Midnight; the music had ceased, and the yellow and scarlet lanterns had
been plucked from the autumnal hangings. The laughing, smiling, dancing
women, like so many Cinderellas, had disappeared, and with them the
sparkle of jewels; and the gallant officers had ridden away to the
jingle of bit and spur. Throughout the courtly revel all faces had
revealed, besides the happiness and lightness of spirit, a suppressed
eagerness for something yet to come, an event surpassing any they had
yet known.
Promptly at midnight Madame herself had dropped the curtains on the gay
scene because she had urgent need of all her military household at dawn,
when a picture, far different from that which had just been painted, was
to be limned on the broad canvas of her dreams. Darkness and quiet had
fallen on the castle, and the gray moon film lay on terrace and turret
and tile.
In the guardroom, Maurice, his hands and feet still in pressing cords,
dozed in his chair. He had ceased to combat drowsiness. He was worn out
with his long ride, together with the chase of the night before; and
since a trooper had relieved his mouth of the scarf so that he could
breathe, he cared not what the future held, if only he might sleep.
It took him a long time to arrive at the angle of comfort; this
accomplished, he drifted into smooth waters. The troopers who
constituted his guard played cards at a long table, in the center of
which were stuck half a dozen bayonets, which served as candlesticks.
They laughed loudly, thumped the board, and sometimes sang. No one
bothered himself about the prisoner, who might have slept till the crack
of doom, as far as they were concerned.
Shortly before the new hour struck, the door opened and shut. A trooper
shook the sleeper by the sleeve. Maurice awoke with a start and gazed
about, blinking his eyes. Before him he discovered Madame the duchess,
Fitzgerald and Mollendorf, behind whom stood the Voiture-verse of a
countess. The languor forsook him and he pulled himself together and
sat as upright as his bonds would permit him. Something interesting was
about to take place.
Madame made a gesture which the troopers comprehended, and they
departed. Fitzgerald, with gloomy eyes, folded his arms across his
breast, and with one hand curled and uncurled the drooping ends of his
mustache; the Colonel frowned and rubbed the gray bristles on his upper
lip; the countess twisted and untwisted her handkerchief; Madame alone
evinced no agitation, unless the perpendicular line above her nose could
have been a sign of such. This lengthened and deepened as her glance met
the prisoner's.
He eyed them all with an indifference which was tinctured with contempt
and amusement.
“Well, Monsieur Carewe,” said Madame, coldly, “what have you to say?”
“A number of things, Madame,” he answered, in a tone which bordered the
insolent; “only they would not be quite proper for you to hear.”
The Colonel's hand slid from his lip over his mouth; he shuffled his
feet and stared at the bayonets and the grease spots on the table.
“Carewe,” said Fitzgerald, endeavoring to speak calmly, “you have broken
your word to me as a gentleman and you have lied to me.”
The reply was an expressive monosyllable, “O!”
“Do you deny it?” demanded the Englishman.
“Deny what?” asked Maurice.
“The archbishop,” said Madame, “assumed the aggressive last night. To be
aggressive one must possess strength. Monsieur, how much did he pay for
those consols? Come, tell me; was he liberal? It is evident that you are
not a man of business. I should have been willing to pay as much as
a hundred thousand crowns. Come; acknowledge that you have made a bad
stroke.” She bent her head to one side, and a derisive smile lifted the
corners of her lips.
A dull red flooded the prisoner's cheeks. “I do not understand you.”
“You lie!” Fitzgerald stepped closer and his hands closed menacingly.
“Thank you,” said Maurice, “thank you. But why not complete the
melodrama by striking, since you have doubled your fists?”
Fitzgerald glared at him.
“Monsieur,” interposed the countess, “do not forget that you are a
gentleman; Monsieur Carewe's hands are tied.”
“Unfortunately,” observed Maurice.
Madame looked curiously at the countess, while Fitzgerald drew back to
the table and rested on it.
“I can not comprehend how you dared return,” Madame resumed. “One who
watches over my affairs has informed me of your dishonorable act.”
“What do you call a dishonorable act?” Maurice inquired quietly.
“One who breaks his sacred promise!” quickly.
The prisoner laughed maliciously. Madame had answered the question as he
hoped she would. “Chickens come home to roost. What do you say to that,
my lord?” to the Englishman.
This time it was not the prisoner's cheeks which reddened. Even Madame
was forced to look away, for if this reply touched the Englishman it
certainly touched her as deeply. Incidentally, she was asking herself
why she had permitted the Englishman to possess her lips, hers, which no
man save her father had ever possessed before. A kiss, that was all it
had been, yet the memory of it was persistent, annoying, embarrassing.
In the spirit of play--a spirit whose origin mystified her--she had
given the man something which she never could regain, a particle of her
pride.
Besides, this was not all; she had in that moment given up her right to
laugh at him when the time came; now she would not be able to laugh. She
regretted the folly, and bit her lip at the thought of it. Consequences
she had laughed at; now their possibilities disturbed her. She had
been guilty of an indiscretion. The fact that the Englishman had ruined
himself at her beck did not enter her mind. The hour for that had not
yet arrived.
Seeing that his neat barb had left them all without answer, Maurice
said: “Doubtless the informant who watches over your interests and
various other interests of which you have no inkling, was the late
Colonel Beauvais? For my part, I wish it was the late Beauvais in the
sense in which we refer to the departed ones. But let us give him
his true name--Prince Konrad, the last of the Walmodens, a cashiered
gamester.”
Only Fitzgerald showed any surprise. Maurice once saw that the others
were in the secret. They knew the Colonel. Did they know why he was
in Bleiberg? Let them find it out for themselves. He would not lift a
finger to aid them. He leaned back and yawned.
“Pardon me,” he said, with mock politeness, “but my hands are tied, and
the truth is, I am sleepy.”
“Count,” said Madame, “release him. He will be too well guarded to fear
his escaping.”
The Colonel performed this service with alacrity. He honestly admired
the young fellow who so seldom lost his temper. Besides, he had a
sneaking idea that the lad was being unjustly accused.
Maurice got up and stretched himself. He rubbed his wrists, then sat
down and waited for the comedy to proceed.
“So you confess,” said Madame, “that you sold the consols to the
archbishop?”
“I, confess?” Maurice screwed up his lips and began to whistle softly:
“Voici le sabre de mon Pere.”
“You deny, then?” Madame was fast losing patience, a grave mistake when
one is dealing with a banterer.
Maurice changed the tune:
“J'aime les militaires, Leur uniforme coquet, Leur moustache et leur
plumet--”
“Answer!” with a stamp of the foot.
“Je sais ce que je voudrais, Je voudrais etre cantiniere!”...
“Monsieur,” said the pretty countess, after a furtive glance at Madame's
stormy eyes, “do you deny?”
The whistle ceased. “Madame, to you I shall say that I neither deny nor
affirm. The affair is altogether too ridiculous to treat seriously. I
have nothing to say.” The whistle picked up the thread again.
Doubt began to stir in the eyes of the Englishman. He looked at Madame
with a kind of indecision, to find that she was glancing covertly at
him. His gaze finally rested on Maurice, who had crossed his legs and
was keeping time to the music with his foot. Indeed, these were not the
violent protestations of innocence he had looked for. This demeanor was
not at all in accord with his expectations. Now that he had possessed
Madame's lips (though she might never possess the consols), Maurice did
not appear so guilty.
“Carewe,” he said, “you have deceived me from the start.”
“Ah! c'est un fameux regiment, Le regiment de la Grande Duchesse!”
“You knew that Madame was her Highness,” went on the Englishman, “and
yet you kept that a secret from me. Can you blame me if I doubt you in
other respects?”
“Sonnez donc la trompette, Et battez les tambours!”
And the warbler nodded significantly at Madame, whose frown grew still
darker.
“Eh! Monsieur,” cried the Colonel, with a protesting hand, “you are out
of tune!”
“I should like to know why you returned here,” said Madame. “Either you
have some plan, or your audacity has no bounds.”
The whistle stopped again. “Madame, for once we agree. I, too, should
like to know why I returned here.”
“Carewe,” said Fitzgerald, “if you will give me your word--”
“Do not waste your breath, Monsieur,” interrupted Madame.
“Will you give me your word?” persisted Fitzgerald, refusing to see the
warning in Madame's eyes.
“I will give you nothing, my lord; nothing. I have said that I will
answer neither one way nor the other. The accusation is too absurd. Now,
Madame, what is your pleasure in regard to my disposition?”
“You are to be locked up, Monsieur,” tartly. “You are too inquisitive to
remain at large.”
“My confinement will be of short duration,” confidently.
“It rests with my pleasure alone.”
“Pardon me if I contradict your Highness. I returned here incidentally
as a representative of the British ambassador in Vienna; I volunteered
this office at the request of my own minister.”
A shade of consternation came into the faces of his audience.
“If nothing is heard of me within two days, an investigation will ensue.
It is very droll, but I am here to inquire into the whereabouts of one
Lord Fitzgerald, who has disappeared. Telegrams to the four ends of
the world have brought no news of his present residence. The archbishop
instituted the latter inquiries, because it was urgent and necessary he
should know.”
Fitzgerald became enveloped in gloom.
“And your credentials, Monsieur?” said the duchess. “You have them, I
presume?”
“I came as a private gentleman; a telegram to my minister in Vienna will
bring indorsement.”
“Ah! Then you shall be locked up. I can not accord you recognition;
without the essential representations, I see nothing in you but
an impertinent meddler. To-morrow evening you shall be conveyed to
Brunnstadt, where you will reside for some time, I can assure you.
Perhaps on your head will rest the blood of many gallant gentlemen; for
within another twenty-four hours I shall declare war against Leopold.
This will be the consequence of your disloyalty to your word.” And she
moved toward the door, the others imitating her. Fitzgerald, more than
any one else, desired to get away.
And one by one they vanished. Once the countess turned and threw
Maurice a glance which mystified him; it was half curtained with tears.
Presently he was alone. His eye grasped every object. There was not a
weapon in sight; only the bayonets on the table, and he could scarcely
hope to escape by use of one of these. A carafe of water stood on the
table. He went to it and half emptied it. His back was toward the door.
Suddenly it opened. He wheeled, expecting to see the troopers. His
surprise was great. Beauvais was leaning against the door, a half
humorous smile on his lips. The tableau lasted several minutes.
“Well,” said Beauvais, “you do not seem very glad to see me.”
Maurice remained silent, and continued to gaze at his enemy over the
tops of the upturned bayonets.
“You are, as I said before, a very young man.”
“I killed a puppet of yours last night,” replied Maurice, with a
peculiar grimness.
“Eh? So it was you? However, Kopf knew too much; he is dead, thanks to
your service. After all, it was a stroke of war; the princess, whose
little rose you have, was to have been a hostage.”
“If she had refused to be a wife,” Maurice replied.
Beauvais curled his mustache.
“I know a good deal more than Kopf.”
“You do, certainly; but you are at a convenient nearness. What you know
will be of no use to you. Let us sit down.”
“I prefer to stand. The honor you do me is too delicate.”
“O, you may have no fear.”
“I have none--so long as my back isn't turned toward you.”
Beauvais passed over this. “You are a very good blade; you handle a
sword well. That is a compliment, considering that I am held as the
first blade in the kingdom. It was only to-day I learned that formerly
you had been a cavalryman in America. You have the making of a soldier.”
Maurice bowed, his hand resting near one of the bayonets.
“You are also a soldier of fortune-like myself. You made a good stroke
with the archbishop. You hoodwinked us all.”
Maurice did not reply.
“Very well; we shall not dwell on it. You are discreet.”
Maurice saw that Beauvais was speaking in good faith.
“You have something to say; come to it at once, for it is trying to
watch you so closely.”
“I will give you--” He hesitated and scratched his chin. “I will give you
ten thousand crowns as the price of your silence in regard to the South
American affair.”
A sardonic laugh greeted this proposal. “I did not know that you were so
cheap. But it is too late.”
“Too late?”
“Doubtless, since by this time the authorities are in possession of the
interesting facts.”
“I beg to differ from you.”
“Do as you please,” said Maurice, triumphantly. “I sent an account of
your former exploits both to my own government and to the one which you
so treacherously betrayed. One or the other will not fail to reach.”
“I am perfectly well aware of that,” Beauvais smiled. He reached into
a pocket, and for a moment Maurice expected to see a pistol come forth.
But he was needlessly alarmed. Beauvais extracted two envelopes from the
pocket and sailed them through the intervening space. They fell on
the table. “Put not your trust in hotel clerks,” was the sententious
observation. “At least, till you have discovered that no one else
employs them. I am well served. The clerk was told to intercept your
outgoing post; and there is the evidence. Ten thousand crowns and a safe
conduct.”
Maurice picked up the letters mechanically. They were his; the stamps
were not canceled, but the flaps were slit. He turned them this way and
that, bewildered. He was convinced that he could in no way cope with
this man of curious industries, this man who seemed to have a key for
every lock, and whom nothing escaped. And the wise old Marshal had
permitted him to leave the kingdom without let or hindrance. Perhaps the
Marshal understood that Beauvais was a sort of powder train, and that
the farther he was away from the mine the better for all concerned.
“You are a great rascal,” Maurice said finally.
“We will waive that point. The matter at present is, how much will it
take to buy your silence for the future?”
“And I am sorry I did not kill you when I had the chance,” continued
Maurice, as if following a train of thought.
“We never realize how great the opportunity is till it has passed beyond
our reach. Well, how much?”
“I am not in need of money.”
“To be sure; I forgot. But the archbishop could not have given you a
competence for life.”
“I choked a few facts out of Kopf,” said Maurice. “You will wear no
crown--that is, earthly.”
“And your heavenly one is near at hand,” rejoined Beauvais.
Maurice absently fingered a bayonet.
“You refuse this conciliation on my part?” asked Beauvais.
“Positively.”
“Well, then, if anything happens to you, you will have only yourself to
blame. I will leave you to digest that suggestion. Your life hangs in
the balance. I will give you till to-morrow morning to make up your
mind.”
“Go to the devil!”
“In that, I shall offer you the precedence.” And Beauvais backed out;
backed out because Maurice had wrenched loose one of the bayonets.
Maurice flung the bayonet across the room, went back to his chair, and
tore his ill-fated letters into ribbons. When this was done he stared
moodily at the impromptu candlesticks, and tried to conceive the manner
in which Beauvais's threat would materialize.
When the troops returned to their watch, they found the prisoner in a
recumbent position, staring at the cracks in the floor, oblivious to
all else save his thoughts, which were by no means charitable or humane.
They resumed their game of cards. At length Maurice fell into a light
slumber. The next time he opened his eyes it was because of a peculiar
jar, which continued; a familiar, monotonous jar, such as the tread of
feet on the earth creates. Tramp, tramp, tramp; it was a large body
of men on the march. Soon this was followed by a lighter and
noisier sound--cavalry. Finally, there came the rumbling of heavy
metal--artillery. More than an hour passed before these varying sounds
grew indistinct.
Maurice was now fully awake. An army had passed the Red Chateau.