Men in War Part 12

"But you have no position yet. How can we marry? You must first ask the master if he--"

It was as if a red pall woven of flames dropped in front of John Bogdan's eyes. The master? What was she saying about the master? He thought of the humpback, and it came to him in a flash that the fellow had not lied. His fingers clutched her wrist like a pair of glowing tongs, so that she cried out with the pain.

"The master!" Bogdan bellowed. "What has the master got to do between you and me? Yes or no? I want an answer. The master has nothing to do with us."

Marcsa drew herself up. All of a sudden a remarkable a.s.surance came to her. The color returned to her cheeks, and her eyes flashed proudly.

She stood there with the haughty bearing so familiar to Bogdan, her head held high in defiance.

Bogdan observed the change and saw that her gaze traveled over his shoulder. He let go her hand and turned instantly. Just what he thought--the master coming out of the machine shop. His old forester, Toth, followed him.

Marcsa bounded past Bogdan like a cat and ran up to the lord and bent over and kissed his hand.

Bogdan saw the three of them draw near and lowered his head like a ram for attack. A cold, determined quiet rose in him slowly, as in the trenches when the trumpeter gave the signal for a charge. He felt the lord's hand touch his shoulder, and he took a step backward.

What was the meaning of it all? The lord was speaking of heroism and fatherland, a lot of rubbish that had nothing to do with Marcsa. He let him go on talking, let the words pour down on him like rain, without paying any attention to their meaning. His glance wandered to and fro uneasily, from the lord to Marcsa and then to the forester, until it rested curiously on something shining.

It was the nickeled hilt of the hunting-knife hanging at the old forester's side and sparkling in the sunlight.

"Like a bayonet," thought Bogdan, and an idea flashed through his mind, to whip the thing out of the scabbard and run it up to the hilt in the hussy's body. But her rounded hips, her bright billowing skirts confused him. In war he had never had to do with women. He could not exactly imagine what it would be like to make a thrust into that beskirted body there. His glance traveled back to the master, and now he noticed that his stiffnecked silence had pulled him up short.

"He is gnashing his teeth," it struck him, "just like the tall Russian."

And he almost smiled at a vision that came to his mind--of the lord also getting a smooth face and astonished, reproachful eyes.

But hadn't he said something about Marcsa just then? What was Marcsa to him?

Bogdan drew himself up defiantly.

"I will arrange matters with Marcsa myself, sir. It's between her and me," he rejoined hoa.r.s.ely, and looked his master straight in the face.

_He_ still had his mustache, quite even on the two sides, and curling delicately upwards at the ends. What was it the humpback had said? "One man goes away and lets his head be blown off." He wasn't so stupid after all, the humpback wasn't.

What Bogdan said infuriated the master. Bogdan let him shout and stared like a man hypnotized at the nickeled hilt of the hunting-knife. It was not until the name "Marcsa" again struck his ear that he became attentive.

"Marcsa is in my employ now," he heard the lord saying. "You know I am fond of you, Bogdan. I'll let you take care of the horses again, if you care to. But Marcsa is to be let alone. I won't have any rumpus. If she still wants to marry you, all well and good. But if she doesn't, she's to be let alone. If I hear once again that you have annoyed her, I'll chase you to the devil. Do you understand?"

Foaming with rage, Bogdan let out the stream of his wrath.

"To the devil?" he shouted. "You chase me to the devil? You had first better go there yourself. I've been to the devil already. For eight months I was in h.e.l.l. Here's my face--you can tell from my face that I come from h.e.l.l. To play the protector here and stuff your pockets full and send the others out to die--that's easy. A man who dawdles at home has no right to send men to the devil who have already been in h.e.l.l for his sake."

So overwhelming was his indignation that he spoke like the humpback Socialist and was not ashamed of it. He stood there ready to leap, with tensely drawn muscles, like a wild animal. He saw the lord make ready to strike him, saw his distorted face, saw the riding-crop flash through the air, and even saw it descending upon him. But he did not feel the short, hard blow on his back.

With one bound he ripped the hunting-knife out of the scabbard and thrust it between the lord's ribs--not with a long sweep, so that some one could have stayed his arm before he struck. Oh, no! But quite lightly, from below, with a short jerk, exactly as he had learned by experience in battle. The hunting-knife was as good as his bayonet. It ran into the flesh like b.u.t.ter.

Then everything came about just as it always did. John Bogdan stood with his chin forward and saw the lord's face distorted by anger suddenly smooth out and turn as placid and even as if it had been ironed. He saw his eyes widen and look over at him in astonishment with the reproachful question, "What are you doing?" The one thing Bogdan did not see was the collapsing of the lord's body, for at that instant a blow crashed down on the back of his head, like the downpour of a waterfall dropping from an infinite height. For one second he still saw Marcsa's face framed in a fiery wheel, then, his skull split open, he fell over on top of his master, whose body already lay quivering on the ground.