THREE TO ONE.
A glance round told me the attack had been shrewdly planned indeed.
The spot in which we all were was a large square anteroom or landing
place, lighted from above. Four or five doors opened from it into the
rooms on either side, and the narrow stairway was the only means of
communication with the rest of the house. I was caught like a rat in a
trap, and unless I could beat off the men who were thus attacking me
at such dangerous odds, I was as good as a dead man.
I whipped out my sword and pushed Olga back into the room we had left,
just in time to parry the first wild lunges Devinsky made at me; and at
the first touch of the steel all my coolness came to me.
Everything must turn on the first minute or two; and knowing my man I
set all my skill to work to keep him so engaged as to hamper the
attempts of the other two to get to close quarters with me.
I worked back into a corner of the place, close to the door of the
room, and then as I darted out lunge after lunge with the swiftest
dexterity, my three opponents were compelled to get into each other's
way in their hurried manoeuvres to avoid my strokes. By this means I
hampered their fighting strength and lessened it by at least one man,
since all three could not possibly get to strike at me at the same
time. But even thus the odds were too heavy.
Devinsky was nothing like my equal with the sword, and his rage and mad
hate now rendered him less deadly than usual: but with two others to
help him, I could hardly hope to win in the end. For this reason as I
fought I uttered shout after shout to the man below to come to my
assistance.
These cries had also the effect of disconcerting my opponents.
Then a lucky chance happened.
One of the men in jumping back out of the way of one of my thrusts
stumbled over the second, and sent this one for a moment into
Devinsky's way. I saw my chance and seized it in an instant. In a
trice I rushed at the half prostrate man and disdaining to kill him
when his guard was down, I kicked him with my heavy riding boot with
all my force in the face, and sent him reeling back, groaning and half
choked with the blood that came gushing out of his nose and mouth,
while his sword, went rattling across the floor to where Olga stood,
looking on aghast, breathless and open mouthed in her fear.
But the chance nearly cost me dear, for the man's companion turned on
me and thrust at me with such directness and rapidity as all but ended
the fight; for his sword went through the fleshy part of my arm, just
above the elbow. An inch or so nearer the body would have sent it
right through my heart. It was the last thrust he ever made, however.
The next instant my blade had found his heart, and with a groan he
dropped.
Before I could withdraw it, however, Devinsky uttered a cry of hate,
and dashing at me thrust at my heart with all his strength.
He must have killed me but for Olga.
That splendid girl had picked up the fallen man's sword and now, seeing
my plight, she sprang forward, at the hazard of her life, crying out
"Coward!" and struck down Devinsky's sword with all her force.
"Good," I cried; and the next instant, I had wrenched my weapon free
and held the man.
"Take care. Back to the room, or behind me, child," I cried, when I
heard my opponent curse in his foiled attempt to kill me and saw him
turn as if to attack Olga. "Now, you butcher, it's you and I alone;
and you or I, to live."
"As you will," he said, and I saw him clench his teeth and set his face
in the way men do who know that they are face to face with a risk where
failure means death.
My blood was up now, and I meant death too. He had given up all right
to expect anything else, and I had no mind to let him off. If ever a
man had earned death he had. He had heaped on me every indignity that
one man could put on another, and to crown it all he had just tried to
murder me. I would kill him with less compunction than one kills a
dog; and I set about the task with the coolest deliberation and purpose.
The scene was a grim and ghastly one enough. The floor was all
slippery in places with the blood of the man I had killed, whose body
lay huddled up against the wall, as well as of the other who sat on the
ground still spitting and coughing and mumbling and cursing from the
fearful effects of my kick. In the middle we two stood fighting to the
death, watching one another with the fire of hate and blood lust in our
eyes and on our set faces: while Olga, all eagerness excitement and
tension, stood in the doorway watching us with white drawn face and
dilated eyes; the deeply drawn breath coming in spasms through her
distended nostrils and slightly parted lips.
I forced the fight with all my power, and my blade flashed about my
antagonist until all his skill was useless even to defend himself
against my point, while any offensive tactic was out of the question.
I wounded him three times, once so close to the heart that Olga cried
out: and at length recalling the knack with which I had disarmed him in
our former encounter, I used it now; and after a few more swift and
cunning passes I whipped his sword from his grasp and sent it rattling
to the other end of the place.
My eye flashed as I drew back my arm for the death thrust.
"Ah, don't, Alexis," cried Olga, in a sort of whisper of horror.
"Don't kill him!"
It stopped me instantly, and my arm fell.
"As you will," I answered readily; "but he doesn't deserve it. You owe
your life to the woman you've tried to wrong, not to me," I said to
him, shortly. "Stand out of the way and let us pass."
He moved aside doggedly, eyeing us with surly sullen hate, as Olga,
trembling violently now that the excitement was over, went on first,
and I followed her through the stairway and down and out of the house.
When we reached the courtyard, the postchaise which I had ordered to
follow us from the inn had arrived, and Olga and I entered it at once.
"Thank God, we are out of the house," was my companion's fervent
exclamation, as the carriage turned into the road and we left the
gloomy place behind us.
"Would to God we were out of Russia!" said I, speaking from my heart.
"Then..." I paused and looked into her face.
"All may yet come right," answered Olga, meeting my eyes and putting
her hand in mine. My clasp closed on it, and we sat thus for some
moments, just hand in hand, each silently happy in the knowledge of the
other's love.
Then I bent toward her and gradually drew her to me, my eyes all the
time lighted with the light from hers.
"It is love, Olga; lovers' love?" I asked in a passionate whisper.
For answer she smiled and whispered back:
"It has always been, Alexis;" and she met my betrothal kisses with
warmth equal to mine. And after that we did not care to say a word,
but leant back in the carriage as it flew through the country in the
gathering gloom of the evening, bumping, jolting, rolling, and
creaking. What cared we for that? Olga was fast in my arms her head
on my breast and her face close to mine, so close that we were tempted
ever and again to let the story of our love tell itself over and over
again in our kisses; and neither Olga nor I had a thought of resisting
the temptation.
This would have gone on for hours, so far as I was concerned; I was in
a veritable Palace of Delight with freshly avowed love as my one
thought. But Olga roused herself suddenly with a start and a little
cry.
"Oh, Alexis, what have you made me do? Your wound."
I had forgotten all about it, but now when she mentioned it my left arm
felt a little stiff.
"I am ashamed of myself," she cried. "What a love must mine be, that I
want to dream of it with selfish pleasure when you are wounded. You
make me drink oblivion with your kisses."
"Love is a fine narcotic," replied I, laughing. "I felt no wound while
you looked at me. But now that you bring me down to earth with a rush,
I begin to remember it. But it is nothing much, and will best wait
till we are in Moscow."
"Do you think I will let anyone see that wound before I do? Why, it
was gained for my sake. And you love me? And now"--"now" was a long
loving kiss and a lingering look into my face as she held it between
her hands, while her eyes were radiant with delight. Then she
sighed--"Now, I am all sister again."
I was looking my doubts of this and meant to test them, shaking my head
in strong disbelief, when the carriage stopped suddenly. Looking out I
saw that we were at the inn, and must therefore have been driving long
over two hours. It had seemed scarce a minute.
"Will you get out while we change horses, sir?" asked the Prince's
servant, who had come with the carriage on horseback.
"My brother is wounded and must have attendance at once," said Olga, in
so self-possessed a tone that I smiled.
"Only a scratch," said I, as if impatiently. "But my sister is always
fidgety."
We went into the house then, and Olga insisted upon examining the
wound, and when she saw the blood I had lost, not much, but making
brave shew on my white linen, she was all solicitude, and anxiety. She
sent the maids flying this way and that, one to fetch hot water,
another bandages, a third lint, and altogether made such a commotion in
the place that one would have thought I had been brought there to die.
She bathed the little spot so tenderly and delicately too, asking every
moment if her touch hurt me; and she washed it and then covered it, and
bandaged it and bound it up, and did everything with such infinite care
that I was almost glad I had been wounded.
And the whole process she accompanied with a running fire of would-be
scolding comment upon the trouble that brothers gave, the obstinate
creatures they were, the rash and foolish things they did, how much
more bother they were than sisters, and a great deal more to the same
effect--till I thought the people would see through the acting as
clearly as I did, assisted as I was by the thousand little glints and
glances she threw to me when the others were not looking our way.
Then she held a long consultation with the landlady--a large woman who
seemed as kindly in heart as she was portly in body--whether it would
be safe for me to go on to the city that night, or whether a doctor had
not better be brought out to me there: and it took the persuasion and
assurances of us all to win her consent to my going on.
I tried to punish her for this when we were in the carriage again, by
telling her I supposed she was unwilling to travel on with me. But I
wasted my breath and my effort, as she was all the way in the highest
spirits.
"I don't quite know which I like best," she said, laughing. "Being
sister with a knowledge of--of something else, as I was just now at the
inn, or--or..."
"Or what?"
"Or riding with Hamylton Tregethner," she answered, laughing again,
gleefully. "Do you notice how easily I can say that dreadful name?"
"I notice I like it better from your lips than from any others."
"I've practised it--and it was so difficult. But I might even get to
like it in time, you know."
"By the way, I remember you once told me you didn't like Hamylton
Tregethner."
"Ah, yes. That was my brother's old friend. A very disagreeable
person. He wanted to take my brother away from Moscow. A person must
be very unpleasant who wishes to divide brother and sister. Don't you
think so?"
"That depends on the rate of exchange," said I.
"Perhaps; but at that time there was no talk of exchange at all."
"And no thought of it?"
"Ah!" And for answer she nestled to me again and merged the sister in
the lover with a readiness and pleasure that shewed what she thought of
that particular exchange.
And with these little intervals of particularly sweet and pleasant
light and shade we travelled the miles to Moscow, in what seemed to us
both an incredibly short time.