THE LION'S SKIN
By Rafael Sabatini
I. THE FANATIC
II. AT THE "ADAM AND EVE"
III. THE WITNESS
IV. Mr. GREEN
V. MOONSHINE
VI. HORTENSIA'S RETURN
VII. FATHER AND SON
VIII. TEMPTATION
IX. THE CHAMPION
X. SPURS TO THE RELUCTANT
XI. THE ASSAULT-AT-ARMS
XII. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
XIII. THE FORLORN HOPE
XIV. LADY OSTERMORE
XV. LOVE AND RAGE
XVI. Mr. GREEN EXECUTES HIS WARRANT
XVII. AMID THE GRAVES
XVIII. THE GHOST OF THE PAST
XIX. THE END OF LORD OSTERMORE
XX. Mr. CARYLL'S IDENTITY
XXI. THE LION'S SKIN
XXII. THE HUNTERS
XXIII. THE LION
THE LION'S SKIN
CHAPTER I. THE FANATIC
Mr. Caryll, lately from Rome, stood by the window, looking out over therainswept, steaming quays to Notre Dame on the island yonder. Overheadrolled and crackled the artillery of an April thunderstorm, and Mr.Caryll, looking out upon Paris in her shroud of rain, under her pall ofthundercloud, felt himself at harmony with Nature. Over his heart,too, the gloom of storm was lowering, just as in his heart it was stilllittle more than April time.
Behind him, in that chamber furnished in dark oak and leather of a reignor two ago, sat Sir Richard Everard at a vast writing-table all a-litterwith books and papers; and Sir Richard watched his adoptive son withfierce, melancholy eyes, watched him until he grew impatient of thispause.
"Well?" demanded the old baronet harshly. "Will you undertake it,Justin, now that the chance has come?" And he added: "You'll neverhesitate if you are the man I have sought to make you."
Mr. Caryll turned slowly. "It is because I am the man that you--that Godand you--have made me that I do hesitate."
His voice was quiet and pleasantly modulated, and he spoke English withthe faintest slur--perceptible, perhaps, only to the keenest ear--ofa French accent. To ears less keen it would merely seem that hearticulated with a precision so singular as to verge on pedantry.
The light falling full upon his profile revealed the rather singularcountenance that was his own. It was not in any remarkable beauty thatits distinction lay, for by the canons of beauty that prevail it was notbeautiful. The features were irregular and inclined to harshness,the nose was too abruptly arched, the chin too long and square, thecomplexion too pallid. Yet a certain dignity haunted that youthfulface, of such a quality as to stamp it upon the memory of the merestpasser-by. The mouth was difficult to read and full of contradictions;the lips were full and red, and you would declare them the lips of asensualist but for the line of stern, almost grim, determination inwhich they met; and yet, somewhere behind that grimness, there appearedto lurk a haunting whimsicality; a smile seemed ever to impend, butwhether sweet or bitter none could have told until it broke. The eyeswere as remarkable; wide-set and slow-moving, as becomes the eyes of anobservant man, they were of an almost greenish color, and so level intheir ordinary glance as to seem imbued with an uncanny penetration.His hair--he dared to wear his own, and clubbed it in a broad ribbonof watered silk--was almost of the hue of bronze, with here and there aglint of gold, and as luxuriant as any wig.
For the rest, he was scarcely above the middle height, of an almostfrail but very graceful slenderness, and very graceful, too, in allhis movements. In dress he was supremely elegant, with the elegance ofFrance, that in England would be accounted foppishness. He wore a suitof dark blue cloth, with white satin linings that were revealed when hemoved; it was heavily laced with gold, and a ramiform pattern broideredin gold thread ran up the sides of his silk stockings of a paler blue.Jewels gleamed in the Brussels at his throat, and there were diamondbuckles on his lacquered, red-heeled shoes.
Sir Richard considered him with anxiety and some chagrin. "Justin!" hecried, a world of reproach in his voice. "What can you need to ponder?"
"Whatever it may be," said Mr. Caryll, "it will be better that I ponderit now than after I have pledged myself."
"But what is it? What?" demanded the baronet.
"I am marvelling, for one thing, that you should have waited thirtyyears."
Sir Richard's fingers stirred the papers before him in an idle, absentmanner. Into his brooding eyes there leapt the glitter to be seen in theeyes of the fevered of body or of mind.
"Vengeance," said he slowly, "is a dish best relished when 'tis eatencold." He paused an instant; then continued: "I might have crossed toEngland at the time, and slain him. Should that have satisfied me? Whatis death but peace and rest?"
"There is a hell, we are told," Mr. Caryll reminded him.
"Ay," was the answer, "we are told. But I dursn't risk its being falsewhere Ostermore is concerned. So I preferred to wait until I could brewhim such a cup of bitterness as no man ever drank ere he was glad todie." In a quieter, retrospective voice he continued: "Had we prevailedin the '15, I might have found a way to punish him that had been worthyof the crime that calls for it. We did not prevail. Moreover, I wastaken, and transported.
"What think you, Justin, gave me courage to endure the rigors of theplantations, cunning and energy to escape after five such years of it ashad assuredly killed a stronger man less strong of purpose? What but thetask that was awaiting me? It imported that I should live and be freeto call a reckoning in full with my Lord Ostermore before I go to my ownaccount.
"Opportunity has gone lame upon this journey. But it has arrivedat last. Unless--" He paused, his voice sank from the high note ofexaltation to which it had soared; it became charged with dread, as didthe fierce eyes with which he raked his companion's face. "Unless youprove false to the duty that awaits you. And that I'll not believe! Youare your mother's son, Justin."
"And my father's, too," answered Justin in a thick voice; "and the Earlof Ostermore is that same father."
"The more sweetly shall your mother be avenged," cried the other, andagain his eyes blazed with that unhealthy, fanatical light. "Whatfitter than the hand of that poor lady's son to pull your father down inruins?" He laughed short and fiercely. "It seldom chances in this worldthat justice is done so nicely."
"You hate him very deeply," said Mr. Caryll pensively, and the look inhis eyes betrayed the trend of his thoughts; they were of pity--but ofpity at the futility of such strong emotions.
"As deeply as I loved your mother, Justin." The sharp, rugged featuresof that seared old face seemed of a sudden transfigured and softened.The wild eyes lost some of their glitter in a look of wistfulness, as hepondered a moment the one sweet memory in a wasted life, a life wreckedover thirty years ago--wrecked wantonly by that same Ostermore of whomthey spoke, who had been his friend.
A groan broke from his lips. He took his head in his hands, and, elbowson the table, he sat very still a moment, reviewing as in a flash theevents of thirty and more years ago, when he and Viscount Rotherby--asOstermore was then--had been young men at the St. Germain's Court ofJames II.
It was on an excursion into Normandy that they had met Mademoisellede Maligny, the daughter of an impoverished gentleman of the chetivenoblesse of that province. Both had loved her. She had preferred--aswomen will--the outward handsomeness of Viscount Rotherby to the sounderheart and brain that were Dick Everard's. As bold and dominant as anyruffler of them all where men and perils were concerned, young Everardwas timid, bashful and without assertiveness with women. He hadwithdrawn from the contest ere it was well lost, leaving an easy victoryto his friend.
And how had that friend used it? Most foully, as you shall learn.
Leaving Rotherby in Normandy, Everard had returned to Paris. The
affairsof his king gave him cause to cross at once to Ireland. For three yearshe abode there, working secretly in his master's interest, to littlepurpose be it confessed. At the end of that time he returned to Paris.Rotherby was gone. It appeared that his father, Lord Ostermore, hadprevailed upon Bentinck to use his influence with William on the errantyouth's behalf. Rotherby had been pardoned his loyalty to the fallendynasty. A deserter in every sense, he had abandoned the fortunes ofKing James--which in Everard's eyes was bad enough--and he had abandonedthe sweet lady he had fetched out of Normandy six months before hisgoing, of whom it seemed that in his lordly way he was grown tired.
From the beginning it would appear they were ill-matched. It was herbeauty had made appeal to him, even as his beauty had enamoured her.Elementals had brought about their union; and when these elementalsshrank with habit, as elementals will, they found themselves without atie of sympathy or common interest to link them each to the other. Shewas by nature blythe; a thing of sunshine, flowers and music, who craveda very poet for her lover; and by "a poet" I mean not your mere rhymer.He was downright stolid and stupid under his fine exterior; the worsttype of Briton, without the saving grace of a Briton's honor. And so shehad wearied him, who saw in her no more than a sweet loveliness that hadcloyed him presently. And when the chance was offered him by Bentinckand his father, he took it and went his ways, and this sweet flowerthat he had plucked from its Normandy garden to adorn him for a briefsummer's day was left to wilt, discarded.
The tale that greeted Everard on his return from Ireland was that,broken-hearted, she had died--crushed neath her load of shame. For itwas said that there had been no marriage.
The rumor of her death had gone abroad, and it had been carried toEngland and my Lord Rotherby by a cousin of hers--the last livingMaligny--who crossed the channel to demand of that stolid gentlemansatisfaction for the dishonor put upon his house. All the satisfactionthe poor fellow got was a foot or so of steel through the lungs, ofwhich he died; and there, may it have seemed to Rotherby, the matterended.
But Everard remained--Everard, who had loved her with a great and almostsacred love; Everard, who swore black ruin for my Lord Rotherby--therumor of which may also have been carried to his lordship and stimulatedhis activities in having Everard hunted down after the Braemar fiasco of1715.
But before that came to pass Everard had discovered that the rumorof her death was false--put about, no doubt, out of fear of that samecousin who had made himself champion and avenger of her honor. Everardsought her out, and found her perishing of want in an attic in theCour des Miracles some four months later--eight months after Rotherby'sdesertion.
In that sordid, wind-swept chamber of Paris' most abandoned haunt, a sonhad been born to Antoinette de Maligny two days before Everard had comeupon her. Both were dying; both had assuredly died within the week butthat he came so timely to her aid. And that aid he rendered like thenoble-hearted gentleman he was. He had contrived to save his fortunefrom the wreck of James' kingship, and this was safely invested inFrance, in Holland and elsewhere abroad. With a portion of it herepurchased the chateau and estates of Maligny, which on the death ofAntoinette's father had been seized upon by creditors.
Thither he sent her and her child--Rotherby's child--making that nobledomain a christening-gift to the boy, for whom he had stood sponsor atthe font. And he did his work of love in the background. He was the godin the machine; no more. No single opportunity of thanking him did heafford her. He effaced himself that she might not see the sorrow sheoccasioned him, lest it should increase her own.
For two years she dwelt at Maligny in such peace as the broken-heartedmay know, the little of life that was left her irradiated by Everard'snoble friendship. He wrote to her from time to time, now from Italy, nowfrom Holland. But he never came to visit her. A delicacy, which mayor may not have been false, restrained him. And she, respecting whatinstinctively she knew to be his feelings, never bade him come to her.In their letters they never spoke of Rotherby; not once did his namepass between them; it was as if he had never lived or never crossedtheir lives. Meanwhile she weakened and faded day by day, despite allthe care with which she was surrounded. That winter of cold and want inthe Cour des Miracles had sown its seeds, and Death was sharpening hisscythe against the harvest.
When the end was come she sent urgently for Everard. He came at once inanswer to her summons; but he came too late. She died the evening beforehe arrived. But she had left a letter, written days before, against thechance of his not reaching her before the end. That letter, in her fineFrench hand, was before him now.
"I will not try to thank you, dearest friend," she wrote. "For the thingthat you have done, what payment is there in poor thanks? Oh, Everard,Everard! Had it but pleased God to have helped me to a wiser choicewhen it was mine to choose!" she cried to him from that letter, andpoor Everard deemed that the thin ray of joy her words sent through hisanguished soul was payment more than enough for the little that he haddone. "God's will be done!" she continued. "It is His will. He knows whyit is best so, though we discern it not. But there is the boy; thereis Justin. I bequeath him to you who already have done so much for him.Love him a little for my sake; cherish and rear him as your own, andmake of him such a gentleman as are you. His father does not so much asknow of his existence. That, too, is best so, for I would not have himclaim my boy. Never let him learn that Justin exists, unless it be topunish him by the knowledge for his cruel desertion of me."
Choking, the writing blurred by tears that he accounted no disgrace tohis young manhood, Everard had sworn in that hour that Justin shouldbe as a son to him. He would do her will, and he set upon it a moredefinite meaning than she intended. Rotherby should remain in ignoranceof his son's existence until such season as should make the knowledge avery anguish to him. He would rear Justin in bitter hatred of the foulvillain who had been his father; and with the boy's help, when the timeshould be ripe, he would lay my Lord Rotherby in ruins. Thus should mylord's sin come to find him out.
This Everard had sworn, and this he had done. He had told Justin thestory almost as soon as Justin was of an age to understand it. He hadrepeated it at very frequent intervals, and as the lad grew, Everardwatched in him--fostering it by every means in his power--the growth ofhis execration for the author of his days, and of his reverence for thesweet, departed saint that had been his mother.
For the rest, he had lavished Justin nobly for his mother's sake. Therepurchased estates of Maligny, with their handsome rent roll, remainedJustin's own, administered by Sir Richard during the lad's minority andvastly enriched by the care of that administration. He had sent thelad to Oxford, and afterwards--the more thoroughly to complete hiseducation--on a two years' tour of Europe; and on his return, a grownand cultured man, he had attached him to the court in Rome of thePretender, whose agent he was himself in Paris.
He had done his duty by the boy as he understood his duty, always withthat grim purpose of revenge for his horizon. And the result had been astranger compound than even Everard knew, for all that he knew thelad exceedingly well. For he had scarcely reckoned sufficiently uponJustin's mixed nationality and the circumstance that in soul and mindhe was entirely his mother's child, with nothing--or an imperceptiblelittle--of his father. As his mother's nature had been, so wasJustin's--joyous. But Everard's training of him had suppressed allinborn vivacity. The mirth and diablerie that were his birthright hadbeen overlaid with British phlegm, until in their stead, and throughthe blend, a certain sardonic humor had developed, an ironical attitudetoward all things whether sacred or profane. This had been helped onby culture, and--in a still greater measure--by the odd training inworldliness which he had from Everard. His illusions were shattered erehe had cut his wisdom teeth, thanks to the tutelage of Sir Richard,who in giving him the ugly story of his own existence, taught him themisanthropical lesson that all men are knaves, all women fools. Hedeveloped, as a consequence, that sardonic outlook upon the world. Hesought to take vos non vobis for his motto, affec
ted to a spectator inthe theatre of Life, with the obvious result that he became the greatestactor of them all.
So we find him even now, his main emotion pity for Sir Richard, who satsilent for some moments, reviewing that thirty-year dead past, untilthe tears scalded his old eyes. The baronet made a queer noise inhis throat, something between a snarl and a sob, and he flung himselfsuddenly back in his chair.
Justin sat down, a becoming gravity in his countenance. "Tell me all,"he begged his adoptive father. "Tell me how matters stand precisely--howyou propose to act."
"With all my heart," the baronet assented. "Lord Ostermore, havingturned his coat once for profit, is ready now to turn it again for thesame end. From the information that reaches me from England, it wouldappear that in the rage of speculation that has been toward in London,his lordship has suffered heavily. How heavily I am not prepared to say.But heavily enough, I dare swear, to have caused this offer to return tohis king; for he looks, no doubt, to sell his services at a price thatwill help him mend the wreckage of his fortunes. A week ago a gentlemanwho goes between his majesty's court at Rome and his friends here inParis brought me word from his majesty that Ostermore had signified tohim his willingness to rejoin the Stuart cause.
"Together with that information, this messenger brought me letters fromhis majesty to several of his friends, which I was to send to Englandby a safe hand at the first opportunity. Now, amongst theseletters--delivered to me unsealed--is one to my Lord Ostermore, makinghim certain advantageous proposals which he is sure to accept if hiscircumstances be as crippled as I am given to understand. Atterbury andhis friends, it seems, have already tampered with my lord's loyalty toDutch George to some purpose, and there is little doubt but that thisletter"--and he tapped a document before him--"will do what else is tobe done.
"But, since these letters were left with me, come you with his majesty'sfresh injunctions that I am to suppress them and cross to England atonce myself, to prevail upon Atterbury and his associates to abandon theundertaking."
Mr. Caryll nodded. "Because, as I have told you," said he, "King Jamesin Rome has received positive information that in London the plot isalready suspected, little though Atterbury may dream it. But what hasthis to do with my Lord Ostermore?"
"This," said Everard slowly, leaning across toward Justin, and layinga hand upon his sleeve. "I am to counsel the Bishop to stay his handagainst a more favorable opportunity. There is no reason why you shouldnot do the very opposite with Ostermore."
Mr. Caryll knit his brows, his eyes intent upon the other's face; but hesaid no word.
"It is," urged Everard, "an opportunity such as there may never beanother. We destroy Ostermore. By a turn of the hand we bring him to thegallows." He chuckled over the word with a joy almost diabolical.
"But how--how do we destroy him?" quoth Justin, who suspected yet darednot encourage his suspicions.
"How? Do you ask how? Is't not plain?" snapped Sir Richard, and whathe avoided putting into words, his eloquent glance made clear to hiscompanion.
Mr. Caryll rose a thought quickly, a faint flush stirring in his cheeks,and he threw off Everard's grasp with a gesture that was almost ofrepugnance. "You mean that I am to enmesh him...."
Sir Richard smiled grimly. "As his majesty's accredited agent," heexplained. "I will equip you with papers. Word shall go ahead of you toOstermore by a safe hand to bid him look for the coming of a messengerbearing his own family name. No more than that; nothing that canbetray us; yet enough to whet his lordship's appetite. You shall bethe ambassador to bear him the tempting offers from the king. You willobtain his answers--accepting. Those you will deliver to me, and I shalldo the trifle that may still be needed to set the rope about his neck."
A little while there was silence. Outside, the rain, driven by gusts,smote the window as with a scourge. The thunder was grumbling in thedistance now. Mr. Caryll resumed his chair. He sat very thoughtful,but with no emotion showing in his face. British stolidity was in theascendant with him then. He felt that he had the need of it.
"It is... ugly," he said at last slowly.
"It is God's own will," was the hot answer, and Sir Richard smote thetable.
"Has God taken you into His confidence?" wondered Mr. Caryll.
"I know that God is justice."
"Yet is it not written that 'vengeance is His own'?"
"Aye, but He needs human instruments to execute it. Such instruments arewe. Can you--Oh, can you hesitate?"
Mr. Caryll clenched his hands hard. "Do it," he answered through setteeth. "Do it! I shall approve it when 'tis done. But find other handsfor the work, Sir Richard. He is my father."
Sir Richard remained cool. "That is the argument I employ for insistingupon the task being yours," he replied. Then, in a blaze ofpassion, he--who had schooled his adoptive son so ably inself-control--marshalled once more his arguments. "It is your duty toyour mother to forget that he is your father. Think of him only as theman who wronged your mother; the man to whom her ruined life, her earlydeath are due--her murderer and worse. Consider that. Your father, yousay!" He mocked almost. "Your father! In what is he your father? Youhave never seen him; he does not know that you exist, that you everexisted. Is that to be a father? Father, you say! A word, a name--nomore than that; a name that gives rise to a sentiment, and a sentimentis to stand between you and your clear duty; a sentiment is to set aprotecting shield over the man who killed your mother!
"I think I shall despise you, Justin, if you fail me in this. I havelived for it," he ran on tempestuously. "I have reared you for it, andyou shall not fail me!"
Then his voice dropped again, and in quieter tones
"You hate the very name of John Caryll, Earl of Ostermore," said he, "asmust every decent man who knows the truth of what the life of that satyrholds. If I have suffered you to bear his name, it is to the end that itshould remind you daily that you have no right to it, that you have noright to any name."
When he said that he thrust his finger consciously into a raw wound. Hesaw Justin wince, and with pitiless cunning he continued to prod thattender place until he had aggravated the smart of it into a very agony.
"That is what you owe your father; that is the full extent of what liesbetween you--that you are of those at whom the world is given to sneerand point scorn's ready finger."
"None has ever dared," said Mr. Caryll.
"Because none has ever known. We have kept the secret well. You displayno coat of arms that no bar sinister may be displayed. But the timemay come when the secret must out. You might, for instance, think ofmarrying a lady of quality, a lady of your own supposed station. Whatshall you tell her of yourself? That you have no name to offer her; thatthe name you bear is yours by assumption only? Ah! That brings home yourown wrongs to you, Justin! Consider them; have them ever present in yourmind, together with your mother's blighted life, that you may not shrinkwhen the hour strikes to punish the evildoer."
He flung himself back in his chair again, and watched the younger manwith brooding eye. Mr. Caryll was plainly moved. He had paled a little,and he sat now with brows contracted and set teeth.
Sir Richard pushed back his chair and rose, recapitulating. "He is yourmother's destroyer," he said, with a sad sternness. "Is the ruin of thatfair life to go unpunished? Is it, Justin?"
Mr. Caryll's Gallic spirit burst abruptly through its British glaze.He crushed fist into palm, and swore: "No, by God! It shall not, SirRichard!"
Sir Richard held out his hands, and there was a fierce joy in his gloomyeyes at last. "You'll cross to England with me, Justin?"
But Mr. Caryll's soul fell once more into travail. "Wait!" he cried."Ah, wait!" His level glance met Sir Richard's in earnestness andentreaty. "Answer me the truth upon your soul and conscience: Do you inyour heart believe that it is what my mother would have had me do?"
There was an instant's pause. Then Everard, the fanatic of vengeance,the man whose mind upon that one subject was become unsound with excessof brooding, answe
red with conviction: "As I have a soul to be saved,Justin, I do believe it. More--I know it. Here!" Trembling hands took upthe old letter from the table and proffered it to Justin. "Here is herown message to you. Read it again."
And what time the young man's eyes rested upon that fine, pointedwriting, Sir Richard recited aloud the words he knew by heart, the wordsthat had been ringing in his ears since that day when he had seen herlowered to rest: "'Never let him learn that Justin exists unless it beto punish him by the knowledge for his cruel desertion of me.' Itis your mother's voice speaking to you from the grave," the fanaticpursued, and so infected Justin at last with something of hisfanaticism.
The green eyes flashed uncannily, the white young face grew cruellysardonic. "You believe it?" he asked, and the eagerness that nowinvested his voice showed how it really was with him.
"As I have a soul to be saved," Sir Richard repeated.
"Then gladly will I set my hand to it." Fire stirred through Justin now,a fire of righteous passion. "An idea--no more than an idea--daunted me.You have shown me that. I cross to England with you, Sir Richard, andlet my Lord Ostermore look to himself, for my name--I who have no rightto any name--my name is judgment!"
The exaltation fell from him as suddenly as it had mounted. He droppedinto a chair, thoughtful again and slightly ashamed of his suddenoutburst.
Sir Richard Everard watched with an eye of gloomy joy the man whom hehad been at such pains to school in self-control.
Overhead there was a sudden crackle of thunder, sharp and staccato as apeal of demoniac laughter.
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