CHAPTER XXWILFRID RECEIVES A CHALLENGE
When at last Wilfriddidturn his head he beheld a tall masked figure, motionless, silent, watchful; the very Crusader who had glanced angrily at him in the ballroom.
Now when one gentleman comes upon another in the act of kissing a lady, politeness suggests immediate retirement on the part of the first. But this was a course the intruder didnottake; instead, he kept his ground as if he had come there for no other purpose than to watch the pair, manifestly indifferent as to whether his presence caused embarrassment or not.
Wilfrid could have slain him without the least compunction.
Here was a lovely princess, clinging to his embrace, listening to his love-avowal, and lo! the charming situation must come to an end—for a time at least—by reason of the new-comer’s clownishness!
As he withdrew one arm from the Princess she made a movement as if to flee.
“Stay, Princess,” he whispered. “Do not go. You are safe with me. Do you know this man? Who is he?”
She seemed too frightened to make reply; she glanced, now to the right and now to the left, along the moonlit terrace, apparently deliberating which way to flee; finally, with a strength born of despair, she suddenly broke away, and before the surprised Wilfrid could stop her, Princess Marie was lost to view among the darkness of the pines. For a moment he hesitated whether to follow or not, but as running off might look like cowardice, he chose to remain, and turned upon the Crusader, with whom he was now doubly angry.
The new-comer moved forward from the shadow ofthe trees, and, with an air of dignity, now stood in the clear moonlight, looking at the other as if requiring from him an explanation of his recent conduct.
“Qualifying for the spy service, sir?” Wilfrid asked. “I am told ’tis a remunerative profession.”
“In dealing with dishonourable persons,” was the reply, “nice rules of courtesy must be laid aside.”
Wilfrid was convinced that the speaker was Ouvaroff, and that, for some reason or other, the Prince was seeking to disguise his voice.
It was not so much the voice, however, to which he gave heed as the words. Dishonourable? As Wilfrid recalled the Princess’s sweet face and innocent eyes, still greater grew his anger against the man who thus ventured to charge her with wrong-doing.
“Dishonourable, my eavesdropper?” he repeated with a dangerous gleam in his eye.
“I said the word, sir.”
“To whom do you apply it—to me or to the lady?”
“To both.”
“’Tis a word you shall withdraw, or justify.”
“The lady’s last action justifies it. If innocent, why flee? She knows me, and knowing, dares not face me.”
“In knowing you she has the advantage of me. Let me declare myself. I am an Englishman, Viscount Courtenay; my face you may see,” and as he spoke Wilfrid removed his mask. “May I ask for a similar return on your part?”
For though Wilfrid had little doubt that the other was Ouvaroff, still the lifting of the mask would bring certainty.
“Is it possible that you do not recognise me?”
“Canyoureyes see through a silk mask?”
The Crusader hesitated for a moment.
“You do not know me? It is well!” He seemed to derive satisfaction from Wilfrid’s failure to identify him. “To-morrow morning you shall see my face and learn my name.”
“And why not to-night, my Crusader?”
“It is my pleasure for the present to reserve my identity.”
“But how if it be mine to know it now? How if I do not choose to wait till the morning? How if I take off your mask, and compel you at the sword’s point to reveal your name?”
“You are welcome to try,” responded the other, moving backward a pace or two to prevent Wilfrid from snatching off his mask.
“Good! got the right sort of stuff in him,” thought Wilfrid as he saw the other grasp his sword-hilt and prepare to defend himself.
“In the morning,” continued the stranger, “when you shall have learned my name you will readily acknowledge that I have valid reasons for preserving to-night myincognito.”
“Egad, you are very mysterious, my one-time friend,” thought Wilfrid.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” continued the other, “than to cross swords with you here and now, but that in so doing we should be abusing the hospitality of our princely host, Sumaroff. Moreover, the clash of our steel is certain to draw around us a crowd who would seek to stop our fighting; and,” added he, with a grim and deadly earnestness, “when we have once begun there must be no stopping till we make an end.”
In Wilfrid’s opinion Ouvaroff must have attained considerable proficiency in swordsmanship to hold language such as this. Always having a respect for the man willing to fight, he replied with a bow—
“Be it so; since you wish it, retain your mask and yourincognito, which,” added he to himself, “is noincognito.” Aloud he continued, “Your desire to cross swords with me meets with a ready response. May I point out, however, that it is somewhat unusual to invite a man to a duel without assigning due cause. You have not yet justified your reflection on my honour.”
“Honour!” sneered the other in a voice quivering with suppressed passion. “Honour! Are clandestine meetings consistent with the honour of an English gentleman? You meet—” He looked cautiously round as he spoke—“Let her be nameless, for who knows what ears may be within hearing? You meet hersecretly at midnight in the Michaelovski Palace; you meet her with kisses and embraces at this masquerade; you are seen leaving her bed-chamber in the inn at Gora. You, who have brought shame upon her—do you talk of honour?”
Through the holes of his mask the man’s eyes glowed like fire; a great rage seemed to hold him. He fingered his sword-hilt, as if longing to hurl himself upon Wilfrid and end his life there and then, without troubling to wait for the morning.
As for Wilfrid, the words of the other fell upon him with the shock of a thunderbolt, filling him with a dreadful dismay, not so much on his own account as on Marie’s. What had hitherto been a haunting suspicion was now converted to a black truth; the bed-chamber incident was known to Ouvaroff, might be known to others! All innocent as the Princess was, the finger of scorn would now be pointed to her as one fallen from maidenly purity. And the bitterest thought of all was there seemed no way of refuting the slander. Vain would it be for him or for her to deny. The mocking nobility, reared in the tainted atmosphere of Catharine’s Court, and accustomed to measure others by their own standard, would accept as true neither his word nor that of the Princess. She was branded with the mark of shame, and the cause of it all was himself—Wilfrid Courtenay!
Well, he could have one satisfaction at least, the satisfaction of seeing the original traducer fall dead at his feet, for he would give him no quarter in the morning.
“The fight cannot come too soon,” he said, between his set teeth. “You have cast a black slander on an innocent lady, and by Heaven! you die for it.”
“Innocent! Am I to take the kisses and embraces of to-night as proofs of innocence?”
“Why shouldnotthe lady kiss me if she choose?”
The other drew a breath as of amazement, and for a few moments stared, as if he doubted whether there were not something wrong with Wilfrid’s mental calibre.
“You speak thus, knowing who the lady is?”
“Your pardon, I do not know who the lady is. I amunder no obligation to offer explanations to you, sir, but thus much may be tendered, that I know the lady only by the name of Princess Marie—a name that conveys no meaning to me.”
Wilfrid did not ask the other to enlighten him in any way respecting the Princess; in his present haughty mood he would take no favours from him.
The Crusader looked at Wilfrid as if doubting his statement.
“Can this be true?” he muttered.
“It might not be, were I a Russian prince.”
As if confronted with some new and startling problem, the man turned aside and took a few steps to and fro before he spoke again.
“Your statement sounds so improbable that I may well hesitate to accept it. If the lady hasnottold you her name, if you have been acting in ignorance of her rank, then is the guilt hers, and not yours. Nay,” he added in a milder tone, “I am ready to withdraw my reflections upon your honour.”
“You are very good. But if I am honourable how can the lady be dishonourable?”
“That will be seen in the morning.”
“Before the duel, I trust?”
“Why, truly,” said the other with a significant smile, “you will hardly be in a condition to apprehend an explanationafterthe duel.”
“That’s to be seen. But methinks you are somewhat inconsistent, for, surely in admitting—as you have admitted—that my honour is stainless, you have, from your point of view, removed all cause for the duel?”
“So one might think,” returned the other, who seemed to be growing more calm, “but it is not so. Matters are in a fairer state than I had thought them. This scandal may yet be kept quiet; it need not become the talk of Europe. None the less, Lord Courtenay, you must pay the penalty of your daring. You have done—unwittingly it is true—that which can be atoned for only by death.”
“Where shall the place of our meeting be?” askedWilfrid with some impatience, for he was eager to hasten after the Princess.
“You know the Viborg Road running northwards from the city? Good! A little way beyond the eight verst-post on the right-hand side of the road is a path leading to a small glade. At eight o’clock—seven hours from now—I shall be there, attended by a friend. And you?”
“Will not be a laggard in seeking the spot. And our weapons?”
“The choice belongs to you as the challenged.”
Wilfrid, mindful of Ouvaroff’s recent devotion to swordsmanship, and willing to accommodate him in the matter, made the reply:—
“What say you to swords of three feet?”
“Accepted,” said the other with evident satisfaction in his tone. “My second shall bring the weapons with him. A doctor,” he added significantly, “we shallnotrequire.”
“If you will put that last remark in the singular,” said Wilfrid, “I will have no fault to find with it. Why, then, matters being thus arranged, we need not prolong this interview. The rendezvous, a glade near the eighth verst-post on the Viborg Road; the time, eight o’clock. Till then, farewell.”
With that Wilfrid turned away, in an agony of suspense as to what might have happened to the Princess should she have come within view of the four liveried hirelings. And now for the first time he began to realise what a tool he had been in the hands of Count Baranoff. He had done the very thing that Baranoff wanted. His coming into Russia with the chivalrous purpose of defending a lady from the wicked intrigues of that minister had ended in compromising her name and imperilling her safety! She had given him the kiss of love in spite of her belief, “It is death if we are seen!”
And theyhadbeen seen, and that by an enemy!
Death might perhaps have been Wilfrid’s lot a few days earlier, but the re-establishment of the British Embassy put a different complexion upon matters. TheCzar, the Court-party, the ministers, or whoever Marie’s mysterious enemies might be, could not very well arrest the nephew of Great Britain’s representative for a fault which, at its worst, was merely an irregularamour; still, bent on compassing his end, they sought to dispose of him in a manner speciously fair and open, by getting Prince Ouvaroff, the newly-expert swordsman, to challenge him to a duel to the death.
Well,thatpart of the plot should fail; the combat had no terrors for Wilfrid.
But what of Marie, the Princess of the sorrowful eyes, who in the presence of a witness had given unequivocal proof of her love for an Englishman? She was not a British subject; her liberty and life were at the mercy of the Russian authorities.
Would the royal house to which she belonged, pleased rather than otherwise, enjoin that the penalty for her fault must be seclusion for life in a fortress or a nunnery?
Wilfrid’s immediate object was to find the Princess again, and he determined, when he should have found her, not to leave her side till he had seen her to a place of safety; and the safest place he could think of just then was the British Embassy. True, she had already refused that asylum, but fear, occasioned by the recent incident, might cause a change in her resolve.
Not more than fifteen minutes had passed since she had fled from the terrace, but in fifteen minutes one may do much in the matter of hiding one’s self; and the Princess had hidden herself so effectually that Wilfrid could not find her, though he several times traversed the gardens as well as the ballroom.
Although tormented by the fear that shemighthave fallen into the hands of the four hirelings, Wilfrid adopted the more probable conclusion that the Princess had retired altogether from the masquerade. Was it likely that she would remain to run the chance of another meeting with Prince Ouvaroff, of whom she evidently stood in fear? But no sooner had Wilfrid formed this opinion than he dismissed it. The Princess had with her a letter meant for the Czarina. Did she still adhereto her intention of presenting it? Then, unless she knew the secret of the Czarina’s costume, she would have to wait till the Empress had publicly disclosed herself at the general unmasking, which was timed to take place at two o’clock.
And here again Wilfrid was met by a perplexing thought. Why should the Princess, presumably a member of the Court circle, choose the occasion of a public masquerade for presenting a letter which, one would think, might have been more suitably presented in private? And that letter, so she had averred, contained something of vital interest, not only to her own welfare, but also to Wilfrid’s. It was strange—passing strange—but then so was everything else happening that night. Wilfrid had never known a more mystifying time.
When the hand of the clock was upon the stroke of two he repaired to the Hall of Mirrors, and, ascending a gallery, looked down upon the crowd of masked revellers. He hoped in a minute or two more to obtain a view of the Czar, and what was of more interest to him, of the Czarina, in case the Princess should be by to present her letter.
But at the general unmasking, when everybody was looking expectantly around for the imperial pair, Prince Sumaroff mounted the dais and gave out that the pressure of State affairs had prevented the Czar from honouring the masquerade with his presence; a slight touch of illness had likewise kept the Czarina from attending. Wilfrid was, perhaps, the only one present that did not hear this disappointing announcement, his attention at that moment being absorbed by a fact of no importance whatever to the thousand and one guests, but constituting for him a startling discovery.
A moment before the unmasking he had caught sight of Pauline, recognisable, of course, by her costume. She was leaning upon the arm of a tall and majestic figure clad in the glittering mail of a Byzantine warrior. Earlier in the evening when first entering the ballroom Wilfrid had noticed the man, and had called Pauline’s attention to his splendid and striking costume.
The lifting of his mask gave Wilfrid a sort of shock.The Byzantine warrior was none other than Prince Ouvaroff!
Clearly, then, unless Ouvaroff had changed his costume—a most unlikely event—he could not have been the Crusading knight whom Wilfrid had met upon the terrace.
What man was it, then, with whom he had to fight at eight in the morning?