Was Michel Menko indeed dead? We left him just as he was turning the key
in the little gate in the wall. He walked in boldly, and followed a
path leading to an open space where was the pavilion he had spoken of
to Marsa. He looked to see whether the windows of the pavilion were
lighted, or whether there were a line of light under the door. No: the
delicate tracery of the pagoda-like structure showed dimly against the
sky; but there was no sign of life. Perhaps, however, Marsa was there in
the darkness.
He would glide under the window and call. Then, hearing him and
frightened at so much audacity, she would descend.
He advanced a few steps toward the pavilion; but, all at once, in the
part of the garden which seemed lightest, upon the broad gravel walk, he
perceived odd, creeping shadows, which the moon, emerging from a cloud,
showed to be dogs, enormous dogs, with their ears erect, which, with
abound and a low, deep growl, made a dash toward him with outspread
limbs--a dash terrible as the leap of a tiger.
A quick thought illumined Michel’s brain like a flash of electricity:
“Ah! this is Marsa’s answer!” He had just time to mutter, with raging
irony:
“I was right, she was waiting for me!”
Then, before the onslaught of the dogs, he recoiled, clasping his hands
upon his breast and boldly thrusting out his elbows to ward off their
ferocious attacks. With a sudden tightening of the muscles he repulsed
the Danish hounds, which rolled over writhing on the ground, and then,
with formidable baying, returned more furiously still to the charge.
Michel Menko had no weapon.
With a knife he could have defended himself, and slit the bellies of the
maddened animals; but he had nothing! Was he to be forced, then, to fly,
pursued like a fox or a deer?
Suppose the servants, roused by the noise of the dogs, should come
in their turn, and seize him as a thief? At all events, that would be
comparative safety; at least, they would rescue him from these monsters.
But no: nothing stirred in the silent, impassive house.
The hounds, erect upon their hind legs, rushed again at Michel, who,
overturning them with blows from his feet, and striking them violently
in the jaws, now staggered back, Ortog having leaped at his throat. By
a rapid movement of recoil, the young man managed to avoid being
strangled; but the terrible teeth of the dog, tearing his coat and shirt
into shreds, buried themselves deep in the flesh of his shoulder.
The steel-like muscles and sinewy strength of the Hungarian now stood
him in good stead. He must either free himself, or perish there in the
hideous carnage of a quarry. He seized with both hands, in a viselike
grip, Ortog’s enormous neck, and, at the same time, with a desperate
jerk, shook free his shoulder, leaving strips of his flesh between the
jaws of the animal, whose hot, reeking breath struck him full in the
face. With wild, staring eyes, and summoning up, in an instinct of
despair, all his strength and courage, he buried his fingers in Ortog’s
neck, and drove his nails through the skin of the colossus, which struck
and beat with his paws against the young man’s breast. The dog’s tongue
hung out of his mouth, under the suffocating pressure of the hands
of the human being struggling for his life. As he fought thus against
Ortog, the Hungarian gradually retreated, the two hounds leaping about
him, now driven off by kicks (Duna’s jaw was broken), and now, with
roars of rage and fiery eyes, again attacking their human prey.
One of them, Bundas, his teeth buried in Michel’s left thigh, shook him,
trying to throw him to the ground. A slip, and all would be over; if
he should fall upon the gravel, the man would be torn to pieces and
crunched like a deer caught by the hounds.
A terrible pain nearly made Michel faint--Bundas had let go his hold,
stripping off a long tongue of flesh; but, in a moment, it had the same
effect upon him as that of the knife of a surgeon opening a vein, and
the weakness passed away. The unfortunate man still clutched, as in a
death-grip, Ortog’s shaggy neck, and he perceived that the struggles of
the dog were no longer of the same terrible violence; the eyes of the
ferocious brute were rolled back in his head until they looked like two
large balls of gleaming ivory. Michel threw the heavy mass furiously
from him, and the dog, suffocated, almost dead, fell upon the ground
with a dull, heavy sound.
Menko had now to deal only with the Danish hounds, which were rendered
more furious than ever by the smell of blood. One of them, displaying
his broken teeth in a hideous, snarling grin, hesitated a little to
renew the onslaught, ready, as he was, to spring at his enemy’s throat
at the first false step; but the other, Bundas, with open mouth, still
sprang at Michel, who repelled, with his left arm, the attacks of
the bloody jaws. Suddenly a hollow cry burst from his lips like a
death-rattle, forced from him as the dog buried his fangs in his
forearm, until they nearly met. It seemed to him that the end had now
come.
Each second took away more and more of his strength. The tremendous
tension of muscles and nerves, which had been necessary in the battle
with Ortog, and the blood he had lost, his whole left side being gashed
as with cuts from a knife, weakened him. He calculated, that, unless he
could reach the little gate before the other dog should make up his mind
to leap upon him, he was lost, irredeemably lost.
Bundas did not let go his hold, but twisting himself around Michel’s
body, he clung with his teeth to the young man’s lacerated arm; the
other, Duna, bayed horribly, ready to spring at any moment.
Michel gathered together all the strength that remained to him, and
ran rapidly backward, carrying with him the furious beast, which was
crushing the very bones of his arm.
He reached the end of the walk, and the gate was there before him.
Groping in the darkness with his free hand, he found the key, turned it,
and the gate flew open. Fate evidently did not wish him to perish.
Then, in the same way as he had shaken off Ortog, whom he could now hear
growling and stumbling over the gravel a little way off, Michel freed
his arm from Bundas, forcing his fingers and nails into the animal’s
ears; and the moment he had thrown the brute to the ground, he dashed
through the gate, and slammed it to behind him, just as the two dogs
together were preparing to leap again upon him.
Then, leaning against the gate, and steadying himself, so as not to
fall, he stood there weak and faint, while the dogs, on the other side
of the wooden partition which now separated him from death--and what a
death! erect upon their hind legs, like rampant, heraldic animals, tried
to break through, cracking, in their gory jaws, long strips of wood torn
from the barrier which kept them from their human prey.
Michel never knew how long he remained there, listening to the hideous
growling of his bloodthirsty enemies. At last the thought came to him
that he must go; but how was he to drag himself to the place where
Pierre was waiting for him? It was so far! so far! He would faint twenty
times before reaching there. Was he about to fail now after all he had
gone through?
His left leg was frightfully painful; but he thought he could manage to
walk with it. His left shoulder and arm, however, at the least movement,
caused him atrocious agony, as if the bones had been crushed by the
wheel of some machine. He sought for his handkerchief, and enveloped
his bleeding arm in it, tying the ends of it with his teeth. Then he
tottered to a woodpile near by, and, taking one of the long sticks, he
managed with its aid to drag himself along the alley, while through the
branches the moon looked calmly down upon him.
He was worn out, and his head seemed swimming in a vast void, when he
reached the end of the alley, and saw, a short way off down the avenue,
the arch of the old bridge near which the coupe had stopped. One effort
more, a few steps, and he was there! He was afraid now of falling
unconscious, and remaining there in a dying condition, without his
coachman even suspecting that he was so near him.
“Courage!” he murmured. “On! On!”
Two clear red lights appeared-the lanterns of the coup. “Pierre!” cried
Michel in the darkness, “Pierre!” But he felt that his feeble voice
would not reach the coachman, who was doubtless asleep on his box. Once
more he gathered together his strength, called again, and advanced a
little, saying to himself that a step or two more perhaps meant safety.
Then, all at once, he fell prostrate upon his side, unable to proceed
farther; and his voice, weaker and weaker, gradually failed him.
Fortunately, the coachman had heard him cry, and realized that something
had happened. He jumped from his box, ran to his master, lifted him up,
and carried him to the carriage. As the light of the lamps fell on the
torn and bloody garments of the Count, whose pallid and haggard face was
that of a dead man, Pierre uttered a cry of fright.
“Great heavens! Where have you been?” he exclaimed. “You have been
attacked?”
“The coup--place me in the coup.”
“But there are doctors here. I will go--”
“No--do nothing. Make no noise. Take me to Paris--I do not wish any one
to know--To Paris--at once,” and he lost consciousness.
Pierre, with some brandy he luckily had with him, bathed his master’s
temples, and forced a few drops between his lips; and, when the Count
had recovered, he whipped up his horse and galloped to Paris, growling,
with a shrug of the shoulders:
“There must have been a woman in this. Curse the women! They make all
the trouble in the world.”
It was daybreak when the coup reached Paris.
Pierre heard, as they passed the barrier, a laborer say to his mate
“That’s a fine turnout. I wish I was in the place of the one who is
riding inside!”
“So do I!” returned the other.
And Pierre thought, philosophically: “Poor fools! If they only knew!”