Princess Maritza Part 42

"Down with her," said a third in a drunken whisper.

"One more drink round, landlord," said the morose man. "We'll drink it standing. Those who cannot stand, let their comrades hold them up.

This is a loyal and sacred toast for the last. Not a man shall sit down to it. Tankards round, landlord!"

The soldiers struggled to their feet obediently, but each of them had to be held up on either side, and they laughed at their drunken inability. Seizing a tankard, the thin man sprang upon a chair.

"See that none fail to honor my toast!" he cried. "Let it tell its tale to Sturatzberg before the dawn. Here's to our Sovereign Lady, Princess Maritza!"

Too drunk to understand the purport of the words, the soldiers raised their tankards to drink, and then let them fall to the ground with a clatter, the untasted liquor splashing upon the floor. Each man jerked forward where he stood, and, when those who held him let him go, fell down with a thud. A groan or two, a convulsive movement, and then they lay still, while something mixed with the spilt liquor and dyed it to a darker hue. The six men who had stood immediately behind them wiped their keen long knives and sheathed them again in silence.

"Go quickly!" shouted the man, still standing on the chair. "See that the Bergenstra.s.se is clear. They shall rest there to-night, and Sturatzberg may find them there presently and read the lesson as it will."

In the early hours of the morning, when the guests were leaving the Countess Mavrodin's a man rushed past them into the hall.

"Is Lord Cloverton still here?"

The Amba.s.sador came forward at once.

"What is it?"

"The men who returned to-day--the soldiers."

"What of them?"

"They have just been found lying side by side in the Bergenstra.s.se, dead--murdered!"

CHAPTER XIX

IN DESPERATE STRAITS

Desmond Ellerey stood with his sword lowered and his head bowed. As he spoke her name a flush came into his cheeks. His anger at Grigosie's deceit had been great, stern, cold, and judicial--only in such a spirit could he take vengeance on the lad; now it was shame which flamed into his cheeks. He had drawn his sword against a woman--in another moment the blade would have been dyed in her blood--the very thought of it was horrible.

In Maritza's face there was no look of triumph. If for a moment it had lightened her eyes, if the woman's power over the man defiantly proclaimed itself as she tore open her shirt to reveal the truth, it was gone more quickly, more completely, perhaps, than Ellerey's anger.

The Princess was the first to break the silence.

"You will not strike?" she said, closing the shirt again with hasty fingers.

"Regrets are useless. I had hoped to succeed. I will tell you why when you choose to listen to me. To-morrow you can deliver me to the brigands; until then I am Grigosie again."

As she picked up her cap and drew it over her curls Ellerey looked up.

It was a relief to see the lad before him as he had always known him.

"And Grigosie talks folly," he said. "I would far sooner take his life myself than deliver him to the tender mercies of the brigands." A cry from Stefan, which was half an oath, startled them, and in an instant Ellerey had sprung to the soldier's side. Anton at the same moment seized his knife, and all three men were in the doorway slashing and thrusting furiously at those without. For a moment there were only two or three, who had approached silently, but their shouts upon being discovered brought a crowd rushing to their a.s.sistance.

When Anton had deserted his post to come to Grigosie's help, the temptation to secure an easy victory had been too great for those who watched the plateau. Vasilici may have given no orders that the truce should be thus flagrantly broken, but those who had seized the opportunity knew well enough that success would win easy forgiveness.

As it had been at the gate guarding the zig-zag path, those in front, wounded or dying, were thrown back upon their companions, impeding the rush which must have effected an entrance. Perhaps there was still a desire among most of them to let any comrade who would force himself into the forefront of the attack. The prowess of the defenders had already taught them a salutary lesson.

"Quick, Stefan; see that the door will close and fasten," whispered Ellerey. "When it is ready, shout; give us a moment to thrust back the foremost of them, and a moment to get in, and then we'll shut them out, if we can."

Stefan made a sharp cut at the first man within reach of him, and then slipped back into the tower. He shouted almost immediately, for Grigosie was already at the door, and had seen that it was in working order.

At the shout Ellerey and Anton made a dash out as if in a last attempt for freedom. A slash to right and left, a cringing back of those in front gave them the opportunity and the time they wanted. In another instant they were within the tower, the door was shut, and the great bolts in it shot home.

"It's not likely we'll be using this way out for a while," said Ellerey, "so we'll pile everything against it we can to strengthen it."

They worked with a will, and while the brigands beat at the door without, they barricaded it within; and having heaped up against it everything they could lay their hands on, they drove in some wooden stakes at an angle to hold the obstruction in its place and resist the pressure.

"That will stop them for a little while," said Ellerey.

No one answered him. As soon as the work was accomplished Grigosie turned away, and Stefan, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, looked with unutterable fierceness at Anton.

"You--you----" And then he burst out with a mighty oath. "There's no word in devil's or man's vocabulary to call you by. You're to thank for this. Weren't you ordered to keep guard by the barrier yonder?"

"Let him be, Stefan," said Ellerey, laying his hand on the soldier's arm. "He did rightly in leaving it. He came to protect his mistress."

Stefan glanced at Grigosie, whose back was toward him, and muttered something deeply; oaths they may have been, but the words seemed to lose themselves in his beard. Anton said not a word. He looked at Ellerey, and it was a look of which it was difficult to read the meaning. It was one of wonder rather than of grat.i.tude. Perhaps he was trying to understand the real character of this strange Englishman.

The brigands still continued to hammer at the door, but it showed no sign of giving.

"It will hold for a time," said Ellerey, "but we must see what can be done to interrupt their attentions as much as possible. A shot or two from the chamber above might help them to become quieter. Come, Stefan, and let us see what we can do."

In the chamber above there were narrow slits in the walls, and the top of the zig-zag was commanded from this vantage place, but those immediately below were out of danger. Some men were standing by the broken-down barrier, and Stefan wanted to fire at them, but Ellerey stopped him. Their ammunition was too valuable to throw away. A cartridge presently might be worth much more to them than one man's life just now.

"Those at the door below are the danger," said Ellerey.

"There's a good deal of loose stonework on the roof," said Stefan. "A piece of that heaved over at intervals might give them something to think about besides hammering at that door."

"They shall have a lesson at once," said Ellerey, climbing carefully up the broken stairway which led to the roof. It has been said that a turret had fallen in, breaking part of the stairs away, but the roof could easily be reached. There were many fragments, some large, some small, lying there, and one piece of considerable size Ellerey and Stefan managed to get on to the wall of the parapet immediately over the door. The manoeuvre was apparently unnoticed, for there came no warning shout to those below.

"Over with it," said Ellerey.

It did its work effectually. There were groans and execrations, and several bullets struck harmlessly about the stonework from whence this message had been hurled, but the hammering at the door ceased, and the besiegers retired to a safe distance.

"We must keep watch from here, Captain," said Stefan. "Help me to mount another piece upon the wall. It can rest there until they get courageous again and ask for it to be thrown upon them."

Ellerey did so, and, leaving Stefan there for the present, returned to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the tower.

Anton was standing in exactly the same place as when Ellerey had mounted the steps, but the expression on his face had changed. It was quite evident that in the interval some words had pa.s.sed between him and Grigosie, and that, whatever the subject of the conversation, Anton disapproved of it. Grigosie was leaning against the wall counting the cartridges he still had in his possession.

"We have stopped their hammering for a while," Ellerey said. "While the loose stones on the roof last, we have another weapon of defence."

"Do I relieve Stefan?" asked Grigosie.