The Red Axe Part 57

But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would not rid him of his enemies.

"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted.

"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!"

Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair.

"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a single true man among you--but there is not one worth spitting upon!"

"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark--"you have most at stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow fast enough!"

"G.o.d strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame you cowards."

He paused to prepare his weapons.

"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!"

Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps beneath me.

My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers.

"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for all with the iron crown."

There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing furiously upon me, sword in hand.

"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so fast he came.

"Murderer!" I shouted.

And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe flashed as it swept full circle with scarce a pause, but it took the head of a man with it on its way.

Otho von Reuss was crowned. Helene, the Little Playmate, was avenged.

CHAPTER LV

THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL

The Duke's body sank down upon that of the soldier, still further blocking the pa.s.sage. And as for his head, I know not where that went to.

But the rush of his followers was utterly checked by the barrier of dead.

With a wild cry, "The Duke is dead! Duke Otho is slain!" they rushed down and out of the Red Tower, eager at once to escape unharmed, and to carry to their companions in the Wolfsberg the startling news.

Nevertheless, I cleared my arm, wiped my axe, and again stood ready.

"Come!" I cried--"come all of you. You desire to kill me? Well, I am still waiting!"

But not a man answered. The stairway was clear, save of the headless dead. And then, sudden as summer thunder, through the dumb and empty silence, I heard clear and loud the clanging of the hammers of Prince Karl upon the gates of Thorn.

At that I felt that I must roar aloud in my fierce joy. I shouted angrily for more and more a.s.sailants to come up the stair, that I might kill them all. I yearned to be first at the gate, to see the men whom I had led break their way in to deliver the city. I, more than any other, had brought them there. I had trained them for that work. Best of all, across the stairway beneath me lay dead Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark, beheaded by the Red Axe of his own Justicer.

"Husband! Hugo! Are you wounded?" said a voice behind me, a voice which in a moment recalled me from my b.l.o.o.d.y imaginings and baresark fury of fighting.

"Helene!" I cried.

She approached, and would have thrown her arms about me. But I held out my hand to keep her off.

"Not now, child," I said; "touch me not. I am unwounded, but wet!"

And so I was, wet with that which had spouted from the neck of Otho von Reuss, as his trunk stood a moment headless in the stairway ere it fell p.r.o.ne--a hideous thing to see.

"Come, Helene," I said, "we must away. There is other work for your husband to-night. You I will place with the Bishop Peter. But my place is with the men of Pla.s.senburg and with Karl, my n.o.ble Prince."

And I took her by the hand to lead her out.

"Not that way!" she cried, shrinking back.

For the bodies of the two slain men lay there. And the stairs ran red from step to step in red drips and lappering pools.

So I bethought me of what we should do, and ran forthwith for my father's cord, with which he was used to bind the malefactors upon the wheel.

"Come, Helene," said I, and straightway fastened the rope to the iron bar from which I had made so many descents to the pavement in the old days of the White Wolves.

I let myself down, and there in the angle of the tower wall, I waited to catch my wife. She delayed somewhat, and I could not think wherefore.

But at last she came, bringing the Red Axe in her hand.

"Go not weaponless!" she said, and I reached up and took from her hand that which had already served me so well. The Red Axe had done its work now, and she was grateful.

Then full lightly she descended to my side, and we went down the streets of Thorn, which were filled with hurrying burgesses, all with weapons in their hands, rushing to discover the cause of the clamor. I took Helene hastily to the palace of the Bishop. And when I arrived there I saw Peter himself with his head out of a window.

"I come to claim your protection for my wife!" I cried.

He came down immediately with an attendant.

"Fear not," I said, "you will never be called in question for this kindly deed. The Duke Otho is slain, and the army of Prince Karl of Pla.s.senburg is already at the gates."

"The Duke is dead!" he gasped. "Who slew him?"

"Who but the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark should slay a traitor?"

said I, smiling at his astonishment. And I held up the Red Axe, on which there was now no crystal-clear rim of shining steel. All was crimson from haft to edge--red as blood.

"Here, for an hour, Helene, little wife, I must leave you!" I said.

But now she sobbed and clung to me as she had not done before, even in the dungeon.

"Stay with me," she said. "I need you, Hugo!"