My Lady Rotha Part 49

At the word my blood ran cold with horror, and then burning hot. My gorge rose; I set my teeth and felt all my limbs swell. There was a mist of blood before my eyes, as if the cord were already tight and my brain bursting. I heaved in my bonds and heard them crack and crack.

But, alas! they held.

'Try again!' he said, sneering at me.

'You fiend!' I burst out in a fury. 'But I defy you. Do your worst, I will balk you yet!'

He looked at me hard. Then he smiled. 'Ah!' he said. 'So you think you will beat me. Well, you are an obstinate knave, I know; and I have not much time to spare. Yet I shall beat you. Ludwig,' he continued, raising his voice, though his smiling eyes did not leave me. 'Is Taddeo there?'

'He is coming, general.'

'Then bid him fetch the girl down! Yes, Master Martin,' he continued with a ruthless look, 'we will see. I have a little account against her too. Do not think that I have kept her all this time for nothing.

We will put the cord not round your head--you are a stubborn fool, I know--but round hers, my friend. Round her pretty little brow. We will see if that will loosen your tongue.'

The room reeled before my eyes, the lights danced, the men's faces, some agrin, some darkly watchful, seemed to be looking at me through a mist that dimmed everything. I cried out wild oaths, scarcely knowing what I said, that he would not, that he dared not.

He laughed. 'You think not, Master Martin?' he said. 'Wait until the s.l.u.t comes. Ludwig has a way of singeing their hands with a lamp--that will afford you, I think, the last amus.e.m.e.nt you will ever enjoy!'

I knew that he spoke truly, and that he and his like had done things as horrible, as barbarous, a hundred times in the course of this cursed war! I knew that I had nothing to expect from their pity or their scruples. And the frenzy of pa.s.sion, which for a moment had almost choked me, died down on a sudden, leaving me cold as the coldest there and possessed by one thought only, one hope, one aim--to get my hands free for a moment and kill this man. The boarded windows, the guarded doors, the stern faces round me, the silence of the gloomy house all forbade hope; but revenge remained. Rather than Marie should suffer, rather than that childish frame should be racked by their cruel arts, I would tell all, everything they wanted. But if by any trick or chance I went afterwards free for so much as a second, I would choke him with my naked hands!

I waited, looking at the door, my mind made up. The moments pa.s.sed like lead. So apparently thought some one else, for suddenly on the silence came an interruption. 'Is this business going to last all night?' Neumann burst out impatiently. 'Hang the man out of hand, if he is to be hanged!'

'My good friend, revenge is sweet,' Tzerclas answered, with an ugly smile. 'These two fooled me a while ago; and I have no mind to be fooled with impunity. But it will not take long. We will singe her a little for his pleasure--he will like to hear her sing--and then we will hang him for her pleasure. After which----'

'Do what you like!' Neumann burst out, interrupting him wrathfully.

'Only be quick about it. If the girl is here----'

'She is coming. She is coming, now,' Tzerclas answered.

I had gone through so much that my feelings were blunted. I could no longer suffer keenly, and I waited for her appearance with a composure that now surprises me. The door opened, Taddeo came in! looked beyond him, but saw no one else; then I looked at him. The ruffian was trembling. His face was pale. He stammered something.

Tzerclas made but one stride to him. 'Dolt!' he cried, 'what is it?'

'She is gone!' the man stuttered.

'Gone?'

'Yes, your excellency.'

For an instant Tzerclas stood glaring at him. Then like lightning his hand went lip and his pistol-b.u.t.t crashed down on the man's temple.

The wretch threw up his arms and fell as if a thunderbolt had struck him--senseless, or lifeless; no one asked which, for his a.s.sailant, like a beast half-sated, stood glaring round for a second victim. But Ludwig, who had come down with Taddeo, knew his master, and kept his distance by the door. The other two men shrank behind me.

'Well?' Tzerclas cried, as soon as pa.s.sion allowed him to speak. 'Are you dumb? Have you lost your tongue? What is it that liar meant?'

'The girl is away,' Ludwig muttered. 'She got out through a window.'

'Through what window?'

'The window of my room, under the roof,' the man answered sullenly.

'The one--through which that fool came in,' he continued, nodding towards me.

'Ah!' the general cried, his voice hissing with rage. 'Well, we have still got him. How did she go?'

'Heaven knows, unless she had wings,' Ludwig answered. 'The window is at the top of the house, and there is neither rope nor ladder there, nor foothold for anything but a bird. She is gone, however.'

The general ground his teeth together. 'There is some cursed treachery here!' he said.

The Saxon colonel laughed in scorn. 'Maybe!' he retorted in a mocking tone, 'but I will answer for it, that there is something else, and that is cursed mismanagement! I tell you what it is, General Tzerclas,' he continued fiercely. 'With your private revenges, and your public plots, and your tame cats who are mad, and your wild cats who have wings--you think yourself a very clever man. But Heaven help those who trust you!'

The general's eyes sparkled. 'And those who cross me?' he cried in a voice that made his men tremble. 'But there, sir, what ground of complaint have you? The girl never saw you.'

'No, but that man has seen me!' Neumann retorted, pointing to me. 'And who knows how soon she may be back with a regiment at her heels? Then it will be "Save yourselves!" and he will be left to hang me.'

The general laughed without mirth. 'Have no fear!' he said. 'We will hang him out of hand. Ludwig, while we collect these papers, take the other two men and string him up in the hall. When they break in they shall find some one to receive them!'

I had thought that the agony of death was pa.s.sed; but I suppose that the news of Marie's escape had awakened my hopes as well as rekindled my love of life; for at these words, I felt my courage run from me like water. I shrank back against the wall, my limbs trembling under me, my heart leaping as if it would burst from my breast. I felt the rope already round my neck, and when the men laid hold on me, I cried out, almost in spite of myself, that I would tell what guns there were in the orchard bastion, that I knew other things, that----

'Away with him!' Tzerclas snarled, stamping his foot pa.s.sionately. He was already hurrying papers together, and did not give me a glance.

'String him up, knaves, and see this time that you obey orders. We must be gone, so pull his legs.'

I would have said something more; I would have tried again. Even a minute, a minute's delay meant hope. But my voice failed me, and they hustled me out. I am no coward, and I had thought myself past fear; but the flesh is weak. At this pinch, when their hands were on me, and I looked round desperately and found no one to whom I could appeal--while hope and rescue might be so near and yet come too late--I shrank. Death in this vile den seemed horrible. My knees trembled; I could scarcely stand.

The hall into which they dragged me was the same dusty, desolate place into which, little foreseeing what would happen there, I had looked over the deaf hag's shoulder. Ludwig's candle only half dispersed the darkness which reigned in it. Two of the men held me while he went to and fro with the light raised high above his head.

'Ha! here it is!' he said at last. 'I thought that there was a hook.

Bring him here, lads.'

They forced me, resisting feebly, to the place. The candle stood beside him; he was forming a noose. The light, which left all behind them dark, lit up the men's harsh faces; but I read no pity there, no hope, no relenting; and after a hoa.r.s.e attempt to bribe them with promises of what my lady would give for my life, I stood waiting. I tried to pray, to think of Marie, of my soul and the future; but my mind was taken up with rage and dread, with the wild revolt against death, and the rush of indignation that would have had me scream like a woman!

On a sudden, out of the darkness grew a fourth face that looked at me, smiling. It was no more softened by ruth or pity than the others were; the laughing eyes mocked me, the lip curled as with a jest. And yet, at sight of it, I gasped. Hope awoke. I tried to speak, I tried to implore his help, I tried But my voice failed me, no words came. The face was the Waldgrave's.

Yet he nodded as if I had spoken. 'Yes,' he said, smiling more broadly, 'I see, Martin, that you are in trouble. You should have taken my advice in better time. I told you that he would get the better of you.'

Ludwig, who had not seen him before he spoke, dropped the rope, and stood, stupefied, gazing at him. I cried out hoa.r.s.ely that they were going to hang me.

'No, no, not as bad as that!' he said lightly, between jest and earnest. 'But I gave you fair warning, you know, Martin. Oh, he is----'

Waldgrave, Waldgrave!' I panted, trying to get to him; but the men held me back. 'They will hang me! They will! It is no joke. In G.o.d's name, save me, save me! I saved you once, and----'

'Chut, chut!' he replied easily. 'Of course I will save you. I will go to the general and arrange it now. Don't be afraid. My sweet cousin must not lose her steward. Why, you are shaking like an aspen, man.

But I told you, did I not? Oh, he is the---- Wait, fellow,' he continued to Ludwig, 'until I come back. Where is your master?'

'Upstairs,' Ludwig answered sullenly, an ugly gleam in his eyes.

The Waldgrave turned from me carelessly, and went towards the stairs, which were at the end of the hall. Ludwig, as he did so, picked up the rope with a stealthy gesture. I read his mind, and called pitifully to the Waldgrave to stop.

'They will hang me while you are away,' I cried. 'And he is not upstairs! They are lying to you. He is in the room on the left.'

The Waldgrave halted and came back, his handsome face troubled.

Ludwig, looking as if he would strike me, swore under his breath.