The Duke of Dorset hurried through the deserted corridor and ascended
the great stair.
From the moon, sheets of light, entering through the long windows, lay
here and there, white, across the steps, and red across that bronze
frieze wherein satyrs danced. Although the man hurried, habit for an
instant stopped him in the arc of light at the turn of the stair.
He lifted his eyes to see that woman, in her costume of old time,
descending, but the illusion of it was gone. The thing was now only a
lifeless picture hanging in its frame--a sheet of painted canvas from
which no disturbing influences emerged. For the fraction of a second
surprise held him, then the sound of some one moving in the corridor
above caught his ear. Some one walked there, was come now to the
stairway, was descending. And the next moment Caroline Childers, coming
hurriedly down, saw the Duke of Dorset standing on the step by the
window. She stopped instantly, and, like one in terror, put up her hands
to her face, her fingers wandering into her hair.
"Oh!" she said, "you are hurt! There is blood!"
The man was standing in the light; his sleeve, soaked from the wounded
horse, was visibly red.
The girl came slowly to another step, her fingers still moving in her
hair; her speech fragments.
"They shot you... I heard it... I knew they would.... Are you killed!"
The Duke remembered now this blood on his coat and hurried to explain
it.
"I am not hurt," he said. "They killed the horse. I am not in the least
hurt."
The girl thrust back her hair with a curious deliberate gesture. Her
head moved a little forward. Her bosom lifted. She came down slowly from
one step to another. The moment of stress seemed to have matured her
face. She was now not unlike the woman whom he had met every night on
the turn of the stair.
The Duke saw this, and all that had been illusion, fancy, a state of the
mind, emerged into reality. Not on the instant, but in gradual sequence,
like one coming in broad day upon events approaching as he had seen
them in a dream. It is a moment rare in the experience of life, when
the situation dreamed of begins to arrive, in order, in the sun. And
especially when these foreseen events appear to demand a decision which
one must on the instant hazard. Here was the opportunity, coming in
life, which had presented itself so many times to this man in fancy.
Then the foreseen march of events, as is usual in life, wholly altered.
The long sheet of glass in the window by the Duke's elbow broke with
a sharp sound, shivered to fragments, rattled on the step, and a stone
struck the rail of the stairway.
The Duke sprang to the window and looked out. A little group of figures
was gathering along the northern border of the court; one, who had come
closer to the château, was now running back to them. The Duke turned to
find Caroline Childers looking, with him, through the window. He did not
stop to explain what she could see; he gave her a brief direction, and
vanished up the stairway.
"Find your uncle. Have all wait for me in the library. I will come in a
moment."
He ran down the corridor to his room, dragged a leather box out into
the floor, unlocked it and took out the gun and ammunition which he had
packed there at Doune. He examined the breech of the gun a moment with
suffocating interest. It had not been touched, doubtless because the box
seemed an ordinary piece of luggage, and he had kept the key to it.
He put the gun barrel swiftly into its stock, filled his pockets with
cartridges, and returned, running, to the library.
There he found a certain order which he had not hoped for. Cyrus
Childers, who had gone to look at the situation for himself, had
returned. He had restored the lights, thrown a rug over the useless
weapons on the table, and was talking calmly to the others when the Duke
entered. He looked up, saw what the Duke carried, and shook his head.
"We must put away these guns," he said, "there is no need of them. We
must be careful not to provoke violence. I am going out to talk to these
people. Let us not lose our heads."
It was certain that the man's quiet, masterful seizure of the situation
had cleared the air. The Duke saw this and hesitated to make an issue.
"I agree with you," he said, "shooting is the last thing to be done, but
one ought to take every precaution."
The old man frowned, lifting the muscles of his mouth. "If a man has a
gun ready," he said, "he is apt to use it."
The Duke smiled. "I think you can trust me there."
The old man was not convinced, but he formally agreed.
"Very well," he said, "keep the gun out of sight. I am going out now."
Cyrus Childers went over to another table, got a cigar, deliberately bit
off the end, lighted it, pulled a soft hat over his head and went out.
The Duke followed behind him, but at the door, under the light, he
stopped a moment, and put a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher. The
Marchesa Soderrelli and Caroline Childers remained in the library. In
the corridor confused sounds, coming from outside, were audible, and
another window in the stairway broke. The old man gave these things no
visible attention; he neither lagged nor hurried. A few minutes before
he had closed the door of the château; he stopped now, drew the bolts,
and threw it open. Then he stepped up into the full light of the door,
and stood looking calmly out. The Duke, bare-headed, stepped up beside
him, holding the rifle with one hand behind his back.
Outside a crowd of figures, scattered over the court, drew together and
advanced toward the door. It was possible, under so bright a moon,
to observe these persons distinctly, and the Duke of Dorset was not
reassured by what he saw. They were the scum of Japan; a mob such as
the devil, selecting at his leisure, might have put together--dirty,
uncouth, a considerable mob, reinforced every moment by others entering
the northern border of the court in little groups of perhaps half a
dozen. The ones nearest to the château were servants, but foresters were
beginning to arrive, equally sinister, equally repulsive to the eye. The
mob, drawing together by a common instinct, stopped about fifty paces
from the door, hesitated and chattered. At the distance the Duke could
not catch the words, but he recognized the language in which they were
uttered.
Cyrus Childers spoke then to the Duke beside him.
"I am going out to talk to these people," he said. "Please remain here."
He spoke without turning his face. Then he stepped down into the court
and walked as he had walked through the corridor, deliberately, with
unconcern, out to the mob waiting in the middle of the court. The voices
died down and ceased as he approached. The moving figures stopped on
their feet. The old man walked on until he came up close to the mob;
then he took the cigar out of his mouth and began to speak. At the
distance the Duke could not hear what he said; he seemed to address
certain individuals and, now and then, to put a question.
The Duke stood gripping the stock of his rifle, expecting the man to be
attacked. But instead the mob seemed brought to reason; it was wholly
silent and, the Duke thought, wholly motionless. The old man talked for
perhaps five minutes. Then he put his cigar back into his mouth, made a
gesture with his hand like a speaker dismissing an audience, turned and
began to walk back leisurely to the château. He had covered perhaps half
the distance, when a single voice crashed out of this mob, loud, harsh,
grating.
At the cry the mob surged forward as at a signal. The Duke of Dorset
brought the rifle from behind him, like a flash, to his shoulder. He saw
the mob hang a moment on its toes. He heard in several dialects shouted
assurance that the gun was harmless. Then, hoping to drive the mob back
by the exposure of its error, he fired close over it, so the whistle of
the bullets could be heard. But the whole mass was already on the way.
It rushed, hurling a shower of missiles. The Duke, struck violently, was
thrown back against the door; he heard a scattering popping, as of twigs
snapping in a fire, and a clattering of stones against the wall.
Then he got on his feet and understood what had happened. The mob had
charged, believing the gun useless; had discovered the error on the way,
and was now running for cover to the stables. A stake, thrown by
some gigantic arm, had struck across the gun barrel, which he had
involuntarily raised to protect his body, and the violent impact of the
blow had carried him against the door. His fire had failed to check the
rush of the mob in time. It had passed over the old man before it broke.
He lay out there on the trampled turf, one arm doubled under him.
The Duke thrust a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher and stepped
out into the court. But no man, in the crowd scurrying to cover, turned.
They vanished like rats into a wall. The Duke crossed the court, reached
the body of the old man, took it up, and began to return with it to the
house. Then, from somewhere about the stables, that irregular popping
began. The Duke saw, or thought he saw, a hand holding a pistol thrust
out from the partly open door of a horse stall. He stopped, put down
the body, swung the muzzle of the Mannlicher on the spot and fired; a
fragment of the door as big as a man's hand detached itself and flew
into splinters. The popping instantly ceased, and the Duke went on into
the château, unmolested, with his burden.
He laid the body down on the floor, closed and bolted the doors of the
château, then he stooped down to examine the body. The old man seemed
quite dead, but he could not at once locate the injury. He felt over the
body; he looked for blood; then he put his hand under the head and the
whole of the occipital bone, at the base of the skull, was soft to the
touch. The man had been killed instantly by a stone or the blow of a
club.
When he looked up from this examination, both Caroline Childers and the
Marchesa So-derrelli were standing beside him. The girl was pressing her
hands together, and jerking them in and out against her bosom. But she
was not speaking a word. The face of the Mar-chesa retained its unmoving
aspect of plaster. The Duke arose and spoke to the Marchesa.
"Why did you not keep her in the library? I feared this might happen."
"They are coming that way, too," she answered, "up the hill from the
river."
"How many?"
"I don't know. Hundreds! I don't know." The Duke stepped swiftly to the
door and looked out through one of the side windows. Groups of figures
were hurrying into the service portion of the house. He turned quickly
from the window and started down the corridor toward that end of the
château. He had not gone a dozen steps when he stopped. Smoke met him!
It had been presently clear to the Duke of Dorset that the little party
ought somehow to get out of the château. He could not hold it against
this rising, especially when led by servants familiar with every door
and window. He might hold a detached tower of it, or a certain passage.
But to make such a stand was to put all into a corner, with every way
out presently cut off. Against mere assault, such a plan was to be
considered, but now, against fire, it was wholly out of the question.
Moreover, no time was to be lost. The service portion of the house had
already been entered and the park leading to the river occupied. The
only directions offering a safe exit were on the road south, leading
down through the meadow land, westward to the coast, or directly across
the court, up the stone steps into the mountain. This latter seemed
the better way out. But to cross the court from the door was not to be
thought of; the little party would be instantly seen, and an open target
over every step of the way.
The Duke returned to the window by the door. Caroline Childers was on
her knees by the body of the old man, the tears were streaming down her
face. The Marchesa Soderrelli walked up and down with a short nervous
stride. When the Duke looked through the window, he saw instantly a way
out. The wall bordering the formal gardens ran from the south wing of
the château along the court; they could cross, behind the cover of that,
to where the road entered. There the distance to the stone steps was
short, and once on these steps the vines would screen them, and they
might go unobserved into the mountain.
But this way remained only for that moment open. The vines moved and the
Duke saw, indistinctly, a man standing at the bottom of these steps. He
watched a moment to see if others came that way, but no others followed.
The man remained alone, watching the château through the heavy border
of vines. This evidently was a sentinel, and a plan, on the instant,
suggested itself to the Duke of Dorset. He broke a corner out of the
window with the muzzle of the rifle, thrust the barrel through, and
brought the gun to his shoulder. Then a thing happened, by chance, and
to the eye trivial. A black beetle, sleeping there against the sash,
aroused by the breaking glass, crept over from its place onto the gun
barrel; the Duke put out his hand to brush the creature out of the line
of sight, but the beetle ran along the barrel to the muzzle. The Duke
slipped the gun back under his arm and brushed the insect off. But he
had no longer time to remain at the window.
A crashing sound, as of a door rammed with a heavy timber, echoed
through the corridor.