straight like being short of powder--but they came on again, each time with added ferocity.

I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf dragged over the bal.u.s.trade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke, he had swung himself up by the bal.u.s.trade of the staircase, and, grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him.

With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey.

Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear, a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it--hoa.r.s.e and guttural, and indistinct with pa.s.sion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself over the bal.u.s.trade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd.

They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; but--so great was the terror of Mohun's name--all recoiled when they saw him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless body and its a.s.sailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin.

His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the torrent of his rus.h.i.+ng blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and drag him down.

Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my gla.s.s, some of you, when you saw it was empty.)

Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone.

There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge ma.s.s lay quite still.

Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible Cuira.s.sier.

All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me--near my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his orders to stay by me to the last; but the st.u.r.dy keeper rose to his feet.

"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear,

"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds alone."

As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted sword.

I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.

Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to know the rattle of the steel scabbards.

When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and, just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do.

I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross.

The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more.

Ralph went up to the officer in command.

"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a truce to take up their dead."

Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I have to thank you for my life."

"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The quarryman's arms were a rough necklace."

At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a grim satisfaction.

"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. _Au revoir_," and he pa.s.sed on.

I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more servile and repulsive than its late abject terror.

"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your _protege_, I think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out _now_."

Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two hours before.

The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host.

_He_ was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a charming humor."

We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair, and appealing to heaven or h.e.l.l for vengeance.

We all started, and set down our gla.s.ses; but Mohun finished his slowly, savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy.

"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible."

The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in a.s.sent, but with rather a queer expression on his honest face.

"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun."

"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so the matter dropped.

The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed; we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with what success the next a.s.sizes could tell.

I go there again this winter for the c.o.c.k-shooting, but I don't much think Kate will accompany me.

Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once.