Читать книгу Lochinvar - S. R. Crockett - Страница 5

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So, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover Walter Gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight. Doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. He held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. But the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. Wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting.

It was with a feeling of chill water running icily down his back that he passed each black cavern, glancing warily over his shoulder lest he should catch the downward stroke of an arm in the doorway, or see the candle-light flash on the deadly blade of the Killer's butchering knife.

It was nerve-shaking work. The sweat, chill as the clammy mist of the night, began to pour down Wat's face, and his flesh grew prickly all over as though he had been stuck full of pins.

Unless something happened, he felt that in another moment he must shriek aloud. He stopped and listened. Somewhere near him he felt sure he could distinguish the sound of breathing. It was not the heavy, regular to-and-fro respiration of unconscious sleep, but rather the quicker and shorter breathing of one who has recently undergone severe exertion, and whose heart still runs fast ahead.

Wat stood and listened. The sound came from half-way up the stairs, out of a room with a door which opened wider than the others, and which now stood, gaping black and ominous, directly before him. Wat could hear the sound of feet behind him, cautiously shuffling on the flags of the doorway, and by this sign he knew that his three ruffians were there waiting for him with the weapons of their trade naked and deadly in their hands. He was trapped, taken between the brutal, dastard butchers behind him and the unknown but more terrible breathers in the dark above him.

Yet his very desperation brought a compensating calmness. He pressed his arm against his side, where, in an inner pocket, he carried the papers he had come to deliver. He undid the button of his cloak, and let it fall to the ground to clear his sword-arm. Then, bending forward like a runner straining to obtain good pace at the start of a short race, he went up the stairs steadily and warily till he had reached the door of the room. His candle was almost blown out with the quickness of his motion. It flickered low, and then caught again, as Wat stepped nimbly within, and made the point of his sword circle about him to clear himself a space against attack.

Then he looked around him. He found himself in a wide, low-ceilinged room, with many small windows along the side. A curtain of arras hung at one end, and a table stood in front of it—a hall of rustic assembly, as it seemed. At the far side of the table from him and between its edge and the curtain, calm as though it had been broad day, sat a tall, thin man. He had red hair and a short red beard, both liberally sprinkled with gray. His eyes were of a curious China blue, pale and cold. He was clad in a French uniform, and a pair of pistols and a drawn sword lay on the table before him.

The man sat perfectly still, with his elbows on the table and his chin on the knuckles of the hands which were joined beneath his beard. His eyes were alive, however, and surveyed Wat Gordon from head to foot. The effect of this scrutiny upon the man in the chair was somewhat surprising.

He started half-way to his feet, and so disturbed the table behind which he sat that one of the pistols rolled off and fell underneath, so that the butt appeared on the side nearest to Wat. At the noise the arras behind was disturbed, and Lochinvar felt that unseen eyes were watching and unseen ears listening behind its shelter.

Wat, on his side, was not less astonished. For at the first glance he knew the man at the table.

"Jack—Jack Scarlett?" he stammered, half holding out and half withholding his hand, as to a friend met unexpectedly in more than doubtful circumstances. The man nodded without appearing to notice the outstretched hand, and continued to look the young man over with the pale, piercing eyes of blue.

"Then you are the officer of the prince appointed to receive my despatches?" cried Wat, when words came back to him.

The man whom Wat had called Jack Scarlett shook his head.

"With another I might pretend it," he said, "but not with you, Lord of Lochinvar. Now do I see that Barra plots deeper and yet more simply than I had given his Highland brains credit for. I little knew that the cavalier whom I was to meet to-night was Wat Gordon, mine ancient scholar and good ally."

"It pleases you to speak riddles with your tongue, John," replied Walter, "you that were wont to strike so strong and straight with the blade of steel. You that know me well, mine old master of the fence, I beseech to speak plainly and riddle to me no more."

Scarlett never took his blue eyes off Lochinvar's face as he spoke.

"We are here, my Lord of Lochinvar, in the matter of a most serious conference," he said; "therefore, do not stand there fixed and forwandered in the midst of the floor. Set your candle on a sconce and be seated."

Wat shook his head.

"There are too many perils behind me and before," he replied; "I must have light and room to guard my head ere I can sit or talk with you or any man, seeing that my life is not my own so long as my commission remains unfulfilled."

Scarlett knocked three times loudly on the board in front of him.

In a moment the arras stirred behind, and a man-at-arms appeared. He was clad in a pale-blue uniform, unlike any that Wat had seen in the army of the States-General.

"Bring lights," said Scarlett to him in French.

In a few minutes the room was fully illumined by the rays of half a dozen candles set in a pair of silver candlesticks, each of them holding three lights.

Then Scarlett pointed Wat to a chair.

"Surely you will do me the honor to be seated now," he said, courteously.

Wat replied by picking up a cross-legged stool of black oak and setting it down at the angle of the room, at the point most distant from the arras, and also from the door by which he had entered. Then he sat down upon it, still holding his sword bare in his right hand, and made the point of it play with the toe of his buff leathern riding-boot, while he waited impatiently for Scarlett to speak.

The man at the table had never once removed his eyes from Lochinvar's face. Then in a quiet, steady, unhurried voice he began to speak:

"You have not forgotten, my Lord of Lochinvar—"

At the repetition of the title Walter stirred his shoulders a little disdainfully.

"I say again, my Lord of Lochinvar has not forgotten—my lord has every right to the title. It was given to his ancestors by the grandfather of his present majesty—"

"His present majesty?" said Walter, looking up inquiringly.

"Aye," replied Scarlett, with some apparent heat, "His Most Gracious Majesty James the Second, King of Great Britain and Ireland. Since when did Walter Gordon of Lochinvar need to stand considering who has the right to be styled his lawful king?"

And the keen, cold eyes glinted like steel blades in the candle-light.

"It was in fencing and not in loyalty that I took lessons from you, John Scarlett," replied Lochinvar, haughtily, looking with level brows at the red-bearded man across the table, who still leaned his chin on the tips of his fingers. "I pray you, say out your message and be done."

"But this is my message," Scarlett went on, "which I was commanded to deliver to the man whom I should meet here in the inn of Brederode. You are the servant of King James, and his messages and commands are yours to obey."

Wat Gordon bowed stiffly. "In so far," he said, "as they do not conflict with my orders from my superior officers in the service of the Prince of Orange, in whose army I am at present a humble soldier."

"You are indeed a soldier in the Scottish Guards, which were raised in that country by permission of King James, and by him lent to his son-in-law, the Stadtholder of Holland. But surely the commands of your king are before all; before the mandates of Parliament, before the commands of generals—aye, before even the love of wife and children."

And the sonorous words brought a fire into the cold eyes of the speaker and an answering erectness into the pose of Wat Gordon, who had hitherto been listening listlessly but watchfully as he continued to tap the point of his riding-boot with his sword-blade.

"I have yet to hear what are the commands of his majesty the king," said Wat, lifting his hat at the name.

Scarlett tossed a sealed paper across the table, and as Wat rose to take it he kept a wary eye on the two chief points of danger—the division in the arras and the door, behind which, as he well knew, were stationed those three worthy gentry of my Lord Barra's retinue, Haxo the Bull, the Calf, and the Killer.

Wat took the paper with his left hand, broke the seal, and unfolded it by shaking it open with a quick, clacking jerk. It read thus:

JAMES II., by the GRACE OF GOD, etc.

It is my command that John Scarlett, Lieutenant of the Luxemburg Regiment in the service of the King of France, obtain the papers relating to the numbers and dispositions of the troops of the States-General in the city and camp of Amersfort, which I have reason to believe to be in the possession of my trusty servant and loving Cousin, Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvar in Galloway.

At Whitehall, this 14 of Aprile, 1688.

JAMES R.

Walter bent his knee, kissed the king's message, and, rising to his feet, as courteously folded it and handed it back to Lieutenant Scarlett.

"I am the king's subject, it is true," he said. "Moreover, the king is anointed, and his word binds those to whom it is addressed. But I am also the soldier of the Prince of Orange and of the States-General of Holland. I eat their bread; I wear their uniform; I take their pay; to them I have sworn the oath of allegiance. I am in this inn of Brederode as a plain soldier, charged with orders given to me by my superior officer, and I cannot depart from these orders while I live a free man and able to carry them out."

"But the king—the king—?" sternly reiterated Scarlett, rising for the first time to his feet, and clapping the palm of his hand sharply on the table by way of emphasis.

"The king," replied Walter, in a voice deeply moved, "is indeed my king. But he has no right to command a soldier to become a traitor, nor to turn an honest man into a spy. He may command my life and my fortunes. He may command my death. But, landless, friendless, and an exile though I be, mine honor at least is mine own. I refuse to deliver the papers with which I have been intrusted, or to be a traitor to the colors under which I serve."

While Walter spoke Scarlett stood impatiently tapping the table with the paper, which he had refolded.

"The request, at any rate, is nothing more than a formality," he said. "You are here alone. Your three attendant rascals are, equally with myself, in the pay of the King of France. They wait under arms at that door—"

"Under butchers' knives, say rather!" interrupted Lochinvar, scornfully.

But Scarlett paid no heed to his words.

"If you will deliver up the papers cheerfully, according to the mandate of your king, I have in my pocket a patent of nobility made out for the man who should put them into my hand at the inn of Brederode—besides the promise of pardons and restoration of heritages for all his friends and associates at present lying outside the law in Scotland and elsewhere. Think well, for much more than the present hangs upon your answer. Life and death for many others are in it!"

Wat stood still without making any answer. With his left hand he turned the dainty lace upon the cuff of his coat-sleeve carefully back. He thought vaguely of his love whom he was renouncing to go to certain death, of the friends whose pardon he was refusing. Most clearly of all he bethought him of the old tower in the midst of the Loch of Lochinvar under the heathery fell of lone Knockman. Then he looked straight at the man before him.

"Jack Scarlett," he said, "it was you who taught me how to thrust and parry. Then your hand was like steel, but your heart was not also hard as the millstone. You were not used to be a man untrue, forsworn. God knows then, at least, you were no traitor. You were no spy. You were no murderer, though a soldier of fortune. You called me a friend, and I was not ashamed of the name. I do not judge you even now. You may have one conception of loyalty to the king we both acknowledge. I have another. You are in the service of one great prince, and you are (I believe it) wholly faithful to him. Do me the honor to credit that I can be as faithful to my uniform, as careless of life, and as careful of honor in the service of my master as you would desire to be in yours."

Scarlett turned his eyes away. He felt, though he did not yet acknowledge, the extraordinary force and fervor of the appeal—delivered by Wat with red-hot energy, with a hiss in the swift words of it like that which the smith's iron gives forth when it is thrust into the cooling caldron.

Wat turned full upon him. The two men stood eye to eye, with only the breadth of the table between them.

"Look you, Scarlett," Lochinvar said again, without waiting for his reply. "You are the finest swordsman in the world; I am but your pupil; yet here and now I will fight you to the death for the papers if you will promise to draw off your men and give me free passage from this place should I kill you or have you at my mercy. But I warn you that you will have to kill me without any mercy in order to get the documents from me."

Scarlett appeared to consider for a space.

"There is no risk, and, after all, it makes it less like a crime," he said, under his breath. But aloud he only answered, "I will fight you for the papers here and now."

Walter bowed his head, well pleased.

"That is spoken like my old Jack!" he said.

Lieutenant Scarlett went to the arras and threw it open with both hands. It ran with brazen rings upon a bar in the Flemish manner.

"Clairvaux! Ferrand!" he cried.

And two young officers in gay uniforms immediately appeared.

"Gentlemen," he said, addressing them, "this is Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvar. He has done me the honor to propose crossing swords with me here in this room. If he should kill me or have me at his mercy he is to be allowed free passage and outgate. Also he fights far from his friends, and therefore one of you will be good enough to act as his second."

The younger of the two officers, he who had answered to the name of Ferrand, a tall, fair-haired Frenchman of the Midi, at once said, "I shall consider it an honor to act as second to the Sieur of Lochinvar."

"In the event of my death you will consider these orders imperative, and equally binding upon your honor as upon mine own," said John Scarlett.

The two officers bowed.

"I think we should know the length of each other's swords by this time," he said, looking at Wat; "there is therefore no need that our seconds should measure them." For he had noted Walter's disinclination to let his weapon leave his hand. So far as his own life was concerned, Wat hoped little from this combat. But he desired greatly to die an honorable death, with his face to a worthy enemy; for John Scarlett had been in his time the greatest swordsman in Europe, and though Walter was by far his ablest pupil in Scotland, yet at no time could he have stood any chance in open field against his master.

So, as the swords felt one another after the salute, Wat set his teeth and wondered how long it would last, and how much Kate would ever know. There is little need to describe the fight at length. From the first Scarlett contented himself with keeping his opponent's blade in play, feeling it, humoring it, and, as it were, coaxing it into position. And for some bouts Wat fought without any of that verve and lightning versatility of fence which were his usual characteristics in action. Something seemed to paralyze his powers and weigh down his sword-blade, as though the quick and living steel had turned to lead in his hand. It might be that the feeling of ancient pupilage had returned to him, for to himself he seemed rather to be taking a lesson in the finesse of defence than to be fighting against terrible odds for his life and honor.

But suddenly a wonderful change came over him. A laugh was heard out in the passage, in which stood Haxo the Bull and his satellites—a laugh thin, acrid, unmistakable. It stung Wat to the roots of his heart. For a moment he was in difficulty. The problem divided his mind even between thrust and parry. There was no man whom he knew well whose laugh rang like that. But even as he fought he remembered how once, in the palace of the stadtholder, he had seen the prince come in leaning upon the arm of a young, dark-haired man, whose meagre, hatchet face was decorated, for all ornament, with a black mustache so scanty that it seemed twisted of twenty hairs, and whose ends hung down, one on either side of his lips, like a couple of rats' tails. This, and a certain bitter, rasping laugh to which he had at once taken a dislike, were all Wat remembered of that young man. But after the distinguished party had passed in to supper he learned that the prince's companion and confidant was one of his own nation, Murdo McAlister, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles, and that he was one to whom the Prince of Orange looked for counsel in all that did not touch the ecclesiastical position of affairs of Scotland.

The laugh which rang out from the dark passage behind the Bull, the Calf, and the Killer was the same which he had heard at the supper-party of the stadtholder.

From that moment Wat knew that in no event had he now any chance for his life. It mattered little whether or not he killed John Scarlett. Barra would certainly have the papers. For he knew the man well enough to know that, having taken such trouble to obtain the return of the numbers and positions for his own traitorous purposes, he would never let the bearer of them slip through his fingers. No oaths of his own or another would serve to bind Murdo of the Isles in that which concerned his schemes. Yet even in that moment of agony Wat could not help wondering why Barra had taken so difficult and roundabout a way of obtaining and transmitting a paper which it would have been perfectly easy for him to have gained by means of his official position, and to have forwarded to the King of France by more ordinary channels. But, however this may be, certain it is that the laugh irritated Wat Gordon strangely, and at the first sound of it he sprang towards Scarlett with an energy and fierceness entirely unlike the lassitude with which he had previously fought.

From that moment he forced the fighting, attacking with furious vigor and astonishing rapidity, so that the great master-at-arms soon found that even he had enough to do simply to stand it out on the defensive. Yet Scarlett smiled, too, for he thought that this bout of youthful fury would soon wear itself down, and that then he would easily enough get in his favorite deadly thrust in quart, to which no answer had ever yet been discovered.

But Walter never gave him time; for again the acrid laugh came from the dark passage and set all the young man's blood tingling to put a sword deep in the traitor's throat, and then, if need be, die with his foot on his enemy's breast. He sped two thrusts one after the other so swiftly that Scarlett, countering over-late for the first, had to leap back in order to measure his distance for the second. In so doing his foot slipped, and his blade, caught unexpectedly by Lochinvar's, went ringing against the ceiling and fell on the floor. Walter's point was at his breast the next moment.

"Yield!" said Walter; "I hold you to your word. You are at my mercy."

"I yield," said Scarlett. "It was well done. Never before in any land was I thus vanquished in a fair fight."