Captains and the Kings

by Taylor Caldwell

  Joseph's first thought, a prudent one, was to run either back to his room and try to lock the door against this madman, or race down the stairs to the study and the protection of Mr. Healey, for he was not foolhardy and he knew he was no physical match for this enraged and raging beast who had killed many times before, and who surely meant to kill him. But Bill was quicker now. He had whined softly in his throat as his fist had crashed into the wall. However, the pain made him wilder and more terrible. He was on Joseph in an instant, his hands reaching for the young man's throat. His thumbs sank into Joseph's flesh, and Joseph felt his breath stopped and the agony of his almost crushed windpipe. He flailed out, beating his attacker on the shoulders with his fists, and Bill whined again with ecstatic delight and pressed Joseph closer to the wall, his blood lust making him lick his lips. I am murdered, thought Joseph, as flecks of bloody light and stars sparkled before him and he struggled to breathe. Darkness began to close in about him. He felt his body collapsing, sinking, his knees buckling. Then, just as he fell to the floor the dreadful pressure on his throat was released, and his head swam in mingled dusk and shadow. He knelt there, gasping, clawing at his throat, heaving great breaths of air, groaning. He did not see Miss Emmy, numb and stunned, standing in her doorway, nor the figure of Mrs. Murray, elatedly watching from a distance. He was concerned only with living. Then he heard muffled but violent movement. He could raise his head now and dimly see. And he saw an astonishing sight. He saw the huge figure of Bill Strickland staggering dangerously close to the stairway, and perched on his back and beating him like a savage monkey-small in comparison with the giant-was Harry Zeff. He rode Bill Strickland like a jockey, his curly head rising above the other man's, his sturdy fists rising and falling on face, nose, ear, forehead, his fingers sometimes clutching a feature and wrenching it, and sometimes tearing at handfuls of hair. Joseph pushed himself to his feet, and leaned against the wall, and watched, incredulous. Strickland tried to free himself from his torturing and antic burden, whose legs were wrapped agilely around his trunklike waist. Blood streamed down Bill's face. He actually danced. Harry leaned down and bit him savagely in the side of his neck. That drove Bill to greater madness. He reached behind him, seized Harry's short legs, tore the youth from his body and hurled him to the floor. He then raised an immense boot to kick him in the side of the head. Joseph forgot his own weakness, the gasping of his breath, his trembling legs and shaking body. He was on Bill in an instant. He caught him by the neck just as the foot came down and smashed harmlessly beside Harry's shrinking head. He had pulled the brute at the very instant before he could have brought his foot down on Harry, and so Bill was off balance, and stumbling, with Joseph facing him, and Joseph still holding him desperately. Now Bill Strickland's back faced the long stairway and his heels teetered on the edge of the first step downwards. He rocked a little, tried to grasp Joseph not only to take him but to save himself. It was then, for the first time in his life, that Joseph felt the absolute desire to kill, to demolish, to destroy, another man, and it was like a sweet if frightful exultation in him. Kill or be killed! something sang in his ear. Pure instinct made him loosen Bill for an instant then pound his fists against the other's broad chest. He punched with all his strength, with all his desire, evading the grasping hands of the other man. He kicked at the big knee. Bill's arms now began to describe great pinwheels in the empty air. He was fast losing all balance that remained to him.

  Then he uttered a loud hoarse roar of terror. Joseph pressed him harder. He kicked again. The wheeling arms became frantic. And then the large heavy body tilted backwards and downwards, lifted into the air as if bouncing, then fell to the stairs, raised again, bounced, rolled down the final stairs and crashed with a thunderous sound to the floor below, the legs and arms sprawling, the head broken. The study door was flung open, and light gushed into the hall, and Mr. Healey appeared, a cigar in his hand. "What the hell!" he shouted. "What is going on here!" He paused, and saw Bill Strickland silent and bleeding not far from him on the floor. "Bill!" he shouted. He came into the hall, walking slowly and carefully, disbelieving, and he stared down at the obviously dead man from whose lips there was trickling a thin red stream. "By God," he said, in a soft, hushed voice. "Jaysus. Bill." He stood there for several stunned seconds. Then he looked up. He saw Joseph standing there, gasping, and Harry Zeff, holding Joseph's arm like a younger brother. He saw Joseph clutching the bannister, his head bent. But their eyes met in silence. A door softly closed. Miss Emmy had retreated. "Did you push him, Joe?" asked Mr. Healey, not loudly, not accusingly. "Yes," said Joseph, and his voice was hoarse and ragged. It was at that moment that Mrs. Murray appeared behind Joseph, and she screamed down at her employer. "Mr. Healey! This ragamuffin was ahugging and kissing Miss Emmy and trying to pull her into your own bedroom! Your own bedroom, Mister! And Bill here tried to stop him and he threw him down the stairs and murdered him!" "Is that so?" said Mr. Healey, still in that soft and half-wondering tone. He looked down at the dead man, studying him as if he had never seen him before. Then, ponderously, he began to walk up the stairs, looking again at Joseph's face, looking at him directly, never wavering. He mounted steadily, without haste, without a quickening of breath, and watched only Joseph, who stepped back a little to give him room at the top. "Now, tell me," he said. Then he glanced at the door and raised his voice a little. "Miss Emmy! You come right out here, fast as you can! Hear me?" The door opened very reluctantly, and Miss Emmy, white with fright and fear, stood on the threshold, quaking, her hands against her mouth, her eyes fixed on Mr. Healey, dilated and wide. He gave her only a quick look, and turned to Joseph again and repeated: "Now, tell me." "I told you, sir!" shrieked Mrs. Murray, raising fists as if to pummel Joseph's bent back, for he was spent and had to cling to the bannister, and his head had dropped. "He tried to take Miss Emmy, there, back in your room, dragging her, kind of, and Bill-" It was Harry who interrupted her frenzied cries. He said to Mr. Healey, "That's a lie, sir. Joe had just left me. Then I wanted to tell him something, and followed him into the hall. And we both saw that man of yours there, that Bill, attacking Miss Emmy and trying to drag her back into her bedroom. Joe jumped him. But Joe isn't that strong, so I jumped Bill, too, right on his back." He held out his blood-stained fingers for Mr. Healey to see. "But he got me, though. He pulled me off his back and tried to stomp me while I lay on the floor, and Joe caught him again and pushed him away, and he went right for Joe's throat-you can see the marks for yourself-and Joe shoved him. And he fell down the stairs. All by himself." The elfish face was earnest and absolutely sincere, but Mr. Healey was not quite deceived. He was still watching Joseph. "Is it true, son?" he asked. Joseph said, without lifting his head, "It is true, sir." "Lies! Liars!" cried Mrs. Murray. "He been after Miss Emmy for a long time! I saw it, myself. He thought he saw his chance tonight, and with fyou, sir, right down there, in your own house, and he not having any