still loomed black and menacing on a distant ridge.
"Every road and bridge is blocked," the other went on. "The peasantry's
none too peaceful in these parts, and the baron's taking no chances."
Mark nodded slowly.
"What do you think, Baroc?" he asked. Somehow, he knew that was the
man's name.
The burly one scowled.
"Paris, I suppose," he grunted. "If you once get there, and into the
slums, the devil himself couldn't rout you out."
"Do you think we can make it?"
"Maybe." A shrug. "We could try the post road."
"All right. Let's go."
* * * * *
They jogged on through the night, the coach swaying and bumping over the
rough track. Then lights began to sparkle ahead. Baroc pulled up.
"The Golden Cock Inn," he grunted, nodding toward the lights.
"Morriere's guards will be there. We'll have to run for it, so be ready
for rough going."
The next instant they were rolling again. Closer the lights came, and
closer. Now they were almost abreast them....
"Halt!"
A man was running toward them, waving his arms.
Baroc shattered the night with a fearful oath. His long whip cracked
over the backs of the double-span of greys ahead. The horses leaped
forward.
They were past the inn, driving hellbent through the pitch-blackness of
the countryside. But behind them was a tumult of shouts, a wild
disorder.
Mark shot a glance through the window. Caught a glimpse of running
figures.
"Jacques! Are they after us?" There was panic in Elaine's voice.
A clatter of hooves answered her before Mark could open his mouth. The
girl clung to him, her face chalky with fear.
"If the baron catches me again, Jacques--"
"He won't catch you! I promise it, Elaine! He won't!"
But the words of Adrian Vance leaped into his brain like red-hot
branding irons:
_Elaine Duchard was tortured and murdered by Baron Morriere's
retainers!_
Were these men the ones history had marked to do the awful deed?
The thunder of hooves was almost upon them now. The coach rocked from
side to side. Bounced wildly from one rut to another.
A hoarse bellow from Baroc:
"They're coming, Jacques!"
Then out of the night like the wind itself the riders came. Big men,
with fierce eyes and savage, brutal faces. Men cut from the same pattern
as their master, Baron Morriere.
"Halt!"
"To hell with you!"
A rider surged ahead. He cut in toward the coach's horses.
"Oh, no, you don't!"
* * * * *
Baroc's whip lashed out. Bit into the face of the horseman. Laid the
flesh bare from eye to jaw. The man gave a shriek of agony. Pitched from
his saddle into the road. The coach leaped high as it struck his falling
body.
But the others closed in. One sprang from his horse to a precarious
perch on the mounting-board. His bearded face leered in. A knife
flashed.
_Boom!_
The man fell back, dead before he hit the ground, his throat torn out by
the slug from Mark's horse pistol. The coach was blue with the acrid
stench of gunpowder smoke.
"Oh, Jacques! Don't let them get me! I love you so, Jacques--no matter
what happens--"
Mark's arm was tight around Elaine. His face was taut and grim as they
bounced onward. He fingered the haft of a broad-bladed knife in his
belt.
"They won't get you! I promise it--"
Then, suddenly, their enemies were rushing to the attack again. From all
sides they came. The point of a sword cut off Baroc's hoarse cry in
mid-breath. He pitched from the box.
On through the night plunged the driverless coach, the horses mad with
fright. A bridge loomed ahead. They raced for it like creatures from
hell, flanks lathered, nostrils flaring.
Another rider tried to spring to the coach. Mark's knife flashed out.
Drove home.
Then they were onto the bridge.
With a roar the coach jumped sidewise on the boards. Crashed into the
flimsy railing. Tottered for a moment above the stream. Plunged backward
into the water, dragging the horses with it.
Mark felt himself hurled back into one corner. His head smashed hard
against something. Consciousness waned.
But the rush of water revived him. He lurched half-erect as the river
spilled through the windows in a tidal wave.
Elaine lay unconscious on the floor. He caught up her limp body. Kicked
open one door. Lunged out into the turbulent stream. Drifted with the
current, barely keeping their heads above water.
From the banks came the shouts of searching men.
Onward Mark and Elaine drifted. The girl's eyes still were closed. Her
body slack.
All his life those endless hours were a nightmare to the man. He
remembered, vaguely, that they lay hidden under the roots of a willow
while guardsmen on the bank above them cursed the luck that had let the
pair escape. Mark's teeth were chattering and his muscles weak. Elaine's
face, beside him, was growing blue with cold. Yet still she did not
recover consciousness.
Then, at last, the baron's men were clumping off, and Mark was dragging
his sweetheart out onto the bank.
A voice said:
"Praise God they did not find you!"
* * * * *
Mark staggered to face the man who spoke. His hand flashed to the knife
in his belt.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The stranger was old. The hands he raised in a gesture of peace were
toil-worn.
"Only a poor peasant, friend," he answered. "I welcome you because the
baron's men would not be hunting you were you not his enemies--may his
soul rot in hell!"
"You will help us?"
The old man nodded.
"As much as I can. There is an abandoned chateau near here. You can hide
there. I shall bring you food."
All but one wing of the ancient edifice to which the peasant took them
was in ruins, gutted by fire. It stood high on a hill like a blackened
skeleton.
"Once those who lived here were as cruel and proud as Baron Morriere,"
commented their guide. "Fire made them our equals."
And the part of Mark that was Jacques Rombeau answered:
"Fire will make many equals in the years to come, old man. And swords
will help, for a poor man's arm can strike as lusty a blow as any
lord's."
They laid Elaine on a bed of straw high in the unburned wing. She was
conscious now, but screaming in delirium.
"We've got to get a doctor!" Mark grated tensely. "If she dies--"
The thought brought him up short. History said Elaine Duchard could not
die! No! She must be tormented and murdered! And already the time was
short, for Professor Duchard had asserted that she was killed two days
after her first escape. Twelve hours had passed since he and the girl
had clambered into the coach. That left thirty-six--
The old peasant was shaking his head.
"There is no doctor here who can be trusted," he declared. "One and all,
they would run to Baron Morriere. The nearest who would help you and
keep his mouth shut is in Paris--"
For ten long seconds Mark struggled with himself.
Elaine was sick. Perhaps dying. Well, why not let her die? Wouldn't it
be better than to see her perhaps back in the hands of Baron Morriere?
Was it not to kill her that he, Mark Carter, had come across a hundred
fifty years of time? Had he not sworn he would contradict history's
verdict--
"Jacques! Don't let them get me! Save me! Jacques--"
She was screaming in delirium again, her lovely face pale, her golden
hair water-soaked to limp stringiness. Mark knelt beside her. Chafed her
wrists. Sponged the fevered brow.
"Jacques! Jacques!"
"History be damned!"
He shouted it aloud. Sprang erect, eyes flashing cold fire.
"I won't let her die now, and I won't let the baron get her! History or
no history, she's my Elaine, and I'll save her!"
* * * * *
He whirled on the bewildered peasant.
"How far is it to Paris?"
"About eleven miles."
"Then I'll go there. I'll get a doctor." Even as he spoke, Mark was
pulling on his jacket. He strode toward the door, then hesitated and
came back. He gripped the old peasant's shoulders. "Stay with her, old
man, 'till I come back."
"I shall stay."
Mark drew the knife from his belt. Handed it to the other. When he
spoke, his voice was but a cracked whisper:
"If _they_ come ... use this. She would rather have it so."
And the answer came back:
"I promise it, friend! They shall not take her alive!"
A wild trip it was, that journey to Paris. A dozen times before he was
beyond Baron Morriere's domains, Mark was certain he would be trapped.
Then he was in the city and searching out the doctor's office in a vast,
ancient rookery on the Left Bank. Outside--although it was only
mid-afternoon--hovering storm clouds transformed day into night, while,
at last, he pounded on the door to which he had been directed.
The door opened. A scowling, youthful man with tousled hair glared out
at him, reeling tipsily all the while.
"Wha' y' want?"
"I'm looking for Doctor d'Allempier."
"Then why y' come here? _I_ ain' no doc-tor. Me, I'm painter. Gustav
Jerbette. 'M bes' dam' pain'er--"
Disgust welled within Mark's heart like the thunder that rumbled
overhead. He jerked free of the drunk's pawings.
And then, suddenly, he stopped. Stopped coldly and completely, as if he
had been turned to stone. Deep within him an idea was growing. An idea
so stupendous that it made his brain reel within his skull.
He whirled on the drunk.
"What did you say your name was?"
"'M Gustav Jerbette. 'M pain'er. Bes' dam' pain'er--"
The next instant the tipsy one was reeling backward into his room under
the impetus of a powerful shove.
"Hey! Wha's idea?" he burbled. "Qui' pushin'--"
"Shut up, you stew-bum! I'm going to sober you up if I have to kill you!
You've got a job to do!"
* * * * *
The doctor was a grave, bearded man. At last he rose from beside
Elaine's straw bed in the fire-gutted chateau.
"How is she, doctor? Is there any hope?" Mark's voice was choked with
emotion, his face drawn and haggard with strain.
Slowly, the medical man shook his head.
"I am sorry, _m'sieur_," he said quietly. "I can offer you little
solace. Her lungs already are filling. I doubt that she can last until
morning."
The other was breathing hard. His eyes were like fiery gimlets.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" he begged, half-sobbing. "Can't you
at least give her something so she'll recover consciousness? I must talk
to her--"
"That I can do."
The physician turned back to the bed. Raised the dying girl's head from
the pallet to administer doses of several medicines.
"I have done all I can," he said. "From here it is in the hands of _Le
Bon Dieu_."
Dazedly, Mark thanked him. Paid him with coins from Jacques Rombeau's
wallet.
The door to the room beyond opened on sagging hinges and Gustav Jerbette
stepped out. His eyes still were red-rimmed from drink, but otherwise he
appeared sober.
"It's done," he said in a disgusted tone. "Lord knows it looks like
nothing in this world or the next, but it's done."
Again Mark dealt out coins.
The old peasant entered the room.
"The baron is furious," he reported grimly. "They are searching every
hut and hovel--"
The doctor shifted his feet nervously.
"Since there is nothing more I can do--" he murmured.
Mark seemed to shake off the strange, dream-like lassitude that gripped
him.
"Of course, gentlemen. All of you have done your best. But there isn't
any need of your staying longer, imperiling your lives by the chances of
Baron Morriere's vengeance. Please leave--and my thanks go with you."
Out they marched, a weird procession: painter, doctor, peasant. Only the
old man hesitated at the door.
"God be with you, friend!" he whispered, and pulled the heavy portal
shut behind him.
Like a man in a trance, Mark watched them go. His feet were spread
apart; fists clenched. Nor did the Sphinx at Giza look out upon the
world with a face more grey or stony or implacable than was his.
"History!" he cried aloud, and his voice was half-hysterical. "Damn
history! I'll beat it yet! Those devils shan't have Elaine--"
"Jacques!"
It was Elaine. Wanly she looked up from the pallet where she lay. Tried
to force a smile.
Mark dropped to his knees beside her.
"Elaine! My darling!"
The girl raised a hand that trembled. Caressed his forehead.
"Poor Jacques!" she whispered. "He looks so worried; so frightened--"
"And good cause he has, too!"
* * * * *
Mark whirled, every muscle taut, at that harsh voice.
There, in the doorway, backed by his guardsmen, stood the Baron
Morriere!
Tension hung over the silence of the room like smoke above a
battlefield.
"Did you think you'd get away, you fool?" the noble gloated. "Did you
think you'd escape Raoul Morriere's vengeance?"
Mark was breathing hard. His face was pale, his eyes over-bright. Deep
within his brain words were pounding, with the beat of a giant
sledge....
"_I shall defeat fate!_" those words throbbed. "_I shall rewrite
history! Not as I wanted to. No. But they shall not have Elaine--_"
His hand clashed down, then, as a cobra strikes. Down to the broad
bladed knife Jacques Rombeau carried in his belt. All his mind, all his
heart, was concentrated on this one thing: Even though lightning should
strike him this very instant, he would seize that knife. Whip it out.
Bury it to the hilt in Elaine's breast, that death--not Baron Morriere's
retainers--might claim her!
But his hand clutched empty air. He stared down in shocked incredulity.
Stared down, and remembered--
He had given that knife to the old peasant before he went to Paris! And
he had failed to ask it back!
"Look! He reaches for his knife!" whooped the baron. "He would protect
his sweetheart!"
The guardsmen behind him joined in his roar of laughter.
Something came over Mark Carter in that moment. Something at once cold
and deadly, and hotly, fiercely passionate. He felt a kinship to all
earth's fighting madmen--the Malay, run amok; the Viking, gone berserk;
the Arab, charging through hell to paradise.
Like a human projectile he launched himself, straight for the throat of
Baron Morriere!
"Ai!"
It was not a word, that sound that came from the noble's throat. No.
There was something more primitive than that about it.
It was terror, incarnate.
Before the man could move, Mark's fingers were clutching at him, tearing
his clothing and his flesh. Again he screamed.
As one possessed, Mark jerked him from the bosom of his guardsmen.
Hurled him bodily across the room, to slam against the farthest wall
with a crash that echoed through the ancient wing.
But now the guardmen's paralysis was broken. They surged forward as one
man.
"Jacques! Look out!"
* * * * *
Elaine's scream lent strength to her lover's arms. He slammed the door
in the face of the oncoming fighters. Half a dozen swords stabbed deep
into its wood, so closely were they upon him. He hurled himself at the
portal. Forced it shut by sheer desperation. Slammed home its triple
bolts.
He turned, then, his breath coming in great, sobbing gasps.
Baron Morriere had lurched to his feet. His right hand gripped a sword,
his left a dagger.
"You'll die yet, you dog!" he snarled. "I'll spit you on my sword like a
pig above a bed of coals!"
The flames of the pit showed in Mark's eyes.
"And I'll see _you_ in hell," he grated.
With a curse of contempt, the baron charged.
Mark sprang aside.
Again the other rushed to the attack.
Once more Mark dodged. But now desperation gleamed in his eyes. He was
unarmed, helpless. One slip, one misstep, and that cruel blade would pin
him to the wall!
Another rush. Another escape. But this time the blade had come close.
Mark's shirt was ripped; his shoulder bleeding from a long scratch.
Even worse: from the end of the room came the sound of splintering wood
as the guardsmen smashed in the panels of the door. A moment more and
they would be upon him!
Again the deadly play of wits. And then, suddenly, Mark found himself
penned in a corner. Trapped. The baron faced him, panting, his face
alight with evil joy. And beyond the noble, on her bed of straw, Elaine
Duchard stared at her lover with horror-straught eyes.
"Die, you dog!"
The baron lunged. His gleaming sword stabbed for Mark's vitals. The
unarmed man's teeth clenched to the take the fatal blow.
It never came!
One moment the baron was charging. The next, falling.
"Elaine!"
For the girl's white body was sprawled across the floor. Her thin hands
still clutched the baron's ankle.
The next instant her lover was at the noble's throat. His fists beat a
tattoo of mayhem on the other's face. Forced him back against a
window-sill. Beat him to a senseless, bleeding pulp.
"Jacques!"
He whirled. Saw the door at the far end of the room buckle and give way.
With one sweep of his arms, he sent the baron's body toppling through
the window. Falling down ... down ... down, to death on the stone-slab
walk three stories below.
Even as he did it, Mark was leaping toward Elaine. He caught her in his
arms and lunged for the room's second door. He made it bare inches ahead
of the guardsmen's swords.
This door was lighter. Already it rattled under the blows of the baron's
men.
"Let me die, Jacques!" Elaine whispered. "I know I am going. You need
not try to save me."
"Don't say it!" Mark's voice was a jagged knife of command. "You can't
die now. Don't say it!"
* * * * *
He carried her, then, to where the picture Gustav Jerbette had painted
stood. A strange picture, for that day and age, for it portrayed Mark
Carter and his fiancee, Elaine Duchard, standing side by side in front
of a building clearly identifiable as Professor Duchard's laboratory.
And the pair were dressed, not in the garb of eighteenth century France,
but in that of twentieth century America.
"Shut your eyes, Elaine!"
Wearily, the dying girl obeyed.
With one savage jerk, Mark whipped the cover from another stand. A stand
on which stood a mirror. A mirror whose surface seemed to ripple in the
fading light. A circular mirror, full three feet in diameter. A mirror
with a garishly ornate frame.
His hands trembling with feverish haste, Mark adjusted the picture to
reflect in the glass.
Already the door was cracking.
He snatched Elaine from where she lay. Held her half-conscious body
before the mirror.
"Open your eyes, Elaine! Open your eyes and look at that girl in the
mirror! Concentrate on her, Elaine! _Concentrate!_"
His own eyes were fixed on the image of his twentieth century self that
Gustav Jerbette had painted. His brain ached with the force of will he
was exerting. He felt himself falling through endless miles of space.
Falling ... falling ... falling....
"Thank God!" exclaimed Professor Duchard fervently. "You both are safe!"
Dazedly, Mark and Elaine looked at each other across the narrow aisle
separating their white hospital beds. Across the room, sunlight streamed
in an open window, its rays glistening on the snowy linen of a third but
empty bed.
"What happened?" Mark queried in a bewildered tone. "I was in your
laboratory, professor, and Vance rushed in--"
"You went through the time mirror, my boy. Back to eighteenth century
France. And Vance went with you. Apparently he came too close to the
glass in his eagerness to stop you; his eyes must have focussed on one
of the other figures from Jerbette's picture, reflected in the gap
through the space-time barrier. He fell in a coma at the same instant
you did."
"But I don't remember anything!" Mark protested. "I was going to go back
through time to save Elaine, even if I had to change history to do it.
Then Vance came in, and everything went blank--"
"Yes," broke in Elaine. "The same thing happened to me. I was sitting in
front of the mirror Adrian gave me. Then I saw my ancestor from the
painting, and I seemed to be falling--"
Professor Duchard nodded.
"Of course. Time travel apparently brings with it complete loss of
memory--"
"But I was insulated against amnesia!" exclaimed Mark.
"Only on the trip back, my boy. Not on your return. No doubt you
remembered the twentieth century while in the eighteenth. But your
return destroyed your memories of Bourbon France."
* * * * *
The younger man scowled.
"It doesn't make sense," he grunted. "I'm beginning to think the whole
business is so much imagination. After all, how could I transport Elaine
back from 1780 to 1942? Or myself, for that matter--"
"Perhaps I have some information which will throw light on the subject,"
the white-haired scientist interrupted. "Yesterday my old friend,
Strong, the historian, was passing through the city. He came here to see
me.
"He told me he had run across Gustav Jerbette's unpublished memoirs in
the course of his researches. And Jerbette, in describing how he came to
paint 'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' says the figure in the time mirror on
which you concentrated--the man with the horse pistol--was the first
Elaine Duchard's lover, Jacques Rombeau.
"Jerbette says Rombeau came to him with a strange assignment. First he
took him to the largest glass works in Paris and made him wait while the
craftsmen manufactured a special mirror to his order. Then Rombeau led
the way to an abandoned chateau a few miles out of Paris. Elaine Duchard
lay hidden on the top floor, desperately ill.
"Jerbette's job was to paint a picture of the girl and a strange man, as
described to him by Rombeau. Both wore clothes of a different type than
any then known, and were in strange surroundings. The job done, Rombeau
dismissed the painter. Later, Jerbette says he heard that the two lovers
were surprised and murdered by Baron Morriere and his men, although the
baron himself was killed in the fight.
"All this so intrigued Jerbette that he promptly painted his famous
'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' showing the lovers getting away from the
baron's chateau."
Mark frowned. Shook his head.
"I see how you think it ties in, Professor," he admitted, "but there are
too many loopholes."
The savant smiled.
"Yes, there are loopholes," he agreed, "but I do not think there are too
many.
"The strange portrait Jerbette painted unfortunately never turned up
again. It, of course, would be final proof. For if we found a picture of
you--Mark Carter--and Elaine, in a twentieth century scene and wearing
modern clothes, yet painted by Gustav Jerbette, there could be no doubt
that your brain--cloaked in Jacques Rombeau's body--did the job.
"However, Jerbette does leave a very accurate description of the mirror
Rombeau had made. And there is no doubt in my mind that it is the same
one Vance gave to Elaine."
"But it's impossible!" Mark protested. "I couldn't have made a time
mirror with the primitive equipment of that era--"
"I believe you could. Our work in discovering the formula for the one I
made gave you a sufficient understanding of the device's fundamentals to
construct a crude model."
"But a terrific bolt of electricity was required, professor. And there
was no electrical equipment in those days. It's a complete anachronism."
* * * * *
"You think so?" The old scientist smiled. "Well, I do not wonder. You
convinced Jerbette that Jacques Rombeau was stark, raving mad."
"You mean--"
"What other conclusion could any sane mortal draw from the actions of a
man who insisted on defying God and the elements by exposing great
circular trays of molten glass on top of the highest tower in all Paris
during the worst electrical storm in years, until finally one of them
was struck by lightning?"
Mark stared open-mouthed. Again he and the bewildered Elaine exchanged
glances. And instinctively their hands reached out across the aisle, to
join in love's tender clasp. The happiness of utter confidence and peace
glowed in their eyes.
Then, still holding the girl's hand, Mark turned back to the professor.
His brows knitted with incredulity.
"My God!" he exclaimed half to himself. "Could it be possible? Could I
have done such a thing?"
Abruptly, he halted.
"No!" he clipped decisively. "There are other angles to be considered.
Vance, for instance. You say he went with me through the time mirror--"
"Yes." The savant nodded slowly. "That, Mark, is the final proof. The
evidence beyond contradiction. The thing that convinces me--"
"Proof? Evidence? I don't get it."
"You will recall, Mark, that Jerbette's memoirs said Baron Morriere was
killed in that final battle with Jacques Rombeau?"
"Yes. Of course. What's that got to do with it?"
The scientist leveled a trembling finger at the window across the room,
through which the sunlight still streamed. Never had he been more
impressive. Solemn conviction gleamed in his blue eyes.