WILFRID RECEIVES A CHALLENGE
When at last Wilfrid _did_ turn 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 did _not_ take; 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 of the 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?”
“Can _your_ eyes 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 my _incognito_.”
“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 your _incognito_,
which,” added he to himself, “is no _incognito_.” 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 her secretly 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 should _not_ the 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 am under 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 has _not_ told 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 explanation _after_ the 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?” asked Wilfrid 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 shall _not_ require.”
“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 they _had_ been 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. The Czar, 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 irregular _amour_; 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, _that_ part 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 she _might_ have 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 adhere to 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?