Sophy of Kravonia Part 16

"I surrender, sir," he said.

"Then walk before me to the barracks." Mist.i.tch did not turn. "At once, sir!"

"Now!" Mist.i.tch roared.

The crouching figure sprang--and with a hideous cry fell stricken on the flags. Just below the neck, full on the spine, had crashed the Virgin with the lamp. Sterkoff lay very still, save that his fingers scratched the flags. Turning, the Prince saw a bronze figure at his feet, a bronze figure holding a broken lamp. Looking up, he saw dimly a woman's white face at a window.

Then the street was on a sudden full of men. Rastatz had burst into the Golden Lion, all undone--nerves, courage, almost senses gone. He could stammer no more than: "They'll fight!" and could not say who. But he had gone out with Mist.i.tch--and whom had they gone to meet?

A dozen officers were round him in an instant, crying: "Where? Where?"

He broke into frightened sobs, hiding his face in his hands. It was Max von Hollbrandt who made him speak. Forgetting his pretty friend, he sprang in among the officers, caught Rastatz by the throat, and put a revolver to his head. "Where? In ten seconds--where?" Terror beat terror. "The Street of the Fountain--by the Silver c.o.c.k!" the cur stammered, and fell to his blubbering again.

The dozen officers, and more, were across the Square almost before he had finished; Max von Hollbrandt, with half the now lessened company in the inn, was hot on their heels.

For that night all was at an end. Sterkoff was picked up, unconscious now. Sullen, but never cringing, Mist.i.tch was marched off to the guard-room and the surgeon's ministrations. Every soldier was ordered to his quarters, the townsfolk slunk off to their homes. The street grew empty, the glare of the illuminations was quenched. But of all this Sophy saw nothing. She had sunk down in her chair by the window, and lay there, save for her tumultuous breathing, still as death.

The Commandant had no fear, and would have his way. He stood alone now in the street, looking from the dark splash of Mist.i.tch's blood to the Virgin with her broken lamp, and up to the window of the Silver c.o.c.k, whence had come salvation.

IV

THE MESSAGE OF THE NIGHT

The last of the transparencies died out; the dim and infrequent oil-lamps alone lit up the Street of the Fountain and St. Michael's Square. They revelled still down at the Hotel de Paris, whither Max von Hollbrandt and a dozen others had hurried with the news of the evening's great event. But here, on the borders of the old north quarter, all grew still--the Golden Lion empty, the townsmen to their beds, the soldiers to barracks, full of talk and fears and threats. Yet a light burned still in the round room in the keep of Suleiman's Tower, and the Commandant's servant still expected his royal master. Peter Va.s.sip, a st.u.r.dy son of Volseni, had no apprehensions--but he was very sleepy, and he and the sentries were the only men awake. "One might as well be a soldier at once!" he grumbled--for the men of the hills did not esteem the Regular Army so high as it rated itself.

The Commandant lingered in the Street of the Fountain. Sergius Stefanovitch was half a Bourbon, but it was the intellectual half. He had the strong, concentrated, rather narrow mind of a Bourbon of before the family decadence; on it his training at Vienna had grafted a military precision, perhaps a pedantry, and no little added scorn of what men called liberty and citizens called civil rights. What rights had a man against his country? His country was in his King--and to the King the Army was his supreme instrument. So ran his public creed, his statesman's instinct. But beside the Bourbon mother was the Kravonian father, and behind him the long line of mingled and vacillating fortunes which drew descent from Stefan, Lord of Praslok, and famous reiver of lowland herds. In that stock the temperament was different: indolent to excess sometimes, ardent to madness at others, moderate seldom. When the blood ran hot, it ran a veritable fire in the veins.

And for any young man the fight in the fantastically illuminated night, the Virgin with the broken lamp, a near touch of the scythe of death, and a girl's white face at the window? Behind the Commandant's stern wrath--nay, beside--and soon before it--for the moment dazzling his angry eyes--came the bright gleams of romance.

He knew who lodged at the sign of the Silver c.o.c.k. Marie Zerkovitch was his friend, Zerkovitch his zealous follower. The journalist was back now from the battle-fields of France and was writing articles for _The Patriot_, a leading paper of Slavna. He was deep in the Prince's confidence, and his little house on the south boulevard often received this distinguished guest. The Prince had been keen to hear from Zerkovitch of the battles, from Marie of the life in Paris; with Marie's tale came the name, and what she knew of the story, of Sophie de Gruche.

Yet always, in spite of her praises of her friend, Marie had avoided any opportunity of presenting her to the Prince. Excuse on excuse she made, for his curiosity ranged round Casimir de Savres's bereaved lover. "Oh, I shall meet her some day all the same," he had said, laughing; and Marie doubted whether her reluctance--a reluctance to herself strange--had not missed its mark, inflaming an interest which it had meant to balk. Why this strange reluctance? So far it was proved baseless. His first encounter with the Lady of the Red Star--Casimir's poetical sobriquet had pa.s.sed Marie's lips--had been supremely fortunate.

From the splash of blood to the broken Virgin, from the broken Virgin to the open window and the dark room behind, his restless glances sped.

Then came swift, impulsive decision. He caught up the bronze figure and entered the porch. He knew Meyerstein's shop, and that from it no staircase led to the upper floor. The other door was his mark, and he knocked on it, raising first with a cautious touch, then more resolutely, the old bra.s.s hand with hospitably beckoning finger which served for knocker. Then he listened for a footstep on the stairs. If she came not, the venturesome night went ungraced by its crowning adventure. He must kiss the hand that saved him before he slept.

The door opened softly. In the deep shadow of the porch, on the winding, windowless staircase of the old house, it was pitch dark. He felt a hand put in his and heard a low voice saying: "Come, Monseigneur." From first to last, both in speech and in writing, she called him by that t.i.tle and by none other. Without a word he followed her, picking his steps, till they reached her room. She led him to the chair by the window; the darkness was somewhat less dense there. He stood by the chair.

"The lamp's broken--and there's only one match in the box!" said Sophy, with a low laugh. "Shall we use it now--or when you go, Monseigneur?"

"Light it now. My memory, rather than my imagination!"

She struck the match; her face came upon him white in the darkness, with the mark on her cheek a dull red; but her eyes glittered. The match flared and died down.

"It is enough. I shall remember."

"Did I kill him?"

"I don't know whether he's killed--he's badly hurt. This lady here is pretty heavy."

"Give her to me. I'll put her in her place." She took the figure and set it again on the window-sill. "And the big man who attacked you?"

"Mist.i.tch? He'll be shot."

"Yes," she agreed with calm, unquestioning emphasis.

"You know what you did to-night?"

"I had the sense to think of the man in the porch."

"You saved my life."

Sophy gave a laugh of triumph. "What will Marie Zerkovitch say to that?"

"She's my friend, too, and she's told me all about you. But she didn't want us to meet."

"She thinks I bring bad luck."

"She'll have to renounce that heresy now." He felt for the chair and sat down, Sophy leaning against the window-sill.

"Why did they attack you?"

He told her of the special grudge which Mist.i.tch and his company had against him, and added: "But they all hate me, except my own fellows from Volseni. I have a hundred of them in Suleiman's Tower, and they're stanch enough."

"Why do they hate you?"

"Oh, I'm their school-master--and a very strict one, I suppose. Or, if you like, the pruning-knife--and that's not popular with the rotten twigs."

"There are many rotten twigs?"

She heard his hands fall on the wooden arms of the chair and pictured his look of despair. "All--almost all. It's not their fault. What can you expect? They're encouraged to laziness and to riot. They have no good rifles. The city is left defenceless. I have no big guns." He broke suddenly into a low laugh. "There--that's what Zerkovitch calls my fixed idea; he declares it's written on my heart--big guns!"

"If you had them, you'd be--master?"

"I could make some attempt at a defence anyhow; at least we could cover a retreat to the hills, if war came." He paused. "And in peace--yes, I should be master of Slavna. I'd bring men from Volseni to serve the guns." His voice had grown vindictive. "Stenovics knows that, I think."

He roused himself again and spoke to her earnestly. "Listen. This fellow Mist.i.tch is a great hero with the soldiers and the mob. When I have him shot, as I shall--not on my own account, I could have killed him to-night, but for the sake of discipline--there will very likely be a disturbance. What you did to-night will be all over the city by to-morrow morning. If you see any signs of disturbance, if any people gather round here, go to Zerkovitch's at once--or, if that's not possible or safe, come to me in Suleiman's Tower, and I'll send for Marie Zerkovitch too. Will you promise? You must run no risk."

"I'll come if I'm afraid."

"Or if you ought to be?" he insisted, laughing again.

"Well, then--or if I ought to be," she promised, joining in his laugh.

"But the King--isn't he with you?"

"My father likes me; we're good friends. But 'like father, unlike son'

they say of the Stefanovitches. I'm a martinet, they tell me; well, he--isn't. Nero fiddled--you remember? The King goes fishing. He's remarkably fond of fishing, and his advisers don't discourage him. I tell you all this because you're committed to our side now."