Mistress Wilding

by Rafael Sabatini

  CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION

  Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in thebackground, drew a deep breath--unmistakably of satisfaction, and hiseyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly fromher chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed,a trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise thanactual fear, and approached the table.

  "You heard, sir," said Captain Wentworth.

  "I heard," answered Mr. Wilding quietly. "But surely not aright. Onemoment, sir," and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite theorder he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.

  Feversham, who had taken the cravat--a yard of priceless Dutchlace--from the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to thecompany at a small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel,looked peevishly over his shoulder.

  "My lord," said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, "you aresurely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion--not seriously, mylord?"

  "Ah, ca!" said the Frenchman. "T'ink it a jest if you please. What foryou come 'ere?"

  "Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot," said Wilding, andactually smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that isgrave but not of surpassing gravity, he continued: "It is not that Ifail to recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of thelaw; but these matters must be formally proved against me. I haveaffairs to set in order against such a consummation."

  "Ta, ta!" snapped Feversham. "T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave'eard my order." And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustmentof his neckwear.

  "But, my lord," insisted Wilding, "you have not the right--you have notthe power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to beshot without a trial."

  "You can 'ang if you prefer," said Feversham indifferently, drawing outthe ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He facedabout briskly. "Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower meto 'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' ont'e spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' tobe so quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemygo to attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'erofficers are all occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spareyou--n'est-ce-pas?"--Wentworth's hand touched Wilding on the shoulder.He was standing with head slightly bowed, his brows knit in thought. Helooked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.

  Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flungat Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. "It is fortune deguerre, Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war."

  "May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then," said Wilding dryly,and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry tostartle him and to quicken his pulses.

  "My lord!" It was a cry of utter anguish.

  Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,looked at her. "Madame?" said he.

  But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bentforward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosomheaving frantically.

  "Hum!" said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from hishead. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. "Finissons!" saidhe.

  The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.

  "Five minutes, my lord!" she cried imploringly. "Give him fiveminutes--and me, my lord!"

  Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.

  The Frenchman seemed to waver. "Bien," he began, spreading his hands.And in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the wholecompany. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left hisface. "Ha!" he cried. "T'ey are arrive." He snatched his wig from hislacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirrorto adjust the great curls. "Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now.Make Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'." He facedabout and took the sword his valet proffered. "Au revoir, messieurs!"

  "Serviteur, madame!" And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he sweptout, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth salutingand the guards presenting arms.

  "Come, sir," said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoidingRuth's face.

  "I am ready," answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at hiswife.

  She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her faceas almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made asound deep in his throat before he found words.

  "Give me one minute, sir--one minute," he begged Wentworth. "I ask nomore than that."

  Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier andhad received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of thetwo conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofswithout to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.

  "You shall have your minute, sir," said he. "More I dare not give you,as you can see.

  "From my heart I thank you," answered Mr. Wilding, and from thegratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his lifeWentworth had accorded him.

  The captain had already turned aside to address his men. "Two of yououtside, guard that window," he ordered. "The rest of you, in thepassage. Bestir there!"

  "Take your precautions, by all means, sir," said Wilding; "but I giveyou my word of honour I shall attempt no escape."

  Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake--who hadbeen seemingly forgotten in the confusion--and on Richard. A kindlinessfor the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so worthy anenemy, actuated the red-faced captain.

  "You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland," said he. "And you, Mr.Westmacott--you can wait in the passage with my men."

  They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland madebold to remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and thathe should make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworthbade him go to the devil, and so was rid of him.

  Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding faceto face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flungherself into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which shewas a prey--dreading lest it should have its root in pity. He patted hershoulder soothingly.

  "Nay, nay, little child," he whispered in her ear. "Never weep forme that have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of thedifficulties my folly has created?" For only answer she clung closer,her hands locked about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silentweeping. "Don't pity me," he besought her. "I am content it should beso. It is the amend I promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth."

  She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up tohis.

  "It is not pity!" she cried. "I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,Anthony!"

  His face grew ashen. "It is true, then!" he asked her. "And what yousaid to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me."

  "Oh, it is true, it is true!" she wailed.

  He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. "I am happy," hesaid, and strove to smile. "Had I lived, who knows...?"

  "No, no, no," she interrupted him passionately, her arms tighteningabout his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knockfell upon the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently todisengage her pinioning arms.

  "I must go, sweet," he said.

  "God help me!" she moaned, and clung to him still. "It is I who amkilling you--I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rodehither to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, Iam punished for having listened to every voice but the voice of my ownheart where you were concerned. Had I loved you earlier--had I owned itearlier..."

  "It had still been too late," he said, more to comfort her than becausehe knew it to be
so. "Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, Iknow--so well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar notthis happiness of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief."

  Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came afaint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.

  "We shall meet soon again," she said.

  "Aye--think on that," he bade her, and pressed her to him. "Good-bye,sweet! God keep you till we meet!" he added, his voice infinitelytender.

  "Mr. Wilding!" Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust thedoor open a foot or so. "Mr. Wilding!"

  "I am coming," he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on thatkiss of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. Heraised his voice. "Richard!" he shouted wildly. "Richard!"

  At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the doorand entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In herbrother's care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. "Seeto her, Dick," he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now.But he paused as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and moreimpatient at his elbow. He turned again.

  "Dick," he said, "we might have been better friends. I would we hadbeen. Let us part so at least," and he held out his hand, smiling.

  Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point ofworship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admirethan strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding'stender hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. Hewrung Wilding's hands in wordless passion.

  "Be good to her, Dick," said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.

  He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party ofmusketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him ratherthan ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. Hethought of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the roadby Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her.But the crucible was no longer--as then of pity; it was the crucible oflove.

  And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone atransmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy ofdesire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his ownat all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; itwas pure as a religion--the love that takes no account of self, the lovethat makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and gratefulmartyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that hisdeath would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he hadmarched--or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his lipshad been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he hadleft her, he almost came to wish--so pure was his love grown--that hehad not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed. Hisdeath would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to bea martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done hehad not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had wornfaded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to enduresome physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowedhis brow. Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort,through the murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir aboutthem, for all Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.

  Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joinedin earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed throughWilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But itgave him little care.

  At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth fromLord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth'sarmy by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantagemust still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warnedin the eleventh hour.

  Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swellingchorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time andplace. Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, andWentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.

  The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly greylight of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grewvisible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time thelittle company had reached the end of Weston village and come uponthe deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective--a ditch thatcommunicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces so wellon that night of Sedgemoor.

  Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would havehad Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, butthat Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as weknow, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, heacceded to Wilding's prayer.

  He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak someword of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrificthan any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away toeastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr.Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object wasthat thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time.This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate whichhad come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live. Madthoughts of escape crossed his mind--of a leap across the dyke, and awild dash through the fog. But the futility of it was too appalling.The musketeers were already blowing their matches. He would suffer theignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he made any suchattempt.

  And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edgeof the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels overthe void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.

  It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in thatlast moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and hestood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, hiseyes upon the grey mass of musketeers--blurred alike by mist andsemi-darkness--some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowedeight red fuses.

  Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.

  "Blow your matches!"

  Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots thefaces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for amoment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greynessat the word, "Cock your matches!"

  "Guard your pans!" came a second later the captain's voice, and then:

  "Present!"

  There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standingon the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes ofthe firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing alittle darker than the encompassing dark grey.

  "Give fire!"

  On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he hadbeen sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, atthe imminent risk--as he afterwards related--of breaking his neck.At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed thedarkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself inthe greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.