Rebuke awaited Captain Tremayne at the hands of Lady O’Moy, and it came
as soon as they were alone together sauntering in the thicket of pine
and cork-oak on the slope of the hill below the terrace.
“How thoughtless of you, Ned, to provoke Count Samoval at such a time as
this!”
“Did I provoke him? I thought it was the Count himself who was
provoking.” Tremayne spoke lightly.
“But suppose anything were to happen to you? You know the man’s dreadful
reputation.”
Tremayne looked at her kindly. This apparent concern for himself touched
him. “My dear Una, I hope I can take care of myself, even against so
formidable a fellow; and after all a man must take his chances a soldier
especially.”
“But what of Dick?” she cried. “Do you forget that he is depending
entirely upon you--that if you should fail him he will be lost?” And
there was something akin to indignation in the protesting eyes she
turned upon him.
For a moment Tremayne was so amazed that he was at a loss for an answer.
Then he smiled. Indeed his inclination was to laugh outright. The
frank admission that her concern which he had fondly imagined to be
for himself was all for Dick betrayed a state of mind that was entirely
typical of Una. Never had she been able to command more than one point
of view of any question, and that point of view invariably of her own
interest. All her life she had been accustomed to sacrifices great and
small made by others on her own behalf, until she had come to look upon
such sacrifices her absolute right.
“I am glad you reminded me,” he said with an irony that never touched
her. “You may depend upon me to be discreetness itself, at least until
after Dick has been safely shipped.”
“Thank you, Ned. You are very good to me.” They sauntered a little way
in silence. Then: “When does Captain Glennie sail?” she asked him. “Is
it decided yet?”
“Yes. I have just heard from him that the Telemachus will put to sea on
Sunday morning at two o’clock.”
“At two o’clock in the morning! What an uncomfortable hour!”
“Tides, as King Canute discovered, are beyond mortal control. The
Telemachus goes out with the ebb. And, after all, for our purposes
surely no hour could be more suitable. If I come for Dick at midnight
tomorrow that will just give us time to get him snugly aboard before she
sails. I have made all arrangements with Glennie. He believes Dick to
be what he has represented himself--one of Bearsley’s overseers named
Jenkinson, who is a friend of mine and who must be got out of the
country quietly. Dick should thank his luck for a good deal. My chief
anxiety was lest his presence here should be discovered by any one.”
“Beyond Bridget not a soul knows that he is here not even Sylvia.”
“You have been the soul of discreetness.”
“Haven’t I?” she purred, delighted to have him discover a virtue so
unusual in her.
Thereafter they discussed details; or, rather, Tremayne discussed them.
He would come up to Monsanto at twelve o’clock to-morrow night in a
curricle in which he would drive Dick down to the river at a point where
a boat would be waiting to take him out to the Telemachus. She must see
that Dick was ready in time. The rest she could safely leave to him. He
would come in through the official wing of the building. The guard would
admit him without question, accustomed to seeing him come and go at
all hours, nor would it be remarked that he was accompanied by a man
in civilian dress when he departed. Dick was to be let down from
her ladyship’s balcony to the quadrangle by a rope ladder with which
Tremayne would come equipped, having procured it for the purpose from
the Telemachus.
She hung upon his arm, overwhelming him now with her gratitude, her
parasol sheltering them both from the rays of the sun as they emerged
from the thicket intro the meadowland in full view of the terrace where
Count Samoval and Sir Terence were at that moment talking earnestly
together.
You will remember that O’Moy had undertaken to provide that Count
Samoval’s visits to Monsanto should be discontinued. About this task
he had gone with all the tact of which he had boasted himself master to
Colquhoun Grant. You shall judge of the tact for yourself. No sooner had
the colonel left for Lisbon, and Carruthers to return to his work, than,
finding himself alone with the Count, Sir Terence considered the moment
a choice one in which to broach the matter.
“I take it ye’re fond of walking, Count,” had been his singular opening
move. They had left the table by now, and were sauntering together on
the terrace.
“Walking?” said Samoval. “I detest it.”
“And is that so? Well, well! Of course it’s not so very far from your
place at Bispo.”
“Not more than half-a-league, I should say.”
“Just so,” said O’Moy. “Half-a-league there, and half-a-league back: a
league. It’s nothing at all, of course; yet for a gentleman who detests
walking it’s a devilish long tramp for nothing.”
“For nothing?” Samoval checked and looked at his host in faint surprise.
Then he smiled very affably. “But you must not say that, Sir Terence. I
assure you that the pleasure of seeing yourself and Lady O’Moy cannot be
spoken of as nothing.”
“You are very good.” Sir Terence was the very quintessence of
courtliness, of concern for the other. “But if there were not that
pleasure?”
“Then, of course, it would be different.” Samoval was beginning to be
slightly intrigued.
“That’s it,” said Sir Terence. “That’s just what I’m meaning.”
“Just what you’re meaning? But, my dear General, you are assuming
circumstances which fortunately do not exist.”
“Not at present, perhaps. But they might.”
Again Samoval stood still and looked at O’Moy. He found something in the
bronzed, rugged face that was unusually sardonic. The blue eyes seemed
to have become hard, and yet there were wrinkles about their corners
suggestive of humour that might be mockery. The Count stiffened; but
beyond that he preserved his outward calm whilst confessing that he did
not understand Sir Terence’s meaning.
“It’s this way,” said Sir Terence. “I’ve noticed that ye’re not looking
so very well lately, Count.”
“Really? You think that?” The words were mechanical. The dark eyes
continued to scrutinise that bronzed face suspiciously.
“I do, and it’s sorry I am to see it. But I know what it is. It’s this
walking backwards and forwards between here and Bispo that’s doing the
mischief. Better give it up, Count. Better not come toiling up here any
more. It’s not good for your health. Why, man, ye’re as white as a ghost
this minute.”
He was indeed, having perceived at last the insult intended. To be
denied the house at such a time was to checkmate his designs, to set a
term upon his crafty and subtle espionage, precisely in the season when
he hoped to reap its harvest. But his chagrin sprang not at all from
that. His cold anger was purely personal. He was a gentleman--of the
fine flower, as he would have described himself--of the nobility of
Portugal; and that a probably upstart Irish soldier--himself, from
Samoval’s point of view, a guest in that country--should deny him his
house, and choose such terms of ill-considered jocularity in which to do
it, was an affront beyond all endurance.
For a moment passion blinded him, and it was only by an effort that he
recovered and kept his self-control. But keep it he did. You may trust
your practised duellist for that when he comes face to face with the
necessity to demand satisfaction. And soon the mist of passion clearing
from his keen wits, he sought swiftly for a means to fasten the quarrel
upon Sir Terence in Sir Terence’s own coin of galling mockery. Instantly
he found it. Indeed it was not very far to seek. O’Moy’s jealousy, which
was almost a byword, as we know, had been apparent more than once to
Samoval. Remembering it now, it discovered to him at once Sir Terence’s
most vulnerable spot, and cunningly Samoval proceeded to gall him there.
A smile spread gradually over his white face--a smile of immeasurable
malice.
“I am having a very interesting and instructive morning in this
atmosphere of Irish boorishness,” said he. “First Captain Tremayne--”
“Now don’t be after blaming old Ireland for Tremayne’s shortcomings.
Tremayne’s just a clumsy mannered Englishman.”
“I am glad to know there is a distinction. Indeed I might have perceived
it for myself. In motives, of course, that distinction is great indeed,
and I hope that I am not slow to discover it, and in your case to excuse
it. I quite understand and even sympathise with your feelings, General.”
“I am glad of that now,” said Sir Terence, who had understood nothing of
all this.
“Naturally,” the Count pursued on a smooth, level note of amiability,
“when a man, himself no longer young, commits the folly of taking a
young and charming wife, he is to be forgiven when a natural anxiety
drives him to lengths which in another might be resented.” He bowed
before the empurpling Sir Terence.
“Ye’re a damned coxcomb, it seems,” was the answering roar.
“Of course you would assume it. It was to be expected. I condone it with
the rest. And because I condone it, because I sympathise with what in a
man of your age and temperament must amount to an affliction, I hasten
to assure you upon my honour that so far as I am concerned there are no
grounds for your anxiety.”
“And who the devil asks for your assurances? It’s stark mad ye are to
suppose that I ever needed them.”
“Of course you must say that,” Samoval insisted, with a confident and
superior smile. He shook his head, his expression one of amused sorrow.
“Sir Terence, you have knocked at the wrong door. You are youthful
at least in your impulsiveness, but you are surely as blind as old
Pantaloon in the comedy or you would see where your industry would be
better employed in shielding your wife’s honour and your own.”
Goaded to fury, his blue eyes aflame now with passion, Sir Terence
considered the sleek and subtle gentleman before him, and it was in
that moment that the Count’s subtlety soared to its finest heights. In a
flash of inspiration he perceived the advantages to be drawn by himself
from conducting this quarrel to extremes.
This is not mere idle speculation. Knowledge of the real motives
actuating him rests upon the evidence of a letter which Samoval was
to write that same evening to La Fleche--afterwards to be
discovered--wherein he related what had passed, how deliberately he had
steered the matter, and what he meant to do. His object was no longer
the punishing of an affront. That would happen as a mere incident, a
thing done, as it were, in passing. His real aim now was to obtain
the keys of the adjutant’s strong-box, which never left Sir Terence’s
person, and so become possessed of the plans of the lines of Torres
Vedras. When you consider in the light of this the manner in which
Samoval proceeded now you will admire with me at once the opportunism
and the subtlety of the man.
“You’ll be after telling me exactly what you mean,” Sir Terence had
said.
It was in that moment that Tremayne and Lady O’Moy came arm in arm
into the open on the hill-side, half-a-mile away--very close and
confidential. They came most opportunely to the Count’s need, and he
flung out a hand to indicate them to Sir Terence, a smile of pity on his
lips.
“You need but to look to take the answer for yourself,” said he.
Sir Terence looked, and laughed. He knew the secret of Ned Tremayne’s
heart and could laugh now with relish at that which hitherto had left
him darkly suspicious.
“And who shall blame Lady O’Moy?” Count Samoval pursued. “A lady
so charming and so courted must seek her consolation for the almost
unnatural union Fate has imposed upon her. Captain Tremayne is of her
own age, convenient to her hand, and for an Englishman not ill-looking.”
He smiled at O’Moy with insolent compassion, and O’Moy, losing all his
self-control, struck him slapped him resoundingly upon the cheek.
“Ye’re a dirty liar, Samoval, a muck-rake,” said he.
Samoval stepped back, breathing hard, one cheek red, the other white.
Yet by a miracle he still preserved his self-control.
“I have proved my courage too often,” he said, “to be under the
necessity of killing you for this blow. Since my honour is safe I will
not take advantage of your overwrought condition.”
“Ye’ll take advantage of it whether ye like it or not,” blazed Sir
Terence at him. “I mean you to take advantage of it. D’ ye think I’ll
suffer any man to cast a slur upon Lady O’Moy? I’ll be sending my
friends to wait on you to-day, Count; and--by God!--Tremayne himself
shall be one of them.”
Thus did the hot-headed fellow deliver himself into the hands of his
enemy. Nor was he warned when he saw the sudden gleam in Samoval’s dark
eyes.
“Ha!” said the Count. It was a little exclamation of wicked
satisfaction. “You are offering me a challenge, then?”
“If I may make so bold. And as I’ve a mind to shoot you dead--”
“Shoot, did you say?” Samoval interrupted gently.
“I said ‘shoot’--and it shall be at ten paces, or across a handkerchief,
or any damned distance you please.”
The Count shook his head. He sneered. “I think not--not shoot.” And he
waved the notion aside with a hand white and slender as a woman’s. “That
is too English, or too Irish. The pistol, I mean--appropriately a fool’s
weapon.” And he explained himself, explained at last his extraordinary
forbearance under a blow. “If you think I have practised the small-sword
every day of my life for ten years to suffer myself to be shot at like
a rabbit in the end--ho, really!” He laughed aloud. “You have challenged
me, I think, Sir Terence. Because I feared the predilection you have
discovered, I was careful to wait until the challenge came from you. The
choice of weapons lies, I think, with me. I shall instruct my friends to
ask for swords.”
“Sorry a difference will it make to me,” said Sir Terence. “Anything
from a horsewhip to a howitzer.” And then recollection descending like a
cold hand upon him chilled his hot rage, struck the fine Irish arrogance
all out of him, and left him suddenly limp. “My God!” he said, and
it was almost a groan. He detained Samoval, who had already turned to
depart. “A moment, Count,” he cried. “I--I had forgotten. There is the
general order--Lord Wellington’s enactment.”
“Awkward, of course,” said Samoval, who had never for a moment been
oblivious of that enactment, and who had been carefully building upon
it. “But you should have considered it before committing yourself so
irrevocably.”
Sir Terence steadied himself. He recovered his truculence. “Irrevocable
or not, it will just have to be revocable. The meeting’s impossible.”
“I do not see the impossibility. I am not surprised you should shelter
yourself behind an enactment; but you will remember this enactment does
not apply to me, who am not a soldier.”
“But it applies to me, who am not only a soldier, but the
Adjutant-General here, the man chiefly responsible for seeing the order
carried out. It would be a fine thing if I were the first to disregard
it.”
“I am afraid it is too late. You have disregarded it already, sir.”
“How so?”
“The letter of the law is against sending or receiving a challenge, I
think.”
O’Moy was distracted. “Samoval,” he said, drawing himself up, “I will
admit that I have been a fool. I will apologise to you for the blow and
for the word that accompanied it.”
“The apology would imply that my statement was a true one and that you
recognised it. If you mean that--”
“I mean nothing of the kind. Damme! I’ve a mind to horsewhip you, and
leave it at that. D’ ye think I want to face a firing party on your
account?”
“I don’t think there is the remotest likelihood of any such
contingency,” replied Samoval.
But O’Moy went headlong on. “And another thing. Where will I be finding
a friend to meet your friends? Who will dare to act for me in view of
that enactment?”
The Count considered. He was grave now. “Of course that is a
difficulty,” he admitted, as if he perceived it now for the first time.
“Under the circumstances, Sir Terence, and entirely to accommodate you,
I might consent to dispense with seconds.”
“Dispense with seconds?” Sir Terence was horrified at the suggestion.
“You know that that is irregular--that a charge of murder would lie
against the survivor.”
“Oh, quite so. But it is for your own convenience that I suggest it,
though I appreciate your considerate concern on the score of what may
happen to me afterwards should it come to be known that I was your
opponent.”
“Afterwards? After what?”
“After I have killed you.”
“And is it like that?” cried O’Moy, his countenance inflaming again, his
mind casting all prudence to the winds.
It followed, of course, that without further thought for anything but
the satisfaction of his rage Sir Terence became as wax in the hands of
Samoval’s desires.
“Where do you suggest that we meet?” he asked.
“There is my place at Bispo. We should be private in the gardens there.
As for time, the sooner the better, though for secrecy’s sake we had
better meet at night. Shall we say at midnight?”
But Sir Terence would agree to none of this.
“To-night is out of the question for me. I have an engagement that will
keep me until late. To-morrow night, if you will, I shall be at your
service.” And because he did not trust Samoval he added, as Samoval
himself had almost reckoned: “But I should prefer not to come to Bispo.
I might be seen going or returning.”
“Since there are no such scruples on my side, I am ready to come to you
here if you prefer it.”
“It would suit me better.”
“Then expect me promptly at midnight to-morrow, provided that you
can arrange to admit me without my being seen. You will perceive my
reasons.”
“Those gates will be closed,” said O’Moy, indicating the now gaping
massive doors that closed the archway at night. “But if you knock I
shall be waiting for you, and I will admit you by the wicket.”
“Excellent,” said Samoval suavely. “Then--until to-morrow night,
General.” He bowed with almost extravagant submission, and turning
walked sharply away, energy and suppleness in every line of his slight
figure, leaving Sir Terence to the unpleasant, almost desperate,
thoughts that reflection must usher in as his anger faded.