A Modern Mercenary Part 40

'But, father, in honesty and justice'--

'It is a case of private justice as opposed to national necessity. If Captain Rallywood had sacrificed his public to his private honour, if he had chosen to prefer his country's cause to his oath of fealty----'

Rallywood understood.

'No one knows I am here,' he said.

'Ah, true!'

'No one need ever know where the despatches have been. In four hours they shall be with Major Counsellor at the British Legation.'

'If you, Captain Rallywood, will bear the whole responsibility that would simplify the matter. Otherwise it is war.' Selpdorf looked meaningly at Rallywood as he spoke.

But Valerie was not deceived.

'Not that! not that!' she cried.

'It must be that or nothing.' Selpdorf did not look at her and he spoke almost brusquely.

'I know what it means. They will say he was false to his oath! Oh, father, is there no other way? I cannot let him go!'

Rallywood's face changed. Fate was crushing her two strange gifts into his hands, love and death at the same moment! He crossed to Valerie's side, and drawing her to him his gray eyes looked their courage and their happiness into hers.

'My darling, this makes it easy, whatever comes!'

'It may be death! It will be death!' He winced at the low agonised whisper.

She turned to her father.

'Father, you have the power to do anything you please in Maasau. You will save him for me! You can save him! Promise me that or I cannot let him go!'

Selpdorf was touched. He liked Rallywood. There was much in the single-hearted soldier that appealed to his sympathies. But----

'I will not deceive you, Valerie, at such a time as this,' he answered gently; 'I cannot foresee what may happen. I may not be able to prevent the worst. Captain Rallywood holds the despatches. He offers to sacrifice himself for the State, and the decision rests with you.'

Valerie buried her face in her hands. The clock moved noiselessly on and on, and the very air seemed to throb in the silence. Then the girl raised her head and looked steadily at Rallywood.

'It would not be love if I said otherwise. You would not love me if I said otherwise. You must go, John!'

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ARREST.

By the following evening tongues were busy in Revonde. Rumour and mystery and an absence of any definite information added zest to the town talk. The broken reports were curious.

Major Counsellor had fallen down the staircase at the British Legation and injured his head, his brow being much contused. His return to Revonde was explained on the ground that Germany and England had joined forces in compelling Selpdorf to lessen the heavy taxation with which Maasau was burdened. Count Sagan had been seen in the city with a lowering face--ah, yes! it was well known he had a most patriotic distrust of German interference. Madame de Sagan had quarreled with her husband because she had insisted on helping Mademoiselle Selpdorf, who was about to be married to Baron von Elmur, in the choice of her trousseau. Some excitement was being caused in the Guards' barracks by the case of Captain Rallywood, whom Count Sagan accused of using his influence unduly with his brother-officers to forward the projects of Germany. Some even went so far as to say that he was in arrest, and others were found who shook their heads and laughed, professing to be aware of a yet deeper reason for the colonel-in-chief's animosity against the English captain.

Out of all this chaff the one grain of truth was that Counsellor, released by Unziar on the authority of a telegram from Rallywood, had arrived by the first train in the morning and had at once proceeded to the British Legation. There he found Rallywood waiting for him. 'You have seen the Chancellor?' asked Counsellor, looking hard at Rallywood, whose brown face wore a look he had never seen upon it before. 'Why was I released? Am I already too late?'

'No, you are not too late. You must see the Duke at once. Here are your despatches. Good-bye, Major, I'll meet you presently.'

'I shall not in all probability see Duke Gustave again. My part is over and done with. The world, my dear John, never sees a national policy until it begins to fly. There is no credit for hatching the egg. One would almost think it hatched of itself. Occasionally the egg is found to be addled, and then the old birds make away with it in private. But don't go yet. How have you managed to keep these? What does it mean?'

'It means princ.i.p.ally that you must forget you have been robbed, that Elmur's game is up, and that you were mistaken in your opinion of the Chancellor.'

Counsellor looked hurriedly through the papers contained in the packet, 'John,' he said suddenly, as he folded up a small sheet of cypher notes, 'you are an infernal liar.'

Rallywood laughed and his spurs jingled as he left the room, glad to have escaped so cheaply from Counsellor's keen observation. The old Major went to the window and watched him ride away in the sunshine, a gallant figure in his glittering uniform, sitting squarely on his big bay charger. No suspicion crossed his thoughts that Rallywood was probably taking his last ride through the sunny streets, that at every stride of his high-stepping horse he drew nearer to the final scene of all. He had gathered from Rallywood's bearing that the difficulties in his path had somehow been surmounted. Rallywood was capable. He had won the day by energy or pluck or both, but the old diplomatist had no time at the moment to trouble his head as to the exact means.

Before the forenoon was over Counsellor, acting through the proper channels, secured Maasau's acceptance of the British proposals, and a satisfactory undertaking which excluded all rivals from the field, at any rate during the Duke's lifetime. Counsellor did not appear in the negotiations. He remained shut up at the Legation, but when at length they came to public knowledge the German party were not under any delusion; they recognised to whose direct offices they owed defeat.

Baron von Elmur said nothing, as a matter of fact he did nothing, but he used his influence with an effect that was yet to bear fruit. He was inclined to suspect Selpdorf, but the Chancellor proved that he had only carried out the German's own suggestion in sending Rallywood to the Frontier. Ill-luck, he argued, combined with Sagan's blundering, had done the rest. He deplored it. It was clear that Rallywood, taking advantage of his position, and under pretence of carrying the despatches to the Chancellor had simply gone to Revonde and wired to Unziar a false order of release for Major Counsellor. The sole delinquent was Rallywood, and the Count in a torrent of curses promised himself a time of reckoning.

The day, which had begun in a brief burst of sunshine, closed in clouds.

Evening climbed sullenly up out of the bleak river.

Traffic died in the streets, and the cloaked troopers pa.s.sing hither and thither against the rising tsa became the chief objects to be seen as night gathered.

Rallywood stood at the side window of his quarters looking out over the twinkling city. He seemed to have had as yet no time for regret or gloomy antic.i.p.ation. He had dwelt absorbed on the single fact that Valerie loved him. He was ready to sacrifice himself and his hopes with a smile. Later on, in sorrow and heaviness of heart, he accused himself bitterly of spoiling Valerie's young life. But he had not reached that stage yet; he was lingering in the first transient period when men and women see visions and dream dreams, when the present is lost in the recent past, while love's first spell is laid upon them, and the light that never was on land or sea blinds them to the chances and changes of common life. As long as the glory of it lasts a man is caught up into the seventh heaven, and the things of earth have no power over him.

But the breaking of the vision came to Rallywood sufficiently quickly.

His view of the lamp-lit city grew suddenly blurred and he saw instead his own reflection in the polished gla.s.s, as the lights were turned on in the room behind him. In that same instant too the vague sweet outlook faded from his mind.

Then a hand was laid upon his shoulder and he saw another figure mirrored beside his own against the dark background of the night. There was a suggestion of reluctance in Unziar's movements.

'I regret, Captain Rallywood, that I have been ordered to place you in arrest.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE COURT-MARTIAL.

It has been the privilege of one or two famous Gardes du Corps to be a law unto themselves. The Guard of Maasau shares that privilege. The inquiry or rather trial was to be held within closed doors, and by the express order of the colonel-in-chief all the officers, including those junior to the prisoner, were to be present. And every officer present on such occasions had the right to vote. The procedure was simple. When the witnesses had been examined the accused was invited to speak in his own defence, then the senior officer summed up and lastly the officers recorded their votes.

Rallywood's offence had outraged the fundamental principle of the Guard, the blind self-sacrificing obedience which in trivial as in vital matters demanded the merging of the private individual with hopes and conscience of his own into the body corporate of the Guard. With the single exception of Unziar, no man present was acquainted with the details of Rallywood's crime. They knew only that he had grossly disobeyed orders, and not only that, but had disobeyed them for the furtherance of private ambition. So the charge against him intimated. It was understood that the accusation had been lodged by Count Sagan in consequence of information received by him, and the court-martial at once a.s.sembled to deal with the matter.

The original prejudice against Rallywood as a foreigner and an interloper was revived, with all the more bitterness because the men had in the interval come to respect if not to like him. They resented the deception they believed to have been practised upon them with the rancour of those who find they have not only been played upon but made tools of. Rallywood had gained his position among them by false pretences to serve his own ends--gained it to betray them.

But more than this, he had dishonoured the Guard, brought the first blot of treachery upon its long and unblemished traditions. Hereditary instincts inbred and powerful were arrayed against him in the hearts of six of his judges; in the seventh, Count Sagan, he had to encounter the ill-blood of a profoundly vindictive nature whose purposes he had crossed and baffled, and who harboured towards him a savage personal hatred.

It must be understood that so far no hint of the arrangement with England had been allowed to transpire. The engagement to be given by Maasau in return for the promised British loan and moral support was in train for completion, but the final signature was not to take place till that afternoon. Meantime the Chancellor kept a still tongue in his head and waited upon events, knowing that when all transpired the responsibility could be shifted on to the shoulders of the Duke. It was a 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 save Rallywood, whose disappearance from the scheme of earthly affairs would remove an awkward cause of disagreement from the range of his own family circle. Yet it must be admitted that M. Selpdorf really regretted that the necessities of the case required the sacrifice of the Englishman, for whom his former abstract liking remained entirely unaltered.