Rallywood understood.

'No one knows I am here,' he said.

'Ah, true!'

'No one need ever know where the despatches have been. In four hours they shall be with Major Counsellor at the British Legation.'

'If you, Captain Rallywood, will bear the whole responsibility that would simplify the matter. Otherwise it is war.' Selpdorf looked meaningly at Rallywood as he spoke.

But Valerie was not deceived.

'Not that! not that!' she cried.

'It must be that or nothing.' Selpdorf did not look at her and he spoke almost brusquely.

'I know what it means. They will say he was false to his oath! Oh, father, is there no other way? I cannot let him go!'

Rallywood's face changed. Fate was crushing her two strange gifts into his hands, love and death at the same moment! He crossed to Valerie's side, and drawing her to him his gray eyes looked their courage and their happiness into hers.

'My darling, this makes it easy, whatever comes!'

'It may be death! It will be death!' He winced at the low agonised whisper.

She turned to her father.

'Father, you have the power to do anything you please in Maasau. You will save him for me! You can save him! Promise me that or I cannot let him go!'

Selpdorf was touched. He liked Rallywood. There was much in the single-hearted soldier that appealed to his sympathies. But——

'I will not deceive you, Valerie, at such a time as this,' he answered gently; 'I cannot foresee what may happen. I may not be able to prevent the worst. Captain Rallywood holds the despatches. He offers to sacrifice himself for the State, and the decision rests with you.'

Valerie buried her face in her hands. The clock moved noiselessly on and on, and the very air seemed to throb in the silence. Then the girl raised her head and looked steadily at Rallywood.

'It would not be love if I said otherwise. You would not love me if I said otherwise. You must go, John!'



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ARREST.

By the following evening tongues were busy in Revonde. Rumour and mystery and an absence of any definite information added zest to the town talk. The broken reports were curious.

Major Counsellor had fallen down the staircase at the British Legation and injured his head, his brow being much contused. His return to Revonde was explained on the ground that Germany and England had joined forces in compelling Selpdorf to lessen the heavy taxation with which Maasau was burdened. Count Sagan had been seen in the city with a lowering face—ah, yes! it was well known he had a most patriotic distrust of German interference. Madame de Sagan had quarreled with her husband because she had insisted on helping Mademoiselle Selpdorf, who was about to be married to Baron von Elmur, in the choice of her trousseau. Some excitement was being caused in the Guards' barracks by the case of Captain Rallywood, whom Count Sagan accused of using his influence unduly with his brother-officers to forward the projects of Germany. Some even went so far as to say that he was in arrest, and others were found who shook their heads and laughed, professing to be aware of a yet deeper reason for the colonel-in-chief's animosity against the English captain.

Out of all this chaff the one grain of truth was that Counsellor, released by Unziar on the authority of a telegram from Rallywood, had arrived by the first train in the morning and had at once proceeded to the British Legation. There he found Rallywood waiting for him. 'You have seen the Chancellor?' asked Counsellor, looking hard at Rallywood, whose brown face wore a look he had never seen upon it before. 'Why was I released? Am I already too late?'

'No, you are not too late. You must see the Duke at once. Here are your despatches. Good-bye, Major, I'll meet you presently.'

'I shall not in all probability see Duke Gustave again. My part is over and done with. The world, my dear John, never sees a national policy until it begins to fly. There is no credit for hatching the egg. One would almost think it hatched of itself. Occasionally the egg is found to be addled, and then the old birds make away with it in private. But don't go yet. How have you managed to keep these? What does it mean?'

'It means principally that you must forget you have been robbed, that Elmur's game is up, and that you were mistaken in your opinion of the Chancellor.'

Counsellor looked hurriedly through the papers contained in the packet, 'John,' he said suddenly, as he folded up a small sheet of cypher notes, 'you are an infernal liar.'

Rallywood laughed and his spurs jingled as he left the room, glad to have escaped so cheaply from Counsellor's keen observation. The old Major went to the window and watched him ride away in the sunshine, a gallant figure in his glittering uniform, sitting squarely on his big bay charger. No suspicion crossed his thoughts that Rallywood was probably taking his last ride through the sunny streets, that at every stride of his high-stepping horse he drew nearer to the final scene of all. He had gathered from Rallywood's bearing that the difficulties in his path had somehow been surmounted. Rallywood was capable. He had won the day by energy or pluck or both, but the old diplomatist had no time at the moment to trouble his head as to the exact means.

Before the forenoon was over Counsellor, acting through the proper channels, secured Maasau's acceptance of the British proposals, and a satisfactory undertaking which excluded all rivals from the field, at any rate during the Duke's lifetime. Counsellor did not appear in the negotiations. He remained shut up at the Legation, but when at length they came to public knowledge the German party were not under any delusion; they recognised to whose direct offices they owed defeat.

Baron von Elmur said nothing, as a matter of fact he did nothing, but he used his influence with an effect that was yet to bear fruit. He was inclined to suspect Selpdorf, but the Chancellor proved that he had only carried out the German's own suggestion in sending Rallywood to the Frontier. Ill-luck, he argued, combined with Sagan's blundering, had done the rest. He deplored it. It was clear that Rallywood, taking advantage of his position, and under pretence of carrying the despatches to the Chancellor had simply gone to Revonde and wired to Unziar a false order of release for Major Counsellor. The sole delinquent was Rallywood, and the Count in a torrent of curses promised himself a time of reckoning.

The day, which had begun in a brief burst of sunshine, closed in clouds. Evening climbed sullenly up out of the bleak river.

Traffic died in the streets, and the cloaked troopers passing hither and thither against the rising tsa became the chief objects to be seen as night gathered.

Rallywood stood at the side window of his quarters looking out over the twinkling city. He seemed to have had as yet no time for regret or gloomy anticipation. He had dwelt absorbed on the single fact that Valerie loved him. He was ready to sacrifice himself and his hopes with a smile. Later on, in sorrow and heaviness of heart, he accused himself bitterly of spoiling Valerie's young life. But he had not reached that stage yet; he was lingering in the first transient period when men and women see visions and dream dreams, when the present is lost in the recent past, while love's first spell is laid upon them, and the light that never was on land or sea blinds them to the chances and changes of common life. As long as the glory of it lasts a man is caught up into the seventh heaven, and the things of earth have no power over him.

But the breaking of the vision came to Rallywood sufficiently quickly. His view of the lamp-lit city grew suddenly blurred and he saw instead his own reflection in the polished glass, as the lights were turned on in the room behind him. In that same instant too the vague sweet outlook faded from his mind.

Then a hand was laid upon his shoulder and he saw another figure mirrored beside his own against the dark background of the night. There was a suggestion of reluctance in Unziar's movements.

'I regret, Captain Rallywood, that I have been ordered to place you in arrest.'



CHAPTER XXIX.

THE COURT-MARTIAL.

It has been the privilege of one or two famous Gardes du Corps to be a law unto themselves. The Guard of Maasau shares that privilege. The inquiry or rather trial was to be held within closed doors, and by the express order of the colonel-in-chief all the officers, including those junior to the prisoner, were to be present. And every officer present on such occasions had the right to vote. The procedure was simple. When the witnesses had been examined the accused was invited to speak in his own defence, then the senior officer summed up and lastly the officers recorded their votes.

Rallywood's offence had outraged the fundamental principle of the Guard, the blind self-sacrificing obedience which in trivial as in vital matters demanded the merging of the private individual with hopes and conscience of his own into the body corporate of the Guard. With the single exception of Unziar, no man present was acquainted with the details of Rallywood's crime. They knew only that he had grossly disobeyed orders, and not only that, but had disobeyed them for the furtherance of private ambition. So the charge against him intimated. It was understood that the accusation had been lodged by Count Sagan in consequence of information received by him, and the court-martial at once assembled to deal with the matter.

The original prejudice against Rallywood as a foreigner and an interloper was revived, with all the more bitterness because the men had in the interval come to respect if not to like him. They resented the deception they believed to have been practised upon them with the rancour of those who find they have not only been played upon but made tools of. Rallywood had gained his position among them by false pretences to serve his own ends—gained it to betray them.

But more than this, he had dishonoured the Guard, brought the first blot of treachery upon its long and unblemished traditions. Hereditary instincts inbred and powerful were arrayed against him in the hearts of six of his judges; in the seventh, Count Sagan, he had to encounter the ill-blood of a profoundly vindictive nature whose purposes he had crossed and baffled, and who harboured towards him a savage personal hatred.

It must be understood that so far no hint of the arrangement with England had been allowed to transpire. The engagement to be given by Maasau in return for the promised British loan and moral support was in train for completion, but the final signature was not to take place till that afternoon. Meantime the Chancellor kept a still tongue in his head and waited upon events, knowing that when all transpired the responsibility could be shifted on to the shoulders of the Duke. It was a risky game, but M. Selpdorf had played many another—and won them all. At the same time he had no intention of putting out his hand to save Rallywood, whose disappearance from the scheme of earthly affairs would remove an awkward cause of disagreement from the range of his own family circle. Yet it must be admitted that M. Selpdorf really regretted that the necessities of the case required the sacrifice of the Englishman, for whom his former abstract liking remained entirely unaltered.

The doors of the great mess-room were closed, for within them the court-martial was in progress. At the central table seven men with the marks of power upon them were gathered. Above them the torn banners of the regiment hung in the red gloom of the dome, but about the men themselves the gray-white light of a winter day fell from the riverward windows. It seemed to dull even the red glow of the hangings, that cold light, which lent to the faces of those assembled a strange effect of pallor.

It is a common experience that silence in a place associated in the mind with voices and the movement and sounds of life has a weird and impressive effect. Enter an empty church and you are chilled; hear a will read in the room which you connect with laughter and the genial routine of everyday events, and the uncanny quiet, falling away from the single voice, benumbs you. Thus in the mess-room, where music and laughter and the hubbub of men's talking usually resounded, the unwonted stillness, broken only by the piercing wail of the tsa, struck coldly and heavily upon the senses.

Count Sagan, his big chest covered with gold-lace and orders, loomed at the head of the table, Wallenloup and Ulm to his right and left, Adiron, Unziar, Adolf and Varanheim seated according to their rank. At the foot of the table in the uniform of the Guard but without a sword stood the prisoner.

One man present was a complete stranger to Rallywood—Major Ulm, who had just returned from leave, and whose keen eyes set in a thin shaven face scrutinised him coldly. Behind Ulm's bald forehead dwelt most of the sagacity and discretion of the Guard. Strongly as his prejudices were excited he could not avoid being struck by the bearing of the prisoner.

There was a cold fierceness about the men of the Guard, but Rallywood stood unmoved under the many hostile eyes.

A court-martial, where the prisoner is condemned, is perhaps the most awful scene of justice upon earth. This is so because it contains within itself elements that edge its painfulness. The judges wield not only the power of death, but the power of putting a man to utter shame. The prisoners who stand at such a tribunal may be credited with the capability, given to them by training if not by nature, of feeling shame. And the capability of suffering shame is as distinct a quality as the sense of honour.

Count Sagan glared round the table, and the aspect of his colleagues pleased him; they felt under his rough imagination like a sword whose temper the fighter is sure of. There was a horrible energy, a furious relentlessness about his very attitude and ringing in his voice that drove every word of his accusation into and through his hearers. As president he put questions to the prisoner, who answered them unmoved.

Rallywood fronted them calm and soldierlike, the picture of a gallant despair. He felt as though he stood clear of his life. It was lived and the end in sight. His position was hard, but he seemed to be ready to say Amen to whatever the fates might send. He had no thought of struggling for life and love. He was far otherwise. He was one whose love is hopeless, whose loved one is lost as though in death, and who lives through the present dream according to an ideal, the ideal of being worthy of the vanished past.

Unziar alone looked stonily blank, but the other grim faces round the table regarded Rallywood with a sort of satisfaction. He had sinned against them, but they were about to make him pay the highest human penalty for his sin. Yet to Ulm his demeanour was suggestive. There was something eloquent of singleness of heart and nobleness that seemed to buoy up this man with his broken honour. There was no parade of outraged innocence, nothing but a fearless reserve.

Rallywood hardly heard the grave voices that discussed his fate, stirring as they did so the clogging quiet which hung with such solemn effect over the historic room.

Those lofty walls had never before echoed to a similar charge or a like disgrace. The accusation was set forth in general terms. It spoke only of a certain prisoner and certain despatches. Rallywood acting under valid orders, had taken over the despatches from Unziar, and next by a false telegram to Unziar had ordered the release of a certain prisoner. Also he had used the despatches to forward aims of his own, to the loss and detriment of the Free State of Maasau. Anthony Unziar gave his evidence briefly and with caution, but it was conclusive.

After the charge had been completed and proved, a few minutes silence ensued. Then Count Sagan addressed the prisoner.

'Captain Rallywood, have you anything to say in your own defence?'

A sudden jarring sense of amusement struck upon Rallywood. They were playing a farce; Count Simon, with his mortal enmity, was but acting his part. The whole procedure was hollow yet he Rallywood would have to give his life to prove that all this seeming was deadly earnest—that the blustering traitor opposite was not a defeated schemer but a loyal son of Maasau!

Rallywood could not repress a quick smile.

Count Simon flung his fist upon the table.

'Do you hear me?' he shouted; 'what have you to say in your defence?'

Rallywood looked him in the eyes.

'Nothing,' he said.

There was a hush. Sagan picked up the glances of the officers round him. Rallywood's words had come as a shock. Most of the men expected some attempt if not at a defence at least at a justification of his conduct.

Sagan's harsh voice was raised again.

'His sword.'

Unziar sprang up hurriedly.

'It is in the ante-room,' he said; 'I will bring it.'

Sagan rose from his place as Unziar returned with a naked sword in his hand. The Count took it and laid it on the table before him.

Then standing he addressed the court.

'Gentlemen of the Guard,—I must thank you in the first place for the admirable patience with which you have listened to the details of the abominable crime with which the prisoner, John Rallywood, is charged. His guilt has been proved up to the hilt by Lieutenant Unziar's evidence, but in addition to that the accused was not ashamed to convict himself out of his own mouth. The sentence upon a traitor as upon a mutinous soldier is unalterable. It is death! No doubt, gentlemen, we are unanimously agreed upon that, and the formality of the ballot is all that is left.'

The ballot-box stood upon a side-table at the upper end of the room, and beside it a basket with a number of ivory balls, some black, some white. The officers went up in rotation and each with his back to the company placed a ball of the colour he chose in the ballot-box.

The haggard daylight was fading slowly as the men left their chairs and returned to them in silence.

Rallywood waited, not in suspense indeed, but with the full sense that his fate was being legally recorded by a jury of his fellows. It is at such a moment as this that a man goes back to his belief in God. If there is no God, to what end anything? Those who say there is no God say the world is a sad and very evil place. If their creed were universally accepted, the last state of humanity would be worse than the first, and earth degenerate into a hopeless and helpless hell.

'Six black balls, one white,' announced Major Ulm.

The prisoner's gray frank eyes flashed out at Unziar, but the Maasaun's rigid face gave no sign.

Then Count Sagan, secure of his enemy, let himself go. He lifted the sword from the table, and casting one more glance at the prisoner, he placed the gleaming point upon the floor, bending the delicate blade, and stamping upon it midway with his booted heel. There was a shallow ring as the steel broke, then a clash of metal as the Count flung the hilt upon the point, as if the touch contaminated him.

'John Rallywood, this court has found you guilty and condemned you to die! And I, Count Simon of Sagan, colonel-in-chief of the Guard of Maasau, now pronounce upon you the sentence of death. Trusted by the Guard, you chose to betray them! Where is the oath of fealty by which you swore to obey? We are polluted by your treason, we are tainted by your shame! Are you afraid to speak? Is your voice frozen in your throat? The greater part of your punishment should be in its shame. But you cannot feel it! You and shame are strangers—the last infamy of the base! You are loathsome, a mercenary false to his salt, a hound who sold himself for money first and for disgraceful gain afterwards! How can I touch you? Where can I prod you? On what nerve, since the nerve of shame is dead? Like the groom, one could only punish you with a whip. I shall lay the matter before the Duke. I will urge it upon my colleagues,' he swept his arm round the table; 'a hundred with the whip or to run the gauntlet of the Guard. That would touch you more than words, or shame, or death! Ha, that reaches you!' he cried, and then there was a fierce exultation in the raucous volleying words, 'You have disgraced the Guard but we cannot for reasons of state publicly disgrace you. But you shall be shot—shot like a dog! You shall not meet death face to face as many a brave man has met it, but you shall be shot, cringing with your back to the gun-muzzles—like the cur you are!'

Rallywood's pale features had flushed for a second. There was a brutality about Sagan's denunciations which shocked the men around him. Rallywood deserved something, but not this, not that! Unziar's eyes burned, Wallenloup was frowning. But Sagan swept on. He was a man who trampled horribly upon a fallen foe.

At last Wallenloup could bear it no longer. He rose to his feet and saluting the Count led the way from the room, the line closing with Rallywood between Adolf and Unziar as guard.

Left alone in the great dim vaulted chamber, Sagan stood upright and watched the door through which they had filed out, and there came upon him in the dying daylight a terrible moment, such as all uncontrolled natures must at times know. A sense of the futility of all things, a knowledge that life has lost its taste, the hideousness of finally baffled desire.

He hurled out his heavy arms with a wild gesture.

'Where have they gone? Where are they, the strong lusts and hates and triumphs—the satisfactions of the old days? The world has grown puny. It is empty, empty, empty!'



CHAPTER XXX.

'UPON THE GREAT WORLD'S ALTAR-STAIRS.'

It is a commonplace that selfish natures, balked of gratification, seek relief in making the unhappiness of others, preferably of those who are helpless to resist or to resent. Therefore Count Sagan employed the interval before going to the Palace to procure the signature of the Duke to Rallywood's death-warrant in paying a flying visit to his wife, whom he had not seen since the morning of the boar-hunt at the Castle.

He found several other people calling upon Madame de Sagan, who was not fond of solitude. Numbers gave the pretty Countess courage. She took no notice of her husband's entrance, although the soft colour left her face instantly as a candle-flame is blown out. But Count Simon had only five minutes to spare and something to say in them. Isolde's feeble rebellion escaped him; he strode to her side, and with a single glance dispersed the little coterie of guests about her, the only one who kept his position being Baron von Elmur.

Sagan stood before his wife, an evil smile on his coarse bearded mouth. He nodded at Elmur.

'I have news of interest for both of you.'

'Ah! it is over then?' Elmur asked at once. He discerned the Count's intention and would have averted its fulfilment if possible. The thought that he was about to make a woman unhappy never deterred Elmur from any course of action whatsoever, but he preferred not to see them so. He delighted in pretty women, and Isolde of Sagan was exceptionally pretty; therefore, for the sake of the next half hour of her society he would have spared her the tidings her husband's malice designed to thrust upon her in public. Afterwards the deluge might come, but what matter? Have we not all our deluges in private that submerge our world in tears? 'Madame has kindly promised to assist in the tableaux vivants next week,' he added hastily.

The Count grinned his contempt.

'You should reproduce the death of a traitor. Come to see Rallywood shot in the morning by way of an object lesson.'

Madame de Sagan's hand flew to her throat with a quick gasp of horror; for a second the room seemed to swing round, then slowly settle again.

'Why, what has he done?' she asked; her lips were dry but she spoke deliberately.

'Nothing new, only he happened to be found out this time. Well, au revoir!'

Elmur stood up and followed him.

'The signature of his Highness?' he asked in a low voice.

'I go to get it and other things also. I have arranged the interview with Selpdorf.'

Elmur bowed and returned to his place by the side of the Countess. Isolde's blue eyes, dewy as a child's with unshed tears, appealed to him.

'It is not true?'

Elmur reflected that he had never before seen her look so pretty. Most women with tears in their eyes repelled his fastidiousness, but this one was delicious. He bent towards her and said as much with a fervour that surprised her. She smiled tremulously. She had always considered the wary German worth capturing, but he was an elusive bird. Admiration had never before got the better of his self-possession; now for the first time he appeared to be carried away by it. The keenness of conquest thrilled her. Jack?—ah, yes, poor Jack! But he was practically lost to her for ever. She sighed a little; she had been fond of Jack, but the love that can stand against the inevitable was not hers. She reminded herself that Jack had preferred Valerie—but, why, so had Elmur! A temptation came to her; she glanced again at Elmur. He was personable though advancing to middle age, and handsome as men go, though his eyes were close-set and cunning. He was not like poor Jack—no, she would never find anyone perhaps quite so good to look upon as Jack, with his broad shoulders and corn-coloured hair, and those dear frank eyes! No, but——

'Madame, what are you thinking of? I wish I dared flatter myself that I could ever draw tears to those exquisite eyes,' Elmur said again with warmth. He wanted excitement and Isolde was yielding. There are women who will sacrifice the most sacred things, God's word itself, on the altar of their vanity. Isolde withdrew her slight hand from his touch, but it was the withdrawal that invites advance. She hesitated no longer.

'There are other eyes whose tears will be bitterer than mine; are you not jealous of them? I am sorry for Captain Rallywood, of course, but poor Valerie—what am I saying?'

'Whatever you say interests me,' he urged, his eyes following hers.

She pouted coquettishly.

'Yes, because I speak of Valerie!'

'No, it is because you speak!' he declared amorously. 'Tell me of Mademoiselle Valerie if you will,' this as a concession, 'though you could tell me something more interesting.'

'Not more interesting to you than this,' she exclaimed, nodding her golden head at him with her little air of foolish wisdom. 'It is lucky that Captain Rallywood is—is about to furnish an object-lesson, for——' she raised her slender finger and laid it on her lips, smiling at him.

He looked round. They were alone in a smaller drawing-room; it was not possible for the guests in the other saloon to see them. He drew the finger from her lips and pressed it to his own. He would woo the truth from this beautiful fool. His words meant one thing, his looks another.

'And Valerie?' he questioned, seeming to count her fingers on his palm.

'Valerie loves him—she told me so,' whispered Isolde, since there was no longer need to speak louder.

'And you, my dear lady?' And it may be the speech was the more impassioned because in his heart he was damning the picturesqueness of the captain of the Guard.

* * * * *

And Rallywood? Rallywood sat in his quarters thinking thoughts that, like music, lead sometimes on to exaltation. His earthly life was done, and he looked out into the dim beyond fearlessly. His eyes were set and sad, for he should see her face and hear Valerie's voice no more, but he would be waiting in that somewhere for her. A man in the supremer hours often turns again to the faiths of his childhood; so now Rallywood, at the summit of his life, found himself given back all those lost dreams.

He did not know how she came there. He heard no footstep enter. And when he knew, neither spoke.

There was nothing to say; it was all understood so well. She stood beside him, her hands in his in a strange lull of mutual knowledge.

'How did you come?' he asked her at last.

'Anthony,' she answered, 'he knows—all.'

'How like him! But,' with a man's ready thought for the woman he loves, 'you must not be found here. Say good-bye to me, Valerie.'

'John,' she clung to him, 'how can I let you go? You are dying for Maasau—for my father—for me—yes, yes, I can guess all!'

'Valerie, do you know what your love is to me? I need nothing more. I have not thought of what there is beyond, but when you want me you will find me waiting.'

In the long silence life itself might have been suspended.

'When?' said Valerie, in a sudden recollection of anguish.

'To-morrow,' he answered, understanding the broken question.

Valerie raised her wet eyes.

'In my life there can be no to-morrow. God may not let me die, but my life will always be one long remembrance of to-day. I shall live in to-day always. To-morrows are for happier women, John. And yet I am wicked to say that. I would not change my lot with any other. For have I not my memories? And I will learn to have my hopes. And whenever that blessed day of release may come to me, I will bring my heart to you as it is to-day, my king!'

Rallywood looked into the beautiful tear-dimmed eyes. He was too wise to say that he had spoilt her life, that had it been possible to set the wrong right by any sacrifice he would have done so. Of this he said nothing. He only kissed her.

'Next to living to be with you, darling, I am in love with dying for you, Valerie!'

The silence grew again between them, the best and saddest silence upon earth—the silence of all's said.

'And yet, John, I have one thing left to live for. I will live to see your name stand where it should. For men like you are only understood and honoured—afterwards,' she said presently.

Another man might have disclaimed all praise. Rallywood, who believed he deserved none, kept silence. He knew that to deny would be to wound. And he was fain to say to her a thing which was hard to say and hard to hear. But he was looking out into the troubled future, and his anxiety for her grew bitter upon him. So he nerved himself to the greatest sacrifice of all. And Valerie's next words gave him the opening he desired.

'Your sword——' she began.

'Is broken.'

'No, no! Anthony brought another to Count Sagan, not yours. Yours was not the sword of a traitor! That also I will keep.'

'Unziar—I thank him. And Valerie, listen! When they condemned me there was one vote in my favour. You can guess whose.'

'Anthony's?'

'Yes, Valerie, and he loves you, and I will not blame—I wish—I would ask——'

Valerie's glance met his. She understood.

'No,' she said; 'I will thank him, and like him dearly and pray for him, but not that—no, not ever that!'

A quiet knock on the door.

'And now it is good-bye.'



CHAPTER XXXI.

DUKE GUSTAVE.

Whatever may be said to the contrary, the fact remains that a little independent success acts on a morally weak man as a glass of wine upon a physically weak one. For a time it exalts and quickens him.

Duke Gustave of Maasau was in a condition of mental exhilaration, and experiencing to the full the false sensation of strength thus created when Sagan was announced. Selpdorf, who had been listening for some minutes to his master's self-gratulations on the newly ratified British contract rose as if to take his departure.

'Wait, Selpdorf!' the Duke said.

'My lord has asked for a private interview, your Highness,' Selpdorf reminded him.

'Yes, but I have no private affairs to discuss with my cousin. Anything that need be said between us is better said before a witness,' replied the Duke. 'How do you suppose he will take the news of our agreement with England?'

Selpdorf's answer was slow in coming, and before he spoke Count Sagan strode into the room. He carried a sheaf of papers; his imperious temper was wont to rush every business through to which he put his hand.

'I begged for a few moments in private with your Highness,' he said, with a glance at the Minister.

'Our good Selpdorf is too discreet to be considered a third,' answered the Duke blandly. 'He knows our secrets without being told them. Pray proceed, my lord; is there anything I can do for you?'

'Yes, sire; I wish to lay before you the matter I was forced to postpone at the Castle. I also made use of the opportunity to bring one or two papers relating to the Guard for signature.'

The Duke took the papers. He was seated at a writing-table, and he glanced carelessly over them as Sagan went on.

'Under your approval those papers include Lieutenant Unziar's appointment as captain, vice Colendorp——'

'Deceased,' put in the Duke with a sharp significance.

Sagan frowned. Gustave had a curious alertness about him to-night.

'Yes, poor fellow! We can ill spare him,' he said. 'Also we have agreed to propose Abenfeldt as junior subaltern.'

'I have no objection,' the Duke said.

'As for the other subject upon which I have for some time wished to speak to you, sire, I am authorised to lay before your Highness certain proposals—'

'Stop, my lord,' again interrupted the Duke, 'if those proposals have any reference to von Elmur and his projects for the good of the State, I absolutely decline to hear them. What's this?' he had laid aside the upper papers after signature, and was scanning the one below with an expression of countenance which showed that he liked what he read very little.

Sagan watched him with a deepening frown, the more subtle Selpdorf with curiosity. At other times it had been the Duke's custom to add his signature to papers without a glance at their contents. The destiny of one man is thus often decided by the passing mood of another.

'What's this about Rallywood?'

'A bad business, but your Highness's signature makes many a wrong right,' said Sagan, with a clumsy attempt at pleasantry; 'it needs only that. You have the pen and ink, sire.'

'But, by Heaven, not the will!' cried the Duke. 'I will not sign it! And if I will not, hey?'

'M. Selpdorf will assure you that it is necessary in the case of discipline,' urged Sagan with a lowering look.

'And I will assure M. Selpdorf that I am accustomed to make up my own mind! You know it already, Selpdorf!'

'I have always known it, sire,' said the supple Chancellor.

'You will hear my reasons?' asked Sagan angrily.

The Duke nodded.

'Captain Rallywood was guilty of gross disobedience of orders. His case has been laid before a court-martial of his brother officers, and he has been condemned to be shot. The trial has been conducted with justice.'

'What were Captain Rallywood's orders, then?'

'He was ordered to carry certain dispatches to the Chancellor, but he carried them elsewhere for his own purposes.'

The Duke nodded slowly and half closed his eyes. He remembered a certain damp morning by the river, when Rallywood had ridden to take orders from Selpdorf.

'So you are in this also, Selpdorf?' he said. 'What despatches were these? Pray tell me frankly. I believe I know something already.'

'Despatches sent to me from the Frontier, sire.'

'Which he failed to bring to you. Where then did he take them?'

The delay and the persistent unexpected questioning of the Duke irritated Sagan almost beyond endurance. He struck in.

'Sire, does it matter what he did with them, as we have proof that he disobeyed orders? That is the point—what need to ask further?' Then, as the Duke still shook his head, he burst out, 'Well, then, he carried them to the British Legation—to his own countrymen, mind you. He was false to his oath as a soldier! He must be shot!'

Gustave of Maasau was a man who lied much and often, as those of poor moral calibre will. He lied now with zest.

'So? Although Captain Rallywood acted under my personal instructions, Simon?' he said quietly.

Sagan sprang to his feet.

'Yes,' resumed the Duke, warming to his role. 'Yes, he acted under my orders, for the despatches were connected with the agreement I have within the last hour signed with England, and about which the first proposals were laid before me at midnight by the British Envoy during my visit to your Castle!'

'What?' shouted Sagan, as his house of cards fell about him. 'You lie, Gustave! And Germany? Selpdorf, we hold your promises! It is impossible to think this to be true?'

'It is true,' said the Chancellor. 'I beg you will recollect that his Highness is present, my lord. This excitement——'

Sagan stood gasping and staring. His passion seemed to choke him as he stood, but the Duke, still exalted by the sense of triumph and power, mistook the silence for speechless humiliation. His temper rose as the other's seemed to sink.

'You can deceive me no more, my lord Sagan!' he cried in a high excited voice. 'You took Colendorp from me, you would now take Rallywood, one by one all my faithful Guard! But I am sovereign still! You shall not tamper any longer with my loyal State; you shall never bring your traitorous German schemes to an issue!'

But there were things impossible for Count Simon of Sagan to endure. Never before had he been twitted with impotence and failure. He could not survive so utter a defeat. A man to bear these things must be less thorough than the Count. He was too fierce, too imperious, to bear so great a reverse. If he must be put to shame before the world, if even a paltry captain of the Guard were to be permitted to negative his will, why then life had best be over!

He seemed to struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his passion leaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at the Duke—the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with his tongue! The old hate fired the new fury as he clutched Gustave.

The Duke gave a shrill feeble cry, not such a cry as one would have expected from a man of his age, and then Selpdorf was between them shouting for the Guard.

'You false hound!' Sagan gnashed his teeth in Selpdorf's face as the Chancellor threw himself upon him.

Shouts and shots, and the wild turmoil of a deadly struggle. Then the Guard had secured Sagan. The Duke stood trembling and incoherent, leaning upon the table, and between them, face downwards on the floor, the Chancellor with a bullet in his groin and for once playing a role he had not prepared.

Sagacious, supple, self-seeking, yet not utterly seared, in the last resort he offered up his life for the master he had almost betrayed.



CHAPTER XXXII.

FOR A SEASON.

Queens Fain lies upon the inner edge of Lincolnshire, in an undulating countryside amongst great old trees, where of an evening the sun throws bars of light across the levels of turf, where homing rooks fly in scattered lines against a gleaming sky, the air breathes coolness and peace, and the scene lays that ineffable spell upon the heart of which only the exile can ever know the full pathetic power.

Round the house tall fences of yew and holly fend off the colder winds. On an evening in early spring Rallywood and Counsellor strolled under the shelter of a massive black wall of yew. The daffodils were blowing about the border of the lake below them, and along the distant hedges furry catkins were already nodding and floating on the crisp breeze.

'I have found it necessary once or twice before to say that you were a fool, John,' said Counsellor, looking up at a corner of the great stone-built mansion, its cold aspect yellowed and mellowed by the strengthening sunshine.

'Always or on occasion?' Rallywood laughed easily.

'Mostly. You will not leave the Guard. If I were you I should go to-morrow. Marry the girl as soon as she will let you, and bring her here. Then sit down and shoot partridges. She will like it. It is better than Maasau.'

'It is altogether good to own the old place again,' Rallywood said, 'and we'll do our duty by the partridges, Major, you and I, I hope, by-and-by, but to do that and nothing else—not yet!'

'You've stalked bigger game and that has spoilt you,' grumbled the Major. 'After Count Sagan, partridges pall. Yet it is a pity.'

'I shall bring Valerie here sometimes, of course. I think she'll like the old place almost as much as I do.'

'More, since it is the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' said Counsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeserving beggar! So Selpdorf's gone. A queer compound.'

'His death redeemed—much,' said Rallywood, shortly.

'Yes,' Counsellor puffed out a great cloud of smoke, 'yes, but we have no reason to forget the fact that he was very ready to secure himself at a heavy cost to you.'

'For the sake of Maasau,' interposed Rallywood.

'Hum—for the sake of Maasau! And you were an inconvenient personality also. Well, well, let it pass. But it was touch and go with you, John, for no one could have foreseen that shaky old Gustave would rise to the occasion as he did. And what has he done for you after all?'

'He saved my life first, and gave me the Gold Star of Maasau afterwards,' said Rallywood, 'an honour which I share with some monarchs—and Major Counsellor.'

'Dirt cheap, too!' grunted Counsellor. 'I hear that Madame de Sagan sent you a very neat congratulation.

"A genoux sur la terre Nous rendons graces a Dieu Et nous lui faisons voeux D'une double priere."

You can take your own meaning out of it,' ended the Major.

'And the people being chiefly malicious will take the wrong one.'

'That is as it may be. But for you I hope a fine morning will follow the stormy evening. You will grow fat and selfish, John, like many a better man.'

Rallywood smiled. He was thinking of a certain elderly diplomat who, rumour said, had been moved out of his usual composure on one occasion only. It was at the moment when he heard that Captain Rallywood of the Maasaun Guard was sentenced to be shot.

'By the way,' resumed Counsellor, 'did I tell you that I saw von Elmur yesterday at Charing Cross? He said he was starting for Constantinople. I bade him good-bye, but he corrected me, "Au revoir, my dear Major," and kissed the tips of his fingers to me as the train passed. So perhaps the end is not yet.'

'God bless the present!' said Rallywood.

And while they walk and talk over the past and the future in the pleasant places of England, the surf is beating round an island off the Maasaun coast, upon which a storm-stricken fortification has been adapted to the use of a certain political prisoner, Count Simon of Sagan. There he frets, and schemes, and longs through the endless afternoons. He does not accept his destiny as final, his hopes are unimpaired, his resolves as strong as in the old keen days at Sagan. He clings to a blind conviction that Time and the Man must inevitably meet together, and he lives for that meeting.

There, too, Anthony Unziar serves his country and his sovereign, relentlessly watchful through the dead monotony of the days. At his own urgent request he was given charge of the lonely prison, its solitude appearing to him the one bearable condition of life. He has his work to do and he does it well, and always between Count Sagan and his dreams stands the irrevocable figure of the young Maasaun.

Sometimes Sagan taunts him with his hopeless love, but he only answers by a look. And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find the other standing up against him—the fierce imbruted prisoner with his royal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.

They are waiting. They have each his dream. Sagan's of empire and revenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, a man who could never be compelled to cry 'Enough' to evil fortune.

Sometimes deep in the night, while the two enemies play their long games together, Sagan flings down the cards and laughs and speaks of another game which will find its conclusion in the dim paths of the future. But Unziar only smiles. If that day should ever come it will find him ready. But to-day is not to-morrow, and 'God bless the present!' as Rallywood said.

THE END