A Modern Mercenary

by K. Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh Prichard

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  THE COURT-MARTIAL.

  It has been the privilege of one or two famous Gardes du Corps to be alaw unto themselves. The Guard of Maasau shares that privilege. Theinquiry or rather trial was to be held within closed doors, and by theexpress order of the colonel-in-chief all the officers, including thosejunior to the prisoner, were to be present. And every officer present onsuch occasions had the right to vote. The procedure was simple. When thewitnesses had been examined the accused was invited to speak in his owndefence, then the senior officer summed up and lastly the officersrecorded their votes.

  Rallywood's offence had outraged the fundamental principle of the Guard,the blind self-sacrificing obedience which in trivial as in vitalmatters demanded the merging of the private individual with hopes andconscience of his own into the body corporate of the Guard. With thesingle exception of Unziar, no man present was acquainted with thedetails of Rallywood's crime. They knew only that he had grosslydisobeyed orders, and not only that, but had disobeyed them for thefurtherance of private ambition. So the charge against him intimated. Itwas understood that the accusation had been lodged by Count Sagan inconsequence of information received by him, and the court-martial atonce assembled to deal with the matter.

  The original prejudice against Rallywood as a foreigner and aninterloper was revived, with all the more bitterness because the men hadin the interval come to respect if not to like him. They resented thedeception they believed to have been practised upon them with therancour of those who find they have not only been played upon but madetools of. Rallywood had gained his position among them by falsepretences to serve his own ends--gained it to betray them.

  But more than this, he had dishonoured the Guard, brought the first blotof treachery upon its long and unblemished traditions. Hereditaryinstincts inbred and powerful were arrayed against him in the hearts ofsix of his judges; in the seventh, Count Sagan, he had to encounter theill-blood of a profoundly vindictive nature whose purposes he hadcrossed and baffled, and who harboured towards him a savage personalhatred.

  It must be understood that so far no hint of the arrangement withEngland had been allowed to transpire. The engagement to be given byMaasau in return for the promised British loan and moral support was intrain for completion, but the final signature was not to take place tillthat afternoon. Meantime the Chancellor kept a still tongue in his headand waited upon events, knowing that when all transpired theresponsibility could be shifted on to the shoulders of the Duke. It wasa risky game, but M. Selpdorf had played many another--and won them all.At the same time he had no intention of putting out his hand to saveRallywood, whose disappearance from the scheme of earthly affairs wouldremove an awkward cause of disagreement from the range of his own familycircle. Yet it must be admitted that M. Selpdorf really regretted thatthe necessities of the case required the sacrifice of the Englishman,for whom his former abstract liking remained entirely unaltered.

  The doors of the great mess-room were closed, for within them thecourt-martial was in progress. At the central table seven men with themarks of power upon them were gathered. Above them the torn banners ofthe regiment hung in the red gloom of the dome, but about the menthemselves the gray-white light of a winter day fell from the riverwardwindows. It seemed to dull even the red glow of the hangings, that coldlight, which lent to the faces of those assembled a strange effect ofpallor.

  It is a common experience that silence in a place associated in the mindwith voices and the movement and sounds of life has a weird andimpressive effect. Enter an empty church and you are chilled; hear awill read in the room which you connect with laughter and the genialroutine of everyday events, and the uncanny quiet, falling away from thesingle voice, benumbs you. Thus in the mess-room, where music andlaughter and the hubbub of men's talking usually resounded, the unwontedstillness, broken only by the piercing wail of the _tsa_, struck coldlyand heavily upon the senses.

  Count Sagan, his big chest covered with gold-lace and orders, loomed atthe head of the table, Wallenloup and Ulm to his right and left, Adiron,Unziar, Adolf and Varanheim seated according to their rank. At the footof the table in the uniform of the Guard but without a sword stood theprisoner.

  One man present was a complete stranger to Rallywood--Major Ulm, who hadjust returned from leave, and whose keen eyes set in a thin shaven facescrutinised him coldly. Behind Ulm's bald forehead dwelt most of thesagacity and discretion of the Guard. Strongly as his prejudices wereexcited he could not avoid being struck by the bearing of the prisoner.

  There was a cold fierceness about the men of the Guard, but Rallywoodstood unmoved under the many hostile eyes.

  A court-martial, where the prisoner is condemned, is perhaps the mostawful scene of justice upon earth. This is so because it contains withinitself elements that edge its painfulness. The judges wield not only thepower of death, but the power of putting a man to utter shame. Theprisoners who stand at such a tribunal may be credited with thecapability, given to them by training if not by nature, of feelingshame. And the capability of suffering shame is as distinct a quality asthe sense of honour.

  Count Sagan glared round the table, and the aspect of his colleaguespleased him; they felt under his rough imagination like a sword whosetemper the fighter is sure of. There was a horrible energy, a furiousrelentlessness about his very attitude and ringing in his voice thatdrove every word of his accusation into and through his hearers. Aspresident he put questions to the prisoner, who answered them unmoved.

  Rallywood fronted them calm and soldierlike, the picture of a gallantdespair. He felt as though he stood clear of his life. It was lived andthe end in sight. His position was hard, but he seemed to be ready tosay Amen to whatever the fates might send. He had no thought ofstruggling for life and love. He was far otherwise. He was one whoselove is hopeless, whose loved one is lost as though in death, and wholives through the present dream according to an ideal, the ideal ofbeing worthy of the vanished past.

  Unziar alone looked stonily blank, but the other grim faces round thetable regarded Rallywood with a sort of satisfaction. He had sinnedagainst them, but they were about to make him pay the highest humanpenalty for his sin. Yet to Ulm his demeanour was suggestive. There wassomething eloquent of singleness of heart and nobleness that seemed tobuoy up this man with his broken honour. There was no parade ofoutraged innocence, nothing but a fearless reserve.

  Rallywood hardly heard the grave voices that discussed his fate,stirring as they did so the clogging quiet which hung with such solemneffect over the historic room.

  Those lofty walls had never before echoed to a similar charge or a likedisgrace. The accusation was set forth in general terms. It spoke onlyof a certain prisoner and certain despatches. Rallywood acting undervalid orders, had taken over the despatches from Unziar, and next by afalse telegram to Unziar had ordered the release of a certain prisoner.Also he had used the despatches to forward aims of his own, to the lossand detriment of the Free State of Maasau. Anthony Unziar gave hisevidence briefly and with caution, but it was conclusive.

  After the charge had been completed and proved, a few minutes silenceensued. Then Count Sagan addressed the prisoner.

  'Captain Rallywood, have you anything to say in your own defence?'

  A sudden jarring sense of amusement struck upon Rallywood. They wereplaying a farce; Count Simon, with his mortal enmity, was but acting hispart. The whole procedure was hollow yet he Rallywood would have to givehis life to prove that all this seeming was deadly earnest--that theblustering traitor opposite was not a defeated schemer but a loyal sonof Maasau!

  Rallywood could not repress a quick smile.

  Count Simon flung his fist upon the table.

  'Do you hear me?' he shouted; 'what have you to say in your defence?'

  Rallywood looked him in the eyes.

  'Nothing,' he said.

  There was a hush. Sagan picked up the glances of the officers round him.Rallywood's words had come as a shock. Most of the men expec
ted someattempt if not at a defence at least at a justification of his conduct.

  Sagan's harsh voice was raised again.

  'His sword.'

  Unziar sprang up hurriedly.

  'It is in the ante-room,' he said; 'I will bring it.'

  Sagan rose from his place as Unziar returned with a naked sword in hishand. The Count took it and laid it on the table before him.

  Then standing he addressed the court.

  'Gentlemen of the Guard,--I must thank you in the first place for theadmirable patience with which you have listened to the details of theabominable crime with which the prisoner, John Rallywood, is charged.His guilt has been proved up to the hilt by Lieutenant Unziar'sevidence, but in addition to that the accused was not ashamed to convicthimself out of his own mouth. The sentence upon a traitor as upon amutinous soldier is unalterable. It is death! No doubt, gentlemen, weare unanimously agreed upon that, and the formality of the ballot is allthat is left.'

  The ballot-box stood upon a side-table at the upper end of the room, andbeside it a basket with a number of ivory balls, some black, some white.The officers went up in rotation and each with his back to the companyplaced a ball of the colour he chose in the ballot-box.

  The haggard daylight was fading slowly as the men left their chairs andreturned to them in silence.

  Rallywood waited, not in suspense indeed, but with the full sense thathis fate was being legally recorded by a jury of his fellows. It is atsuch a moment as this that a man goes back to his belief in God. Ifthere is no God, to what end anything? Those who say there is no God saythe world is a sad and very evil place. If their creed were universallyaccepted, the last state of humanity would be worse than the first, andearth degenerate into a hopeless and helpless hell.

  'Six black balls, one white,' announced Major Ulm.

  The prisoner's gray frank eyes flashed out at Unziar, but the Maasaun'srigid face gave no sign.

  Then Count Sagan, secure of his enemy, let himself go. He lifted thesword from the table, and casting one more glance at the prisoner, heplaced the gleaming point upon the floor, bending the delicate blade,and stamping upon it midway with his booted heel. There was a shallowring as the steel broke, then a clash of metal as the Count flung thehilt upon the point, as if the touch contaminated him.

  'John Rallywood, this court has found you guilty and condemned you todie! And I, Count Simon of Sagan, colonel-in-chief of the Guard ofMaasau, now pronounce upon you the sentence of death. Trusted by theGuard, you chose to betray them! Where is the oath of fealty by whichyou swore to obey? We are polluted by your treason, we are tainted byyour shame! Are you afraid to speak? Is your voice frozen in yourthroat? The greater part of your punishment should be in its shame. Butyou cannot feel it! You and shame are strangers--the last infamy of thebase! You are loathsome, a mercenary false to his salt, a hound who soldhimself for money first and for disgraceful gain afterwards! How can Itouch you? Where can I prod you? On what nerve, since the nerve of shameis dead? Like the groom, one could only punish you with a whip. I shalllay the matter before the Duke. I will urge it upon my colleagues,' heswept his arm round the table; 'a hundred with the whip or to run thegauntlet of the Guard. That would touch you more than words, or shame,or death! Ha, that reaches you!' he cried, and then there was a fierceexultation in the raucous volleying words, 'You have disgraced the Guardbut we cannot for reasons of state publicly disgrace you. But you shallbe shot--shot like a dog! You shall not meet death face to face as manya brave man has met it, but you shall be shot, cringing with your backto the gun-muzzles--like the cur you are!'

  Rallywood's pale features had flushed for a second. There was abrutality about Sagan's denunciations which shocked the men around him.Rallywood deserved something, but not this, not that! Unziar's eyesburned, Wallenloup was frowning. But Sagan swept on. He was a man whotrampled horribly upon a fallen foe.

  At last Wallenloup could bear it no longer. He rose to his feet andsaluting the Count led the way from the room, the line closing withRallywood between Adolf and Unziar as guard.

  Left alone in the great dim vaulted chamber, Sagan stood upright andwatched the door through which they had filed out, and there came uponhim in the dying daylight a terrible moment, such as all uncontrollednatures must at times know. A sense of the futility of all things, aknowledge that life has lost its taste, the hideousness of finallybaffled desire.

  He hurled out his heavy arms with a wild gesture.

  'Where have they gone? Where are they, the strong lusts and hates andtriumphs--the satisfactions of the old days? The world has grown puny.It is empty, empty, empty!'