A Modern Mercenary Part 23

Within the ma.s.sive walls the reception rooms were closed and empty at last; the guests had separated and night had taken possession, but not rest.

Valerie, alone in her room and oppressed by the vague infection of wakefulness and fear, moved from window to window listening to the wild noises that were abroad, and trying to reason herself out of the conviction of coming danger, which held her from sleep.

She had thrown back the curtains from the windows. Her room occupied an exposed corner of the Castle tower, which stood on the edge of the gorge through which the Kofn chafed its way to the plains below the Ford. A narrow strip of ground scarcely six feet in width alone separated the wall of the tower from the precipice that fell sheer away to the foaming water far below.

She tried to read but could not fix her attention. Her heart seemed in her ears and answered to every sound.

And all the while in the scattered rooms and shadowy pa.s.sages the drama which involved her life was being slowly played out. Below on the ground floor of the tower Elmur and Sagan sat together.

'By the way, my dear Count, have you ever thought of the possibility of Captain Colendorp's refusal to see things in our light?' Elmur was asking, after an interval filled in by the noises of wind and water which could not be shut out of the Castle on such a night.

The Count looked up and scowled.

'Leave the management of the affair to me,' he said. 'Unless I were sure of my man, I should not be such a fool as to bring him here to listen to what I shall say to him to-night;' then he added as an afterthought, 'When once we have begun, Baron von Elmur, there can be no going back.

Remember that! The game must now be played to the end, whatever that end is.'

Elmur pondered. Sagan was a bad tool, at once stubborn and secretive, cunning enough to recognise and to resent handling, thickheaded and vain enough to blunder ruinously. And Elmur found at the last and most important moment that for some unexplained reason he had lost the whip-hand of Count Simon.

Up to this interview, by alternate effrontery and flattery, he had kept his place in the Count's confidence, and exerted a guiding and restraining influence over him. Now Sagan held him at arm's length, and was plainly determined to act according to his own judgment without consulting the German. The mischief had, of course, been done by the news of Elmur's engagement to Selpdorf's daughter, for Sagan, like others of his limited mental development, was sensitively suspicious.

Hence the bond between the two men was weak, inasmuch as neither liked nor trusted the other, but it was strong, since both were tenacious and both had staked all the future on the chance of forcing a new _regime_ upon Maasau the Free. At this crisis, however, Elmur would gladly have hedged or masked his position, for he knew himself to be overmuch at the mercy of the equivocal tact and discretion of his ungovernable coadjutor.

'I cannot help thinking that my presence at the outset will make Captain Colendorp shy at any proposition whatever,' said Elmur again.

'Do you want to draw back? You don't wish to appear in the matter--is that it? By St. Anthony, von Elmur, you showed me the road that has brought me to this pa.s.s and you will have to stand by me now! Also you are wrong about Colendorp. When he sees for himself that I have Germany behind me, it will decide his doubts--if he has any, which I don't expect. I have read the man. He is soured and ill-conditioned, the readiest stuff to make a rebel and a traitor of!'

What more Elmur might have urged was cut short by the entrance of Colendorp. He had left his sword outside.

He saluted Sagan in his stiff punctilious way, his dark and sallow face impenetrable.

'I am glad to see you, Captain Colendorp,' said Sagan with some constraint. Even he felt the check of the man's iron impa.s.siveness.

'You sent for me, my lord,' returned Colendorp, as one who hints that time is short and he would be through with business.

'Take a cigar,' said the Count, pus.h.i.+ng a box across the table, and also pouring out a generous gla.s.s of the liqueur, for the manufacture of which Maasau is famous--the golden glittering poison known as _bizutte_.

Colendorp accepted both in silence, but took a seat with a certain slow unwillingness that was suggestive. Colendorp was at the best unpliable.

His manner put an edge on Sagan's temper. He plunged into his subject.

'Yes, I sent for you, Captain Colendorp, because I believe you to be a faithful Maasaun. You are not one of those blind optimists who say because Maasau has been swinging so long between ruin and extravagance that she must swing on so for ever. It is not possible!'

'I am sorry to hear that, my lord.'

'No, I say it is not possible. Changes must be made. In these days of big armaments and growing kingdoms, Maasau can no longer stand alone.

She must secure an ally, a friend powerful enough to back her up against all comers--a great nation who will make the cause of Maasau's freedom her own, and help us to preserve the traditions of our country.'

Elmur half expected the soldier to point this speech for himself by a glance towards the representative of Germany, but Colendorp sat unresponsive and black-browed, and gave no sign.

'There is a party among us who advise us to wait until we are forced into a corner, and then to make choice of such an ally. But reasonable men know that a bargain one is driven to make must inevitably be a bad bargain. The only hope for Maasau is to move at once and to move boldly before it is too late, and while we are still in a position to choose for ourselves under the conditions which suit us best and will best conduce to the preservation of our freedom.'

Colendorp listened without any change of expression.

'What is your opinion, Captain Colendorp?' asked Sagan at last.

'The only difficulty would be to find a nation sufficiently disinterested for our purpose, my lord,' replied Colendorp deliberately.

'I have found one.' Sagan indicated Elmur, but the Guardsman still kept his gaze on the Count. 'Only one small obstacle stands in the way of carrying out our plans--the plans, recollect, of the wisest and most patriotic of our countrymen. I need not name it.'

Colendorp apparently thought for a moment.

'M. Selpdorf?' he said.

'But not at all! Selpdorf is one of the foremost of my advisers.'

Colendorp shook his head as if no other name occurred to him; Sagan bent across the table, the knotted hand on which he leaned twitching slightly.

'You do not speak, but you know the truth. And you know the--the Duke.'

Colendorp's silence was telling on Sagan's self-control.

'Yes, the Duke!' he reiterated. 'He has never given a thought to the welfare of Maasau. Its revenues are his necessity, that is all! If the ruler will not take the interests of the country into consideration, his people must supply his place. Do not misunderstand my words!' for at length a blacker frown pa.s.sed over the iron face of the listener. 'My meaning is not to hurt the Duke at all; our one wish is to urge upon him the only course left for the safety of the country. To that end we must all combine. So long as his Highness believes he can depend on his Guard to back him, he will hold out against even the most reasonable demands. Therefore the Guard must be with us.'

'I am not the colonel of the Guard,' said Colendorp quietly. Sagan took this in some form as an agreement with his views, some surrender on the part of the Guardsman, and he broke out into a flood of speech.

'No, but Wallenloup! A pig-headed old fool, who would never be brought to see an inch either side of his oath of allegiance, but would rush blindly on before the Duke to his death, and to the destruction of Maasau--to anywhere! Colendorp, Ulm being away, you are the senior officer, failing Wallenloup. It is not outside the possibilities of the game that you would find yourself in command of the Guard when all was said and done. The highest ambition of a Maasaun is yours if you will promise us your help in this struggle! A struggle, mind you, not of selfish motives nor for self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, but for Maasau the Free!'

He stuttered in his eagerness and then stood waiting for the reply.

'And if the Duke does not consent to--any--changes?' asked Colendorp coldly.

At this juncture Elmur interposed.

'The Count will ex----'

But Sagan was rus.h.i.+ng his fences now like a vicious horse. Having once given voice to his ambitions he had no longer the power to rein in his speech.

'By your leave, Baron von Elmur, I will speak! Colendorp, you are a man to whom the world may yet give much. Your one chance is being offered to you--here--to-night. The men will follow you if you give the word, and Wallenloup, well, Wallenloup must upon that occasion absent himself. Use your influence with the other officers. They are not to be bribed, of course, but in the cause of the country each man would find his services well rewarded. Think before you answer me, man! Duke Gustave is sunk in pleasure and has sold the country over and over again to the highest bidder, and only got out of his share of the bargain by Selpdorf's infernal cleverness. This time we will play an open game. With Germany to stand by us, we have nothing to fear!'

'And if His Highness will not consent to these changes?' again demanded Colendorp.

'Then'--Elmur laid a hand on the old man's shoulder, but Sagan shook it off--'then, Captain Colendorp, he must go--to make room for another who can better fill his place! Just as Wallenloup must go to give room to another and less obstructive chief.'

Colendorp's dark eyes glared straight in front of him. Had it been Adiron--Adiron, as true a man, would have feigned agreement and blown the plot afterwards. But never Colendorp! He was narrow-minded, poor, embittered, scenting insult in every careless word, proud, loyal, desperate. Mentally his vision was limited; he could see but one thing at a time, but he saw it very large.

Sagan's treachery pa.s.sed by him in that moment of mad feeling. He felt and felt only the deadly affront offered to him of all the officers of the Guard--the coa.r.s.e bribe of the colonelcy dangled before his starving nose, for he alone of all the Guard had been deemed corruptible! The thought held more than the bitterness of death.

He looked from wall to wall, and knew himself an unarmed man, so he made ready to die as a soldier and a gentleman. But first he must clear his tarnished honour--tarnished with the foul proposal made to him by Count Simon of Sagan. He had pa.s.sed through life a cold and, in his own sense of the word, an honourable man, disliked, feared and avoided outside his own most intimate circle. He had been driven by the irresistible destiny of character to live a lonely man, and now the strength of a lonely man was his--the strength that can make an unknown death a glory for the sake of honour, not honours. So he spoke.

'You were very good, Count Sagan, to make choice of me before all the Guard for--this!' he said in his cold voice; 'may I ask why you so favoured me?'