IN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS.
It was late on the following morning before the Castle was awake. It almost seemed as if the guests had waited for the appearance of the reassuring daylight before they ventured from their rooms. Four huge fires roared in the four great chimneys round the vast hall where the breakfast was in progress.
Sagan, in his weather-stained hunting suit and leggings, stood at the upper window overlooking the courtyard where the huntsmen and gaunt dogs, the famous Sagan boarhounds, were already collected, in anticipation of the boar-hunt arranged to take place on that day. The sky had cleared, but the tsa raged and howled after its perennial custom about the Castle.
Madame de Sagan, entering later, cast a nervous glance at the grim red face and bull-neck, and then fell into a laughing conversation with the people round her, although her heart felt cold. She was far from being a brave woman, although she joined so gaily in the merry talk passing from side to side; but her marvellous self-control was no more than the self-control common to women of her social standing. It is secondary strength, not innate but acquired, of which the finest instance is a matter of history, and was witnessed within the walls of the Conciergerie during the Reign of Terror, where men and women unflinchingly carried on a hollow semblance of the joyous comedy of life till they mounted laughing into the tumbrils.
Although nothing was known about the events of the previous night except by those who took part in them, a sense of excitement pervaded the party. The strained relations existing between the Duke and his possible successor gave rise to an amount of vague expectation and conjecture. Anything might happen with such dangerous elements present in the atmosphere.
Therefore when Rallywood, booted and spurred, passed up the hall, his entrance attracted every eye. He walked straight up to the Count at his distant window and saluting, spoke for perhaps a minute in a low voice.
At the first sentence Sagan swung round, his lowering face growing darker as he listened. Then, advancing to the head of the table prepared for the entertainment of the Duke, he called the attention of all present by striking it loudly with the riding-whip he carried.
An instant hush settled upon the room. Sagan glared round with waiting eyes, and in the pause the tsa broke in a crash upon the Castle front with the pebble-shifting sound of a breaker.
'I have to beg the favour of your attention for a moment,' the Count's words rang out. 'Captain Rallywood reports that an officer of his Highness's Guard is missing—Captain Colendorp. Inquiries have been made but he cannot be found. It seems that he was last seen leaving the billiard-room. If anyone in the hall can give us further information, will they be good enough to do so?'
Valerie raised her eyes to Rallywood, who stood behind the Count. As he met them the young man's stern face softened suddenly.
M. Blivinski, who happened to be sitting beside her, caught the exchange of looks, and for a moment was puzzled. Selpdorf's daughter? Well, well, the English are a wonderful people, he said to himself. Neither subtle nor gifted, but lucky. Lucky enough to give the devil odds and beat him! Here was Selpdorf laying his plans deeply and with consummate skill, while this pretty clever daughter of his was ready to give him away because a heavy dragoon of the favoured race smiled at her across a breakfast table. Pah! The ways of Providence are inscrutable; it remains for mortal men to do what they may to turn them into more convenient channels.
Then there was Counsellor, whose political importance could not be denied. Yet he did the bluff thing bluffly and said the obvious thing obviously, and blundered on from one great city to another, but blundered triumphantly! Still there were compensations. The good God had given the Russian craft and a silent tongue, and a facility for telling a lie seasonably.
Elmur was by a fraction of a second too late to see what the Russian had seen. Valerie was very white, but she was talking indifferently to M. Blivinski with her eyes fixed upon her plate. It was some time before she seemed to grow conscious of Elmur's gaze; a slight fleck of colour showed and paled in her cheeks, and then at length her long lashes fluttered up and the German perceived in the darkness of her eyes a trace of unshed tears.
'Mademoiselle, you are tired,' he said with solicitude.
'Yes,' she answered smiling. 'But we are going back to Révonde in a day or two, and then I will wipe out the remembrance of everything that has happened at Sagan from my mind forever!'
Elmur was about to reply when Sagan spoke again.
'No one appears to have heard or seen anything of Captain Colendorp. We will have the dogs out, Captain Rallywood. Pray tell his Highness that in the course of an hour or two we hope to be able to tell him where our man has got to. His absence is doubtless due to some trifling cause.'
As Rallywood retired Sagan cast a comprehensive glance around the tables, and noted Counsellor's absence with a sinister satisfaction.
All the morning he had been speculating upon the course Counsellor would pursue after the rencontre of the previous night. Most likely disappear from the Castle. He would not dare to brazen it out. Sagan argued that the British envoy could not be very sure of his position yet. What had he proposed to the Duke? And how had the Duke answered him? What was to be the result of the visit, or would there be any? Selpdorf held the Duke's confidence. He must checkmate England and openly throw his influence into the German scale. No half courses could any longer avail in Maäsau.
Here his reflections were interrupted, for Counsellor's big burly figure was bending over Madame de Sagan's chair, before he accepted the seat at her side with the assured manner of a favored guest.
Even the Russian attaché blinked. Ah, these islanders! What next?
As an immediate result Count Sagan was forced to accept the situation thrust upon him.
'Have you slept well, Major?' he inquired sardonically. 'No bad dreams, eh?'
'I dream seldom—and I make it a point in the morning to forget bad dreams if I have had any,' replied Counsellor, with a good-humored raising of his big eyebrows.
'That is wise,' said Sagan, 'for dreams and schemes of the night rarely have solid foundations.'
'So they say, my lord, but I do not trouble myself about these things. A man of my age is forced to consecrate his best energies to his digestion.'
The Duke had decided upon returning to Révonde during the forenoon, but most of the guests were to remain for the projected boar-hunt. The hunting-party had already started when Blivinski and Counsellor drove out of the Castle courtyard on their way to the nearest railway station, which lay under the mountains some miles away.
Thetsahad blown the snow into heavy drifts, leaving the roads and other exposed places bare and almost clean-swept. Near the station they passed a squadron of the Guard sent by Wallenloup to escort the Duke back to the capital.
The pair in the carriage talked little, but when the jingling of accoutrements had died away Blivinski said in an emotionless tone:
'You met with Count Sagan last night then—in your dreams?'
'Yes, or Duke Gustave would have been over the border by this morning.'
'Ah!'
'And history goes to prove that reigning sovereigns are fragile ware—they cannot be borrowed without danger.'
'You allude to Bulgaria?' Blivinski asked promptly, with an air of genial interest.
'Why, for the sake of argument, Alexander can stand as a case in point.'
'If—I say if—we borrowed him, we also returned him.'
Counsellor's reply was characteristic, and justified his companion's opinion of his race.
'Damaged—so they say.'
Blivinski considered the dreary landscape.
'We must not believe all we hear. In diplomatic relations, my friend, ethics cease to exist. Diplomacy is after all a simple game—even elementary—a magnificent beggar-my-neighbour which we continue to play into eternity.'
'But there are rules ... even in beggar-my-neighbour,' said the Counsellor.
Blivinski kicked the rug softly from his feet as the carriage drew up.
'One rule, only one,' he remarked; 'Britain loves to feign the Pharisee. We smile—we others—because we understand that her rule and ours is after all the same—self-interest.'
'If that be the case we come back to the law of the Beast,' said the Counsellor.
The Russian put his gloved hand upon the open door and looked back over his shoulder at Counsellor.
'Always, my dear friend, by very many turnings—but always.'
UNDER THE PINES.
It was a day that would be dark an hour before its time. Rallywood rode out under the gate of the Castle of Sagan as the last trooper clattered down the rocky roadway in the rear of the Duke's carriage, for upon the arrival of the squadron from Révonde he had received orders to remain behind, the search for Colendorp having so far proved unsuccessful.
Rallywood rode slowly down the shoulder of the mountain spur. Under the gray light of the afternoon the limitless swamps stretching to the skyline looked cold and naked under their drifted snow. From the sky big with storm overhead, to the scanty grass that showed by the wayside blackened by the rigours of the winter, the whole aspect of the frontier was ominous and forbidding. Before he plunged into the lower ravines Rallywood turned to look back at the angry towers of Sagan. He was thinking of Colendorp. Under their shadow that lonely and reckless life had come to its close. Why or by whose hand might never be made clear, but Rallywood's mind had worked down to the conviction that the Count might be able to tell the story.
Well, it was good to know that Colendorp had not died in vain; indirectly but none the less surely his death had brought about the defeat of Sagan's plot.
Then he rode away into the heart of the winter woods, where the branches groaned and thrashed under the driving wind. Through gloomy and pine-choked gorges he wound his way to the riverside, for he had decided that if Colendorp had met his death in the river, his body would in time be beached near Kofn Ford.
The sodden dreary paths beside the river, familiar as they were to Rallywood, now looked strange to him. He seemed to be revisiting them after a long absence. Had they worn the same menace in the past? How had he endured to ride for those six heavy years under the hills and up and down through the marshes by the black river, one day like the last, without a purpose or an interest beyond the action of the hour? He lifted his head to the gathering storm, thanking Heaven that phase of life, or rather that long stagnation, could never come again!
The horrible emptiness of the place appalled him. Only a few block-houses dotted the miles of waste. In summer, when the pools yellowed over with flowering plants, rare wood-pigeons eked out a scanty subsistence in the thickets, and there was little else the seasons round. Only the patrols, and the trains and the smugglers, with a boar or two in the forests beside the Kofn, and the ragged wolf-packs that go howling by the guard-houses at the first powdering of snow. From the past his mind naturally ran on to thoughts of Valerie—thoughts that were hopeless and happy at the same time. He could never win her, yet those few dim moments in the corridor were his own, and whatever the future brought to her, would she ever quite forget them?
Presently as he rode along he came in sight of the block-house by the Ford from which he had gone out to Révonde to meet her—gone unknowingly! It lay in the dip about a mile ahead. If he were to return to-morrow to the narrow quarters he had occupied for so many months, the very memory of her would glorify the wooden walls, and even the old barren monotony of life with the frontier patrol be chequered and cheered by the knowledge that somewhere under the same skies Valerie Selpdorf lived and smiled.
The beggars of love—such as Rallywood—are apt to believe that in the mere fact of owning remembrance, they own wealth which can never be expended. But the day comes soon when we know ourselves poor indeed—when we find the comfort of memory wearing thin, when the soul aches for a presence beyond reach of the hands, for a voice grown too dear to forget, that must for ever escape our ears. Eheu! the bitter lesson of vain desire.
Between Rallywood and the Ford the Kofn widened out into a big bay-like reach, upon the further shore of which the trees gathered thickly, their bare branches overhanging the water. On the nearer side ragged-headed pines stood in sparse groups, and amongst their lofty upright stems Rallywood presently became aware that a strange scene was in progress.
A small party of people were moving about the low-lying ground where the snow still rested. On that bleak site at the foot of an outstanding pine two or three men with picks and shovels were hurriedly digging in the frost-bound earth. Close beside them what looked like a long military cloak flung at full length lay upon the ground.
The meaning of the incident was manifest. The clouding sky, the river, the broken pine trees were looking on at a lonely funeral, darkened by a suggestive furtiveness and haste.
Rallywood put spurs to his horse and galloped down towards the burial party. Another rider coming at speed across the open sheered off to intercept him. It was easy to recognise Sagan by his bulk and the imperious gesture of the hand with which he signed to the younger man to stop. But Rallywood rode the harder. There was a shout from Sagan, and the men ran towards the black object on the snow, and by the time Rallywood reached them the dead body was already laid in its grave.
At the same moment Sagan on the other side of the grave pulled up his big horse on its haunches. The foresters stood rigid, waiting on the Count's wishes. He looked over their heads at Rallywood.
'Colendorp has been found,' he said with his most surly bearing.
Rallywood glanced down into the shallow grave; a lump of frosty earth slipped from the rugged heap above and settled into a crevice of the cloak that covered Colendorp.
'My men are burying him.'
'By your orders, my lord?'
'By my orders. Can you suggest a better use to make of a dead man?'
'No, my lord, but a better manner of burial.'
'Dismount and see for yourself.'
Rallywood swung off the saddle, and giving his horse to one of the foresters stooped and threw back the covering from the dead man's face and breast. His dead fierce eyes stared upward, his wet hair was already frozen to his brow, and a black wound gaped open at his throat. Rallywood gazed at the harsh features, which, but for their livid colour, were little altered by death. Thetsamoaned across the river and a few large flakes of snow came floating down.
'Are you satisfied now?'
Rallywood stood up and faced the Count.
'How did he die?'
'You can see that. Suicide as plain as a knife can write it.'
'I do not think so,' said Rallywood slowly.
The Count's horse plunged under the punishing spurs.
'Captain Rallywood, may I ask what you hope to gain by making a scandal in the Guard?' he asked.
'Justice, perhaps. Colendorp had no reason to take his life, my lord.'
'You will not find many to agree with you. The man was always ill-conditioned. He had debts and the pride of the devil. His affairs came to an impossible pass, I conclude. In any case a man has a right to his own secrets.'
'Yes, his affairs came to an impossible pass, perhaps. For the rest, this seems to me less like Colendorp's secret than the secret of some other man.' Rallywood met the red eye full of smouldering wrath. 'Pardon me, my lord, but in the name of the Guard, I protest against burial of Captain Colendorp in this place.'
'I have given my orders,' answered Sagan. 'The Guard must consider their reputation. We have had too many scandals already, and no one will thank you for dragging a fresh one into Révonde for public discussion.'
Sagan was amazed at his own moderation in arguing the question at all. He looked to see it have its due effect upon the Englishman. But Rallywood stood unmoved and stubborn beside the grave.
'We have murder here!' The words fell like an accusation.
Rallywood's eyes were alight now. It took little penetration to picture how Colendorp had met his death. Round the grave, Sagan's horse with its heavy smoking quarters trampled and fretted under the remorseless hand upon the curb. The Count could bear no more opposition. His fury overcame him. Roaring an oath he slashed at Rallywood with his riding whip.
'By St. Anthony, sir, you forget there is room in that grave for two,' he shouted. 'You try me too far—your infernal officiousness—go! It is useless to oppose my wishes here.' Which was obvious. The foresters, lithe and strong as panthers, waited only the orders of their master. They needed but a word, and would as lief have buried two dead men as one in the grave under the torn pines. You may find the same type in the mountains of Austria, where a poaching affray means a vendetta, and the game laws are framed on corresponding principles.
'I see I can do nothing now,' said Rallywood, remounting in his leisurely way. 'The Guard must deal with the affair.'
But Sagan had another word to say to him.
'And I also, Captain Rallywood, shall know how to deal with you. Do not forget that! Your conduct cannot be overlooked. You will find that in Maäsau we are still able to get rid of those who cater for a cheap notoriety. We shall know how to deal with you! I am the colonel of the Guard. Are you aware that it is in my power to break you? Aye, like that!' he smashed his riding-whip across his knee as he spoke, and flinging away the pieces, he added, 'And by the powers above us, I will!'
Rallywood saluted and rode away. At once the foresters fell to work feverishly to fill in the earth over Colendorp's body.
Once more through the falling snow Rallywood looked back. Sagan's great horse stood across the low mound of the finished grave.
LOVE'S BEGGAR.
A threat from Count Simon of Sagan was not to be lightly regarded at any time, but within the boundaries of his own estates it appreciably discounted the chances of life. Therefore Rallywood, instead of returning to the Castle, headed for the block-house by the Ford. The incident which had just taken place probably meant the closing of his career in the army of Maäsau. Personal power survived in its full plenitude in the little state, which had never made any pretence of setting up a representative government; the Maäsaun people were as mute as they had been in the dark ages and appeared content to remain so.
The future which lay before Rallywood on that winter evening was not enlivening. Less than three months ago he would have been half amused at such a conclusion to his military life as offering an answer to a perplexed question. But since then much had happened. That ill-luck should overtake him when hope was at its keenest, and when his relations both with the Guard and the Duke had reached a promising point, struck him hard. If he left the Guard he must also leave Maäsau. He had told himself a hundred times that the daughter of the Chancellor was far beyond his winning, yet the certainty of losing her, which this last development of events involved, was the worst blow of all. To stare an empty future in the face is like looking into expressionless eyes where no soul can ever come.
He little guessed how close upon him were the critical moments of life, or how much of emotion and difficulty and strenuous decision were to be crowded into the next few days. A whirlpool of events was drawing him to its raging centre. The death and the burial of Colendorp, Sagan's resentment and his ruthless scheming were all eddies of circumstance circling inward and carrying him with them to a definite issue.
As he rode on the weather grew rapidly worse, and it soon became impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The night was settling down thick with falling snow, so that Rallywood could only pull up and listen when a faint noise, that might have been a woman's scream, came to him through the storm. He shouted in return but there was no answer. Then out of the gray curtain a sleigh with two maddened horses dashed across his path and was as suddenly lost to sight. Rallywood had only time to see a woman clinging to the driver's empty seat and clutching desperately at the dangling reins.
They passed like a vision, noiseless, swift, and dim, and although Rallywood followed quickly, he could not find them. The gloom and the snow had obliterated all trace of the sleigh, and at last Rallywood himself, well as he knew the country, became bewildered; but luckily the horse he rode was a charger he had had with him on the Frontier. He left it to choose its own direction, yet it was long before a blur of light which he knew to be the open doorway of the block-house grew out on the shifting darkness.
Within, the men of the patrol were standing in a group talking eagerly. Flinging himself from his horse, Rallywood entered the house just as a young cavalry officer came out from the inner room, and, recognising Rallywood, advanced hurriedly to meet him.
'I say, who do you think we have in there?' he said excitedly.
'Tell me afterwards,' interrupted Rallywood; 'I met a runaway sleigh——'
'They were the horses from the Castle,' interrupted the young man with a nervous laugh. 'Mademoiselle Selpdorf managed to get hold of the reins after a bit, otherwise——' he snapped his fingers significantly.
'Then she—the lady is safe?'
'Two of them, my dear friend! One is the handsomest girl in Maäsau, and the other is Madame de Sagan herself! And, by Jove! she's an infernally pretty woman too. We're in luck, Rallywood! Have you come to look for them?'
Rallywood hesitated before he replied.
'No, thanks. I must get back to Révonde by the first train, so I will ride on with the next patrol to the station. Are they hurt?' he nodded towards the inner room.
'No, but how they escaped the deuce only knows! Madame de Sagan was insensible when we found them.' He dropped his voice. 'By the way, she has been saying some queer things! She declares the driver lashed up the horses and purposely threw himself off the sleigh when they were on the slope of the pine wood just above the Ingern precipice. She swears he meant to kill them!'
'She was frightened. That's all.'
'It was about a certainty they'd be dashed to pieces. And look here——' the young fellow looked oddly at Rallywood, 'she hinted that the Count——'
'Nonsense!' Rallywood forced a laugh. 'She was badly frightened, I tell you.'
'I'll take my oath there's something in it though! She refuses to let us take her back to the Castle to-night.'
'What have you given them—tea or anything?'
'Faith, no! I made them each take a nip ofbizutte—far better, too. But we'll have some tea made now if you think they would like it.'
'Of course. It will give them something to do. By the way, you might as well ask them if they would see me.'
On second thought and in view of the Countess's refusal to go back to Sagan, he felt he must offer his assistance.
'Yes, ask them if they will see me now,' he continued, looking at his watch; 'I have not much time to spare.'
The next moment Isolde's high sweet voice could be heard distinctly through the open door.
'Captain Rallywood! Pray tell him we should like to see him.'
Madame de Sagan was lying on a narrow camp bed supported by wraps and pillows, a brilliant red spot on each cheek, and her eyes darker than ordinary under the influence of the alternate fright and stimulation of the last two hours. She waited till the door was shut, then she put out both hands to Rallywood.
'Thank Heaven, we are safe and together again, Jack! Come here! I want to know that you are alive and this is not all a dream,' she began impulsively, yet behind the impulse lay a calculated design. She owed her life to Valerie's courage, but that weighed as nothing in comparison with the knowledge that in some indefinite manner the girl stood between Rallywood and herself, that Rallywood for some reason held Valerie in special regard.
Rallywood bowed, still standing by the door.
'Thank Heaven you are safe, Madame,' he said. 'I saw you somewhere this side of the pine woods, but lost you in the mist.'
'Oh, I did not see you! I saw nothing after that murderer leaped off. I had a horrible instant during which I imagined myself swinging between the gorge and the sky—after that I knew no more!' exclaimed Isolde, a sort of complacency mixing with her agitation. 'They tell me that Valerie was very brave and that she saved our lives, but for me these heroisms are impossible!'
She glanced at Rallywood, secure in his approval, but he had turned to Valerie, who was sitting in a low wooden chair by the stove with her back to the room.
'It was magnificent, Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed.
Valerie shivered.
'There was nothing at all magnificent about it,' she said coldly. 'Self-preservation drives one to do what one can; it is only by chance that one happens to do the right thing.'
Isolde shrugged her shoulders and made a little grimace at Rallywood.
'Do not heed her, Jack. People are always very pleased with themselves for doing what other people call magnificent. Valerie is cross. Take this chair by me; I have a very serious quarrel with you.'
All the terror and peril of that dreadful drive had passed from Madame de Sagan's facile mind. The little rivalries and coquetries of everyday life occupied her as fully as if her lot contained no troublous outlook. In this conjunction vanity will often do for a woman what work does for a man. As for Isolde, the small promptings of a wounded vanity at once absorbed her.
Very unwillingly Rallywood obeyed. Between those narrow walls one was within hand-reach of everything in the room, so that although he was beside the Countess he was not a yard from Mademoiselle Selpdorf.
'So you would not come to me last night?' began Isolde abruptly. 'You cannot be made to understand that we Maäsauns hold human life of very little account. It is stupid of you, Jack, but you will be forced to believe it now. Do you know that the driver of the sleigh——'
The attempt at assassination was horrible enough in itself, but from her lips wearing their strange innocent smile he felt he could not endure the story.
'I have heard of it,' he interposed hastily; 'the Lieutenant told me. But——'
Isolde leant upon her elbow to look into his face.
'What! You don't believe even now that Simon is trying to rid himself of me? Valerie, speak! You too refused to believe me last night. What do you say now?'
'It may have been an accident,' replied Valerie with a tired movement.
'Absurd! But whatever you choose to say, I will not go back to the Castle! Révonde is perhaps safe——'
'My father is there, and you will be safe,' said Valerie in a tone of quiet certainty.
Isolde laughed scornfully. 'I don't know that; for after all Sagan is the most powerful man in the state!' she cried, with that perverse pride in her husband that his daring personality seemed to develop in all his dependents.
As Valerie made no reply, she harked back to her former subject. 'I was in danger last night, Jack, yet you would not come to my help. What excuse can a man offer for such a thing?' her voice and lips had grown tender in addressing him.
'The Duke, Madame.'
'That for the old Duke!' with a charming gesture of emptying both her little hands. 'What is he in comparison with me? Jack, you are but a poor lover after all!'
Rallywood began to see that some motive underlay Isolde's wild talk. The kind eyes with which he had been watching her changed.
'It is very true,' he said.
'Jack, Jack, how am I to forgive you?' she swept on. 'Yet you remember when I was a firefly at the palace ball, I told you that like a firefly my life would be short and merry. My prophecy is coming true.'
An almost imperceptible alteration in the pose of the quiet figure by the open stove was not lost upon Madame de Sagan.
The sweet treble voice resumed:
'You took a firefly from my fan and told me that one always wanted the beautiful things to live for ever. Jack, you promised to be my friend that night. You have not forgotten?'
'I have not forgotten.'
'And the firefly? Have you kept that as carelessly as you have kept your promise? Where is your cigarette-case? Ah!' a pause, then a cry of pleasure. 'Valerie, come here! He dropped it into his cigarette-case and it is here still! If you had only reminded him of that——'
Valerie stood up cold and proud, and exceedingly pale.
'I forgot.'
'It does not matter now,' Isolde replied, taking the glittering atom from its hiding-place and holding it up on her slender finger to catch the light, 'since we have met after all. You meant to fail, Valerie! Were you not ashamed to deceive me last night—even last night when you saw I was desperate, and oh, so horribly afraid?'
Rallywood, absorbed in other thoughts, gathered very little of what was being said. After avoiding Isolde of Sagan with more or less success on the Frontier, he had, since his stay in Révonde, yielded in an odd reserved way to her infatuation for him, partly out of a desire to secure meetings with Mademoiselle Selpdorf, partly from a man's stupid helplessness under such circumstances. The more chivalrous the man the more helpless very often. But all this was entirely and for ever unexplainable to Mademoiselle Selpdorf. He drew a deep breath. There was nothing for it but to accept the situation.
'We both owe a debt to Mademoiselle Selpdorf for carrying the message,' he said.
'You are mistaken,' said Valerie, and he winced under the contempt of her voice. 'I should never have stooped to carry it had I not had a far different object in view.'
Isolde laughed to a shrill echo. Valerie Selpdorf's haughty spirit was about to be humbled. She dimly felt why Rallywood held the girl to be far above the level of ordinary womanhood—a cold and unattainable star. But she should be dragged down from the heights before his eyes.
'I was not so blind as you supposed,' Isolde said aloud, pointing an accusing finger at Valerie. 'I knew why you went. Shall I tell you, Jack?'
Rallywood looked up quickly. Colendorp naturally recurred to his mind.
'You could not have known,' Valerie answered.
'But I did, though!' Isolde went on. 'Listen to me, Jack. Do you know why she undertook my message, and why she forgot its most important point? My life has come to-night to a crisis; I will not spare those who have been cruel to me!' Isolde was trembling with excitement as she leant forward, one hand holding by the table that stood between her and Valerie, the other clenched in the soft fur of the rug on her knees. 'Why? Oh, men are so simple! They believe a woman to be pure and true if she but knows how to temper her coquetries with a pretence of reserve. Jack, Valerie has been false to me and to you because she is jealous of me, and—because she herself loves you!'
Rallywood rose slowly. 'Hush, Madame!'
Valerie stood for one instant scarlet from neck to brow, then the blood ebbed and left her of a curious deadly pallor like one who has a mortal wound, but she still faced them.
'Wait, Jack. You shall hear the end now that we have gone so far.' Isolde laughed again. She was so sure of her lover. 'It is well for the truth to come out sometimes, you know. Yes, Valerie Selpdorf, the proud, unapproachable Valerie, loves a captain of the Guard, who——'
Rallywood strode across in front of her. After such words of outrage, his very nearness to Mademoiselle Selpdorf seemed in itself an insult. With his back to the door he stopped and took up the last unfinished sentence.
'You have made a strange mistake, Madame,' he said in a low voice but very clearly. 'On the contrary, it is the captain of the Guard who has loved Mademoiselle Selpdorf, and even dared to tell her so, although she had shown him that she regarded him with scorn and dislike. I hope I may be forgiven for acknowledging this now, Mademoiselle. And let me say one thing more, that though I have no hope, though I am one of Love's beggars, the greatest honour of my life will be that I have loved such a woman!'
The door closed behind him. Isolde sat stupified at the result of her stratagem, the stratagem by which she had intended to humble Valerie in the most cruel way a woman can be humbled.
Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself, sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's horizon.
'Well,' said Isolde after a long pause, '"We love but while we may." I wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday.'
Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.
'As for him, Isolde, you compelled him to say it! But he does not—love me!' Her voice gathered strength. 'As for me, you shall know the whole truth; you are right—I love him, for he is a most noble gentleman!'
IN LOVE WITH HONOUR.
Révonde was drenched in a sudden and depressing thaw. From her crowned ridges down to the swollen river rushing at her feet, she stood shivering in a robe of clinging mist; yet the day was warm with the raw deceptive closeness that chills to the bone and awakens the latent germs of death.
From the Hôtel du Chancelier the winter view over the bright, beautiful city, glittering only yesterday in its winter bedizenment of frost and snow, was changed. Streams of dirty water poured from the roofs, and in the streets the miry snow sluiced slowly downhill or stuck on passing boot-heels in treacherous pads.
A thaw is demoralising; its penetrative power strikes deeper than physicalmalaise. With the average man or woman it damps the spirits, unstrings the will, and slackens the mental and moral fibre until resistance of any kind becomes an effort. M. Selpdorf was in the habit of saying that the rope by which the world swings is made up of the strands of the days rather than of the fathoms of the years. He held that no detail was too insignificant to be used as a factor in the conduct of affairs; thus he habitually took everyday trifles into account, since small items are apt to add up handsomely in the final figure of any calculation. A man who says 'No' to-day may be won to consent to-morrow under altered conditions of weather and diet. Therefore the Chancellor, who had avoided his daughter since her return, made choice of a dismal morning to bring his influence to bear upon her. He relied a good deal upon Valerie's affection for himself, which was strong and single-hearted. Moreover, he had trained her to the masculine habit of taking a broad view, a bird's-eye view, of the whole of a given subject, instead of turning the microscope of her emotions on any one point, after the manner of women.
Baron von Elmur was no longer young, but he was a personage and a figure in the political world. By marrying him Valerie would place herself in a position where her cleverness, her tact, and her beauty would be offered a wide and splendid field of activity. Besides, so Selpdorf imagined, she had no more favoured suitor.
Valerie was sweet and proud and sensitive; her father gave her credit for the two first qualities, but it probably would not have struck him to use that last term in describing her. He forgot that, in spite of any amount of masculine training, a woman remains always a woman at heart. Had Valerie not met Rallywood, she might never have known as much about herself as she discovered during her visit to Sagan; as matters stood, however, the weak point in M. Selpdorf's theory was already under strain. The Chancellor usually breakfasted alone with his daughter. She was at once spirited and adaptable—adaptable enough to fall in with a man's moods, and spirited enough to hold independent opinions, an ideal combination in a comrade. Servants were rigorously excluded from the room during the meal, that father and daughter might talk freely together.
'I have hardly seen you since you came back, Valerie. I have missed you,' Selpdorf said as he turned away from the table and lit a cigarette. 'I am hurried to-day, yet I must speak to you on a subject that cannot be put off. One incident of your stay at the Castle has been constantly in my mind.'
'Yes, father.'
The unconcern of her voice struck Selpdorf. Things were either about to go unexpectedly well or else very badly.
'Baron von Elmur tells me you yielded to my advice and his wishes. In fact, you consented to an engagement.'
'Oh, yes, for the time being.'
'My dear girl,' he returned gravely, 'it has been publicly announced. It was announced the same evening, I understand.'
Valerie looked at him with a vague alarm in her eyes.
'Only by an unlucky accident,' she replied. 'It was never intended to be announced. Baron von Elmur assured me of that.'
'I am sure von Elmur's intentions were most generous, but the fact remains that it was made public. Valerie, you must be aware of his feelings towards you?'
Valerie came round the table and sat down beside her father, slipping her hand caressingly through his arm.
Selpdorf smiled down at her.
'Valerie, I must ask you to consider not only your own share in this question, but von Elmur's. It compromises Elmur no less than it compromises you.'
'I cannot carry out the engagement,' said the girl quietly.
M. Selpdorf threw a great deal of surprise and disappointment into his countenance.
'I did not know you were so greatly prejudiced against him. But, Valerie, we are honourable people, you and I, and we cannot allow Baron von Elmur to suffer because we unluckily misunderstood one another.'
Valerie grew very still, her fingers pressed upon her father's arm.
'Nothing succeeds like success, and up to the present time von Elmur has succeeded,' he went on. 'But a failure in a love affair places a man in an absurd position, and to be laughed at means loss of prestige. Wherever he is known the story will follow him. He has a brilliant future before him, a future that it might be the pride of any woman to share. I think, therefore, you will hesitate before you injure him by giving way to a girlish and perhaps passing dislike.'
'Father, I cannot!'
Valerie's voice was always low pitched and had the mellow sweetness peculiar to a contralto. But Selpdorf recognised a note in it now which showed him that his wishes were very far from fulfilment. She was loyal and steadfast, qualities that up to the present the Chancellor had found very admirable in his daughter. It is a rare pleasure for men of his type to be able to trust their womankind. In the case of his motherless girl, the Chancellor had enjoyed this pleasure to the full. To-day for the first time he found himself face to face with the less convenient side of the girl's character. She was an eminently reasonable person, and though she could stick to her point she never did so without cause. Therefore Elmur's affair promised to be awkward.
'What are your reasons?' he asked, after a pause.
'I do not—like Baron von Elmur.'
'That is unfortunate, but your dislike may be overcome when you know him better.'
'Oh, no!—never!'
'Why not?'
'Is it possible to explain a dislike?' asked Valerie rather petulantly.
'No, perhaps not—for a woman,' said Selpdorf reflectively, 'but since there is no other——' he waited, then putting his forefinger under his chin, he raised her face and looked into it. 'Unless indeed you prefer someone——'
Her eyes, which met his with the clear direct glance they had not inherited from himself, and her pale gravity dismayed him.
'Speak, my dear child. This is a matter very near my heart,' he said quietly.
A tremulous smile came to Valerie's lips.
'And near mine—or I should not oppose you, father.'
Selpdorf pushed her away from him with a gentle hand.
'You don't know what you are doing,' he said shortly, and gazed out with undisguised chagrin into the mists that overhung Révonde. Presently he stood up.
'Well, well; it only goes to prove that the human element is a variable quantity,' he remarked.
'Am I only a human element in your plans? Am I no more than that to you?' She put her hands upon his shoulder.
M. Selpdorf drew her nearer and kissed her forehead.
'You know what you are to me, Valerie. I had hoped to join our interests in all things, but——' he turned to the door.
'Father!' the girl cried, 'don't leave me like this. You don't understand. I only knew by chance. He is too noble to——'
'Ah!' Selpdorf recollected Elmur's phrase, 'There is always the picturesque captain of the Guard.' He paused before speaking. 'Then this noble individual does not propose to take my daughter from me altogether—only to entangle her in a sentimental embarrassment?'
'He made no claim upon me. He was compelled to—to speak—for my sake!'
'I will not ask for further confidences to-day, Valerie. But think over the whole of our conversation. I can trust you to be just, even to Baron von Elmur.'
M. Selpdorf knew that the longer an idea is brooded over, the harder it becomes to part company with it. Therefore the forenoon was yet young when von Elmur drove up to the Hôtel du Chancelier in reply to a summons. The German plot was not yet at an end. By judicious manipulation, Selpdorf had gleaned a dim knowledge of Counsellor's errand from the Duke, who was as wax in his supple hands. Counsellor's return had already become one day overdue, and Selpdorf took advantage of the delay to infuse doubts and troubled surmises into the Duke's wavering mind.
He had recovered in some measure the royal confidence, and felt almost certain that if the English proposals could be sufficiently delayed as to seem to hang fire, he might still be able to persuade his master to enter into some provisional arrangement with Germany.
'You have not any definite news for me, after all,' Elmur remarked at the end of ten minutes. 'I begin to believe the Count's declaration that his Highness can only be driven into a reasonable treaty with us by——' he stopped and sketched rapidly on the paper before him, 'by—in fact—the flat of the sword, shall we say?'
Selpdorf turned a look on his companion.
'Could you trust Count Simon to put any man, and most of all the one upon whose property he has a reversionary claim, in fear of death? And further trust him not to put the threat into execution if provoked by failure?'
Elmur shrugged his shoulders.
'We should have Duke Simon to deal with in that case, instead of Duke Gustave.'
M. Selpdorf's round forehead wrinkled slightly. He was apprehensive of this new temper in Elmur. The Chancellor was too clever to be quite honest, and too honest to be quite unflinching. A man, in fact, a little weaker and a little stronger than his fellows. 'Then the Count's methods still commend themselves to you, the miscarriage of the plan of Sagan notwithstanding?' he asked with an invidious smile.
'If his Highness can be brought into a complacent frame of mind as regards our project to-day, and before the English proposals are laid before him, I think we shall not need the methods of the Count,' Elmur answered. 'Count Simon has undertaken to help us on the Frontier. Major Counsellor will be detained under some pretext at Kofn Ford block-house, and later you, Monsieur, who have so consummate a skill in covering the mistakes of other people, will set this mistake right by a graceful apology. The fat Major will arrive in Révonde behind time—that is all. In the meanwhile, his despatches will be forwarded to you if you will select a safe person to meet the Count's messenger beyond the river. Later you can return them to Major Counsellor and score a point by the act.'
Selpdorf made no comment, but changed the subject. 'I have had a little talk with my daughter.'
Elmur laid down his pen and his impassive air became more marked than ever.
'Am I then to have the pleasure of an interview with Mademoiselle to-day?' he inquired. 'I hope she exonerates me from any blame in connection with the announcement made at Sagan?'
'Entirely. But she is inclined to insist that her consent was conditional—no more.'
'I only desire the opportunity of assuring her of my entire devotion,' said Elmur.
'I do not fancy that she wrongs you, my dear Baron, by doubting that.'
'There is then a difficulty on the part of Mademoiselle? It is unfortunate.'
'It can be overcome. She is still very young, and her imagination has been touched. The Englishman, Captain Rallywood, has, as you once remarked the knack of making himself picturesque, which appeals in fact to the imagination. I am myself sensible of something of the kind when dealing with him. Valerie imagines him to be quixotic.'
'Has Mademoiselle said this?' Elmur was stiffening at every sentence. Circumstances and not liking had put these two men on the same side, and Selpdorf repaid Elmur's sneers at the helplessness of Maäsau with sympathy for Elmur's position as a lover. No man likes to be pitied in his love affairs.
'No, no, my good friend, no name was mentioned. It may be more convenient that I should never know it.'
'Then you think she may be persuaded to alter her decision with regard to me?'
'I am certain of it.'
'And what do you suggest shall be done with my—rival?' asked the German with a sinister inflection of the voice.
'We must break him.'
'Will it not be possible to work in this small affair with Counsellor's detention? Send Captain Rallywood to Kofn Ford to undertake the custody of Major Counsellor. Of course, it will not be necessary for you to mention the name of the person about whom your stupid Frontier officials are to make so convenient a mistake. When Rallywood discovers the identity of his prisoner, I fancy his honour will find the weight of temptation put upon it too great. He also is in the English plot, remember, and he will co-operate with his countryman. He will allow Counsellor to escape. But by that time the Duke must have closed with another ally.'
Selpdorf comprehended that the German was playing his own game in a double sense. He was, in fact, serving his own private interests and also hustling Selpdorf along towards the German goal.
'Then we shall have a court-martial,' said the Chancellor. 'Disgrace will be more effectual than death itself in this case.'
'Disgrace? ah, yes! But I know what would happen to Captain Rallywood in my country.' Elmur's eyes had a gleam in them.
'I am not so well informed. Our State is more elastic in its laws than yours. I cannot foresee what will happen to him in mine!' replied Selpdorf smiling.
'There is but one thing that could happen to him under military law in any country. He will be shot!' said Elmur pleasantly, then added with a sudden uncontrolled irritation, 'And that too is picturesque.'
The Chancellor spread out his hands.
'What will you, my dear Baron? It is also conclusive. Besides, we shall have gained our point. The fellow's breach of faith is our point. Valerie will be disillusioned; for recollect, I pray you, that Valerie is in love with honour.'
HOW RALLYWOOD HAD HIS ORDERS.
Unziar had already departed to the Frontier on a secret errand when Rallywood started for the Chancellerie through the slush and fog. It was yet early in the afternoon, and an hour when the Duke sometimes drove out. As Rallywood trotted along the embankment by the river, he saw the outriders of the Duke's carriage coming towards him.
Gustave of Maäsau happened to be alone, and, to indulge the humour of the moment, he beckoned the young man to the side of the carriage and spoke a few words to him. He took a pleasure in the Englishman's frank readiness.
'I have to thank you for your energy in the matter of Colendorp,' he began. 'We have, however, decided to leave the whole affair in abeyance for the present. So M. Selpdorf has sent for you. What for?' he added with the curiosity of an idle man.
'I do not know, sire.'
'Now I remember, he did mention something about—well, well, we have worse enemies in the State than the Chancellor,' he wandered on, for he had had an interview during the morning with Selpdorf, and was more than half persuaded to place himself once more unreservedly under that able direction. For Selpdorf had almost succeeded in lulling his suspicions, and in luring him back to the old comfortable habit of believing in a false peace. He half regretted the doubts he had lately entertained of his Prime Minister, and was weakly willing to disabuse the Englishman's mind of prejudice. He did not know that Rallywood was quite unaware of Selpdorf's connection with the Sagan plot. 'The excellent Selpdorf is unsparing of his agents,' went on the Duke in vague connection, 'but he is also unsparing of himself. Therefore see that you obey him loyally. For me, he does what he wills with me.' He laughed and raised his hand by way of dismissal.
Rallywood went on wondering what the Duke meant to convey by this praise of his great Minister and in fact set many constructions on the empty words.
Selpdorf received him with an air of gravity, almost of restraint, entirely unlike the debonnair interest he had shown in him on the occasion of their last interview.
'I have sent for you, Captain Rallywood,' he said after a moment's consideration, 'to entrust to you a very delicate mission.'
He ceased and waited for some response. He was standing opposite to Rallywood on a white fur rug. The upstanding corners of his moustache, his upright carriage, and the ineffaceable mark left upon him by his short term of military service—for conscription obtains in Maäsau—had their effect upon Rallywood. He picked out the soldier from the chancellor and saluted in silence.
Selpdorf smiled. Yet he wished the man had spoken! so much may be deduced from a tone of voice. Did he guess how much Selpdorf knew of his relations with Valerie? But there was nothing to be gathered from that rigid front.
'Before I give you any information, I must ask you first to say whether you will serve his Highness or not?'
'I have taken the oath, your excellency.'
'Yes,' the Chancellor said dubiously, 'and an oath goes a long way but sometimes not all the way. Has not some writer said that it is the man that makes the oath believed, not the oath the man?'
'I have taken the soldier's oath,' repeated Rallywood.
But he had no protestation of fidelity to offer. It rested with Selpdorf to choose the right man for his mission.
If personal inclination had had any part in the Chancellor's plan of life, it is certain he would have liked Rallywood. As it was, in trusting he distrusted him. Rallywood could be relied on to follow a straight path, he knew, but if it swerved from honour—what then?
'Also I must remind you that a soldier should see no farther than the point of his sword, and hear no more than his orders. In short, under many circumstances he has no use for an independent judgment. He must leave that to those whom he is pledged to obey and with whom rests the ultimate responsibility. A soldier's single duty is blind obedience.'
Rallywood bowed and continued to await his orders in silence.
'That is well. I am about to send you to Kofn Ford, where you will meet the midnight mail from the Frontier. At the foot of the mountain incline, about half-way between the stations, the train will be stopped and a person placed in your custody. You will take this person back with you to the Ford block-house and keep him there until you receive orders to bring him into Révonde. I especially charge you that no violence is to be used, but he is not to be permitted to escape. The importance of the duty which is entrusted to you cannot be too highly estimated.'
This then was what the Duke meant. Rallywood was to place himself unreservedly at the disposal of M. Selpdorf. Yet the preamble troubled him. It seemed to be assumed that he might be tempted to evade his orders.
'I am to start at once, your Excellency?'
'In half an hour.' Selpdorf's face cleared, something of his former geniality returned to him. 'To-night, Captain Rallywood, the Duke has need of a man. There are others I might have sent whose claims are greater than yours, but you are my nominee to the ranks of the Guard, and I would justify my choice. His Highness also is inclined to favour you.'
Selpdorf contemplated Rallywood kindly, as if prepared to be interested in his answer. He was trying to draw something from the man, but Rallywood only stood straighter and hugged his wooden silence closer. Any reply he could make would give the advantage to Selpdorf. For the present he himself held it. It is often so. The man who speaks ten words has an advantage over the man who speaks a hundred.
'I thank your Excellency,' he replied.
'There is,' Selpdorf began again meditatively, as if permitting himself the luxury of a little frankness before a trusted adherent, 'an end to everything and a beginning. The line drawn between the new and the old is never defined; the two overlap. We may regret the old, but since the new is irresistible, the wise make the best of it.' He looked up with an alert interest. 'In your own case, Captain Rallywood, you were not long ago at the dividing line yourself; how has the new life treated you?'
'Well!' said Rallywood as if flinging back a challenge.
The Chancellor's round eyes met his.
'Ah, I thought it would be so! You were half inclined that night to let fortune go by you. You must mount her, man, not lead her by the bridle.'
Then Rallywood broke silence.
'I doubt, your Excellency, if she will carry me where I want to go, in spite of hard riding,' he said.
'That will depend upon yourself, I imagine. Good-day, Captain.'
ON THE FRONTIER.
The evening train was almost due.
Upon the rise of a bare and windy ridge Rallywood sat on horseback waiting. Man and horse seemed to be the only living things between the horizons. From his point of vantage he looked out over the dim, limitless marshes, north, south and west, and although the growing darkness rendered the few features of the landscape even less distinguishable than usual, his practiced eye passed from point to point readily, for the flat map before him had been etched in upon his memory by the slow-graving stylus of use.
The night promised to be clear and starlit, for the tsa had risen to a gale, and a sudden frost succeeding the thaw had already thrust its iron fingers deep into the land. The cold was intense, and a raw wind, that had blown across a continent and a sea, came down obliquely upon Rallywood through a dip in the mountains. On one side the lines of the railway track ran up a curving incline into the Kofn Hills, where, five miles away at the bleak Frontier station, officials, imposingly uniformed, parade the platforms, examine the baggage, and demand passports in a manner calculated to impress the traveller with an idea of the immense resources of the State of Maäsau. That is one part of their duties. The other is slavish obedience. 'Do what you are ordered, and the result will look after itself.' Such is the creed. The first lesson taught them is that they must not hesitate, and they learn it thoroughly. Westwards the line slipped away into the sweep of low ground towards Alfau, the first stoppage on the way to Révonde.
Rallywood drew his riding-cloak around him and settled down squarely into the saddle. The desolate plains with the crying wind held the loneliness of the damned. Occasionally a wolf howled in the distance, or a wandering snipe cried as it lost itself among the stiffening reeds about the swampy levels, and through all he could hear the hoarse roar of the Kofn in flood, as it rushed down from its rocky bed, swollen with the melted snows of yesterday. Another interval passed while the gray outlook changed to black. Then a red light appeared as it were over the edge of the world. Its coming afforded a certain break in the naked whimpering solitude of the plain.
Slowly it crept down the incline, for the engines of Maäsau, like Belgian pistols, are not made for rough usage. Rallywood rode forward to meet it, the tufts of grass crackling under his horse's feet. But instead of slackening pace the chain of lighted carriages swept past him, and, gathering speed, wound away into the desolate night.
Rallywood looked after it with a sense of blankness. The Chancellor's exordium and the Duke's remarks had rather primed him to a state of expectation, and he felt as if he had been balked of he knew not what. The green light contracted and died away into the gloom; then discontent mastered him. In his restless mood he had grasped at the situation, which had promised a stirring of the blood, but the train passed and thrust him back with a hand that seemed almost palpable in the staleness of ordinary life. When he left the Frontier he had left behind him the old content, the humorous adaptability to circumstances which had once been a main element of his character.
Turning his horse's head due west he rode slowly beside the track, where the metals had begun to gleam under the stars, and the wind drove behind him as if driving him out into the waste. He rode on for five minutes. Then he pulled up and listened. Through the whistling of thetsaand the dull roar of the river, he fancied he had detected some other sound.
Puzzled, he turned and rode back at a hand-gallop in the teeth of the wind. As he rode, the noise became more distinct, and presently out of the night something black and bulky came jolting painfully and slowly down the slope of the railway track.
As Rallywood drew rein alongside, he saw it was a single carriage, unlighted and solitary, rolling aimlessly on towards the level ground through the gloom.
Gradually the pace slackened, and at last with a rheumatic jerk backwards and forwards it came to a standstill. By this time also Rallywood had perceived that it occupied the further set of rails, on which the outgoing trains from Révonde travelled. And already the night mail could not be far away.
He dropped from his saddle and in a second was feeling for his matches, while the horse fell to sniffing half-heartedly at the meagre herbage.
Rallywood mounted the steps of the carriage, for the platforms in Maäsau are very high, and turned the handle. Then, bending forward, he peered into the interior, but through the dusk the seats seemed empty. Rallywood stepped inside and lit a match. It sputtered in the frosty air and flickered for a second from the route-maps under the musty racks to the cushioned seats, and so downwards to a figure heaped on the floor-rug by the opposite door.
This wandering carriage had then one occupant. Also he gave signs of life, for he grunted feebly in the dark as the match went out.
Rallywood felt for the lamp above his head, for in Maäsau the trains are lighted by oil lanterns let in over the doors. Finding it, he broke the glass with the butt of his revolver and lit the wick; then he turned for a closer examination of the man who had come to him in so strange a manner. But the manner pointed to the fact that this must be the prisoner he was told to hold at Kofn Ford until to-morrow. Politics are apt to work out to curious issues in continental railways. Such things have happened many times, though they are not often noised abroad. The man lay with one arm thrown across the seat and his face buried in it. He was a big man, and a fringe of white hair showed under the back of his travelling cap above a crease of fleshy neck.
'Counsellor!'
For an instant Rallywood turned sick and his head felt light. He remembered feeling the same sensation years before, when a heavy opponent sat abruptly down on his chest in a football scrimmage. His hands shook as he lifted the inert figure on to the cushions and scanned the face, sticky and disfigured with blood. After forcing some brandy from his flask down Counsellor's throat and unloosing his collar, Rallywood opened the window wide to let the cold air blow in upon him, and fired two shots from his revolver in rapid succession out into the night. They must have help, for the down mail was already at Alfau.
By this time, Counsellor, grunting and swearing, had got himself up on his elbow and stared at the young man with vacant eyes.
'Where the deuce have I got to? Is that you, John? By heaven, I remember!' His fingers went groping weakly to his breast, then with a groan he struggled to his feet. 'The ruffians have robbed me!'
But the effort exhausted him; he sank back putting his hands to his head.
'I don't understand this. What has happened? John, where am I?'
Rallywood explained hurriedly.
'We're on the up line, Major. Have another pull at my flask, and see if you can get to the Ford block-house. The night mail will be on us directly. Ah, there are the men,' as a stolid sergeant thrust his weather-beaten face in at the door.
Rallywood gave the necessary orders rapidly, then turned to the Major.
'Are you badly hurt? Do you think you can ride?' said he.
'Ride! of course I can ride. How far is it to Révonde?'
Rallywood put his arm round him, and helped him very tenderly from the carriage.
Counsellor stood up in the howling wind and looked about him into the wild night.
'I've had a nasty knock on the head, and I suppose they look to the night mail to finish the business. Make haste, John! where's your horse? Treachery's afoot to-night. I've lost my despatches—they robbed me of them! But I'll beat them all yet! Give me your flask. How far is it to Révonde?'
The troopers had dispersed, some to warn the coming train, others to arrange for the removal of the carriage from the track.
Counsellor had his foot in the stirrup, and with difficulty Rallywood got him up into the saddle.
'Thirty miles, but you cannot ride there to-night,' answered Rallywood.
'With your help I'll beat them yet, John! Thirty miles? I'll be there before daylight! I can go by the stars once I find the road.'
He stuck his heels into the horse's side, but Rallywood still held the bridle.
A wild gust tore round them, and in the succeeding lull Rallywood laid his hand on the other man's knee.
'Major Counsellor, you are my prisoner,' he said.
'How's this, John?' the question came thin, pitiful and weak. A new doubt, the old affection, and a strange helplessness mingled in the words, and they cut deep into Rallywood's ears.
'That was a bad knock on the head,' muttered the Major apologetically, and sank forward on the horse's neck again unconscious.