Eleven Possible Cases Part 11

"Stand here for one moment, please," said the Judge, touching Coleman's arm, "until I call a servant."

Then he stepped briskly back through the doorway and drew the solid shutter to with a hollow clang. Some strange echoes went wandering away as if from distance to distance, above, below, around, followed by absolute silence. A faint flicker of light came from above, but it seemed a reflection rather than a direct beam from the moon, and the air was close, heavy, atrociously bad.

Coleman stood amazed for a few moments before going to the door, which he found immovable. He groped around the wall only to discover that there was no other outlet.

CHAPTER III.

Judge Favart de Caumartin's residence was a large, rambling structure, more like a hotel than like a private house. Considering that his wife was dead and that he had but one living child, a daughter of seventeen, it was strange that he kept up such an extensive establishment, in which, perhaps, twenty rooms stood richly furnished but unoccupied. It was his pleasure, however, and his pleasure was law.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin was greatly surprised when by merest chance she discovered Hepworth Coleman making himself quite at home in a remote room of the house. We have seen how she showed her confusion as she stepped into the doorway and found herself face to face with the young man. The glance that pa.s.sed between them wrought a wonder in the heart of each. I shall not say that they fell in love at first sight. Love cannot be so accurately traced that its origin can be exactly found out in any particular case. It is enough to record that Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin caught something new, something sweet from that momentary gaze, and shut it up in her heart involuntarily, with a thrill that never again quite left her breast. She was back through halls and rooms to her own boudoir, her cheeks and lips rosy with excitement, and a gentle tremor in her limbs.

That evening in the library the Judge told his daughter that he had given a suit of rooms in the farthest wing of the mansion to a wealthy young gentleman from New York.

"I have had letters from Mr. Cartwright, my banker there, asking me to take care of him, and this seemed the best I could do under the circ.u.mstances. I did not see my way to bringing him any nearer to us. We don't care to have another member added to our family, eh, Olympe, dear?"

Mlle. de Caumartin blushed. She may have felt a touch of guilt because she could not muster courage to tell her father that she had already visited Mr. Coleman.

"I have not seen him yet," continued the Judge; "I thought it best to let him have some rest before calling upon him. Cartwright advises me that he is of an excellent family--a man to be given the greatest attention, and for my banker's sake, if for nothing else, I must meet the demand upon my hospitality. He came a fortnight earlier than I expected; but I had Jules watching for him, and you know Jules never fails."

"But you should have told me before, father dear," said Mlle. Olympe.

"Only a while ago, while wandering through the distant wing of the house, I invaded this young gentleman's apartment. It surprised him evidently as much as it abashed me."

"The obvious moral of which is," replied the Judge quickly, "that you are hereafter to be more careful about what rooms you are stumbling into." As he spoke his dark oval face, with its fine, grave smile, was almost like a boy's. The flush that lay under the skin shone through with a suggestion of some repressed stimulus, as if a great pa.s.sion had forced it up. In his eyes an underglow, so to call it, smoldered with fascinating vagueness.

Mlle. Olympe sat for a moment on his knee and stroked his long black hair.

"You will stay with me to-night, father, dear," she presently murmured, coaxingly; "you will not go out to-night."

"I must be gone a little while," he said, rising at once, "but just a little while."

She clung close to him.

"Not this night, please," she urged, with a touching tremor in her voice. "Oh! you remember this night a year ago you had that dreadful adventure in the dark room. You must not go out; please, for my sake, do not."

An expert observer could have seen while this was going on a strange, half-worried, almost fiercely concentrated expression in the Judge's eyes. It was as if he mightily wished to remain with his child, but could not by any effort resist some powerful temptation tugging at him and drawing him away.

He kissed her tenderly, pushed her gently from him and went out.

The girl cast herself upon a sofa and buried her face in her hands, as a vision of that night one year before came up before her eyes.

Some strange masked men had brought her father home far in the night, white as a ghost, helpless, speechless, apparently dead. They put him down there in the room and vanished.

He had no wound, no bruise, no mark of any violence. But he recovered very slowly, and he never told what had befallen him.

Mlle. Olympe knew of her father's frequent duels, and if he had been brought in dead or badly off on account of pistol ball or rapier thrust she would not have been surprised beyond measure, but this mysterious performance of the masked men and the unaccountable condition of the Judge were taken hold upon by her imagination and raised to the highest power of romantic meaning.

A year had pa.s.sed, and she might not have recalled the exact anniversary but for the prattle of an old servant to the effect that she had seen her master, the Judge, marching at the head of a company of masked men, himself wearing an "invisible" mask and a queer black velvet cap.

Mlle. Olympe observed that her father was flushed as if with wine, and his bearing was indicative of some subtile and indescribable excitement within him. When he went away she felt that something startling was going to happen soon.

CHAPTER IV.

When Hepworth Coleman suddenly found himself a prisoner in that close, dark room, he did not at first suspect any treachery on the part of Judge Favart de Caumartin. He expected that gentleman to return in the course of a few minutes, but this favorable impression was soon removed by certain startling events that crowded one upon another.

First a low, rumbling, clanging sound, like the beating of metallic gongs in the distance, came through the walls and filled the cell. Then as this died away to utter silence he heard tumultuous whispering all around, above, below. The thousand voices all seemed to be saying the same thing, which presently he made out to be the words: "The Krewe is coming; make ready for the Krewe!" When the whispering ended little purple lights began to flash here and there, but so mysteriously glinted that he could not locate them, and these were followed by phantom faces, wan, waxen, faintly luminous, appearing and fading instantly, succeeded by intense darkness.

Now, Hepworth Coleman was a man of iron nerve, an athlete in body and spirit, who, although full of romantic and poetic impulses, was at the base of his character as brave and steadfast as a lion. Still, even the best courage has its moment of faltering, and just at the point when one whole wall of his cell was withdrawn, so that he stood in the full glare of twenty brilliant chandeliers that lighted a large, gorgeously decorated hall, he felt the blood grow stiflingly heavy on his heart.

Before him stood a file of fantastic figures, men oddly clad and strangely armed, who clashed their brazen shields together and pointed their swords at his breast. On the walls of the s.p.a.cious room hung weird-looking trophies, skulls, pictures of dead men, ghastly and livid, pistols, swords, and strange banners. The floor was carpeted with heavy Persian tapestry, thickly padded underneath.

Coleman stood gazing while the file of armed men--perhaps platoon would be more correct--went through some silent but intricate evolutions after beating their shields together and threatening him with their swords.

When the movements were ended one of the masters came up to him and struck him lightly with the flat of his weapon across the cheek, saying in a loud whisper:

"Beware! you are in imminent danger."

Coleman took him at his word and instantly let go a blow from the shoulder. His close-set fist met the masker's jaw with a sound of crushing pasteboard, and down went the man outstretched at full length on the floor, his shield and sword giving forth a m.u.f.fled clang as they crossed upon the soft carpet.

Quick as a cat Coleman leaped forward and picked up the sword, a beautiful rapier, and, a.s.suming a defensive att.i.tude, cried out boldly:

"Come one at a time and I will fight you all!"

The fantastic figures looked at one another with evident questioning, though not a word was said.

Meantime the fallen one scrambled to his feet and swore two or three bitter French oaths. The leader rebuked him with gestures.

"Come one at a time, you cowardly villains," repeated Coleman, "and I'll soon finish you all. Come on, the first one, if you dare meet a man!"

He was terribly angry, but his voice was steady and even.

There was a s.p.a.ce of silence. Then the leader said something to one of the men, who immediately cast aside his shield and advanced with his rapier.

It was a short conflict. Coleman disarmed his antagonist with ease in less than a minute.

Another man came on and shared the same fate, with the addition of a p.r.i.c.k through the wrist of the sword-arm.

This was exhilarating to Coleman in his exasperation at being made the b.u.t.t of some mysterious trick.

"Come next," he cried; "I want the best of you--and the best is a coward. Come on!"

Evidently the mystic band now felt the gravity that the occasion was a.s.suming. The maskers looked to their leader.

"Don't stand there afraid," sneered Coleman; "come on and get your turn.