The Puppet Crown, Harlod MacGrath [best new books to read .TXT] 📗

in his life the lust to kill seized him.

"It shall be yours, damn you!" replied Beauvais.

"The Austrian ambassador has your history; kill me or not, you are lost." Maurice made a sweep at his enemy's head and missed.

Beauvais replied in kind, and it flashed viciously off the point of Maurice's saber. He had only his life to lose, but it had suddenly become precious to him; Beauvais had not only his life, but all that made life worth living. His onslaught was terrible. Besides, he was fighting against odds; he wore no steel protector. Maurice wore his only a moment longer. A cut in the side severed the lacings, and the sagging of the cuirass greatly handicapped him. He pressed the spurs and dashed away, while Beauvais cursed him for a cowardly cur. Maurice, by this maneuver, gained sufficient time to rid himself of the cumbersome steel. What he lost in protection, he gained in lightness and freedom. Shortly Beauvais was at him again. The time for banter had passed; they fought grimly and silently. The end for one was death. Beauvais knew that if his antagonist escaped this time the life he longed for, the power and honor it promised, would never be his. On his side, Maurice was equally determined to live.

The horses plunged and snorted, reared and swayed and bit. Sometimes they carried their masters several yards apart, only to come smashing together again.

The sun was going down, and a clear, white light prevailed. Afar in the field a herd was grazing, but no one would call them to the sheds. Master and mistress had long since taken flight.

The duel went on. Maurice was growing tired. By and by he began to rely solely on the defense. When they were close, Beauvais played for the point; the moment the space widened he took to the edge. He saw what Maurice felt-the weakening, and he indulged in a cruel smile. They came close; he made as though to give the point. Maurice, thinking to anticipate, reached. Quick as light Beauvais raised his blade and brought it down with crushing force, standing the while in the stirrups. The blow missed Maurice's head by an inch, but it sank so deeply in his left shoulder that it splintered the collar bone and stopped within a hair of the great artery that runs underneath.

The world turned red, then black. When it grew light again Maurice beheld the dripping blade swinging aloft again. Suddenly the black horse snapped at the white, which veered. The stroke which would have split Maurice's skull in twain, fell on the rear of the saddle, and the blade was so firmly imbedded in the wooden molding that Beauvais could not withdraw it at once. Blinded by pain as he was, and fainting, yet Maurice saw his chance. He thrust with all his remaining strength at the brown throat so near him. And the blade went true. The other's body stiffened, his head flew back, his eyes started; he clutched wildly at the steel, but his hands had not the power to reach it. A bloody foam gushed between his lips; his mouth opened; he swayed, and finally tumbled into the road-dead.

As Maurice gazed down at him, between the dead eyes and his own there passed a vision of a dark-skinned girl, who, if still living, dwelt in a lonely convent, thousands of miles away.

Maurice was sensible of but little pain; a pleasant numbness began to steal over him. His sleeve was soaked, his left hand was red, and the blood dripped from his fingers and made round black spots in the dust of the road. A circle of this blackness was widening about the head of the fallen man. Maurice watched it, fascinated. . . He was dead, and the fact that he was a prince did not matter.

It seemed to Maurice that his own body was transforming into lead, and he vaguely wondered how the horse could bear up such a weight. He was sleepy, too. Dimly it came to him that he also must be dying. . . . No; he would not die there, beside this man. He still gripped his saber. Indeed, his hand was as if soldered to the wire and leather windings on the hilt. Mollendorf had said that Beauvais was invincible. . . . Beauvais was dead. Was he, too, dying? . . . No; he would not die there. The Mecklenberg started forward at a walk; a spur had touched him.

"No!" Maurice cried, throwing off the drowsiness. "My God, I will not die here! . . . Go, boy!" The Mecklenberg set off, loping easily.

His recent enemy, the great white horse, stood motionless in the center of the road, and followed him with large, inquiring eyes. He turned and looked at the silent huddled mass in the dust at his feet, and whinneyed. But he did not move; a foot still remained in the stirrup.

Soon Maurice remembered an episode of his school days, when, in the spirit of precocious research, he had applied carbolic acid to his arm. It occurred to him that he was now being bathed in that burning fluid. He was recovering from the shock. With returning sense came the increase of pain, pain so tormenting and exquisite that sobs rose in his throat and choked him. Perspiration matted his hair; every breath he took was a knife thrust, and the rise and fall of the horse, gentle as it was, caused the earth to reel and careen heavenward.

Bleiberg; he was to reach Bleiberg. He repeated this thought over and over. Bleiberg, to warn her. Why should he go to Bleiberg to warn her? What was he doing here, he who loved life so well? What had led him into this? . . . There had been a battle, but neither army had been cognizant of it. He endeavored to move his injured arm, and found it bereft of locomotion. The tendons had been cut. And he could not loosen his grip on the saber which he held in his right hand. The bridle rein swung from side to side.

Rivulets of fire began to run up and down his side; the cords in his neck were stiffening. Still the blood went drip, drip, drip, into the dust. Would he reach Bleiberg, or would he die on the way? God! for a drink of water, cold water. He set his teeth in his lips to neutralize the pain in his arm and shoulder. His lips were numb, and the pressure of his teeth was as nothing. From one moment to the next he expected to drop from the saddle, but somehow he hung on; the spark of life was tenacious. The saber dangled on one side, the scabbard on the other. The blood, drying in places, drew the skin as tight as a drumhead.

On, on, on; up long inclines, down the steeps; he lost all track of time, and the darkness thickened and the stars stood out more clearly. . . . He could look back on a clean life; true, there were some small stains, but these were human. Strange fancies jostled one another; faces long forgot reappeared; scenes from boyhood rose before him. Home! He had none, save that which was the length and breadth of his native land. On, on, on; the low snuffle of the horse sometimes aroused him from the stupor.

"Why you do this I do not know, nor shall I ask. Monsieur, my prayers go with you!" . . . She had said that to him, and had given him her hand to kiss; a princess, one of the chosen and the few. To live long enough to see her again; a final service- and adieu! . . . Ah, but it had been a good fight, a good fight. No fine phrases; nothing but the lust for blood; a life for a life; a game in which the winner was also like to lose. A gray patch in the white of the road attracted his attention-a bridge.

"Water!" he murmured.

Mottled with the silver of the stars, it ran along through the fields; a brook, shallow and narrow, but water. The perfume of the grasses was sweet; the horse sniffed joyously. He stopped of his own accord. Maurice had strength enough to dismount. The saber slid from his grasp. He staggered down to the water. In kneeling a faintness passed over him; he rolled into the brook and lay there until the water, almost clogging his throat and nostrils, revived him. He crawled to his knees, coughing and choking. The contact of the cold with the burning wound caused a delightful sensation.

"Water!" he said, and splashed it in his face.

The horse had come down from the road. He had not waited for an invitation. He drank thirstily at the side of his master. The water gurgled in his long, black throat.

"Good boy!" Maurice called, and dashed water against his shoulder. "Good boy!" he remembered that the horse in biting the white one had saved his life.

Each handful of the cold liquid caused him to gasp; but soon the fever and fire died out, leaving only the duller pain. When he rose from his knees, however, he found that the world had not yet ceased its wild reeling. He stooped to regain his saber, and fell into the dust; though to him it was not he who fell, but the earth which rose. He struggled to his feet, leaned panting on his saber, and tried to steady himself. He laughed hysterically. He had dismounted, but he knew that he could never climb to the back of the horse; and Bleiberg might yet be miles away. To walk the distance; was it possible? To reach Bleiberg before Madame. . . . Madame the duchess and her army! He laughed again, but there was a wild strain in his laughter. Ah, God! what a farce it was! One man dead and another dying; the beginning and the end of the war. The comic opera! La Grande Duchesse! And the fool of an Englishman was playing Fritz! He started down the road, his body slouched forward, the saber trailing in the dust. . . .

"Voici le sabre de mon pere!"

The hand of madness had touched him. The Mecklenberg followed at his heels as a dog would have followed his master.

Less than a mile away a yellow haze wavered in the sky. It was the reflection of the city lights.

Maurice passed under the town gates, the wild song on his lips, his eyes bloodshot, his hair dank about his brow, conscious of nothing but the mad, rollicking rhythm. Nobody molested him; those he met gave him the full width of the road. A strange picture they presented, the man and the troop horse. Some one recognized the trappings of the horse; half an hour later it was known throughout the city that the king's army had been defeated and that Madame was approaching. Students began their depredations. They built bonfires. They raided the office of the official paper, and destroyed the presses and type. Later they marched around the Hohenstaufenplatz, yelling and singing.

Once a gendarme tried to stop Maurice and inquire into his business. The inquisition was abruptly ended by a cut from the madman's sword. The gendarme took to his legs. Maurice continued, and the Mecklenberg tramped on after him. Into the Konigstrasse they turned. At this time, before the news was known, the street was deserted. Up the center of it the man went, his saber scraping along the asphalt, the horse always following.


Voici le sabre