Terence O'Rourke/Part 2/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
THE DEVIL IN THE DUKE
Under the sharp-toothed portcullis they passed; and behind them, to the rattling of chains and the creaking of rusty windlasses, the drawbridge rose. O'Rourke, as he was hurried across a courtyard, tried to smile at this grim travesty; but deep in his heart lurked an uneasiness.
He had not in the least anticipated all this. Otherwise, he had chanced a quick death at the hands of the man in the carriage. But now, evidently, he was to die; and all possibility of escape had been cut off by the raising of that draw. He stood, for all he knew to the contrary, without a friend in that huge pile of masonry set upon a cliff on a mountain side, concerning any portion of which he knew not the least thing in the world.
Well, his part was to hold up his head and take what had been prepared for him with the easiest grace he could assume. Time out of number he had laughed back into the jaws of death; and, after all, it was childish of him to assume that Duke Victor would dare a murder in order to remove from his path so insignificant a stumbling block as the O'Rourke—the empty-handed Irish adventurer.
But assuredly he might confidently count upon a fighting chance, in the end. Or—and this occurred to him for the first time—he was merely to be kept a prisoner until after the duke's marriage to Madame la Princesse had been consummated.
That, doubtless, was the real explanation of it all. Somehow, the Irishman's heart lightened in his breast.
A short wait had to be endured, while his captor entered the castle proper. O'Rourke was left in the charge of three men, who paid scant heed to what he said, but, on the other hand, watched him with a catlike interest, which O'Rourke appreciated as highly complimentary to his reputation.
But, ere long, he was conducted into the building, through a maze of echoing passages of stone, into what appeared to be the more modern part of the castle—that portion, evidently, wherein the princes of Grandlieu were accustomed to live, in the infrequent periods of their sojourns at Montbar.
Here the walls were paneled with a dark wood, and hung with rich tapestries; the floors were of hard wood, painstakingly polished to a rare brilliancy, and strewn with heavy, soft rugs of somber designs. The air was warm—warm with the comfort of open fires.
His captor halted him on the threshold of a heavy door of oak, upon which he knocked thrice.
"Enter, messieurs." A clear, even voice sounded from the further side; and O'Rourke was ushered across the threshold into a great apartment that, very likely, had been the dining hall two centuries back—high-ceiled, so that the rays of the electric lights, set in lieu of torches in the sconces upon the walls, hardly penetrated the shadows above them; and long and deep, with a huge fireplace built in one end, and the other shadowed by an overhanging balcony draped with tapestry.
The center of this room was, occupied by a long table strewn with books and papers and bearing a reading-lamp. The walls were lined with racks of arms, collected with the care of a lover of weapons, and representing all ages and climes. In front of the fireplace a canvas had been stretched across the parquetry flooring, to serve for fencing bouts.
It was an immense room, and deeply interesting; O'Rourke's eyes lit up as he glanced down the racks of arms, but he had little time to feast his martial spirit with the sight of them.
For, standing with his back to the fire, teetering gently upon his toes, with hands clasped idly at his back, was a man whom O'Rourke found little difficulty in identifying as the Duke Victor himself, from his resemblance to his dead brother, and from a certain air of domineering confidence in himself as well.
Whether or no he was a young man would have been hard to say; at least, he had the air and the look of youth—the hue of rich blood in his cheeks and the lines of youth in his figure, that was as straight and supple as any stripling's. He was something above middle height, and as good a man to look upon as ever O'Rourke had seen—save, perhaps, for a lack of breadth between his eyes: a sure index to a nature at least untrustworthy, if not positively treacherous.
O'Rourke's captor halted at the door and saluted with a military air. For the first time O'Rourke was able to have a good look at him. Now that he had thrown aside his cloak, a uniform of light gray adorned with a sufficiency of gold lace and insignia was revealed. From the straps on his shoulders O'Rourke calculated that he was a captain in the standing army of Grandlieu—which, in all, numbered eighty men and officers; or so the Irishman had heard.
For the rest of him, he was of a Gallic type—a large man, blond, well-proportioned, heavier and taller than O'Rourke, and as well set up. He was smiling slightly, with an ironic air, as he endured the Irishman's gaze, and stood at ease with one hand upon the hilt of a saber which he bad assumed since entering the castle.
Duke Victor was the first to speak.
"Colonel O'Rourke, I believe?" he said pleasantly enough—with the air of one greeting an unexpected guest. "Captain de Brissac!"
"Your highness?"
"I observe that Colonel O'Rourke's hands are bound behind him. Surely that is unnecessary, in addition to being an indignity. Loose him at once."
The captain untied the ropes. O'Rourke moistened his lips nervously, looking the duke up and down, for once in his career at a loss for words. But the duke saved him the trouble of speaking.
"Colonel," he said familiarly, resuming his nonchalant teetering in front of the great fireplace, "you will no doubt have complaint to make in regard to our method of welcoming you to Grandlieu!"
"Faith, I have that!" O'Rourke assured him earnestly.
"So I surmised." The duke smiled. "As to why we have acted in this manner—why, monsieur, it's hardly necessary to discuss our reasons. I fancy they're evident and well understood by you and myself."
"Faith, yes," O'Rourke agreed. "I'm not the man to deny that. But I dispute your right, monsieur."
"Oh—!" And the duke waved a slender, white hand airily. "There's no need of going into that, either, my colonel. You dispute the right—I arrogate it unto myself and shall consistently maintain it. No gain to either of us—to fight over that. The point of the whole matter is—" He paused thoughtfully.
"Now," assumed O'Rourke, "ye seem to be getting down to business."
"Precisely, my friend," laughed the duke amusedly. "And it's simple enough, Colonel O'Rourke. You were, to use the legal term, accessory before the fact of my brother's—Prince Felix's—death. Naturally, for that I hold you in no very great good will. And I understand that both before and after the mur—"
"Monsieur!"
"Oh, very well! Before and after,—shall we say?—the unfortunate accident, you made love to the wife of my brother—my promised wife of to-day."
"Ye may understand what ye will," said O'Rourke. "But I'll tell ye this, monsieur the duke, that when ye say that madame promised to marry ye, ye lie!"
"Strong language, Colonel O'Rourke! Upon what do you base such an assertion?"
The duke was holding himself well under control; but he had flushed darkly on hearing the epithet which O'Rourke had flung in his teeth with intent to provoke. Indeed, at present all that the Irishman was hoping for was to madden the duke into accepting or issuing a challenge to a duel. Then—well, the best man would win.
"I know that ye lie," continued O'Rourke evenly, "from the fact that within the week madame has sent for me."
"Which means—what, monsieur, may I ask?"
"It means that madame once promised to be me wife, Monsieur the Duke; and that she is standing ready to redeem her pledge. Is it conceivable that she'd be promising her hand to ye at the same time? I think not."
"Your judgment may be prejudiced, colonel. Madame may have changed her mind, may have wished to see you in order that she might inform you of that fact—which, by the way, happens to be the case."
It was a view of it that never before had presented itself to O'Rourke. For an instant, so confidently did the duke advance it, he was shaken by a suspicion that this might be the truth.
And then he remembered her word-of-mouth message to Chambret—that she needed O'Rourke—and the miniature that she had sent him, that intimate portrait of her whose eyes had spoken to him so eloquently of her steadfast love. And, more than all else, the remembrance of that strengthened O'Rourke and heartened him.
"That," he said coolly, "is lie number two, Monsieur the Duke. Faith, if it were truth, why did ye find it necessary to spirit madame away?"
"And have we done so?" For affected surprise, the duke's was almost convincing.
"Beyond doubt, ye did."
"Ah, Monsieur the Colonel deceives himself. To be frank with you, madame is at this moment in Paris, for all I know to the contrary."
"Which I'll take the liberty of branding as lie number three. If that were truth, ye would not have troubled to capture me before I could find it out for meself."
"Very well, monsieur. Have it your own way." Assuredly the duke had his temper well in hand. He bowed his head forward, caressing his chin with his strong, slender fingers, and seemed to ponder O'Rourke deeply.
Under this meditative yet insolent regard, the Irishman grew restive.
"The divvle!" he cried impatiently. "Will ye be kind enough to signify your intentions with regard to me?"
"Exactly what I was about to do, monsieur. I have brought you here by force, for one reason because I well knew that you would not come of your own free will. For another, I wish to negotiate with you. I admit that you have a claim upon madame's hand—a claim which, perhaps, she might feel called upon to acknowledge, to be just, howsoever much such a course might prove distasteful to her. So—Monsieur the Colonel O'Rourke, what will buy you off?"
O'Rourke drew himself up, and his hands clenched. For a moment he seemed about to spring at the duke's throat. Captain de Brissac started forward, and even the duke betrayed signs of uneasiness. But O'Rourke contained himself.
"Did ye bring me here to insult me, ye scum o' the earth?" he demanded tensely. "Faith, if it's to fight ye wish, I'll accommodate ye. I could not insult you by branding ye a liar to your face, but, monsieur the duke, ye have managed mortally to affront me! Did ye mean it, dog?"
The duke's face was quite livid with rage. But his voice was steady and even as he replied:
"It is not to fight that I wish, Colonel O'Rourke. I am quite well aware that nothing could please you better than to murder me, by foul means, as you did my brother. I understand you have your fellow, Chambret, in the town below here, and I've no doubt the two of you could put a period to the Grandlieu line, between you. No, Colonel O'Rourke. I have asked you in all earnestness, and I ask you again, knowing as I do that you adventurers all have your price: For what will you consent to relinquish your claim upon madame's hand?"
De Brissac's hand moved toward his revolver, whose butt was visible above the line of his belt. O'Rourke marked the gesture, and the true significance of the scene was quite abruptly apparent to him.
He had been brought here to be baited like an animal, to the point where, goaded to desperation by the duke's taunts, he would lose his temper and throw himself at the man's throat; when it would be justifiable to shoot him down, just as one would a maddened animal, in self-defense.
If that, then, was their scheme, he was determined to frustrate it. And quickly he swung about upon his heel, facing the door.
"Monsieur the Duke," he said, "'tis your privilege to consider yourself challenged. If ye refuse to meet me, ye prove yourself a coward. If ye consent to meet me, ye are this minute as good as a dead man. But, meanwhile, I am in your power. And the divvle another word will ye get out of me till I'm free!"
There was a moment's silence. Then the voice of the duke, quivering as though with amusement:
"You refuse any and all propositions, then, I am to understand?"
O'Rourke nodded his head.
The duke sighed. "I am sorry, Monsieur the Colonel; we might have made an offer which you would have been glad to accept, had you met our advances in a different spirit. As it is, I must bid you good night. Captain de Brissac, be kind enough to escort Colonel O'Rourke to his hotel. Messieurs, good evening."
Something sinister in the duke's tone—O'Rourke could not see his face—robbed his words of their surprise for the Irishman. He uttered not one syllable, however; and waited patiently until De Brissac, with a laugh, touched him on the arm.
"This way," he said softly.
And O'Rourke stepped forward and out of the great room, into the hallways of the Castle de Grandlieu—of which, as has been said, he knew nothing at all.