High Noon Part 21

"I a.s.sure you that you need have no fear so far as I am concerned.

Both my brother and myself have refused to comply with that condition, and we shall refuse to the end."

Madame, however, paid but little heed to Natalie; she was beside herself with rage.

"Ah, ah!" she cried, "wait till he returns! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!"

So distorted with fury was the woman's face that Natalie became alarmed for her sanity. She drew near to her and endeavoured to catch her hands in her own, imploring her to be calm.

By-and-by Madame Estelle listened to her, and in a sudden revulsion of feeling fell on her knees, sobbing bitterly.

Natalie bent over her, doing her best to console her, and presently, as the woman grew calmer, she endeavoured to turn the situation to her own advantage.

"The best way to defeat his scheme," she urged, "is to release me."

But at that Madame Estelle leaped to her feet.

"Ah! not that," she cried, "not that! If I distrust him, I distrust you still more. Your pretty face may look sad and sorrowful, and you may declare to me that you will never consent, but I will wait and see. I'll wait until Boris returns and confront you with him. Then perhaps I shall learn the real truth."

Natalie made a little despairing gesture with her hands; argument, she saw, would be useless.

Gathering herself together, Madame blundered, half blind with tears, out of the room, and Natalie with a sinking heart heard the bolts drawn again.

All through the day Estelle sat brooding, sending Natalie's lunch and tea up to her by Michael.

All the evening she still sat and brooded, until she had worked herself up into a hysteria of rage.

It was long after dark when a knock sounded on her door. It was Boris.

"Ah!" she cried, as he entered, "what do you think I have gone through? What do you think I have suffered? What do you think I have found out?"

Boris looked at her in alarm.

"Is it Mademoiselle?" he asked. "Is she safe?"

"Safe! Oh, yes, she is safe," she cried, with a peal of uncanny laughter. "Safe for your kisses and for your caresses. Oh, you liar!

you liar! I have been true to you in all respects, and you have been false to me in everything that mattered. So you will marry the pretty Natalie, will you? Oh, but you won't! Never! Never!"

She rushed at Boris, as though to strike him, but Boris, jaded though he was, was quick and strong.

He caught her brutally, as he might a dog, by the neck, and threw her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open, and, utterly careless as to what harm he might do to her, sent the unhappy woman sprawling onto the floor. In a second he had banged the door to and turned the key in the lock.

He heard Estelle pick herself up and hurl herself in blind and impotent fury against the door.

He listened as shriek after shriek of frenzy reached his ears.

Up in the tower Natalie heard these shrieks, too, and shuddered. A horrible fear took possession of her heart that there was murder being done below.

She sat on the edge of her bed with her hands pressed to her heart, listening in fascinated horror.

The shrieks died away, and there was complete silence in the house for full half an hour.

Then she heard a sudden shout, a cras.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s and a scrambling, tearing noise, the hideous bay of the boarhounds in the court-yard, a scream, and a thud.

Stabbing the other noise with sharp precision came the sound of shots.

CHAPTER XXV

Meanwhile, at the estate of Peter Vseslavitch, the day dawned clear and fine--but upon what a scene of uproar!

All night the household had been corked up as if tight in a bottle--as far as following the marauders was concerned; for when, a few minutes after that last intimidating shot of Virot's, they had burst out of the house and run quickly to the stables, it was only to discover that all the horses were gone.

"By the ever-to-be-praised apostles!" swore Andrieff, his red beard wagging in impotent rage, "the devils have turned the horses loose on the _steppe_. Every box is empty!"

It was true--and almost frantic with distress Peter and the overseer had been forced to turn back into the house to wait till day-break.

Well! there was work there for them while they waited. Paul and the lad Alexis were soon brought back to consciousness with nothing more serious than badly swollen and throbbing heads. But poor Baxter still lay in a heap on the floor. He seemed not to have stirred. And Peter thought, as he knelt over him, that he would never move again.

They lifted his sagging body to a couch and then Andrieff, who was something of an amateur surgeon, examined him carefully.

The bullet had ploughed a furrow just above his temple; but after some probing Andrieff decided it had pa.s.sed on without penetrating the skull. His heart was still beating faintly and they forced spirits between his lips until after a time he revived. Paul himself helped put the wounded man in bed and would not leave him until he saw that Baxter had dropped off into a natural sleep.

Then with the others he paced the floor impatiently until it began to grow light. There were four of them--and with the help of as many more trusty servants they felt they could give Boris and his crew a pretty fight--if they could only find him!

Not till they came to decide on what men they would take with them did Paul recall how he had been disposed of earlier in the night.

"That big _moujik_ who showed me to my room last evening!" he cried suddenly, turning to Peter. "Where is the dog? It was he who struck me down!"

"By the Lord!" exclaimed Andrieff, "that explains why the horses are gone! The cur is a traitor! I'll cut his heart out this day!"

"He took old Moka out of the room, too, do you remember?" Peter asked.

"He must have been in Boris's pay all the while--the man has been with us but a short time. Oh! if I could but get my hands upon his villainous throat!" But of what avail were imprecations? The four men finally ceased to talk, but the fierce determination which grimly lighted each face, boded ill for Boris' cut-throat gang, when they should be come up with, on the morrow.

At last day dawned, and as soon as they could catch horses enough--the brutes had wandered back toward the stables as it became lighter--they were off.

The heavy rain, which had kept up nearly all the night, had completely obliterated the fugitives' tracks. Without a trail their first step seemed to be to visit the shooting-lodge whence Boris had made his sally.

Two hours' hard riding brought them to the place. It looked deserted, but Paul rode his horse close to the door and knocked viciously upon it. There was no response.

"It seems," said Peter, with a politeness that his looks belied, "that our friends are not at home."

Verdayne's answer sounded very much like an oath. He gave the door one final kick, and finding his rough summons ineffectual, turned to his companions.

"Look you!" he said. "I am not at all sure that this house is as empty as it seems. I'm going to ride alongside the garden wall so that I can climb over the top. I want to go investigating."

In a twinkling he had put his plan into execution and dropped over the wall into the garden. He walked round the house and found it shuttered, dark and silent. He whistled a long whistle to himself.