Arms and the Woman, Harold MacGrath [books you need to read TXT] 📗

Of course, you have come prepared. It is a fine time for shooting. This first light of twilight gives us equal advantage. Will it be at ten or twenty paces? I dare say, if we stand at twenty, in the centre of the road, we shall have a good look at each other before we separate indefinitely."

"Your Highness insists?" murmured the Count.

"I not only insist, I command." The Prince took off his coat and waistcoat and deposited them on the grass at the side of the road. Hillars did likewise. There was a pleased expression on his face. "I do believe, Count," laughed the Prince, "this fellow expects to kill me. Now, the pistols."

"If you will permit me," said the innkeeper, taking an oblong box from under his coat. "These are excellent weapons."

The Prince laughed. "I suppose, innkeeper, if the result is disastrous to me, it will please you?"

The innkeeper was not lacking in courtesy. "It would be a pleasure, I assure you. There are certain reasons why I cannot fight you myself."

"To be sure."

"It would be too much like murder," continued the innkeeper. "Your hand would tremble so that you would miss me at point-blank. There goes the last of the sun. We must hurry."

With a grimace the Count accepted the box and took out the pistols.

"They are old-fashioned," he said.

"A deal like the innkeeper's morals," supplemented the Prince.

"But effective," said the innkeeper.

The Count scowled at the old fellow, who met the look with phlegm. As an innkeeper he might be an inferior, but as a second at a duel he was an equal. It was altogether a different matter.

The Count carefully loaded the weapons, the innkeeper watching him attentively. In his turn he examined them.

"Very good," he said.

The paces were then measured out. During this labor the Prince gazed indifferently toward the west. The aftermath of the sun glowed on the horizon. The Prince shaded his eyes for a spell.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I believe the Princess is approaching. At any rate here comes the coach. Let us suspend hostilities till she has passed."

A few minutes later the coach came rumbling along in a whirlwind of dust. The stoical cavalrymen kept on without so much as a glance at the quartet standing at the side of the road. Hillars looked after the vehicle till it was obscured from view. Then he shook himself out of the dream into which he had fallen. He was pale now, and his eyebrows were drawn together as the Count held out the pistol.

"Ah, yes!" he said, as though he had forgotten. "There goes the woman who will never become your wife."

"That shall be decided at once," was the retort of the Prince.

"She will marry the gentleman back at the inn."

"A fine husband he will make, truly!" replied the Prince. "He not only deserts her but forsakes her champion. But, that is neither here nor there. We shall not go through any polite formalities," his eyes snapping viciously.

The two combatants took their places in the centre of the road. The pistol arm of each hung at the side of the body.

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" asked the Count, the barest tremor in his voice.

"Yes," said the Prince.

Hillars simply nodded.

"When I have counted three you will be at liberty to fire. One!"

The arms raised slowly till the pistols were on the level of the eyes.

"Two!"

The innkeeper saw Hillars move his lips. That was the only sign.

"Three!"

The pistols exploded simultaneously. The right arm of the Prince swung back violently, the smoking pistol flying from his hand. Suddenly one of the horses gave a snort of pain and terror, and bolted down the road. No attention was given to the horse. The others were watching Hillars. He stood perfectly motionless. All at once the pistol fell from his hand; then both hands flew instinctively to his breast. There was an expression of surprise on his face. His eyes closed, his knees bent forward, and he sank into the road a huddled heap. The Prince shrugged, a sigh of relief fell from the Count's half-parted lips, while the innkeeper ran toward the fallen man.

"Are you hurt, Prince?" asked the Count.

"The damned fool has blown off my elbow!" was the answer. "Bind it up with your handkerchief, and help me on with my coat. There is nothing more to do; if he is not dead he soon will be, so it's all the same."

When the Prince's arm was sufficiently bandaged so as to stop the flow of blood, the Count assisted him to mount, jumped on his own horse, and the two cantered off, leaving the innkeeper, Hillars' head propped up on his knee, staring after them with a dull rage in his faded blue eyes. The remaining horse was grazing a short distance away. Now and then he lifted his head and gazed inquiringly at the two figures in the road.

"Is it bad, Herr?" the innkeeper asked.

"Very. Get back to the inn. I don't want to peter out here." Then he fainted.

It required some time and all the innkeeper's strength to put Hillars on the horse. When this was accomplished he turned the horse's head toward the inn. And that was all.

"Dan?" said I.

The lids of his eyes rolled wearily back.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Bury me."

It was very sad. "Where?" I asked.

"Did you see the little cemetery on the hill, across the valley? Put me there. It is a wild, forgotten place. 'Tis only my body. Who cares what becomes of that? As for the other, the soul, who can say? I have never been a good man; still, I believe in God. I am tired, tired and cold. What fancies a man has in death! A moment back I saw my father. There was a wan, sweet-faced woman standing close beside him; perhaps my mother. I never saw her before. Ah, me! these chimeras we set our hearts upon, these worldly hopes! Well, Jack, it's curtain and no encore. But I am not afraid to die. I have wronged no man or woman; I have been my own enemy. What shall I say, Jack? Ah, yes! God have mercy on my soul. And this sudden coldness, this sudden ease from pain-is death!"

There was a flutter of the eyelids, a sigh, and this poor flotsam, this drift-wood which had never known a harbor in all its years, this friend of mine, this inseparable comrade-passed out. He knew all about it now.

There were hot tears in my eyes as I stood up and gazed down at this mystery called death. And while I did so, a hand, horny and hard, closed over mine. The innkeeper, with blinking eyes, stood at my side.

"Ah, Herr," he said, "who would not die like that?"


And we buried him on the hillside, just as the sun swept aside the rosy curtain of dawn. The wind, laden with fresh morning perfumes, blew up joyously from the river. From where I stood I could see the drab walls of the barracks. The windows sparkled and flashed as the gray mists sailed heavenward and vanished. The hill with its long grasses resembled a green sea. The thick forests across the river, almost black at the water's edge, turned a fainter and more delicate hue as they receded, till, far away, they looked like mottled glass. Only yesterday he had laughed with me, talked and smoked with me, and now he was dead. A rage pervaded me. We are puny things, we, who strut the highways of the world, parading a so-called wisdom. There is only one philosophy; it is to learn to die.

"Come," said I to the innkeeper; and we went down the hill.

"When does the Herr leave?"

"At once. There will be no questions?" I asked, pointing to the village.

"None. Who knows?"

"Then, remember that Herr Hillars was taken suddenly ill and died, and that he desired to be buried here. I dare say the Prince will find some excuse for his arm, knowing the King's will in regard to dueling. Do you understand me?"

"Yes."

I did not speak to him again, and he strode along at my heels with an air of preoccupation. We reached the inn in silence.

"What do you know about her Serene Highness the Princess Hildegarde?" I asked abruptly.

"What does Herr wish to know?" shifting his eyes from my gaze.

"All you can tell me."

"I was formerly in her father's service. My wife--" He hesitated, and the expression on his face was a sour one.

"Go on."

"Ah, but it is unpleasant, Herr. You see, my wife and I were not on the best of terms. She was handsome . . . a cousin of the late Prince. . . . She left me more than twenty years ago. I have never seen her since, and I trust that she is dead. She was her late Highness's hair-dresser."

"And the Princess Hildegarde?"

"She is a woman for whom I would gladly lay down my life."

"Yes, yes!" I said impatiently. "Who made her the woman she is? Who taught her to shoot and fence?"

"It was I."

"You?"

"Yes. From childhood she has been under my care. Her mother did so desire. She is all I have in the world to love. And she loves me, Herr; for in all her trials I have been her only friend. But why do you ask these questions?" a sudden suspicion lighting his eyes.

"I love her."

He took me by the shoulders and squared me in front of him.

"How do you love her?" a glint of anger mingling with the suspicion.

"I love her as a man who wishes to make her his wife."

His hands trailed down my sleeves till they met and joined mine.

"I will tell you all there is to be told. Herr, there was once a happy family in the palace of the Hohenphalians. The Prince was rather wild, but he loved his wife. One day his cousin came to visit him. He was a fascinating man in those days, and few women were there who would not give an ear to his flatteries. He was often with the Princess, but she hated him. One day an abominable thing happened. This cousin loved the Princess. She scorned him. As the Prince was entering the boudoir this cousin, making out that he was unconscious of the husband's approach, took the Princess in his arms and kissed her. The Prince was too far away to see the horror in his wife's face. He believed her to be acquiescent. That