COLENDORP.
As the night deepened the wind again rose, its many voices howled about
the Castle and compelled the ear to listen. It volleyed yelling through
the ravines, it roared among the lean pine-trees like the surf on an
open coast, it swept round the Castle walls in long-drawn infuriated
screaming that seemed charged with echoes of wild pain and remoteness
and fear. The narrow moon had long since sunk behind the rack of
storm-driven clouds, and left the mountains steeped in a tumultuous
milk-coloured darkness of snow and wind.
Within the massive walls the reception rooms were closed and empty at
last; the guests had separated and night had taken possession, but not
rest.
Valerie, alone in her room and oppressed by the vague infection of
wakefulness and fear, moved from window to window listening to the wild
noises that were abroad, and trying to reason herself out of the
conviction of coming danger, which held her from sleep.
She had thrown back the curtains from the windows. Her room occupied an
exposed corner of the Castle tower, which stood on the edge of the
gorge through which the Kofn chafed its way to the plains below the
Ford. A narrow strip of ground scarcely six feet in width alone
separated the wall of the tower from the precipice that fell sheer away
to the foaming water far below.
She tried to read but could not fix her attention. Her heart seemed in
her ears and answered to every sound.
And all the while in the scattered rooms and shadowy passages the drama
which involved her life was being slowly played out. Below on the ground
floor of the tower Elmur and Sagan sat together.
'By the way, my dear Count, have you ever thought of the possibility of
Captain Colendorp's refusal to see things in our light?' Elmur was
asking, after an interval filled in by the noises of wind and water
which could not be shut out of the Castle on such a night.
The Count looked up and scowled.
'Leave the management of the affair to me,' he said. 'Unless I were sure
of my man, I should not be such a fool as to bring him here to listen to
what I shall say to him to-night;' then he added as an afterthought,
'When once we have begun, Baron von Elmur, there can be no going back.
Remember that! The game must now be played to the end, whatever that end
is.'
Elmur pondered. Sagan was a bad tool, at once stubborn and secretive,
cunning enough to recognise and to resent handling, thickheaded and vain
enough to blunder ruinously. And Elmur found at the last and most
important moment that for some unexplained reason he had lost the
whip-hand of Count Simon.
Up to this interview, by alternate effrontery and flattery, he had kept
his place in the Count's confidence, and exerted a guiding and
restraining influence over him. Now Sagan held him at arm's length, and
was plainly determined to act according to his own judgment without
consulting the German. The mischief had, of course, been done by the
news of Elmur's engagement to Selpdorf's daughter, for Sagan, like
others of his limited mental development, was sensitively suspicious.
Hence the bond between the two men was weak, inasmuch as neither liked
nor trusted the other, but it was strong, since both were tenacious and
both had staked all the future on the chance of forcing a new _régime_
upon Maäsau the Free. At this crisis, however, Elmur would gladly have
hedged or masked his position, for he knew himself to be overmuch at the
mercy of the equivocal tact and discretion of his ungovernable
coadjutor.
'I cannot help thinking that my presence at the outset will make Captain
Colendorp shy at any proposition whatever,' said Elmur again.
'Do you want to draw back? You don't wish to appear in the matter--is
that it? By St. Anthony, von Elmur, you showed me the road that has
brought me to this pass and you will have to stand by me now! Also you
are wrong about Colendorp. When he sees for himself that I have Germany
behind me, it will decide his doubts--if he has any, which I don't
expect. I have read the man. He is soured and ill-conditioned, the
readiest stuff to make a rebel and a traitor of!'
What more Elmur might have urged was cut short by the entrance of
Colendorp. He had left his sword outside.
He saluted Sagan in his stiff punctilious way, his dark and sallow face
impenetrable.
'I am glad to see you, Captain Colendorp,' said Sagan with some
constraint. Even he felt the check of the man's iron impassiveness.
'You sent for me, my lord,' returned Colendorp, as one who hints that
time is short and he would be through with business.
'Take a cigar,' said the Count, pushing a box across the table, and also
pouring out a generous glass of the liqueur, for the manufacture of
which Maäsau is famous--the golden glittering poison known as _bizutte_.
Colendorp accepted both in silence, but took a seat with a certain slow
unwillingness that was suggestive. Colendorp was at the best unpliable.
His manner put an edge on Sagan's temper. He plunged into his subject.
'Yes, I sent for you, Captain Colendorp, because I believe you to be a
faithful Maäsaun. You are not one of those blind optimists who say
because Maäsau has been swinging so long between ruin and extravagance
that she must swing on so for ever. It is not possible!'
'I am sorry to hear that, my lord.'
'No, I say it is not possible. Changes must be made. In these days of
big armaments and growing kingdoms, Maäsau can no longer stand alone.
She must secure an ally, a friend powerful enough to back her up against
all comers--a great nation who will make the cause of Maäsau's freedom
her own, and help us to preserve the traditions of our country.'
Elmur half expected the soldier to point this speech for himself by a
glance towards the representative of Germany, but Colendorp sat
unresponsive and black-browed, and gave no sign.
'There is a party among us who advise us to wait until we are forced
into a corner, and then to make choice of such an ally. But reasonable
men know that a bargain one is driven to make must inevitably be a bad
bargain. The only hope for Maäsau is to move at once and to move boldly
before it is too late, and while we are still in a position to choose
for ourselves under the conditions which suit us best and will best
conduce to the preservation of our freedom.'
Colendorp listened without any change of expression.
'What is your opinion, Captain Colendorp?' asked Sagan at last.
'The only difficulty would be to find a nation sufficiently
disinterested for our purpose, my lord,' replied Colendorp deliberately.
'I have found one.' Sagan indicated Elmur, but the Guardsman still kept
his gaze on the Count. 'Only one small obstacle stands in the way of
carrying out our plans--the plans, recollect, of the wisest and most
patriotic of our countrymen. I need not name it.'
Colendorp apparently thought for a moment.
'M. Selpdorf?' he said.
'But not at all! Selpdorf is one of the foremost of my advisers.'
Colendorp shook his head as if no other name occurred to him; Sagan bent
across the table, the knotted hand on which he leaned twitching
slightly.
'You do not speak, but you know the truth. And you know the--the Duke.'
Colendorp's silence was telling on Sagan's self-control.
'Yes, the Duke!' he reiterated. 'He has never given a thought to the
welfare of Maäsau. Its revenues are his necessity, that is all! If the
ruler will not take the interests of the country into consideration, his
people must supply his place. Do not misunderstand my words!' for at
length a blacker frown passed over the iron face of the listener. 'My
meaning is not to hurt the Duke at all; our one wish is to urge upon him
the only course left for the safety of the country. To that end we must
all combine. So long as his Highness believes he can depend on his
Guard to back him, he will hold out against even the most reasonable
demands. Therefore the Guard must be with us.'
'I am not the colonel of the Guard,' said Colendorp quietly. Sagan took
this in some form as an agreement with his views, some surrender on the
part of the Guardsman, and he broke out into a flood of speech.
'No, but Wallenloup! A pig-headed old fool, who would never be brought
to see an inch either side of his oath of allegiance, but would rush
blindly on before the Duke to his death, and to the destruction of
Maäsau--to anywhere! Colendorp, Ulm being away, you are the senior
officer, failing Wallenloup. It is not outside the possibilities of the
game that you would find yourself in command of the Guard when all was
said and done. The highest ambition of a Maäsaun is yours if you will
promise us your help in this struggle! A struggle, mind you, not of
selfish motives nor for self-aggrandisement, but for Maäsau the Free!'
He stuttered in his eagerness and then stood waiting for the reply.
'And if the Duke does not consent to--any--changes?' asked Colendorp
coldly.
At this juncture Elmur interposed.
'The Count will ex----'
But Sagan was rushing his fences now like a vicious horse. Having once
given voice to his ambitions he had no longer the power to rein in his
speech.
'By your leave, Baron von Elmur, I will speak! Colendorp, you are a man
to whom the world may yet give much. Your one chance is being offered to
you--here--to-night. The men will follow you if you give the word, and
Wallenloup, well, Wallenloup must upon that occasion absent himself. Use
your influence with the other officers. They are not to be bribed, of
course, but in the cause of the country each man would find his services
well rewarded. Think before you answer me, man! Duke Gustave is sunk in
pleasure and has sold the country over and over again to the highest
bidder, and only got out of his share of the bargain by Selpdorf's
infernal cleverness. This time we will play an open game. With Germany
to stand by us, we have nothing to fear!'
'And if His Highness will not consent to these changes?' again demanded
Colendorp.
'Then'--Elmur laid a hand on the old man's shoulder, but Sagan shook it
off--'then, Captain Colendorp, he must go--to make room for another who
can better fill his place! Just as Wallenloup must go to give room to
another and less obstructive chief.'
Colendorp's dark eyes glared straight in front of him. Had it been
Adiron--Adiron, as true a man, would have feigned agreement and blown
the plot afterwards. But never Colendorp! He was narrow-minded, poor,
embittered, scenting insult in every careless word, proud, loyal,
desperate. Mentally his vision was limited; he could see but one thing
at a time, but he saw it very large.
Sagan's treachery passed by him in that moment of mad feeling. He felt
and felt only the deadly affront offered to him of all the officers of
the Guard--the coarse bribe of the colonelcy dangled before his starving
nose, for he alone of all the Guard had been deemed corruptible! The
thought held more than the bitterness of death.
He looked from wall to wall, and knew himself an unarmed man, so he made
ready to die as a soldier and a gentleman. But first he must clear his
tarnished honour--tarnished with the foul proposal made to him by Count
Simon of Sagan. He had passed through life a cold and, in his own sense
of the word, an honourable man, disliked, feared and avoided outside his
own most intimate circle. He had been driven by the irresistible destiny
of character to live a lonely man, and now the strength of a lonely man
was his--the strength that can make an unknown death a glory for the
sake of honour, not honours. So he spoke.
'You were very good, Count Sagan, to make choice of me before all the
Guard for--this!' he said in his cold voice; 'may I ask why you so
favoured me?'
'Because I can read a man.'
'And you read me so? Then hear me. I take the place you have given me. I
take my place as the least staunch of all the Guard. You have told me
so much, unmasked so clearly what you intend to do, that, unless I fall
in with your wishes, I can never hope to leave this room except feet
foremost. I say this. Now see me act as the least staunch of the Guard!'
Without warning he leaped upon Sagan, hurling him backwards with the
force of the sudden impact, and buried his fingers in the grey bristling
beard. He had but his bare hands with which to slay the enemy of the
Duke, and used them with the strength of envenomed pride. Sagan, under
the iron throttling fingers snatched at his hunting-knife and stabbed
fiercely upwards between the bent arms at the Guardsman's throat.
Inside the room the heavy breathing and struggling of the men on the
floor seemed to Elmur loud enough to alarm the whole Castle, in spite of
the furious screaming of the gale. He sprang to the writhing heap and
tried to pinion Colendorp, but as he touched him the wounded man fell
back. In a moment Sagan was on his feet calling on Elmur to bring the
lamp. He seized Colendorp under the arm and shoved him roughly towards
the wall, where throwing back a curtain he opened a door and thrust the
tottering figure before him down a short flight of steps. Then another
door was opened and the _tsa_ swept in with a wild yell, for a moment
holding upright the failing man who staggered out on to the snowy
terrace, making a tragic centre to the flickering path of light cast by
the lamp in Elmur's hand.
For an instant Colendorp stood swaying on the yielding snow by the edge
of the precipice, and as he swayed his voice climbed through his broken
throat--
'Maäsau the Free! Long live the Duke! The Duke's man ... I ... Colendorp
of ...'
The wind had lulled for a second. Again the mad blast caught and
wrenched Colendorp's figure, the snow gave between his feet, and he
plunged forward heavily into the gorge of the Kofn river. The broken
snow, whirled up in a great cloud by the eddying gusts, shone in the
lamplight for a second like a wild toss of spray, then settled again
upon the narrow terrace, obliterating all marks there. A window overhead
was pushed open, but already the band of light upon the snow was gone,
and nothing remained for Valerie's eyes but a chaos of gloom. Yet she
had seen something. Dimly through the double glass she had discerned the
green and gold of the Guard on the swaying figure before it dropped away
for ever into the night.