A Modern Mercenary

by K. Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh Prichard

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  DUKE GUSTAVE.

  Whatever may be said to the contrary, the fact remains that a littleindependent success acts on a morally weak man as a glass of wine upon aphysically weak one. For a time it exalts and quickens him.

  Duke Gustave of Maasau was in a condition of mental exhilaration, andexperiencing to the full the false sensation of strength thus createdwhen Sagan was announced. Selpdorf, who had been listening for someminutes to his master's self-gratulations on the newly ratified Britishcontract rose as if to take his departure.

  'Wait, Selpdorf!' the Duke said.

  'My lord has asked for a private interview, your Highness,' Selpdorfreminded him.

  'Yes, but I have no private affairs to discuss with my cousin. Anythingthat need be said between us is better said before a witness,' repliedthe Duke. 'How do you suppose he will take the news of our agreementwith England?'

  Selpdorf's answer was slow in coming, and before he spoke Count Saganstrode into the room. He carried a sheaf of papers; his imperious temperwas wont to rush every business through to which he put his hand.

  'I begged for a few moments in private with your Highness,' he said,with a glance at the Minister.

  'Our good Selpdorf is too discreet to be considered a third,' answeredthe Duke blandly. 'He knows our secrets without being told them. Prayproceed, my lord; is there anything I can do for you?'

  'Yes, sire; I wish to lay before you the matter I was forced to postponeat the Castle. I also made use of the opportunity to bring one or twopapers relating to the Guard for signature.'

  The Duke took the papers. He was seated at a writing-table, and heglanced carelessly over them as Sagan went on.

  'Under your approval those papers include Lieutenant Unziar'sappointment as captain, vice Colendorp----'

  'Deceased,' put in the Duke with a sharp significance.

  Sagan frowned. Gustave had a curious alertness about him to-night.

  'Yes, poor fellow! We can ill spare him,' he said. 'Also we have agreedto propose Abenfeldt as junior subaltern.'

  'I have no objection,' the Duke said.

  'As for the other subject upon which I have for some time wished tospeak to you, sire, I am authorised to lay before your Highness certainproposals--'

  'Stop, my lord,' again interrupted the Duke, 'if those proposals haveany reference to von Elmur and his projects for the good of the State, Iabsolutely decline to hear them. What's this?' he had laid aside theupper papers after signature, and was scanning the one below with anexpression of countenance which showed that he liked what he read verylittle.

  Sagan watched him with a deepening frown, the more subtle Selpdorf withcuriosity. At other times it had been the Duke's custom to add hissignature to papers without a glance at their contents. The destiny ofone man is thus often decided by the passing mood of another.

  'What's this about Rallywood?'

  'A bad business, but your Highness's signature makes many a wrongright,' said Sagan, with a clumsy attempt at pleasantry; 'it needs onlythat. You have the pen and ink, sire.'

  'But, by Heaven, not the will!' cried the Duke. 'I will not sign it! Andif I will not, hey?'

  'M. Selpdorf will assure you that it is necessary in the case ofdiscipline,' urged Sagan with a lowering look.

  'And I will assure M. Selpdorf that I am accustomed to make up my ownmind! You know it already, Selpdorf!'

  'I have always known it, sire,' said the supple Chancellor.

  'You will hear my reasons?' asked Sagan angrily.

  The Duke nodded.

  'Captain Rallywood was guilty of gross disobedience of orders. His casehas been laid before a court-martial of his brother officers, and he hasbeen condemned to be shot. The trial has been conducted with justice.'

  'What were Captain Rallywood's orders, then?'

  'He was ordered to carry certain dispatches to the Chancellor, but hecarried them elsewhere for his own purposes.'

  The Duke nodded slowly and half closed his eyes. He remembered a certaindamp morning by the river, when Rallywood had ridden to take orders fromSelpdorf.

  'So you are in this also, Selpdorf?' he said. 'What despatches werethese? Pray tell me frankly. I believe I know something already.'

  'Despatches sent to me from the Frontier, sire.'

  'Which he failed to bring to you. Where then did he take them?'

  The delay and the persistent unexpected questioning of the Dukeirritated Sagan almost beyond endurance. He struck in.

  'Sire, does it matter what he did with them, as we have proof that hedisobeyed orders? That is the point--what need to ask further?' Then, asthe Duke still shook his head, he burst out, 'Well, then, he carriedthem to the British Legation--to his own countrymen, mind you. He wasfalse to his oath as a soldier! He must be shot!'

  Gustave of Maasau was a man who lied much and often, as those of poormoral calibre will. He lied now with zest.

  'So? Although Captain Rallywood acted under my personal instructions,Simon?' he said quietly.

  Sagan sprang to his feet.

  'Yes,' resumed the Duke, warming to his _role_. 'Yes, he acted under myorders, for the despatches were connected with the agreement I havewithin the last hour signed with England, and about which the firstproposals were laid before me at midnight by the British Envoy during myvisit to your Castle!'

  'What?' shouted Sagan, as his house of cards fell about him. 'You lie,Gustave! And Germany? Selpdorf, we hold your promises! It is impossibleto think this to be true?'

  'It is true,' said the Chancellor. 'I beg you will recollect that hisHighness is present, my lord. This excitement----'

  Sagan stood gasping and staring. His passion seemed to choke him as hestood, but the Duke, still exalted by the sense of triumph and power,mistook the silence for speechless humiliation. His temper rose as theother's seemed to sink.

  'You can deceive me no more, my lord Sagan!' he cried in a high excitedvoice. 'You took Colendorp from me, you would now take Rallywood, oneby one all my faithful Guard! But I am sovereign still! You shall nottamper any longer with my loyal State; you shall never bring yourtraitorous German schemes to an issue!'

  But there were things impossible for Count Simon of Sagan to endure.Never before had he been twitted with impotence and failure. He couldnot survive so utter a defeat. A man to bear these things must be lessthorough than the Count. He was too fierce, too imperious, to bear sogreat a reverse. If he must be put to shame before the world, if even apaltry captain of the Guard were to be permitted to negative his will,why then life had best be over!

  He seemed to struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his passionleaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at theDuke--the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with histongue! The old hate fired the new fury as he clutched Gustave.

  The Duke gave a shrill feeble cry, not such a cry as one would haveexpected from a man of his age, and then Selpdorf was between themshouting for the Guard.

  'You false hound!' Sagan gnashed his teeth in Selpdorf's face as theChancellor threw himself upon him.

  Shouts and shots, and the wild turmoil of a deadly struggle. Then theGuard had secured Sagan. The Duke stood trembling and incoherent,leaning upon the table, and between them, face downwards on the floor,the Chancellor with a bullet in his groin and for once playing a _role_he had not prepared.

  Sagacious, supple, self-seeking, yet not utterly seared, in the lastresort he offered up his life for the master he had almost betrayed.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  FOR A SEASON.

  Queens Fain lies upon the inner edge of Lincolnshire, in an undulatingcountryside amongst great old trees, where of an evening the sun throwsbars of light across the levels of turf, where homing rooks fly inscattered lines against a gleaming sky, the air breathes coolness andpeace, and the scene lays that ineffable spell upon the heart of whichonly the exile can ever know the full pathetic power.

  Round the house tall fences of yew and ho
lly fend off the colder winds.On an evening in early spring Rallywood and Counsellor strolled underthe shelter of a massive black wall of yew. The daffodils were blowingabout the border of the lake below them, and along the distant hedgesfurry catkins were already nodding and floating on the crisp breeze.

  'I have found it necessary once or twice before to say that you were afool, John,' said Counsellor, looking up at a corner of the greatstone-built mansion, its cold aspect yellowed and mellowed by thestrengthening sunshine.

  'Always or on occasion?' Rallywood laughed easily.

  'Mostly. You will not leave the Guard. If I were you I should goto-morrow. Marry the girl as soon as she will let you, and bring herhere. Then sit down and shoot partridges. She will like it. It is betterthan Maasau.'

  'It is altogether good to own the old place again,' Rallywood said, 'andwe'll do our duty by the partridges, Major, you and I, I hope,by-and-by, but to do that and nothing else--not yet!'

  'You've stalked bigger game and that has spoilt you,' grumbled theMajor. 'After Count Sagan, partridges pall. Yet it is a pity.'

  'I shall bring Valerie here sometimes, of course. I think she'll likethe old place almost as much as I do.'

  'More, since it is the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' saidCounsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeservingbeggar! So Selpdorf's gone. A queer compound.'

  'His death redeemed--much,' said Rallywood, shortly.

  'Yes,' Counsellor puffed out a great cloud of smoke, 'yes, but we haveno reason to forget the fact that he was very ready to secure himself ata heavy cost to you.'

  'For the sake of Maasau,' interposed Rallywood.

  'Hum--for the sake of Maasau! And you were an inconvenient personalityalso. Well, well, let it pass. But it was touch and go with you, John,for no one could have foreseen that shaky old Gustave would rise to theoccasion as he did. And what has he done for you after all?'

  'He saved my life first, and gave me the Gold Star of Maasauafterwards,' said Rallywood, 'an honour which I share with somemonarchs--and Major Counsellor.'

  'Dirt cheap, too!' grunted Counsellor. 'I hear that Madame de Sagan sentyou a very neat congratulation.

  "A genoux sur la terre Nous rendons graces a Dieu Et nous lui faisons voeux D'une double priere."

  You can take your own meaning out of it,' ended the Major.

  'And the people being chiefly malicious will take the wrong one.'

  'That is as it may be. But for you I hope a fine morning will follow thestormy evening. You will grow fat and selfish, John, like many a betterman.'

  Rallywood smiled. He was thinking of a certain elderly diplomat who,rumour said, had been moved out of his usual composure on one occasiononly. It was at the moment when he heard that Captain Rallywood of theMaasaun Guard was sentenced to be shot.

  'By the way,' resumed Counsellor, 'did I tell you that I saw von Elmuryesterday at Charing Cross? He said he was starting for Constantinople.I bade him good-bye, but he corrected me, "Au revoir, my dear Major,"and kissed the tips of his fingers to me as the train passed. So perhapsthe end is not yet.'

  'God bless the present!' said Rallywood.

  And while they walk and talk over the past and the future in thepleasant places of England, the surf is beating round an island off theMaasaun coast, upon which a storm-stricken fortification has beenadapted to the use of a certain political prisoner, Count Simon ofSagan. There he frets, and schemes, and longs through the endlessafternoons. He does not accept his destiny as final, his hopes areunimpaired, his resolves as strong as in the old keen days at Sagan. Heclings to a blind conviction that Time and the Man must inevitably meettogether, and he lives for that meeting.

  There, too, Anthony Unziar serves his country and his sovereign,relentlessly watchful through the dead monotony of the days. At his ownurgent request he was given charge of the lonely prison, its solitudeappearing to him the one bearable condition of life. He has his work todo and he does it well, and always between Count Sagan and his dreamsstands the irrevocable figure of the young Maasaun.

  Sometimes Sagan taunts him with his hopeless love, but he only answersby a look. And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find theother standing up against him--the fierce imbruted prisoner with hisroyal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.

  They are waiting. They have each his dream. Sagan's of empire andrevenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, aman who could never be compelled to cry 'Enough' to evil fortune.

  Sometimes deep in the night, while the two enemies play their long gamestogether, Sagan flings down the cards and laughs and speaks of anothergame which will find its conclusion in the dim paths of the future. ButUnziar only smiles. If that day should ever come it will find him ready.But to-day is not to-morrow, and 'God bless the present!' as Rallywoodsaid.