Sir Crispin had heard naught of what was being said as he entered the
room wherein the brothers plotted against him, and he little dreamt that
his identity was discovered. He had but hastened to perform that which,
under ordinary circumstances, would have been a natural enough duty
towards the master of the house. He had been actuated also by an
impatience again to behold this Joseph Ashburn--the man who had dealt
him that murderous sword-thrust eighteen years ago. He watched him
attentively, and gathering from his scrutiny that here was a dangerous,
subtle man, different, indeed, to his dull-witted brother, he had
determined to act at once.
And so when he appeared in the hall at suppertime, he came armed and
booted, and equipped as for a journey.
Joseph was standing alone by the huge fire-place, his face to the
burning logs, and his foot resting upon one of the andirons. Gregory and
his daughter were talking together in the embrasure of a window. By the
other window, across the hall, stood Kenneth, alone and disconsolate,
gazing out at the drizzling rain that had begun to fall.
As Galliard descended, Joseph turned his head, and his eyebrows shot up
and wrinkled his forehead at beholding the knight's equipment.
“How is this, Sir Crispin?” said he. “You are going a journey?”
“Too long already have I imposed myself upon the hospitality of Castle
Marleigh,” Crispin answered politely as he came and stood before the
blazing logs. “To-night, Mr. Ashburn, I go hence.”
A curious expression flitted across Joseph's face. The next moment,
his brows still knit as he sought to fathom his sudden action, he was
muttering the formal regrets that courtesy dictated. But Crispin had
remarked that singular expression on Joseph's face--fleeting though it
had been--and it flashed across his mind that Joseph knew him. And as he
moved away towards Cynthia and her father, he thanked Heaven that he had
taken such measures as he had thought wise and prudent for the carrying
out of his resolve.
Following him with a glance, Joseph asked himself whether Crispin had
discovered that he was recognized, and had determined to withdraw,
leaving his vengeance for another and more propitious season. In
answer--little knowing the measure of the man he dealt with--he told
himself it must be so, and having arrived at that conclusion, he there
and then determined that Crispin should not depart free to return and
plague them when he listed. Since Galliard shrank from forcing matters
to an issue, he himself would do it that very night, and thereby settle
for all time his business. And so ere he sat down to sup Joseph looked
to it that his sword lay at hand behind his chair at the table-head.
The meal was a quiet one enough. Kenneth was sulking 'neath the fresh
ill-usage--as he deemed it--that he had suffered at Cynthia's hands.
Cynthia, in her turn, was grave and silent. That story of Sir Crispin's
sufferings gave her much to think of, as did also his departure, and
more than once did Galliard find her eyes fixed upon him with a look
half of pity, half of some other feeling that he was at a loss to
interpret. Gregory's big voice was little heard. The sinister glitter
in his brother's eye made him apprehensive and ill at ease. For him the
hour was indeed in travail and like to bring forth strange doings--but
not half so much as it was for Crispin and Joseph, each bent upon
forcing matters to a head ere they quitted that board. And yet but for
these two the meal would have passed off in dismal silence. Joseph
was at pains to keep suspicion from his guest, and with that intent he
talked gaily of this and that, told of slight matters that had befallen
him on his recent journey and of the doings that in London he had
witnessed, investing each trifling incident with a garb of wit that
rendered it entertaining.
And Galliard--actuated by the same motives grew reminiscent whenever
Joseph paused and let his nimble tongue--even nimblest at a table amuse
those present, or seem to amuse them, by a score of drolleries.
He drank deeply too, and this Joseph observed with satisfaction. But
here again he misjudged his man. Kenneth, who ate but little, seemed
also to have developed an enormous thirst, and Crispin grew at length
alarmed at that ever empty goblet so often filled. He would have need
of Kenneth ere the hour was out, and he rightly feared that did matters
thus continue, the lad's aid was not to be reckoned with. Had Kenneth
sat beside him he might have whispered a word of restraint in his eat,
but the lad was on the other side of the board.
At one moment Crispin fancied that a look of intelligence passed from
Joseph to Gregory, and when presently Gregory set himself to ply both
him and the boy with wine, his suspicions became certainties, and he
grew watchful and wary.
Anon Cynthia rose. Upon the instant Galliard was also on his feet. He
escorted her to the foot of the staircase, and there:
“Permit me, Mistress Cynthia,” said he, “to take my leave of you. In an
hour or so I shall be riding away from Castle Marleigh.”
Her eyes sought the ground, and had he been observant of her he might
have noticed that she paled slightly.
“Fare you well, sir,” said she in a low voice. “May happiness attend
you.”
“Madam, I thank you. Fare you well.”
He bowed low. She dropped him a slight curtsey, and ascended the stairs.
Once as she reached the gallery above she turned. He had resumed his
seat at table, and was in the act of filling his glass. The servants had
withdrawn, and for half an hour thereafter they sat on, sipping their
wine, and making conversation--while Crispin drained bumper after
bumper and grew every instant more boisterous, until at length his
boisterousness passed into incoherence. His eyelids drooped heavily, and
his chin kept ever and anon sinking forward on to his breast.
Kenneth, flushed with wine, yet master of his wits, watched him with
contempt. This was the man Cynthia preferred to him! Contempt was there
also in Joseph Ashburn's eye, mingled with satisfaction. He had not
looked to find the task so easy. At length he deemed the season ripe.
“My brother tells me that you were once acquainted with Roland
Marleigh,” said he.
“Aye,” he answered thickly. “I knew the dog--a merry, reckless soul,
d--n me. 'Twas his recklessness killed him, poor devil--that and your
hand, Mr. Ashburn, so the story goes.”
“What story?”
“What story?” echoed Crispin. “The story that I heard. Do you say I
lie?” And, swaying in his chair, he sought to assume an air of defiance.
Joseph laughed in a fashion that made Kenneth's blood run cold.
“Why, no, I don't deny it. It was in fair fight he fell. Moreover, he
brought the duel upon himself.”
Crispin spoke no word in answer, but rose unsteadily to his feet, so
unsteadily that his chair was overset and fell with a crash behind him.
For a moment he surveyed it with a drunken leer, then went lurching
across the hall towards the door that led to the servants' quarters.
The three men sat on, watching his antics in contempt, curiosity, and
amusement. They saw him gain the heavy oaken door and close it. They
heard the bolts rasp as he shot them home, and the lock click; and they
saw him withdraw the key and slip it into his pocket.
The cold smile still played round Joseph's lips as Crispin turned to
face them again, and on Joseph's lips did that same smile freeze as he
saw him standing there, erect and firm, his drunkenness all vanished,
and his eyes keen and fierce; as he heard the ring of his metallic
voice:
“You lie, Joseph Ashburn. It was no fair fight. It was no duel. It was
a foul, murderous stroke you dealt him in the back, thinking to butcher
him as you butchered his wife and his babe. But there is a God, Master
Ashburn,” he went on in an ever-swelling voice, “and I lived. Like a
salamander I came through the flames in which you sought to destroy all
trace of your vile deed. I lived, and I, Crispin Galliard, the debauched
Tavern Knight that was once Roland Marleigh, am here to demand a
reckoning.”
The very incarnation was he then of an avenger, as he stood towering
before them, his grim face livid with the passion into which he had
lashed himself as he spoke, his blazing eyes watching them in that
cunning, half-closed way that was his when his mood was dangerous.
And yet the only one that quailed was Kenneth, his ally, upon whom
comprehension burst with stunning swiftness.
Joseph recovered quickly from the surprise of Crispin's suddenly
reassumed sobriety. He understood the trick that Galliard had played
upon them so that he might cut off their retreat in the only direction
in which they might have sought assistance, and he cursed himself for
not having foreseen it. Still, anxiety he felt none; his sword was to
his hand, and Gregory was armed; at the very worst they were two calm
and able men opposed to a half-intoxicated boy, and a man whom fury, he
thought, must strip of half his power. Probably, indeed, the lad would
side with them, despite his plighted word. Again, he had but to raise
his voice, and, though the door that Crispin had fastened was a stout
one, he never doubted but that his call would penetrate it and bring
his servants to his rescue.
And so, a smile of cynical unconcern returned to his lips and his answer
was delivered in a cold, incisive voice.
“The reckoning you have come to demand shall be paid you, sir. Rakehelly
Galliard is the hero of many a reckless deed, but my judgment is much
at fault if this prove not his crowning recklessness and his last one.
Gadswounds, sir, are you mad to come hither single-handed to beard the
lion in his den?”
“Rather the cur in his kennel,” sneered Crispin back. “Blood and wounds,
Master Joseph, think you to affright me with words?”
Still Joseph smiled, deeming himself master of the situation.
“Were help needed, the raising of my voice would bring it me. But it is
not. We are three to one.”
“You reckon wrongly. Mr. Stewart belongs to me to-night--bound by an
oath that 'twould damn his soul to break, to help me when and where I
may call upon him; and I call upon him now. Kenneth, draw your sword.”
Kenneth groaned as he stood by, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“God's curse on you,” he burst out. “You have tricked me, you have
cheated me.”
“Bear your oath in mind,” was the cold answer. “If you deem yourself
wronged by me, hereafter you shall have what satisfaction you demand.
But first fulfil me what you have sworn. Out with your blade, man.”
Still Kenneth hesitated, and but for Gregory's rash action at that
critical juncture, it is possible that he would have elected to
break his plighted word. But Gregory fearing that he might determine
otherwise, resolved there and then to remove the chance of it. Whipping
out his sword, he made a vicious pass at the lad's breast. Kenneth
avoided it by leaping backwards, but in an instant Gregory had sprung
after him, and seeing himself thus beset, Kenneth was forced to draw
that he might protect himself.
They stood in the space between the table and that part of the hall that
abutted on to the terrace; opposite to them, by the door which he
had closed, stood Crispin. At the table-head Joseph still sat cool,
self-contained, even amused.
He realized the rashness of Gregory's attack upon one that might yet
have been won over to their side; but he never doubted that a few passes
would dispose of the lad's opposition, and he sought not to interfere.
Then he saw Crispin advancing towards him slowly, his rapier naked in
his hand, and he was forced to look to himself. He caught at the sword
that stood behind him, and leaping to his feet he sprang forward to
meet his grim antagonist. Galliard's eyes flashed out a look of joy, he
raised his rapier, and their blades met.
To the clash of their meeting came an echoing clash from beyond the
table.
“Hold, sir!” Kenneth had cried, as Gregory bore down upon him. But
Gregory's answer had been a lunge which the boy had been forced to
parry. Taking that crossing of blades for a sign of opposition, Gregory
thrust again more viciously. Kenneth parried narrowly, his blade
pointing straight at his aggressor. He saw the opening, and both
instinct and the desire to repel Gregory's onslaught drew him into
attempting a riposte, which drove Gregory back until his shoulders
touched the panels of the wall. Simultaneously the boy's foot struck the
back of the chair which in rising Crispin had overset, and he stumbled.
How it happened he scarcely knew, but as he hurtled forward his blade
slid along his opponent's, and entering Gregory's right shoulder pinned
him to the wainscot.
Joseph heard the tinkle of a falling blade, and assumed it to be
Kenneth's. For the rest he was just then too busy to dare withdraw for
a second his eyes from Crispin's. Until that hour Joseph Ashburn had
accounted himself something of a swordsman, and more than a match
for most masters of the weapon. But in Crispin he found a fencer of a
quality such as he had never yet encountered. Every feint, every botte
in his catalogue had he paraded in quick succession, yet ever with the
same result--his point was foiled and put aside with ease.
Desperately he fought now, darting that point of his hither and thither
in and out whenever the slightest opening offered; yet ever did it
meet the gentle averting pressure of Crispin's blade. He fought on and
marvelled as the seconds went by that Gregory came not to his aid. Then
the sickening thought that perhaps Gregory was overcome occurred to
him. In such a case he must reckon upon himself alone. He cursed
the over-confidence that had led him into that ever-fatal error of
underestimating his adversary. He might have known that one who had
acquired Sir Crispin's fame was no ordinary man, but one accustomed to
face great odds and master them. He might call for help.
He marvelled as the thought occurred to him that the clatter of their
blades had not drawn his servants from their quarters. Fencing still, he
raised his voice:
“Ho, there! John, Stephen!”
“Spare your breath,” growled the knight. “I dare swear you'll have need
of it. None will hear you, call as you will. I gave your four henchmen
a flagon of wine wherein to drink to my safe journey hence. They have
emptied it ere this, I make no doubt, and a single glass of it would set
the hardest toper asleep for the round of the clock.”
An oath was Joseph's only answer--a curse it was upon his own folly and
assurance. A little while ago he had thought to have drawn so tight
a net about this ruler, and here was he now taken in its very toils,
well-nigh exhausted and in his enemy's power.
It occurred to him then that Crispin stayed his hand. That he fenced
only on the defensive, and he wondered what might his motive be. He
realized that he was mastered, and that at any moment Galliard might
send home his blade. He was bathed from head to foot in a sweat that was
at once of exertion and despair. A frenzy seized him. Might he not yet
turn to advantage this hesitancy of Crispin's to strike the final blow?
He braced himself for a supreme effort, and turning his wrist from a
simulated thrust in the first position, he doubled, and stretching out,
lunged vigorously in quarte. As he lengthened his arm in the stroke
there came a sudden twitch at his wrist; the weapon was twisted from his
grasp, and he stood disarmed at Crispin's mercy.
A gurgling cry broke despite him from his lips, and his eyes grew wide
in a sickly terror as they encountered the knight's sinister glance. Not
three paces behind him was the wall, and on it, within the hand's easy
reach, hung many a trophied weapon that might have served him then. But
the fascination of fear was upon him, benumbing his wits and paralysing
his limbs, with the thought that the next pulsation of his tumultuous
heart would prove its last. The calm, unflinching courage that had
been Joseph's only virtue was shattered, and his iron will that had
unscrupulously held hitherto his very conscience in bondage was turned
to water now that he stood face to face with death.
Eons of time it seemed to him were sped since the sword was wrenched
from his hand, and still the stroke he awaited came not; still Crispin
stood, sinister and silent before him, watching him with magnetic,
fascinating eyes--as the snake watches the bird--eyes from which Joseph
could not withdraw his own, and yet before which it seemed to him that
he quaked and shrivelled.
The candles were burning low in their sconces, and the corners of that
ample, gloomy hall were filled with mysterious shadows that formed a
setting well attuned to the grim picture made by those two figures--the
one towering stern and vengeful, the other crouching palsied and livid.
Beyond the table, and with the wounded Gregory--lying unconscious and
bleeding--at his feet, stood Kenneth looking on in silence, in wonder
and in some horror too.
To him also, as he watched, the seconds seemed minutes from the time
when Crispin had disarmed his opponent until with a laugh--short and
sudden as a stab--he dropped his sword and caught his victim by the
throat.
However fierce the passion that had actuated Crispin, it had been held
hitherto in strong subjection. But now at last it suddenly welled up and
mastered him, causing him to cast all restraint to the winds, to abandon
reason, and to give way to the lust of rage that rendered ungovernable
his mood.
Like a burst of flame from embers that have been smouldering was the
upleaping of his madness, transfiguring his face and transforming his
whole being. A new, unconquerable strength possessed him; his pulses
throbbed swiftly and madly with the quickened coursing of his blood, and
his soul was filled with the cruel elation that attends a lust about to
be indulged the elation of the beast about to rend its prey.
He was pervaded by the desire to wreak slowly and with his hands the
destruction of his broken enemy. To have passed his sword through him
would have been too swiftly done; the man would have died, and Crispin
would have known nothing of his sufferings. But to take him thus by
the throat; slowly to choke the life's breath out of him; to feel his
desperate, writhing struggles; to be conscious of every agonized twitch
of his sinews, to watch the purpling face, the swelling veins, the
protruding eyes filled with the dumb horror of his agony; to hold him
thus--each second becoming a distinct, appreciable division of time--and
thus to take what payment he could for all the blighted years that lay
behind him--this he felt would be something like revenge.
Meanwhile the shock of surprise at the unlooked-for movement had
awakened again the man in Joseph. For a second even Hope knocked at
his heart. He was sinewy and active, and perchance he might yet make
Galliard repent that he had discarded his rapier. The knight's reason
for doing so he thought he had in Crispin's contemptuous words:
“Good steel were too great an honour for you, Mr. Ashburn.”
And as he spoke, his lean, nervous fingers tightened about Joseph's
throat in a grip that crushed the breath from him, and with it the
new-born hope of proving master in his fresh combat. He had not reckoned
with this galley-weaned strength of Crispin's, a strength that was a
revelation to Joseph as he felt himself almost lifted from the ground,
and swung this way and that, like a babe in the hands of a grown man.
Vain were his struggles. His strength ebbed fast; the blood, held
overlong in his head, was already obscuring his vision, when at last the
grip relaxed, and his breathing was freed. As his sight cleared again
he found himself back in his chair at the table-head, and beside him Sir
Crispin, his left hand resting upon the board, his right grasping once
more the sword, and his eyes bent mockingly and evilly upon his victim.
Kenneth, looking on, could not repress a shudder. He had known Crispin
for a tempestuous man quickly moved to wrath, and he had oftentimes seen
anger make terrible his face and glance. But never had he seen aught
in him to rival this present frenzy; it rendered satanical the baleful
glance of his eyes and the awful smile of hate and mockery with which he
gazed at last upon the helpless quarry that he had waited eighteen
years to bring to earth. “I would,” said Crispin, in a harsh, deliberate
voice, “that you had a score of lives, Master Joseph. As it is I have
done what I could. Two agonies have you undergone already, and I am
inclined to mercy. The end is at hand. If you have prayers to say, say
them, Master Ashburn, though I doubt me it will be wasted breath--you
are over-ripe for hell.”
“You mean to kill me,” he gasped, growing yet a shade more livid.
“Does the suspicion of it but occur to you?” laughed Crispin, “and yet
twice already have I given you a foretaste of death. Think you I but
jested?”
Joseph's teeth clicked together in a snap of determination. That sneer
of Crispin's acted upon him as a blow--but as a blow that arouses the
desire to retaliate rather than lays low. He braced himself for fresh
resistance; not of action, for that he realized was futile, but of
argument.
“It is murder that you do,” he cried.
“No; it is justice. It has been long on the way, but it has come at
last.”
“Bethink you, Mr. Marleigh--”
“Call me not by that name,” cried the other harshly, fearfully. “I have
not borne it these eighteen years, and thanks to what you have made
me, it is not meet that I should bear it now.” There was a pause. Then
Joseph spoke again with great calm and earnestness.
“Bethink you, Sir Crispin, of what you are about to do. It can benefit
you in naught.”
“Oddslife, think you it cannot? Think you it will benefit me naught to
see you earn at last your reward?”
“You may have dearly to pay for what at best must prove a fleeting
satisfaction.”
“Not a fleeting one, Joseph,” he laughed. “But one the memory of which
shall send me rejoicing through what years or days of life be left me. A
satisfaction that for eighteen years I have been waiting to experience;
though the moment after it be mine find me stark and cold.”
“Sir Crispin, you are in enmity with the Parliament--an outlaw almost. I
have some influence much influence. By exerting it--”
“Have done, sir!” cried Crispin angrily. “You talk in vain. What to
me is life, or aught that life can give? If I have so long endured the
burden of it, it has been so that I might draw from it this hour. Do you
think there is any bribe you could offer would turn me from my purpose?”
A groan from Gregory, who was regaining consciousness, drew his
attention aside.
“Truss him up, Kenneth,” he commanded, pointing to the recumbent
figure. “How? Do you hesitate? Now, as God lives, I'll be obeyed; or you
shall have an unpleasant reminder of the oath you swore me!”
With a look of loathing the lad dropped on his knees to do as he was
bidden. Then of a sudden:
“I have not the means,” he announced.
“Fool, does he not wear a sword-belt and a sash? Come, attend to it!”
“Why do you force me to do this?” the lad still protested passionately.
“You have tricked and cheated me, yet I have kept my oath and rendered
you the assistance you required. They are in your power now, can you not
do the rest yourself?”
“On my soul, Master Stewart, I am over-patient with you! Are we to
wrangle at every step before you'll take it? I will have your assistance
through this matter as you swore to give it. Come, truss me that fellow,
and have done with words.”
His fierceness overthrew the boy's outburst of resistance. Kenneth had
wit enough to see that his mood was not one to brook much opposition,
and so, with an oath and a groan, he went to work to pinion Gregory.
Then Joseph spoke again. “Weigh well this act of yours, Sir Crispin,”
he cried. “You are still young; much of life lies yet before you. Do not
wantonly destroy it by an act that cannot repair the past.”
“But it can avenge it, Joseph. As for my life, you destroyed it years
ago. The future has naught to offer me; the present has this.” And he
drew back his sword to strike.