Terence O'Rourke/Part 2/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE RAT TRAP
But she first came to her senses, in time, and broke from his arms.
"Ah, monsieur!" she cried. And the face he saw was beautiful, even though stained by tears, though wrung by distress. "But this is madness, madness!" she cried again.
"Sure," he said confusedly, for indeed the world was upside down with him then, "'tis the sweetest madness that ever mortal did know! Faith, me head's awhirl with that same madness, and the heart of me's on fire—ah, madame, madame!"
"No," she cried softly. "No, my—my friend—I—I cannot—" And she put forth a hand to ward off his swift advances.
Somehow the gesture brought reason to him in his madness. He stopped, catching her hand, and for a moment stood with bended head, holding it fast but tenderly.
"Ye are right, madame," he said at length. "I was the madman. 'Tis past now—the seizure. Can ye forgive me—and forget, madame?"
"Monsieur, to forgive is not hard." She smiled dazzlingly through a mist of tears. "To forget—is that so easy?"
But now he had a strong hand upon his self-control. "'Tis not the O'Rourke that will be forgetting, madame," he told her. "But Madame la Grande Duchesse de Lützelburg must forget—and well I know that! Let be! Tis past—past—and there's no time to be wasted, I'm thinking, if we are to outwit Georges this night."
"That—that is very true. Thank you, monsieur. You—you are—generous."
She came closer to him, her eyes upon his face. But he looked away from her, sinking his nails deep into his palms to help him remember his place, his duty. Indeed, the man was sorely tried to keep his arms from about the woman again. "Chambret!" he remembered. And that name he repeated, as though it were a talisman against a recurrence of that dear madness. "Beatrix!" he murmured, also, and grew more strong.
"Lead on, madame," he presently told her, his tone dogged.
She may have guessed from that what war waged itself in the bosom of O'Rourke. Her gaze grew very soft and tender as she regarded him. And abruptly she wheeled about upon her heel.
"Come, monsieur," she requested more calmly. "The night is young, but, as you say, there is much to be accomplished."
He followed her on into the fastnesses of the forest, where the night gathered black about them, and he could only guess his way by the glimmer of her white neckerchief flitting before him.
"Where now, madame?" he asked, after a great while; for it began to seem as though they were to walk on thus forever, and O'Rourke was growing weary.
"We are going to the hunting lodge of—of my son, the Grand Duke," she said. And her manner showed what constraint she put upon herself, told of what humiliation of spirit she was undergoing.
"And for why?" he would know.
"It is where I shall change my dress," she said. "I have the keys to the place, and to-day, when it seemed that I must go to warn you of your danger, monsieur—"
"Bless ye for that!" he interjected.
"I bethought me of the lodge. So, with two maids, I went to it by stealth. They do not know now in Lützelburg what has become of their duchess. I disguised myself—as I thought—in the peasant dress, and went alone and on foot to the inn.
"Ye knew the landlord, madame?" he asked, to take her mind from more serious matters.
"I knew him, yes," she told him, "and bribed him to let me take the place of his servant for the day. Monsieur Chambret, of course you understand, had advised me by what road you would enter Lützelburg. Now, it is to bid farewell to Delphine of the inn, monsieur, and become once more the Grand Duchess of Lützelburg."
By then they had come out into a clearing in the woodland. Before them a small building loomed dark and cheerless; not a glimmer of light showed in any of its windows. Nor was a sound to be heard in the clearing, save the soughing of the wind in the boughs overhead.
"By my orders," madame paused to explain, "there are no lights, the better to attract no comment. You will wait for me here, my friend"—she turned toward him timidly—"my dear friend, until I am ready?"
"Faith, yes, madame; what else?"
"I shall not be long," she said. Yet she hesitated at the door of the hunting lodge, smiling at O'Rourke almost apprehensively.
"You—you will not forget—" she faltered.
"Madame," he told her boldly, "I shall never forget Mam'selle Delphine of the Inn of the Winged God; as to Madame la Grand Duchesse, I have yet to meet her."
"Ah, monsieur, but you are generous. Thank you, thank you."
The woman turned, lifted the knocker on the door, and let it fall thrice: presumably a signal agreed upon between her and her companions. The thunder of the metal resounded emptily through the house, but in response there was no other sound. Again she repeated the alarm, and again was doomed to disappointment.
"Why, I do not understand," she cried petulantly. "Surely they understood me; they were to wait."
The Irishman stepped to her side and tried the knob; under his hand it turned, the door opening easily inward upon its hinges. Madame stepped back with a little cry of alarm.
"I do not understand," she reiterated.
"Something frightened them, possibly," O'Rourke reassured her. "One moment. Do ye wait while I strike ye a light."
He crossed the threshold, stepping into blank darkness, and heard the voice of madame.
"The lodge is lighted by electricity," she was telling him from her stand upon the doorsill. "There is a switch on the right-hand wall, near the window."
"Where did you say?" he inquired, groping about blindly.
"I will show you, monsieur."
She came into the room confidently. "Thank goodness!" exclaimed O'Rourke gratefully, fearful for his shins.
He heard her step beside him, and the swish of her skirt as she passed. Abruptly she cried out, as though in protest: "Monsieur, what do you mean?"
At the same moment the door swung to with a thunderous crash, and a blaze of blinding light filled the interior of the hunting lodge of the Grand Duke of Lützelburg.
For the moment O'Rourke could do naught but blink confusedly, being more than half blinded by the sudden plunge from utter darkness into that electric glare.
But in those few passing seconds he thought very swiftly, and began to understand what was happening; in proof of which comprehension he stepped back, putting his shoulders to the closed door and tightening his grip upon the naked saber which he still carried.
"A trap!"
He ground the words bitterly between his teeth, looking about him dazedly, still unable to see clearly; but he heard a grim chuckle—the cold laugh of malicious satisfaction. And then, "Messieurs," said a voice that sounded reminiscently in his ears, "permit me to introduce the rat!"
O'Rourke looked directly toward the speaker; his gaze met eyes hard and without warmth—sneering eyes vitalized with hatred, small and black, set narrowly in a face pale and long—the face of Monsieur le Prince.
And as he watched, the thin lips twisted, while again the scornful laugh rang out.
"Messieurs," the prince repeated, "the rat!"
Some one laughed nervously.
O'Rourke recovered a bit of his lost composure. He addressed this new-sprung enemy. "I'm observing," he said coolly, "that here is not only the trap and the rat, but also the dog for the rat-killing—ye infamous whelp!"
He was looking into the barrel of a revolver, held in the prince's steady hand—looking, indeed, into death's very eye. And he knew it, yet turned a contemptuous shoulder to Prince Georges, glancing around the room for others, seeking a friendly eye or a way of escepe.
The lodge—or that room of it wherein he stood—held five persons in addition to O'Rourke himself; respectively, Madame la Grande Duchesse, pale with rage, defiant of mien, helpless with the arms of Colonel Charles clipped tight about her; Chambret—at the sight of whom O'Rourke caught his breath with dismay—sitting helpless in a chair, his hands tied to the rungs thereof; Monsieur le Prince, Georges de Lützelburg, handsome and ironical of demeanor; and a fifth individual, in semi-uniform, whom O'Rourke guessed—and guessed rightly, it developed—for a surgeon of Lützelburg's army.
"Put down the saber," the Prince told him.
And O'Rourke let it fall from his hand, being in that case wherein discretion is the better part of valor. But though, he was now unarmed, the revolver continued to menace him.
"Let madame go," was the next command, directed to Colonel Charles, who promptly released the duchess.
"Messieurs," she cried, "I demand an explanation of this insolence."
Georges, from his chair, regarded her with lofty contempt. "It is strange," he mused aloud, "that a prince of Lützelburg should be addressed in such wise by a wench of the inns!"
"Ye contemptible scoundrel!" cried O'Rourke.
"Softly, monsieur, softly. I will attend to your case presently."
"At least ye will adopt a different tone to madame—" O'Rourke pursued undaunted.
"I shall order my conduct according unto my whim, monsieur. Another word out of you, and I'll settle you at once."
"Go to the devil!" cried O'Rourke defiantly, without looking again at the man. He turned to Chambret.
"A pretty mess we seem to have made of this business," said the Frenchman, interpreting his glance.
"Ye may well say that. What brought ye here, mon ami?"
Chambret shrugged his shoulders. "The patrol," he explained briefly. "My car broke down, and they caught up with me. What could I do?"
"True for ye there. And d'ye happen to know what's the program now?"
Chambret glanced toward madame, and shut his lips tightly. There was a moment of strained silence, which Monsieur le Prince took upon himself to break, with a sarcastical drawl addressing the woman.
"Permit me, dear sister," he said, "to offer humble apologies for my manner a moment gone; the confusion of identities, you understand—ah! And, more, dear sister, I have a favor to request of you."
She looked him coldly in the eye. "Well?" she said, paling with her disgust for the man.
"That you leave us alone for a few moments. We have business to transact with your friends. It will take but a minute, I assure you, and is a matter confidential—"
"I will not go!" she cried, grasping his meaning. "I will not go, to let you murder—"
"Ah!" he deprecated smiling. "Madame is pleased to be imaginative."
"I know you!" she told him. "I know you will stop at nothing. And I tell you I will not go!"
"And yet you will," he said with an air of finality.
"It would be best, madame—permit me to advise," O'Rourke put in deferentially. "Let me assure ye that in this enlightened age, even a Georges de Lützelburg will not undertake a cold-blooded murder—before witnesses."
He stepped forward, opening the door against which he stood. Madame looked from his face to Chambret's, from Monsieur le Prince's back to O'Rourke's again. "I am afraid—" she faltered; then abruptly was resolved, and, holding her head high, passed out into the night.
"You will be kind enough to shoot the bolt," O'Rourke heard the voice of the prince. Unhesitatingly he complied, turning with a little sigh of relief to face whatever Fate might hold in store for him. At least the woman's eye was not to be offended by this princeling's brutality. As for himself, he, O'Rourke, could take what was to be his portion without complaining.
"And now—?" he suggested pleasantly.
"Monsieur is agreeable," commented the prince: "a becoming change. See here," he added, altering his manner, becoming exceedingly businesslike, "it is a plain proposition. The presence of yourself and of Monsieuir Chambret in this duchy is distasteful to me. You seem, however, to consult your own inclinations, even at the risk of your necks. Frankly, you have annoyed me. I would have it ended once and for all. Legally, I have no right to prohibit your comings or your goings. Personally, I arrogate unto myself that right. If I request you to absent yourselves, you will courteously refuse. In such event, there is to my mind but one solution of the difficulty."
"And that is—?" inquired Chambret, suddenly brightening.
"Release monsieur," the prince commanded, and while Charles did his bidding, severing the cords which bound Chambret's hands to the chair, he pursued:
"And that is—a settlement of our differences by the sword. Candidly, messieurs, you know too much for my comfort. I would gladly be rid of you. By this method I propose to silence you forever."
"What!" cried O'Rourke. "You propose a duel?"
"What else?" Monsieur le Prince motioned toward a table which, standing near one wall of the room, bore a long, black rapier case.
"Faith, I'm agreeable," announced O'Rourke. "And you, mon ami?" to Chambret.
"It will be charming," returned that gentleman with a yawn. "It grows late, and I propose to sleep in a bed to-night, at the Grand Hôtel de Lützelburg. Decidedly, let us fight, and that swiftly."
"We are agreed, then, messieurs." The prince rose, went to the case, returned with four long, keen blades. One he selected and proceeded to test, bending it well-nigh double, and permitting it to spring back, shivering—a perfect rapier.
"Good!" he expressed his satisfaction, and threw the remaining three blades upon the floor, at O'Rourke's feet.
"Obviously, the Code is impossible in this emergency," he said with an assured air. "Our method of procedure will be simple indeed, but it will bear stating. Monsieur Chambret will second you, monsieur, in the first bout, Colonel Charles performing the like office for me. In the second assault, Monsieur Bosquet, surgeon of our army, will second me, Colonel Charles acting for Monsieur Chambret."
"But," objected O'Rourke, "providing that ye do not succeed in spitting me, O princeling?"
"In that case, Charles will first dispose of you, then of Monsieur Chambret. The rules hold good, either way. In any event, two of us leave the room feet first."
"I believe I can pick their names," laughed O'Rourke.
Georges glowered at him suspiciously. It may have crossed his mind that the Irishman was a man extremely confident for one who had, practically, one foot in the grave. But he made no reply.
Smiling his satisfaction—for indeed this was very much to his taste—O'Rourke stooped and possessed himself of a sword. He caused the yard of steel to sing through the air, bent it, threw it lightly up, and caught it by the hilt, laughing with pleasure.
Had he himself pulled the strings that were moving the puppets in this little drama, he was thinking, he could have devised no situation more thoroughly after his own heart.
Monsieur le Prince, he surmised, thought to administer to him first of all a speedy and sure coup de grâce. Having discovered that the Irishman was no match for him with the broadsword, doubtless the prince considered that proof of his own superiority with the rapier—a weapon naturally of a greater delicacy, requiring greater subtlety and more assured finesse in its handling than the saber.
Colonel Charles meanwhile advanced, picked up the two swords, offering one to Chambret, who accepted with a courteous bow, removing his coat and rolling up his cuffs ere putting himself on one side of the room, opposite Charles, leaving the center of the floor bare for the principals.
O'Rourke shed his jacket, bared his wrists, again seized the rapier. He brought his heels together smartly with a click, saluted gracefully, and lunged at the empty air.
Monsieur le Prince watched him with appreciation. "Very pretty," he conceded. "I am glad you have attended a fencing school, m'sieur. It is a matter for self-congratulation that I have not to slay an absolute novice."
O'Rourke affected an extreme air of surprise.
"Ye have scruples, then?" he gibed.
But already Georges' face had become masklike, expressionless—the face of a professional gambler about to fleece a dupe.
"'Twill be hard to rattle him, I'm thinking," said O'Rourke to himself. Aloud, "Since we waive code etiquette, monsieur," he announced, "I am ready."
Monsieur le Prince saluted silently, and put himself on guard simultaneously with the Irishman's guard.
Their blades slithered, clashed, striking a clear, bell-like note in the otherwise deathly silence that obtained within the lodge.
Chambret and Charles advanced cautiously from their walls, watching the crossed swords with an eternal vigilance, their own weapons alert to strike them up at the first suspicion of a foul on either side.
For a moment the two combatants remained almost motionless, endeavoring each to divine his antagonist's method, striving each to solve the secret of his opponent's maturing campaign.
Then, looking straight into the prince's eyes, "Come, come!" invited O'Rourke. "Have ye lost heart entirely, man? Don't keep me waiting all day."
Georges made no reply save by a lightning-like lunge, which O'Rourke parried imperturbably.
"Clever," he admitted cheerfully. "But too sudden, Monsieur le Prince. More carefully another time, if ye please."
Again he parried, riposting smartly; the point of his rapier rang loudly upon the guard of the prince's.
"Careful, careful," warned O'Rourke, gaining a step or two.
"Be the way," he suggested suddenly. "Faith, 'tis meself that's growing forgetful, monsieur. Before I put ye out of your misery, tell me now, where is little Duke Jehan?"
"Be silent, dog!" snarled the prince.
"Be polite, ye scum of the earth!"
And O'Rourke, feinting, put his point within the prince's guard and ripped his shirt-sleeve to the shoulder.
"Just to show ye I could do it," he chuckled. "Another time, I'll not be so merciful. Tell me, now, where have ye put the child?"
He lunged thrice with bewildering rapidity. The prince gave way a half dozen feet of ground under the fury of the attack.
"Tell me!" thundered O'Rourke, "before I do ye a hurt, man!"
But the answer he got was a stubborn silence.
From that point he forced the fighting to the end. It was even as he had suspected: he was in no way inferior to Georges. Rather was the contrary the case, for the prince, marvelous swordsman though he was, fought by the rigid rules of a single school—the French, while O'Rourke fought with a composite knowledge, skilled in as many methods as there were flags under which he had served.
Slowly, carefully, and relentlessly he advanced, obliging Monsieur le Prince to concede foot after foot of ground. And the combat, which had begun in the center of the floor—and the room was both wide and deep—by gradual degrees was carried down its center to the wall farthest from the door.
And with every skilful thrust, he dinned into the ears of the other an insistent query:
"Where have ye put the child, monsieur?"
Presently Georges found himself fairly pinned to the wall. He attempted an escape this way and that, to the one side or the other, but ever vainly; and ever, as he sought to make him a path with feint or thrust or tricky footwork, he found his path barred with a threatening point, like a spot of dancing fire engirdling him about.
For the Irishman seemed to wield a dozen swords, and as many menacing points enmeshed Georges de Lützelburg, denying him even hope.
O'Rourke's wrist was seemingly of steel, tempered like a fine spring; his sword gave nothing, took all ungratefully, and cried aloud for more and more of the prince's failing strength. The eye of the Irishman was clear and keen—now hard and ruthless of aspect. And his defense was a wall impregnable.
"Tell me," he chanted monotonously, "what have ye done with the little duke?"
Slowly the prince conceded to himself defeat, and yet he sought about for a desperate expedient toward escape, be that however shameful, so long as it saved him his worthless life.
A hunted look crept into the man's eyes, and his breath came short and gaspingly, as he struggled to advance one foot, even, from the wall that so hampered him—and had his striving for his pains.
With the realization of his fate dancing before his weary eyes, yet he rallied and fought for a time insanely, sapping his vitality with useless feints and maddened lunges that came to naught but O'Rourke's furthered advantage.
And then, "It is over," he told himself.
O'Rourke's ceaseless inquiry rang in his ears like a clarion knell:
"Where is the Grand Duke of Lützelburg, dead man?"
Fencing desperately, "Will you give me my life if I tell?"
"That will I, though ye don't deserve it!"
"Hidden in my personal apartments at the castle," panted the man.
O'Rourke incautiously drew off, lowering his point a trifle. "Is that the truth?" he demanded fiercely.
"Truth, indeed," returned the duke.
At the moment a slight exclamation from Charles made the Irishman turn his head. For a passing second he was off his guard. That second Monsieur le Prince seized upon.
"The truth," he gasped, "but you'll never live to tell it!"
And on the words he lunged.
Some instinct made O'Rourke jump. It saved his life. The blade passed through his sword arm cleanly, and was withdrawn. The pain of it brought a cry to his lips. "Ye contemptible coward!" he cried, turning upon the prince.
The treachery of it made his blood boil. A flush of rage colored his brain, so that he seemed to see the world darkly, through a mist of scarlet wherein only the face of his enemy was visible.
He turned upon the prince, shifting his rapier to his left hand. The very surprise of his movements proved the prince's undoing; O'Rourke's naked hand struck up his blade. He closed with Georges, his fingers clutching about the prince's throat—the fingers of the hand belonging to the wounded arm, at that. With incredible dexterity he shortened his grip of the rapier, grasping it half way down the blade, using it after the fashion of a poniard.
And what was mortal of Monsieur le Prince, Georges le Lützelburg collapsed upon the floor.