THE DUEL CONTINUED.
I fell to wondering, as we rode home, whether we should find all safe;
for we had left Marie Wort and my lady's woman to keep house with two
only of the men. From that, again, I strayed into thoughts of the
chain, and of Marie herself, so that the very head of what happened
when we reached the house escaped me. The first I knew of it, Fraulein
Anna's horse backed suddenly into mine, and brought us all up short
with a deal of jostling and plunging. When I looked forward to learn
what was amiss, I saw a man lying on his face under my lady's horse,
and so near it that the beast's feet were touching his head. The man
was crying out something in a pitiful tone, and two or three of the
general's officers who were riding abreast of me were swearing
roundly, and there was great confusion.
General Tzerclas said something, but my lady overbore him. 'What is
it?' I heard her cry. 'Get up, man, and speak. Don't lie there. What
is it?'
The man rose to his knees, and cried out, 'Justice, justice, lady!' in
a wild sort of way, adding something--which I could not understand,
for he spoke in a vile _patois_--about a house. He was in a miserable
plight, and looked scarcely human. His face was sallow, his eyes shone
with famine, his shrunken limbs peered through mud-stained rags that
only half covered him.
'Which is your house?' my lady asked gently. And when one of the
officers who had ridden up abreast of her would have intervened, she
raised her hand with a gesture there was no mistaking. 'Which is your
house?' she repeated.
The man pointed to the one in which we had our quarters.
'What! That one?' my lady cried incredulously. 'Then what has brought
you to this?' For the creature looked the veriest scarecrow that ever
hung about a church-porch. His head and feet had no covering, his hair
was foully matted. He was filthy, hideous, famine-stricken.
And desperate. For, half-cringing, half-defiant, he pointed his
accusing finger at the general. 'He has! He and his army!; he cried.
'That house was mine. Those fields were mine. I had cattle, they have
eaten them. I had wood, they have burned it. I had meat, they have
taken it. I was rich, and I am _this!_ I had, and I have not--only a
wife and babes, and they are dying in a ditch. May the curse of
God----'
'Hush!' my lady cried, in an unsteady voice. And, without adding a
word, she turned to General Tzerclas and looked at him; as if this
were Heritzburg, and she the judge, he the criminal.
Doubtless the position was an awkward one. But he showed himself equal
to it. 'There has been foul play here,' he said firmly. 'I think I
remember the man's face.' Then he turned and raised his hand. 'Let all
stand back,' he said in a stern, curt tone.
We fell back out of hearing, leaving him and my lady with the man. For
some time the general seemed to be putting questions to the fellow,
speaking to my mistress between whiles. Presently he called sharply
for Ludwig. The captain went forward to them, and then it was very
plain what was going on, for the general raised his voice, and made
the rating he administered to his subaltern audible even by us. Back
Ludwig came by-and-by, with a dark sneer on his face, and we saw the
general hand money to the man.
'Teufel!' one of the fellows who rode beside me muttered, surprise in
his voice. 'When the general gives, look to your necks. It will cost
some one dear, this! I would not be in that clod's shoes for his booty
ten times told!'
Possibly. But I was not so much interested on the clown's account as
on my lady's; and one needed only half an eye to see what the
general's liberality had effected with her. She was all smiles again,
speaking to him with the utmost animation, leaning towards him as she
rode. She forgot the Waldgrave, who had fallen back with the rest of
us; she forgot all but the general. He went with her to the door of
the house, gave his hand to help her to dismount, lingered talking to
her on the threshold. And my heart sank. I could have gnashed my teeth
with anger as I stood aside uncovered, waiting for him to go.
For how could we combat the man? Such an episode as this, which should
have opened my lady's eyes to his true character, served only to
restore him to favour and blind her more effectually. It had undone
all the good of the afternoon; it had effaced alike the Waldgrave's
success and the general's remissness; it had given Tzerclas, who all
day had been losing slowly, the upper hand once more. I felt the
disappointment keenly.
I suppose it was that which made me think of consulting Fraulein Anna,
and begging her to use her influence with my lady to get out of the
camp. At any rate, the idea occurred to me. I could not catch her
then; but later in the evening, when some acrobats, whom the general
had sent for the Countess's diversion, were performing outside, and my
lady had gone out to the fallen tree to see them the better, I found
the Fraulein alone in the outer room. She looked up at my entrance.
'Who is it?' she said sharply, peering at me with her white,
short-sighted face. 'Oh, it is you, Mr. Thickhead, is it? I know whom
you have sneaked in to see!' she added spitefully.
'That is well,' I answered civilly. 'For I came in to see you,
Fraulein.'
'Oh!' she retorted, nodding her head in a very unpleasant manner.
'Then you want something. I can guess what it is. But go on.'
'If I want something,' I answered, 'and I do, it is in your own
behalf, Fraulein. You heard what I said to my lady last night? I did
not persuade her. Can you persuade her--to leave the camp and its
commander?'
Fraulein Max shook her head. 'Why should I?' she said, smoothing out
her skirt with her hands, and looking at me with a cunning smile.
'What have I to gain by persuading her, Master Schwartz?'
'Safety,' I said.
'Oh!' she cried ironically. 'Then let me remind you of something.
When we were all safe and comfortable at Heritzburg--safe, mind
you--who was it disturbed us? Who was it stirred up my lady to make
trouble--_more improbi anseris_--and though I warned him what would
come of it, persisted in it until we had all to flee at night like so
many vagrants? Ay, and have never had a quiet night since! Who was
that, Master Martin?'
'Fraulein,' I answered patiently, forbearing to remind her how much
she had been herself in fault, 'I may have been wrong then. It does
not alter the situation now.'
'Does it not?' she replied. 'But I think it does. You had your way at
Heritzburg, and what came of it? Trouble and misery. You want your way
now, but I shall not help you to it. I have had enough of your way,
and I do not like it.'
She laughed triumphantly, seeing me silenced; and I stood looking at
her, wondering what argument I could use. Doubtless she had had a
comfortless time on the journey from Heritzburg, jogging through fords
and over ruts, and along steep places, wet, tired, and scared,
deprived of her books and all her home pleasures. She had had time and
to spare to lay up many a grudge against me. Now it was her turn, and
I read in her face her determination to make the most of it.
I might frighten her; and that seemed my only chance. 'Well,
Fraulein,' I said after a pause, 'you may have been right then, and
you may be right now. But I hope you have counted the cost. If my lady
shows herself determined to leave, to-morrow and perhaps the next day
the power of going will remain in her hands. Later it will have passed
from her. Familiarity breeds contempt, and even the Countess of
Heritzburg cannot stay long in such a camp as this, where nothing is
respected, without losing that respect which for the moment protects
her. In a day or two, in a few days, the hedge will fall. And then,
Fraulein, we may all look to ourselves.'
But Fraulein Anna laughed shrilly. '_O tu anser!_' she cried
contemptuously. 'Open your eyes! Cannot you see that the general is
knee-deep in love with her? In a week he will be head over ears, and
her slave!'
I stared at her. Doubtless she knew; she was a woman. I drew a deep
breath. 'Well,' I said, 'and what of that?'
She looked at me spitefully. 'Ask my lady!' she said. 'How should I
know?'
I returned her gaze, and thought awhile. Then I said coldly, 'I think
it is you who are the fool, Fraulein. Take it for granted that what
you tell me is true. Have you considered what will happen should my
lady repulse him? What will happen to her and to us?'
'She will not,' Fraulein Max answered.
But I saw that the shaft had gone home. She fidgeted on her seat. And
I persisted. 'Still, if she does?' I said. 'What then?'
'She will not!' she answered. 'She must not!'
'By Heaven!' I cried, 'you are on his side!'
She blinked at me with her short-sighted eyes. 'And why not?' she said
slowly. 'On whose side should I be? My Lord Waldgrave's? He never
gives me a word, and seldom recognises my existence. On yours? If you
want help, go to the black-eyed puling girl you have brought in, who
is always creeping and crawling round us, and would oust me if she and
you could manage it and she had the breeding. Chut! don't talk to me,'
she continued maliciously, the colour rising to her pale cheeks. 'I
wonder that you dare to come to me with such proposals! Is my lady to
be ruled by her servants? Has she no judgment of her own? Why, you
fool, I have but to tell her, and you are disgraced!'
'As you please, Fraulein,' I said sullenly, stung to anger by one part
of her harangue. 'But as to Marie Wort----'
'Marie Wort?' she cried, catching me up and mocking my tone. 'Who said
anything about her, I should like to know? Though for my part, had I
my way, the popish chit should be whipped!'
'Fraulein!' I cried.
She laughed bitterly. 'Oh, you are fools, you men!' she said. 'But I
have made you angry, and that is enough. Go! Yes, go. I have supped on
folly. Go, before your mistress comes in; or I must out with all, and
lose a power over you.'
I went sullenly. While we had been talking the room had been growing
dark. Then it had grown light again with a smoky, dancing glare that
played fantastically on the walls and seemed to rise and sink with
the murmur of applause outside. They had brought torches made of
pine-knots that my lady might see the longer, and in the yellow circle
of light which these shed, the mountebanks, monstrously dressed and
casting weird shadows, were wrestling and leaping and writhing. The
light reached, but fitfully and by flashes, the log on which my lady
sat enthroned, with General Tzerclas and the Waldgrave at her side.
Still farther away the crowd surged and laughed and gibed in the
darkness.
I looked at my lady and found one look enough. I read the utter
hopelessness of the attempt I had just made. She was enjoying herself.
Fear was not natural to her, and she saw nothing to fear either in the
man beside her or the crowd beyond. Suspicion was no part of her
character, and she saw nothing to suspect. Had I won Fraulein Max over
to my side, as I felt sure that the general had bought her to his, I
should equally have had my trouble for my pains, and no more.
My only hope lay in the Waldgrave. He alone, could he once warm into
flower the love that hung trembling in the bud, might move her as I
would have her moved. But, then, the time? Every hour we remained
where we were, every day that rose and found us in the camp, rendered
retreat more difficult, the general's plans more definite. He might
not yet have made up his mind; he might not yet have hardened his
heart to the point of employing force; _his_ passion might be still in
the bud, his ambition unshaped. But how long dared I give him?
Assured that here lay the stress, I watched the young lord's progress
with an anxiety scarcely less than his own. And the longer I watched
the higher rose my hopes. It seemed to me that he went steadily
forward in favour, while the general stood still. More than once
during the next two days the latter showed himself irritable or
capricious. The iron hand began to push through the silken glove. And
though, on every one of these occasions, Tzerclas covered his mistake
with the dexterity of a man of the world, and my lady's eyes could
scarcely be said to be opened, a little coolness resulted, of which
the Waldgrave had the benefit.
He, on his part, seemed imperturbable. Love had to all appearance
changed his nature. A dozen times in the two days the impulse to fly
at his rival's throat must have been strong upon him, yet through all
he remained calm, pleasant, and courteous, and carried an old head on
young shoulders.
I wondered at last why he did not speak, for I marked the cloud on the
general's brow growing darker and darker, and I found the forced
inaction and suspense intolerable. Then I gathered, I cannot say why,
that the Waldgrave would not speak until after the great banquet to
which the general had bidden my lady. It had been deferred a day or
two, but on the third day after the shooting-match it took place.