Rupert of Hentzau Part 38

"Put your revolver on the table, then, and I'll lay mine by the side of it."

"I beg your pardon," smiled Rudolf, "but you must lay yours down first."

"I'm to trust you, it seems, but you won't trust me!"

"Precisely. You know you can trust me; you know that I can't trust you."

A sudden flush swept over Rupert of Hentzau's face. There were moments when he saw, in the mirror of another's face or words, the estimation in which honorable men held him; and I believe that he hated Mr. Ra.s.sendyll most fiercely, not for thwarting his enterprise, but because he had more power than any other man to show him that picture. His brows knit in a frown, and his lips shut tight.

"Ay, but though you won't fire, you'll destroy the letter," he sneered.

"I know your fine distinctions."

"Again I beg your pardon. You know very well that, although all Strelsau were at the door, I wouldn't touch the letter."

With an angry muttered oath Rupert flung his revolver on the table.

Rudolf came forward and laid his by it. Then he took up both, and, crossing to the mantelpiece, laid them there; between there he placed the queen's letter. A bright blaze burnt in the grate; it needed but the slightest motion of his hand to set the letter beyond all danger. But he placed it carefully on the mantelpiece, and, with a slight smile on his face, turned to Rupert, saying: "Now shall we resume the bout that Fritz von Tarlenheim interrupted in the forest of Zenda?"

All this while they had been speaking in subdued accents, resolution in one, anger in the other, keeping the voice in an even, deliberate lowness. The girl outside caught only a word here and there; but now suddenly the flash of steel gleamed on her eyes through the crevice of the hinge. She gave a sudden gasp, and, pressing her face closer to the opening, listened and looked. For Rupert of Hentzau had taken the swords from their case and put them on the table. With a slight bow Rudolf took one, and the two a.s.sumed their positions. Suddenly Rupert lowered his point. The frown vanished from his face, and he spoke in his usual bantering tone.

"By the way," said he, "perhaps we're letting our feelings run away with us. Have you more of a mind now to be King of Ruritania? If so, I'm ready to be the most faithful of your subjects."

"You honor me, Count."

"Provided, of course, that I'm one of the most favored and the richest.

Come, come, the fool is dead now; he lived like a fool and he died like a fool. The place is empty. A dead man has no rights and suffers no wrongs. d.a.m.n it, that's good law, isn't it? Take his place and his wife.

You can pay my price then. Or are you still so virtuous? Faith, how little some men learn from the world they live in! If I had your chance!"

"Come, Count, you'd be the last man to trust Rupert of Hentzau."

"If I made it worth his while?"

"But he's a man who would take the pay and betray his a.s.sociate."

Again Rupert flushed. When he next spoke his voice was hard, cold, and low.

"By G.o.d, Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll," said he, "I'll kill you here and now."

"I ask no better than that you should try."

"And then I'll proclaim that woman for what she is in all Strelsau." A smile came on his lips as he watched Rudolf's face.

"Guard yourself, my lord," said Mr. Ra.s.sendyll.

"Ay, for no better than--There, man, I'm ready for you." For Rudolf's blade had touched his in warning.

The steel jangled. The girl's pale face was at the crevice of the hinge.

She heard the blades cross again and again. Then one would run up the other with a sharp, grating slither. At times she caught a glimpse of a figure in quick forward lunge or rapid wary withdrawal. Her brain was almost paralyzed.

Ignorant of the mind and heart of young Rupert, she could not conceive that he tried to kill the king. Yet the words she had caught sounded like the words of men quarreling, and she could not persuade herself that the gentlemen fenced only for pastime. They were not speaking now; but she heard their hard breathing and the movement of their unresting feet on the bare boards of the floor. Then a cry rang out, clear and merry with the fierce hope of triumph: "Nearly! nearly!"

She knew the voice for Rupert of Hentzau's, and it was the king who answered calmly, "Nearly isn't quite."

Again she listened. They seemed to have paused for a moment, for there was no sound, save of the hard breathing and deep-drawn pants of men who rest an instant in the midst of intense exertion. Then came again the clash and the slitherings; and one of them crossed into her view. She knew the tall figure and she saw the red hair: it was the king. Backward step by step he seemed to be driven, coming nearer and nearer to the door. At last there was no more than a foot between him and her; only the crazy panel prevented her putting out her hand to touch him. Again the voice of Rupert rang out in rich exultation, "I have you now! Say your prayers, King Rudolf!"

"Say your prayers!" Then they fought. It was earnest, not play. And it was the king--her king--her dear king, who was in great peril of his life. For an instant she knelt, still watching. Then with a low cry of terror she turned and ran headlong down the steep stairs. Her mind could not tell what to do, but her heart cried out that she must do something for her king. Reaching the ground floor, she ran with wide-open eyes into the kitchen. The stew was on the hob, the old woman still held the spoon, but she had ceased to stir and fallen into a chair.

"He's killing the king! He's killing the king!" cried Rosa, seizing her mother by the arm. "Mother, what shall we do? He's killing the king!"

The old woman looked up with dull eyes and a stupid, cunning smile.

"Let them alone," she said. "There's no king here."

"Yes, yes. He's upstairs in the count's room. They're fighting, he and the Count of Hentzau. Mother, Count Rupert will kill--"

"Let them alone. He the king? He's no king," muttered the old woman again.

For an instant Rosa stood looking down on her in helpless despair. Then a light flashed into her eyes.

"I must call for help," she cried.

The old woman seemed to spring to sudden life. She jumped up and caught her daughter by the shoulder.

"No, no," she whispered in quick accents. "You--you don't know. Let them alone, you fool! It's not our business. Let them alone."

"Let me go, mother, let me go! Mother, I must help the king!"

"I'll not let you go," said Mother Holf.

But Rosa was young and strong; her heart was fired with terror for the king's danger.

"I must go," she cried; and she flung her mother's grasp off from her so that the old woman was thrown back into her chair, and the spoon fell from her hand and clattered on the tiles. But Rosa turned and fled down the pa.s.sage and through the shop. The bolts delayed her trembling fingers for an instant. Then she flung the door wide. A new amazement filled her eyes at the sight of the eager crowd before the house.

Then her eyes fell on me where I stood between the lieutenant and Rischenheim, and she uttered her wild cry, "Help! The king!"

With one bound I was by her side and in the house, while Bernenstein cried, "Quicker!" from behind.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRIUMPH OF THE KING

THE things that men call presages, presentiments, and so forth, are, to my mind, for the most part idle nothings: sometimes it is only that probable events cast before them a natural shadow which superst.i.tious fancy twists into a Heaven sent warning; oftener the same desire that gives conception works fulfilment, and the dreamer sees in the result of his own act and will a mysterious accomplishment independent of his effort. Yet when I observe thus calmly and with good sense on the matter to the Constable of Zenda, he shakes his head and answers, "But Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll knew from the first that he would come again to Strelsau and engage young Rupert point to point. Else why did he practise with the foils so as to be a better swordsman the second time than he was the first? Mayn't G.o.d do anything that Fritz von Tarlenheim can't understand? a pretty notion, on my life!" And he goes off grumbling.

Well, be it inspiration, or be it delusion--and the difference stands often on a hair's breadth--I am glad that Rudolf had it. For if a man once grows rusty, it is everything short of impossible to put the fine polish on his skill again. Mr. Ra.s.sendyll had strength, will, coolness, and, of course, courage. None would have availed had not his eye been in perfect familiarity with its work, and his hand obeyed it as readily as the bolt slips in a well-oiled groove. As the thing stood, the lithe agility and unmatched dash of young Rupert but just missed being too much for him. He was in deadly peril when the girl Rosa ran down to bring him aid. His practised skill was able to maintain his defence. He sought to do no more, but endured Rupert's fiery attack and wily feints in an almost motionless stillness. Almost, I say; for the slight turns of wrist that seem nothing are everything, and served here to keep his skin whole and his life in him.

There was an instant--Rudolf saw it in his eyes and dwelt on it when he lightly painted the scene for me--when there dawned on Rupert of Hentzau the knowledge that he could not break down his enemy's guard. Surprise, chagrin, amus.e.m.e.nt, or something like it, seemed blended in his look.

He could not make out how he was caught and checked in every effort, meeting, it seemed, a barrier of iron impregnable in rest. His quick brain grasped the lesson in an instant. If his skill were not the greater, the victory would not be his, for his endurance was the less.

He was younger, and his frame was not so closely knit; pleasure had taken its t.i.the from him; perhaps a good cause goes for something. Even while he almost pressed Rudolf against the panel of the door, he seemed to know that his measure of success was full. But what the hand could not compa.s.s the head might contrive. In quickly conceived strategy he began to give pause in his attack, nay, he retreated a step or two. No scruples hampered his devices, no code of honor limited the means he would employ. Backing before his opponent, he seemed to Rudolf to be faint-hearted; he was baffled, but seemed despairing; he was weary, but played a more complete fatigue. Rudolf advanced, pressing and attacking, only to meet a defence as perfect as his own. They were in the middle of the room now, close by the table. Rupert, as though he had eyes in the back of his head, skirted round, avoiding it by a narrow inch. His breathing was quick and distressed, gasp tumbling over gasp, but still his eye was alert and his hand unerring. He had but a few moments'

more effort left in him: it was enough if he could reach his goal and perpetrate the trick on which his mind, fertile in every base device, was set. For it was towards the mantelpiece that his retreat, seeming forced, in truth so deliberate, led him. There was the letter, there lay the revolvers. The time to think of risks was gone by; the time to boggle over what honor allowed or forbade had never come to Rupert of Hentzau. If he could not win by force and skill, he would win by guile and by treachery, to the test that he had himself invited. The revolvers lay on the mantelpiece: he meant to possess himself of one, if he could gain an instant in which to s.n.a.t.c.h it.

The device that he adopted was nicely chosen. It was too late to call a rest or ask breathing s.p.a.ce: Mr. Ra.s.sendyll was not blind to the advantage he had won, and chivalry would have turned to folly had it allowed such indulgence. Rupert was hard by the mantelpiece now. The sweat was pouring from his face, and his breast seemed like to burst in the effort after breath; yet he had enough strength for his purpose. He must have slackened his hold on his weapon, for when Rudolf's blade next struck it, it flew from his hand, twirled out of a nerveless grasp, and slid along the floor. Rupert stood disarmed, and Rudolf motionless.