Sophy of Kravonia/Part 3/Chapter 3
III
THE VIRGIN WITH THE LAMP
WHATEVER Marie Zerkovitch's feelings might be, Fate had its hand on her and turned her to its uses. It was she who had directed Sophy's steps to the old house ten doors down the Street of the Fountain from St. Michael's Square. It was no more than half a mile from her own villa on the south boulevard (from which the Street ran to the Square), and she had long known the decent old couple—German Jews—who lived and carried on their trade in the house over whose front hung the sign of the Silver Cock. The face of the building was covered with carved timbers of great age; the door of the shop stood far back within a black and ancient porch. Behind the shop were a couple of rooms where Meyerstein and his wife lived; above it one large room, with a window which jutted far out over the narrow street. In this room, which was reached by a separate door in the left side of the porch and a crazy flight of a dozen winding stairs, lived Sophy, and thence she sallied out daily to give her lessons to her two pupils.
By the window she sat on the night of the King's name-day, on a low chair. The heavy figure of a girl carrying a lamp—a specimen of her landlord's superfluous stock—stood unemployed on the window-sill. The room was dark, for the path of light from the illuminations, which made the roadway below white, threw hardly a gleam on to its sombre walls; but Sophy had no need of a lamp and every need to save her money. She sat in the gloom, busy in thought, the fresh evening air breathing soft and cool on her brow from the open window.
Swift to build on slenderest foundations, avid to pile imagination on imagination till the unsubstantial structure reached the skies, her mind was at work to-night. The life and stir, the heat and tumult, of the city, were fuel to her dreams. Chances and happenings were all about her; they seemed to lie, like the water for Tantalus, just beyond the reach of her finger-tips; her eyes pierced to the vision of them through the dusky blackness of the ancient room. In response to the confused yet clamorous cry of the life around her, her spirit awoke. Dead were the dear dead; but Sophy was alive. But to be a starving French mistress at Slavna—was that a chance? Yes, a better than being cook-maid at Morpingham; and even in the kitchen at Morpingham Fortune had found her and played with her awhile. For such frolics and such favor, however fickle, however hazardous, Sophy Grouch of Morpingham was ever ready. Dunstanbury had come to Morpingham—and Lady Meg. Paris had brought the sweet hours and the gracious memory of Casimir de Savres. Should Slavna lag behind? Who would come now? Ever the highest for Sophy Grouch! The vision of the royal escort and its pale young leader flashed in the darkness before her eagerly attendant eyes.
Suddenly she raised her head. There was a wild, quick volley of cheering; it came from the Golden Lion, whose lights across the Square a sideways craning of her neck enabled her to see. Then there was silence for minutes. Again the sound broke forth, and with it confused shoutings of a name she could not make out. Yes—what was it? Mistitch—Mistitch! That was her first hearing of the name.
Silence fell again, and she sank back into her chair. The lights, the stir, the revelry were not for her, nor the cheers nor the shouts. A moment of reaction and lassitude came on her, a moment when the present, the actual, lapped her round with its dim, muddy flood of vulgar necessity and sordid needs. With a sob she bowed her head to meet her hands—a sob that moaned a famine of life, of light, of love. "Go back to your scullery, Sophy Grouch!"
What voice had said that? She sprang to her feet with fists clinched, and whispered to the darkness:
"No!"
In the street below, Mistitch slapped his thigh.
Sophy pushed her hair back from her heated forehead and looked out of the window. To the right, some twenty yards away and just at the end of the street, she saw the figures of three men. In the middle was one who bulked like a young Falstaff—Falstaff with his paunch not grown; he was flanked by two lean fellows who looked small beside him. She could not see the faces plainly, since the light from the Square was behind them. They seemed to be standing there and looking past the sign of the Silver Cock along the street.
A measured, military footfall sounded on her left. Turning her head, she saw a young man walking with head bent down and arms behind him. The line of light struck full on him, he was plain to see as by broadest day. He wore a costume strange to her eyes—a black sheepskin cap, a sheepskin tunic, leather breeches, and high, unpolished boots—a rough, plain dress; yet a broad, red ribbon crossed it, and a star glittered on the breast; the only weapon was a short, curved scimitar. It was the ancient costume of the Bailiff of Volseni, the head of that clan of shepherds who pastured their flocks on the uplands. The Prince of Slavna held the venerable office, and had been to Court in the dress appropriate to it. He had refused to use his carriage, sending his aides-de-camp home in it, and walked now through the streets of the city which he had in charge. It was constantly his habit thus to walk; his friends praised his vigilance; his foes reviled his prowling, spying tricks; of neither blame nor praise did he take heed.
Sophy did not know the dress, but the face she knew; it had been but lately before her dreaming eyes; she had seen it in the flesh that morning from the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris.
The three came on from her right, one of the lean men hanging back, lurking a little behind. They were under her window now. The Prince was but a few yards away. Suddenly he looked up with a start—he had become aware of their approach. But before he saw them the three had melted to one. With a shrill cry of consternation—of uneasy courage oozing out—Rastatz turned and fled back to the Square, heading at his top speed for the Golden Lion. In the end he was unequal to the encounter. Sterkoff, too, disappeared; but Sophy knew the meaning of that; he had slipped into the shelter of the porch. Her faculties were alert now; she would not forget where Sterkoff was! Mistitch stood alone in the centre of the narrow street, his huge frame barely leaving room for a man to pass on either side.
For a moment the Prince stood still, looking at the giant. Incredulity had seemed to show first in his eyes; it changed now to a cold anger as he recognized the Captain. He stepped briskly forward, and Sophy heard his clear, incisive tones cut the air:
"What extraordinary emergency has compelled you to disobey my orders, Captain Mistitch?"
"I wanted a breath of fresh air," Mistitch answered, in an easy, insolent tone.
The Prince looked again; he seemed even more disgusted than angry now. He thought Mistitch drunk—more drunk than in truth he was.
"Return to barracks at once and report yourself under stringent arrest. I will deal with you tomorrow."
"And not to-night, Sergius Stefanovitch?" At least he was being as good as his word, he was acting up to the vaunts he had thrown out so boldly in the great hall of the Golden Lion.
"To-morrow we shall both be cooler." He was almost up to Mistitch now. "Stand out of my way, sir."
Mistitch did not budge. "There's room for you to pass by," he said. "I won't hurt you. But the middle of the road belongs to me to-night."
His voice seemed to grow clearer with every word; the critical encounter was sobering him. Yet with sobriety came no diminution of defiance. Doubtless he saw that he was in for the worst now, that forward was the word, and retreat impossible. Probably from this moment he did not intend the Prince to pass alive. Well, what he intended was the wish of many; he would not lack shelter, friends, or partisans if he dared the desperate venture. Be it said for him that there were few things he did not dare. He dared now, growing sober, to stand by what the fumes of wine had fired his tongue to.
For a moment after the big man's taunt the Prince stood motionless. Then he drew his scimitar. It looked a poor, weak weapon against the sword which sprang in answer from Mistitch's scabbard.
"A duel between gentlemen!" the Captain cried. The Prince gave a short laugh. "You shall have no such plea at the court-martial," he said. "Gentlemen don't waylay one another in the streets. Stand aside!"
Mistitch laughed, and in an instant the Prince sprang at him. Sophy heard the blades meet. Strong as death was the fascination for her eyes—ay, for her ears, too, for she heard the quick-moving feet and the quicker breathing of a mortal combat. But she would not look—she tried not even to listen. Her eyes were for a man she could not see, her ears for a man she could not hear. She remembered the lean fellow hidden in the porch, straight under her window. She dared not call to warn the Prince of him; a turn of the head, a moment of inattention, would cost either combatant his life. She took the man in the porch for her own adversary, his undoing for her share in the fight.
Very cautiously, making no sound, she took the heavy lamp—the massive bronze figure of the girl—raised it painfully in both her hands, and poised it half-way over the window-sill. Then she turned her eyes down again to watch the mouth of the porch. Her rat was in that hole! Yet suddenly the Prince came into her view; he circled half-way round Mistitch, then sank on one knee; she heard him guard the Captain's lunges with lightning-quick movements of his nimble scimitar. He was trying the old trick they had practised for hundreds of years at Volseni—to follow his parry with an upward-ripping stroke under the adversary's sword, to strike the inner side of his forearm and cut the tendons of the wrist. This trick big Captain Mistitch, a man of the plains, did not know.
A jangle—a slither—a bellow of pain, of rage! The Prince had made his stroke, the hill-men of Volseni were justified of their pupil. Mistitch's big sword clattered on the flags. Facing his enemy, with his back to the porch, the Prince crouched motionless on his knee; but it was death to Mistitch to try to reach the sword with his unmanned hand. It was Sophy's minute; the message that it had come ran fierce through all her veins. Straining to the weight, she raised the figure in her hands and leaned out of the window. Yes, a lean hand with a long knife, a narrow head, a spare, long back, crept out of the darkness of the porch—crept silently. The body drew itself together for a fatal spring on the unconscious Prince, for a fatal thrust. It would be death—and to Mistitch salvation torn from the jaws of ruin.
"Surrender yourself, Captain Mistitch," said the Prince.
Mistitch's eyes went by his conqueror and saw a shadow on the path beside the porch.
"I surrender, sir," he said.
"Then walk before me to the barracks." Mistitch did not turn. "At once, sir!"
"Now!" Mistitch roared.
The crouching figure sprang—and with a hideous cry fell stricken on the flags. Just below the neck, full on the spine, had crashed the Virgin with the lamp. Sterkoff lay very still, save that his fingers scratched the flags. Turning, the Prince saw a bronze figure at his feet, a bronze figure holding a broken lamp. Looking up, he saw dimly a woman's white face at a window.
Then the street was on a sudden full of men. Rastatz had burst into the Golden Lion, all undone— nerves, courage, almost senses gone. He could stammer no more than: "They'll fight!" and could not say who. But he had gone out with Mistitch— and whom had they gone to meet?
A dozen officers were round him in an instant, crying: "Where? Where?" He broke into frightened sobs, hiding his face in his hands. It was Max von Hollbrandt who made him speak. Forgetting his pretty friend, he sprang in among the officers, caught Rastatz by the throat, and put a revolver to his head.
"Where? In ten seconds—where?" Terror beat terror. "The Street of the Fountain by the Silver Cock!" the cur stammered, and fell to his blubbering again.
The dozen officers, and more, were across the Square almost before he had finished; Max von Hollbrandt, with half the now lessened company in the inn, was hot on their heels.
For that night all was at an end. Sterkoff was picked up, unconscious now. Sullen, but never cringing, Mistitch was marched off to the guardroom and the surgeon's ministrations. Every soldier was ordered to his quarters, the townsfolk slunk off to their homes. The street grew empty, the glare of the illuminations was quenched. But of all this Sophy saw nothing. She had sunk down in her chair by the window, and lay there, save for her tumultuous breathing, still as death.
The Commandant had no fear, and would have his way. He stood alone now in the street, looking from the dark splash of Mistitch's blood to the Virgin with her broken lamp, and up to the window of the Silver Cock, whence had come salvation.