Terence O'Rourke/Part 2/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
THE DOOR TO ETERNITY
For some minutes the two strode on in silence, De Brissac in the advance, O'Rourke watching his huge shoulders with a calculating glance, debating whether or no, upon necessity, he could overcome this man in a struggle hand to hand. He shook his head dubiously, much impressed by De Brissac's evidently ponderous muscular development.
From the inhabited portion of the castle they passed back into the more bleak and uninviting section, where the air hung heavy, chill, and damp, and great gusts of wind eddied through silent, echoing hallways. And they followed, in the main—or, at least, so far as O'Rourke could determine—the course by which they had entered.
At length De Brissac paused before a heavy door, set deep in the walls of stone.
"Colonel O'Rourke," he said, "I regret that our carriage is no longer at your disposal. Had you been otherwise minded, it might have been a different matter. As it is, we have no choice but to consider you a determined enemy, to afford whom food, aid or comfort would be treason." He laughed sardonically. "This door," he continued, "opens upon the road. There is a little bridge over the moat, which you'll find it no trouble to negotiate. After that, the road is lighted all the way to Montbar. It is a short journey at the worst. You will reach the Hôtel des Étrangers within the hour. Good night."
He swung open the door. O'Rourke looked into his eyes, and smiled contemptuously. "A small lot," he commented: "a petty revenge. I'm pleased to be able to breathe air unpolluted by ye, monsieur. Good night."
He turned and confronted the black, vacant oblong made by the open door. The frost-laden wind slapped his cheeks and pinched his nose. Without, there was unrelieved night. O'Rourke negatived the proposition, mentally. He did not know what lurked out there, in the blackness. He would have much preferred to leave the castle and come out at once upon the lighted road. And he stepped back toward De Brissac.
"If 'tis not too great a strain upon your courtesy," he suggested, "I'd prefer to leave be the way I entered, monsieur."
Abruptly he became aware that De Brissac was making for him with outstretched, clutching hands, and the apparent intention of seizing O'Rourke and casting him forth bodily into the outer darkness.
The Irishman did not precisely comprehend; but he was quick to step to one side and to meet De Brissac's rush with a blow from the shoulder, delivered with all the strength that was in him. It struck the man's chest, glancing, and staggered him for the moment; and that instant O'Rourke improved by grappling with him.
Neither spoke. O'Rourke was bewildered, but in some vague way aware that he was fighting for his very existence. De Brissac was straining, with set teeth, to break the Irishman's hold upon him. For many minutes they swayed back and forth and from side to side, there in the narrow, stone-walled passage in the old castle.
At length, De Brissac stumbled and went to his knees. He was up again in a trice, but in the struggle to regain his standing his sword became in some way detached from the belt, scabbard and all, and fell clanking to the floor.
O'Rourke noticed and desired it greatly. It is a fine thing to have the hilt of a good saber in your hand, with the knowledge that you have the skill and prowess to wield it. It seemed to O'Rourke that, could he but get the weapon in his grasp, all would be well with him, despite the fact that he was in a castle infested with the creatures of Duke Victor.
Gradually, at the expense of furious effort, he swung the other in front of him, with his back to the open doorway. De Brissac seemed to sense his intention and to strive against it with a desperate ferocity, his eyes protruding from his head, staring as if with terror, his panting as loud in O'Rourke's hearing as the exhaust of an engine. He dug his feet into the crevices of that floor of solid rock and fought as one fights on the grave's edge.
O'Rourke conceived that De Brissac supposed he could be cut down instantly, once his antagonist managed to possess himself of the saber. And he thought grimly that De Brissac was not so far wrong.
Chance aided him—or the luck of the O'Rourkes. For an instant De Brissac managed to break away; but as he did so, O'Rourke's fingers brushed the hilt of his revolver in the man's belt, and closed upon it, withdrawing the weapon.
De Brissac spat an oath between his teeth, and sprang. O'Rourke was too quick for him. There was no time to aim, or even to fire. There was time only sufficient for him to dash the hand that held the revolver into the man's face; and O'Rourke did that with all his heart.
The man reeled, staggering, caught his heel upon the threshold of the door, and fell backward, grabbing frantically at the empty air. He shrieked once, and disappeared utterly, with the instantaneous effect of the vanishing of a kinetoscopic picture.
For a moment O'Rourke waited, holding the revolver ready, expecting any moment to see De Brissac rise from the ground and attempt a re-entrance to the hall.
Nothing of the sort happened, however. The silence and quiet without continued unbroken, save for the sighing of the wind. It struck O'Rourke as a curious fact that he had not heard the sound of the fall. A dread thought entered his brain, and took possession of his imagination, and he paled with the horror of it.
Slowly he picked up the sword, and he cautiously advanced again to the threshold of the door. Then he unsheathed the weapon and poked about in the blackness with the scabbard, holding the revolver poised to repel an attack, should one come—as he half hoped.
None came. Abruptly O'Rourke threw the empty scabbard into the darkness, listening to catch the clank of it upon the bridge of which, De Brissac had spoken.
There was no sound.
The Irishman's heart seemed to cease its pulsations for a full minute; and then, far, far below him, he heard a faint, ringing clash.
So! That, then, had been the fate prepared for him by Duke Victor and De Brissac—that sudden plunge into a fathomless void, with a sure, swift death waiting at the end of his flight!
Faint and sick with disgust, trembling as with a vertigo, reeling and swaying like a drunkard, O'Rourke managed to close the door, and stagger a dozen yards or so away; and then, for a long time, he stood with one forearm to the wall, supporting his brow, the while he shuddered with sympathy for the man who had sought his life by a means so foul—and found therein only death for himself.
••••••••
It was with an effort as of rousing from a stupor that O'Rourke found himself again before the door of that room wherein he had met and left Monsieur le Duc, Victor de Grandlieu.
How he had managed to find it he did not know. His mind was obsessed with a vision of De Brissac as he had last seen him—toppling backward to his death. He seemed to have been thinking of nothing else for a very long period of time. And it was surprising, to say the least, to realize that, during that train of thought, he had unconsciously threaded his way back though the halls of Castle Grandlieu to this particular room.
He paused, leaning dazedly against the wall, and passed his hand across his eyes in an endeavor to collect his thoughts, to marshal them into some form at least resembling coherency.
After a bit he discovered that he was listening—listening intently for some sound within that silent hall. There was none, except perhaps the crackling of the logs in the great fireplace, as they spat, and sputtered, and crumbled to ash in the flames.
Why was he there? Why was he not attempting to force his way out of the castle? Or why was he not thinking of Madame la Princesse?
At once he understood that there was an account to be balanced with Monsieur the Duke—an account, it was true, of short standing, but none the less demanding an immediate settlement.
He turned the knob, pushed open the door and quietly entered.
Duke Victor was sitting before the fire, gazing placidly into the dancing flames. His face was half averted; and he did not trouble to look around upon O'Rourke's entrance.
The Irishman waited, his shoulders against the panels of the closed door—waiting, he scarcely knew why, if it were not for monsieur the duke to assume the initiative. Meanwhile, his eyes roved the hall; and they brightened as they fell upon a rack of sabers at his side. Thoughtfully he removed one from its scabbard, and, resting it upon his arm, hilt outward, together with the sword he had taken from De Brissac, O'Rourke walked down the hall toward the duke.
The latter raised his head languidly, at the sound of approaching footsteps. With a half-interested, affected air, he pretended to be examining his nails, spreading his fingers out to the firelight and scrutinizing each with an excess of care.
"Well, my captain?" he inquired, drawling in a tone well- nigh of raillery. "Well, Captain de Brissac, has Monsieur the Colonel' O'Rourke started upon his long journey—eh?"
"No, Monsieur the Duke," responded O'Rourke. "Ye will be surprised to learn that Monsieur the Colonel O'Rourke objected to being pushed into oblivion; and ye will, I doubt not, regret to hear that Monsieur the Captain de Brissac has—shall I say?—walked the plank in the O'Rourke's stead!"
At the first syllable, the duke turned. Before O'Rourke had made an end, the other was on his feet, every line in his face expressing the most complete stupefaction. Gradually, however, he regained his poise; by degrees he comprehended what must have been to him, with his unshakable faith in the might of De Brissac, quite incomprehensible.
"So?" he asked at length. "So you have conquered, Irishman?"
"The O'Rourke was not made to be thrust over the edge of a cliff by a mercenary murderer, Monsieur the Duke."
"It is apparent." The duke's nerve was admirable; he turned away again, and resumed his inspection of his finger nails. "And—and," he asked after a slight pause, "what do you intend to do about it, Colonel O'Rourke?"
"I propose, Monsieur the Duke, to give ye an opportunity to prove your right to live," returned O'Rourke calmly.
"What does that mean, monsieur?" The duke swung about quickly.
Bowing courteously, the Irishman proffered the weapons over his arm.
"It is your choice, monsieur the canaille," he said gently. "Choose quickly, monsieur, and defend yourself; for, if ye refuse, by the Eternal, I'll cut ye down as ye stand!"
The duke threw back his head and laughed joyously—a boyish laugh, ringing with superb self-confidence, that might well have sent a shiver quivering down O'Rourke's spine.
With a graceful gesture, the man seized the first hilt that came to his hand and led the way to the padded fencing floor.
"This," he said mirthfully, "is the apogee of chivalry, Colonel O 'Rourke. You escape from one death and willingly offer yourself upon the altar of another. It is sad—nay, touching, Colonel O'Rourke. For—well, it would not be fair to myself to permit you to live, you understand. Moreover, it would be a weary disappointment to madame, should I fall. So, then, I grant you two minutes to make your peace with God, O'Rourke!"
"Guard!" cried O'Rourke briefly.
"You have no sins, then," asked the duke, with evident surprise, "for which to crave forgiveness ere you die?"
"Monsieur," returned the Irishman, "if ye are not on guard at once—your blood be upon your own head!"
He threw himself into position, facing his antagonist, and saluted. The duke laughed evilly, and carelessly touched O'Rourke's blade with his own.
A second later he was retreating swiftly down the hall—falling back under an onslaught the like of which he had seldom experienced, in point of sheer audacity and cunning.
But he parried with amazing ease, giving ground until he had recovered from his surprise, and permitting the impetuous Irishman to tire himself to the fill of his satisfaction.
"This is not so bad," he jeered. "It is, in fact, somewhat a pleasure to cross swords with a man who knows his weapon."
"The pleasure will be short-lived, I promise ye!" retorted O'Rourke.
The firelight flickered like lightning upon the crossed blades. The stamping of their feet was like dull thunder upon the padded fencing place.
The duke did not attempt again to speak. There was an anxious look in his eyes; he was trying to fathom the school by whose precepts O'Rourke fought—and trying in vain; for O'Rourke fought with the cunning and the technique of all schools, or, when occasion demanded, audaciously, according to his own inspiration of the moment. Possibly he was the most dangerous broadswordsman in the world; certainly his equal was not to be found in all Europe—not even at Castle Grandlieu in the person of the redoubtable Duke Victor himself.
And the duke was realizing that fact. He was tacitly admitting, by the conservatism of his sword-play, that he was encountering, for once, his master. He was making no effort to attack, but contenting himself with desperate parry after parry, and, it may be, congratulating himself that he was able to parry an attack so artful and so infernally persistent.
Mere skill would serve him not at all. If he was to escape a crippling wound, if not death itself, he must rely upon his luck, upon chance, upon the turn of fortune's wheel. And he kept himself most vigilant to seize upon whatsoever opening the Irishman might carelessly offer.
But O'Rourke was not careless. He underestimated his antagonist's abilities not in the least, and he knew assuredly that one false move, one attack too strong to permit of the speediest of recoveries, would prove fatal to him. It was in his mind to wear the duke down and administer the coup de grâce when the man was too weary and fagged to resist.
But that was not to be. The duke had not the slightest notion of permitting himself to be worn down. Recognizing O'Rourke's superior strength arid endurance, he foresaw the ultimate outcome of the combat, if it continued for long.
And he laid his plans accordingly.
Step by step, inch by inch, he gave way, retreating to the paneled wall behind him. In time he felt its unyielding surface at the back of his shoulders.
Abruptly his sword arm dropped as though wearied. O'Rourke seized the opportunity, swung his saber high and brought it down with irresistible violence. Had the duke remained where he had been standing, he would have been split to the chin.
But he had dropped like a shot, thrusting upward, but, fortunately for O'Rourke, thrusting short. The Irishman's point sank deep into the panel, and the blade snapped half-way down to the hilt.
Agile, and merciless as a cat, the duke was again instantly upon his feet. O'Rourke, defenseless save for the hilt in his hand, leaped backwards, a dozen feet, in the twinkling of an eyelash. The duke hurled himself after him, like an avenging whirlwind, slipped upon the polished flooring, and sprawled headlong.
His saber blade fell at O'Rourke's feet, and the adventurer promptly put one heel upon it while the other, without compunction, he brought down heavily upon the duke's fingers. The man swore with the pain and relaxed his hold upon the hilt; O'Rourke stooped and tore the sword from him.
Disarmed, the duke rose, his death clear to his eyes; the polish of the nineteenth century dropped from him, like a mummer's cloak; he stood, raging like a rat in a corner, showing himself for what he was—a primitive savage, raw, blood-thirsty, unprincipled, untouched by the monitions of a conscience. Fear was in his eyes, for he expected his just due—death; but rage was in his heart—rage, because he had fought and lost and must pay the penalty.
He threw his arms wide with a passionate gesture, inviting the down sweep of the saber, bowing his head to its cleaving stroke. And when that did not come, he raised his gaze again to the face of the adventurer, puzzled, wondering; and saw O'Rourke standing at ease, regarding him with pity; but without hatred. He recognized that the Irishman was of a fiber finer than his own, that he could spare the life even of an antagonist who had but the moment gone tried to take his own by cowardly assault. And the knowledge was insupportable; it was intolerable to contemplate an existence owed to the mercy of a man to whom one had shown no mercy.
He stepped back a pace, his features distorted with hate and cunning. O'Rourke made no move, but continued—the saber swinging idly in his hand—to regard the vanquished man, reflectively, as though he were wondering what was to be the outcome, what portion—barring death—he should mete, out to him to whose honor he might not trust.
The duke sidled away, his eyes fixed upon the adventurer's, and informed with an implacable, unreasoning hatred. Abruptly, when he had contrived to put a sufficient distance between them, he turned and began to run down the length of the great hall, swiftly, with an eye ever glancing over his shoulder, watching to see whether or no the Irishman would follow.
But O'Rourke did not. Somewhat puzzled, he waited, confident in his own prowess, now that he was armed, in his ability to cope with any device of the duke's, however infernally inspired.
At the center table, Monsieur the Duke stopped and fumbled with the lock of a certain drawer, a slight, crafty sneer of triumph and contempt admixed with the fear and hatred in his expression. He jerked open the drawer; it slipped from its runners, crashed loudly upon the floor, and the duke knelt by it, watching O'Rourke always, with cat-like vigilance, and groped an instant among the papers it contained.
Abruptly he started to his feet, holding a small, shining object that fitted snugly in his grip. There was a flash, a crack, and a bullet sang past O'Rourke and splattered upon the" stones of the chimney-place.
With a roar of honest rage, O'Rourke started for him, swinging the saber above his head; it was to that alone that he must trust—to the edge against the lead: to the straightforward sword against the subtle bullet.
Yet there were many feet between him and the revolver—perhaps ten yards. He had been criminally negligent in thus permitting the man a chance to redeem his life. He had trusted his life to the honor of one without honor, and he was to pay the price of his folly.
He had scarce moved before the revolver spoke again; and again the duke missed. He had, however, four bullets left, and remembering this, the man calmed himself, steadied his hand, took time for a more accurate aim. His next bullet ploughed through the adventurer's shoulder.
It was like being pierced by a rod of fire; for an instant O'Rourke was staggered; and then the burning agony maddened him. He felt that he was to pay the price of his own life for the duke's, yet felt that he would gladly do so if only he might pass the threshold of Eternity in company with the soul of Monsieur le Duc, Victor le Grandlieu.
Half blind with wrath, he threw himself towards the man, like an avenging angel with naming sword. There sounded one more shot: fortunately the revolver was of small caliber—no larger than a .38; though the bullet again took effect and found lodgment in the Irishman's side, yet the impact of it was not sufficient to stop him. He whirled on, swinging the broadsword high above his head.
Cold fear tightened about the heart of Monsieur the Duke. His fingers trembled. He fired again, futilely, then, in a gust of abject terror, dropped his weapon and leaped back, cowering his arms wavering above his head, a weak barrier against the gleaming yard of steel.
His heel caught, somehow, upon a rug, and he fell, but not more swiftly than the saber. The blade smashed, through his guarding arms, lopping off neatly one hand, crashed through his skull as though it had been brittle cardboard, cleft his head from crown to chin, and stopped, almost inextricably imbedded in the man's chest.
O'Rourke tugged once, without reason, at the weapon, then released his grip. He stepped back, and the pain of his wounds bore upon him like a crushing weight. He clapped a hand to his side, and felt the hot gush of his life's blood.
For a space he stood reeling, a red mist swimming before his eyes, trying to think what now to do. He must escape—get away somehow—win from out that castle that, for all he knew, fairly teemed with the armed and faithful retainers of the dead man.
Already the succession of shots had roused them; already O'Rourke could hear, faintly through the thundering in his ears, shrieks of alarm, shouts, cries, the drumming of men's footsteps as they ran hither and yon, searching out the cause of the disturbance. … And he was powerless!
He staggered forward and slumped into a nearby chair. He could no more: he trembled with pain and exhaustion like a thoroughbred horse than has been run until it falls.
Unconsciously he flung out an arm upon the table. His head fell forward upon him. … The pain subsided; languor, invincible, insidious, ran in his veins. … And he fancied, dimly, deliriously, that the figure of his princess hovered near him, that her face, tender, passionate and compassionate, hung over him.
His lips moved. "Beatrix!" he muttered. "Beatrix! … Faith, 'tis … worth while … even to die for ye … heart's dearest …"