The Master of Appleby Part 66

"Nay," said I, drawing back. "You are her own true lover; and could she choose her bearer--"

"A murrain on your finickings!" he burst out. "She may die whilst we are haggling over the right to help her. Take her up quick, man, and begone!"

"But bethink you, d.i.c.k," I urged; "if you are taken, you have one chance in ten of faring as an officer and a prisoner of war. For me 'tis a spy's death as swift as they can drag me to it."

Now you will know, my dears, how much I loved these two when I could twist a cord of such mean fiber to bind them closer together. Richard's eyes flashed and his lip curled.

"Overlook it in me, if you can," he said, with fine scorn. "I had not thought upon the peril of it." And with that he took her in his arms as she had been a child to be carried, and I swung the door for him. But on the threshold he gave me back my sorry little subterfuge. "Once more, your forgiveness, Jack. I knew well you were but lying to give me precedence. Can you trust me with her?"

"Aye, dear lad; now and ever," said I; and so I pushed him out.

After he was gone I made shift to lead the horses through the narrow pa.s.sage and out by a rear door, giving them a friendly slap to point them toward the stables.

This done I went back to my immurement, and I know not how long it was that I paced a weary sentry beat up and down the narrow limits of the wine cellar, alone with such thoughts as go to make the sum of that despair which follows hard upon the heels of some climaxing catastrophe.

But I do know that, as the hours dragged on leadenshod, a slow fever of impatience came to dry the blood in my veins; to make me hunger and thirst for leave to say the final word to Father Matthieu, and so to be set at liberty to find the bottom of the pit into which a mocking fate had plunged me.

'Twas all over now. My dear lad was told, and he had forgiven me; the persecuting, plotting factor was effaced, and he could never trouble my sweet lady more. Between the two I loved there stood only the shadow of the marriage, and this the good priest would presently help me to dispel.

And after that ... I dared not look beyond. There is a way beset with lions, and any man who bears the name of man in honor may draw his sword and fix his eye upon the goal and hew his path to it, joying in the conflict. But there is also another way, a desert trail owning no peril more affrighting than its own dread waste and limitless monotony; and when his eyes behold the dismal prospect, and his feet have pressed the hitherward sands of this desert of despair, a man may well pause to gird his loins, to cross himself and patter such a prayer for strength and fort.i.tude as his creed hath taught him.

To such a faring through all the days and nights of this grim desert of a future these lonely hours in the wine vault were a fitting vigil, as I conceived; and when I had hugged my misery close, and a sort of monstrous self-pity had come to make a seeming virtue of the hard necessity, I was best pleased to be alone. In such a frame of mind the sound of footsteps in the out-cellar, warning me that more company was coming, sent a wave of sullen anger to submerge me, and I do think 'twas in me to turn my back upon a friend who should come to tell me I was free to go at large.

Since I had led forth the good horses the great oaken door had stood ajar. So I wondered why my visitor made so much ado rattling the key in the lock. Then it came to me suddenly that the noise and delay were meant to give me timely warning; and at the scent of threatening peril--a peril I might cope with and grapple soldierwise--I became a man again. A sweep of my hat sent the sputtering candle flying from its barrel head to the farther corner of the vault, and I dropped quickly behind a row of empty wine-b.u.t.ts to await what should befall.

Had she been a ghost, Mistress Margery would scarce have startled me more when she swung the door to let me see her. She was gowned in her best; there was a heightened color in her cheek; her eyes were like stars. Truly, I do think I never saw her so beautiful as she appeared at that moment, standing under the ma.s.sive arch of the doorway with her candle held high to light the inner gloom.

"This way, Scipio," she said, tripping ahead of the mulatto to point out the madeira bin. "We shall give my Lord and his gentlemen the best the Appleby cellar holds to speed their parting." Wherewith she stood aside to wait whilst he filled his basket with the straw-cased bottles.

At this I saw why she had come. Lord Cornwallis and his gentlemen were about to take the road, and the wine was wanted for the stirrup-cup.

Trusting my fate to no hand less loyal than her own, she had come herself with Scipio to stand betwixt me and possible discovery. And her word to the serving man was also a word to me to let me know my prisonment was near an end.

I thought it a most generous thing in her; the last of all her many wifely loyalties; and I would have given much for leave to stand forth and tell her so. Indeed, when the mulatto had poised his basket upon his head and vanished, and she was lingering to take a last look around before she followed him, I was upon the point of speaking.

But whilst I hesitated I saw her start back with a little cry of terror.

Standing in the arched doorway through which the mulatto had but now pa.s.sed was a man cloaked, hatted, booted and spurred as for the road. At her cry he doffed his hat and ...

My dears, I shall never be able to draw for you the hideous death-mask this man was wearing for a face. Seamed and scarred, shriveled and livid in purple and crimson welts, you would think a nine-thonged whip of fire had scourged out every semblance of comeliness, leaving only the skeleton frame on which to hang this ghastly caricature of a human face.

Fearing him not at all, I could scarce forbear a shudder at the sight of this walking death-mask of the libertine, Sir Francis Falconnet.

And if his face were terrifying in repose, 'twas fair demoniac when he laughed.

"Ha!" he said, bowing again in a mockery of politeness. "You are surprised, Mistress Margery; you heard my Lord's order and thought I would be by now some miles on the road to Salisbury?"

"If you were the loyal soldier you should be, sir," she said, drawing herself up proudly, "you would be at the head of your troop, as his Lordship directed." And then, with a gesture that was most queenly: "Stand aside, Sir--Libertine, and let me pa.s.s."

His answer was another mocking laugh, and he stepped within to close the door and lock it. When he turned to front her again his face was the face of a tormented devil.

"By G.o.d! you think too lightly of me, Mistress Margery. Before ever this day dawned I owed you much, but like a spiteful little h.e.l.licat you must needs add to the score by making me a target for your wit at the supper-table. 'Twill cost a life to more than one of them who laughed with you, my lady, but 'twill cost you dearer still."

He came nearer as he spoke, thrusting that horrible face farther into the circle of candle-light; but she would not draw back nor flinch a hair, and I marked that the hand that held the candlestick was as steady as a rock. But when he made an end she flung a quick glance over her shoulder and my heart leaped for joy. For then I knew she was leaning upon me.

"Once more, Captain Falconnet, will you let me pa.s.s?" she said.

"No!" he snarled, adding a horrid blasphemy. "'Twas pa.s.sion in me once, and I am none so sure there was not a time when you could have cooled it into love. But now 'tis hatred and revenge." He snapped his fingers in her face. "The thing they'll find here in the morning--"

He fell face downward at her feet and I set my heel in the small of his back to hold him whilst I could drive the point of the Ferara between his ribs. But my dear lady would not have it so.

"No, no! for the love of heaven, not that, Monsieur John!" she cried; and for the moment her fine courage was all swallowed up of pity and she became a compa.s.sionate woman pleading for a life.

But now my blood was up. "You are my wife," I said, coldly. "If he had a dozen lives I should take them all for that which he said to you."

"But not that way--oh, not that way, I do beseech you!" she begged.

"Think of what it will mean to you--and--and to me. For your own sake, Monsieur John."

I took my heel from the man's back.

"Your wish is law to me, dear lady. But your way is clear now; you may go."

She took a step toward the door.

"You will not kill him when I am gone, Monsieur John?"

"By the name he bears he was doubtless born a gentlemen; since you wish it, he shall die like one."

I saw she did not take my meaning; that when she was gone I should let him have his chance to die sword in hand.

"Remember, I have your promise," she said, turning to go. "The army is on the march for Salisbury, and in a little while your friends will be here to--"

The sentence ended in a very womanly shriek of terror. Watching his chance, my dastard enemy had bounded to his feet to make a quick lunge, not at me, but at her.

Of course I came between to parry the murderous thrust, and after that it was life for one of us and death for the other. I looked to see my lady run, shrieking; indeed, I called to her to go; but she stood fast as if her terror had frozen her; and so it was her candle that lighted the grim vault for the duel.

As you will know full well, I was not minded to give this thrice-accursed fiend more than the gentleman's chance I had promised to give him. But now, as twice before, he fought most desperately, trying by every trick of fence to come between me and the silent little figure holding the candle aloft. As I have often said, he was a pretty swordsman, and at this crisis, with life at stake, and all the fury of the seven devils of disappointed vengeance to nerve his arm, his sword play was most masterly.

Yet twice in his stamping rushes I found my opening; once the Ferara's point pa.s.sed his blade, and but for the ringed guard of the German long-sword that stopped it when his parry failed, the steel would have pa.s.sed through him. After this he grew warier, having in mind, as I supposed, that other time when I had shown him that my wrist and arm could outweary his. Yet his savage onset never flagged for an instant; and when the light fell upon his hideous face, I could see the fierce eyes glinting like a basilisk's, with no sign in them that my time was come to press him home.

None the less, I did press him, inch by inch, driving him at each new clash of the steel a little deeper into the gloom that crowded close upon the narrow circle of candle-light. He saw my object--to push him to unfamiliar ground where he might trip and stumble in the darkness--and he strove furiously to defeat it. Yet he had no choice, and presently I had him among the empty wine-b.u.t.ts, foining and parrying for his life and pouring out such blasphemies as would make your blood run cold.

Here the end came quickly. Being entangled among the broached b.u.t.ts he had no room to play skilfully. So presently it chanced that he caught his point in the chine of a cask and his blade snapped short at the hilt. With a yelling oath, hissing hot from the devil's thumb-book, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the broken blade to fling and stick it javelin-wise in my shoulder; and then I saw the dull gleam of the candle-light on the barrel of a pistol.

Had he aimed the pistol at me, I trust I should still have given him his gentleman's chance. But when I saw him level the weapon at my dear lady ... they came in one and the same heart-beat; the sword-thrust that found his life and took it; the crash of the pistol-shot echoing like a clap of thunder in the close vault, and pitchy darkness to draw its curtain over all.

I know not how I reached her, pulling the broken sword-blade from my shoulder as I ran; nor can I tell you how an upgushing spring of thankfulness choked me when I found her unharmed by the bullet which had snuffed the candle out.

She was in a most piteous state, now it was all over; and though I charged it all where I supposed it should belong--to the account of a natural womanly pa.s.sion to cling to something in her moment of weakness--yet the blood ran quick in my veins when she suffered me to lead her out of that dismal, smoking death-pit, she clinging to me the while so close that I could feel the warmth of her and the fluttering of her dear heart beneath my hand.

She said no word, nor did I, till we were come above stairs. We found the rooms on the main floor deserted by all save the blacks, who were clearing away the debris of the feast of leave-taking. In the hall we came upon old Anthony, putting on the chain of the outer door. Here my lady drew apart from me.

"Is my Lord gone?" she asked.