A Modern Mercenary

Rallywood went on wondering what the Duke meant to convey by this praise of his great Minister and in fact set many constructions on the empty words.

Selpdorf received him with an air of gravity, almost of restraint, entirely unlike the debonnair interest he had shown in him on the occasion of their last interview.

'I have sent for you, Captain Rallywood,' he said after a moment's consideration, 'to entrust to you a very delicate mission.'

He ceased and waited for some response. He was standing opposite to Rallywood on a white fur rug. The upstanding corners of his moustache, his upright carriage, and the ineffaceable mark left upon him by his short term of military service – for conscription obtains in Maäsau – had their effect upon Rallywood. He picked out the soldier from the chancellor and saluted in silence.

Selpdorf smiled. Yet he wished the man had spoken! so much may be deduced from a tone of voice. Did he guess how much Selpdorf knew of his relations with Valerie? But there was nothing to be gathered from that rigid front.

'Before I give you any information, I must ask you first to say whether you will serve his Highness or not?'

'I have taken the oath, your excellency.'

'Yes,' the Chancellor said dubiously, 'and an oath goes a long way but sometimes not all the way. Has not some writer said that it is the man that makes the oath believed, not the oath the man?'

'I have taken the soldier's oath,' repeated Rallywood.

But he had no protestation of fidelity to offer. It rested with Selpdorf to choose the right man for his mission.

If personal inclination had had any part in the Chancellor's plan of life, it is certain he would have liked Rallywood. As it was, in trusting he distrusted him. Rallywood could be relied on to follow a straight path, he knew, but if it swerved from honour – what then?

'Also I must remind you that a soldier should see no farther than the point of his sword, and hear no more than his orders. In short, under many circumstances he has no use for an independent judgment. He must leave that to those whom he is pledged to obey and with whom rests the ultimate responsibility. A soldier's single duty is blind obedience.'

Rallywood bowed and continued to await his orders in silence.

'That is well. I am about to send you to Kofn Ford, where you will meet the midnight mail from the Frontier. At the foot of the mountain incline, about half-way between the stations, the train will be stopped and a person placed in your custody. You will take this person back with you to the Ford block-house and keep him there until you receive orders to bring him into Révonde. I especially charge you that no violence is to be used, but he is not to be permitted to escape. The importance of the duty which is entrusted to you cannot be too highly estimated.'

This then was what the Duke meant. Rallywood was to place himself unreservedly at the disposal of M. Selpdorf. Yet the preamble troubled him. It seemed to be assumed that he might be tempted to evade his orders.

'I am to start at once, your Excellency?'

'In half an hour.' Selpdorf's face cleared, something of his former geniality returned to him. 'To-night, Captain Rallywood, the Duke has need of a man. There are others I might have sent whose claims are greater than yours, but you are my nominee to the ranks of the Guard, and I would justify my choice. His Highness also is inclined to favour you.'

Selpdorf contemplated Rallywood kindly, as if prepared to be interested in his answer. He was trying to draw something from the man, but Rallywood only stood straighter and hugged his wooden silence closer. Any reply he could make would give the advantage to Selpdorf. For the present he himself held it. It is often so. The man who speaks ten words has an advantage over the man who speaks a hundred.

'I thank your Excellency,' he replied.

'There is,' Selpdorf began again meditatively, as if permitting himself the luxury of a little frankness before a trusted adherent, 'an end to everything and a beginning. The line drawn between the new and the old is never defined; the two overlap. We may regret the old, but since the new is irresistible, the wise make the best of it.' He looked up with an alert interest. 'In your own case, Captain Rallywood, you were not long ago at the dividing line yourself; how has the new life treated you?'

'Well!' said Rallywood as if flinging back a challenge.

The Chancellor's round eyes met his.

'Ah, I thought it would be so! You were half inclined that night to let fortune go by you. You must mount her, man, not lead her by the bridle.'

Then Rallywood broke silence.

'I doubt, your Excellency, if she will carry me where I want to go, in spite of hard riding,' he said.

'That will depend upon yourself, I imagine. Good-day, Captain.'

CHAPTER XXIV

ON THE FRONTIER

The evening train was almost due.

Upon the rise of a bare and windy ridge Rallywood sat on horseback waiting. Man and horse seemed to be the only living things between the horizons. From his point of vantage he looked out over the dim, limitless marshes, north, south and west, and although the growing darkness rendered the few features of the landscape even less distinguishable than usual, his practiced eye passed from point to point readily, for the flat map before him had been etched in upon his memory by the slow-graving stylus of use.

The night promised to be clear and starlit, for the tsa had risen to a gale, and a sudden frost succeeding the thaw had already thrust its iron fingers deep into the land. The cold was intense, and a raw wind, that had blown across a continent and a sea, came down obliquely upon Rallywood through a dip in the mountains. On one side the lines of the railway track ran up a curving incline into the Kofn Hills, where, five miles away at the bleak Frontier station, officials, imposingly uniformed, parade the platforms, examine the baggage, and demand passports in a manner calculated to impress the traveller with an idea of the immense resources of the State of Maäsau. That is one part of their duties. The other is slavish obedience. 'Do what you are ordered, and the result will look after itself.' Such is the creed. The first lesson taught them is that they must not hesitate, and they learn it thoroughly. Westwards the line slipped away into the sweep of low ground towards Alfau, the first stoppage on the way to Révonde.

Rallywood drew his riding-cloak around him and settled down squarely into the saddle. The desolate plains with the crying wind held the loneliness of the damned. Occasionally a wolf howled in the distance, or a wandering snipe cried as it lost itself among the stiffening reeds about the swampy levels, and through all he could hear the hoarse roar of the Kofn in flood, as it rushed down from its rocky bed, swollen with the melted snows of yesterday. Another interval passed while the gray outlook changed to black. Then a red light appeared as it were over the edge of the world. Its coming afforded a certain break in the naked whimpering solitude of the plain.

Slowly it crept down the incline, for the engines of Maäsau, like Belgian pistols, are not made for rough usage. Rallywood rode forward to meet it, the tufts of grass crackling under his horse's feet. But instead of slackening pace the chain of lighted carriages swept past him, and, gathering speed, wound away into the desolate night.

Rallywood looked after it with a sense of blankness. The Chancellor's exordium and the Duke's remarks had rather primed him to a state of expectation, and he felt as if he had been balked of he knew not what. The green light contracted and died away into the gloom; then discontent mastered him. In his restless mood he had grasped at the situation, which had promised a stirring of the blood, but the train passed and thrust him back with a hand that seemed almost palpable in the staleness of ordinary life. When he left the Frontier he had left behind him the old content, the humorous adaptability to circumstances which had once been a main element of his character.

Turning his horse's head due west he rode slowly beside the track, where the metals had begun to gleam under the stars, and the wind drove behind him as if driving him out into the waste. He rode on for five minutes. Then he pulled up and listened. Through the whistling of the tsa and the dull roar of the river, he fancied he had detected some other sound.

Puzzled, he turned and rode back at a hand-gallop in the teeth of the wind. As he rode, the noise became more distinct, and presently out of the night something black and bulky came jolting painfully and slowly down the slope of the railway track.

As Rallywood drew rein alongside, he saw it was a single carriage, unlighted and solitary, rolling aimlessly on towards the level ground through the gloom.

Gradually the pace slackened, and at last with a rheumatic jerk backwards and forwards it came to a standstill. By this time also Rallywood had perceived that it occupied the further set of rails, on which the outgoing trains from Révonde travelled. And already the night mail could not be far away.

He dropped from his saddle and in a second was feeling for his matches, while the horse fell to sniffing half-heartedly at the meagre herbage.

Rallywood mounted the steps of the carriage, for the platforms in Maäsau are very high, and turned the handle. Then, bending forward, he peered into the interior, but through the dusk the seats seemed empty. Rallywood stepped inside and lit a match. It sputtered in the frosty air and flickered for a second from the route-maps under the musty racks to the cushioned seats, and so downwards to a figure heaped on the floor-rug by the opposite door.

This wandering carriage had then one occupant. Also he gave signs of life, for he grunted feebly in the dark as the match went out.

Rallywood felt for the lamp above his head, for in Maäsau the trains are lighted by oil lanterns let in over the doors. Finding it, he broke the glass with the butt of his revolver and lit the wick; then he turned for a closer examination of the man who had come to him in so strange a manner. But the manner pointed to the fact that this must be the prisoner he was told to hold at Kofn Ford until to-morrow. Politics are apt to work out to curious issues in continental railways. Such things have happened many times, though they are not often noised abroad. The man lay with one arm thrown across the seat and his face buried in it. He was a big man, and a fringe of white hair showed under the back of his travelling cap above a crease of fleshy neck.

'Counsellor!'

For an instant Rallywood turned sick and his head felt light. He remembered feeling the same sensation years before, when a heavy opponent sat abruptly down on his chest in a football scrimmage. His hands shook as he lifted the inert figure on to the cushions and scanned the face, sticky and disfigured with blood. After forcing some brandy from his flask down Counsellor's throat and unloosing his collar, Rallywood opened the window wide to let the cold air blow in upon him, and fired two shots from his revolver in rapid succession out into the night. They must have help, for the down mail was already at Alfau.

By this time, Counsellor, grunting and swearing, had got himself up on his elbow and stared at the young man with vacant eyes.

'Where the deuce have I got to? Is that you, John? By heaven, I remember!' His fingers went groping weakly to his breast, then with a groan he struggled to his feet. 'The ruffians have robbed me!'

But the effort exhausted him; he sank back putting his hands to his head.

'I don't understand this. What has happened? John, where am I?'

Rallywood explained hurriedly.

'We're on the up line, Major. Have another pull at my flask, and see if you can get to the Ford block-house. The night mail will be on us directly. Ah, there are the men,' as a stolid sergeant thrust his weather-beaten face in at the door.

Rallywood gave the necessary orders rapidly, then turned to the Major.

'Are you badly hurt? Do you think you can ride?' said he.

'Ride! of course I can ride. How far is it to Révonde?'

Rallywood put his arm round him, and helped him very tenderly from the carriage.

Counsellor stood up in the howling wind and looked about him into the wild night.

'I've had a nasty knock on the head, and I suppose they look to the night mail to finish the business. Make haste, John! where's your horse? Treachery's afoot to-night. I've lost my despatches – they robbed me of them! But I'll beat them all yet! Give me your flask. How far is it to Révonde?'

The troopers had dispersed, some to warn the coming train, others to arrange for the removal of the carriage from the track.

Counsellor had his foot in the stirrup, and with difficulty Rallywood got him up into the saddle.

'Thirty miles, but you cannot ride there to-night,' answered Rallywood.

'With your help I'll beat them yet, John! Thirty miles? I'll be there before daylight! I can go by the stars once I find the road.'

He stuck his heels into the horse's side, but Rallywood still held the bridle.

A wild gust tore round them, and in the succeeding lull Rallywood laid his hand on the other man's knee.

'Major Counsellor, you are my prisoner,' he said.

'How's this, John?' the question came thin, pitiful and weak. A new doubt, the old affection, and a strange helplessness mingled in the words, and they cut deep into Rallywood's ears.

'That was a bad knock on the head,' muttered the Major apologetically, and sank forward on the horse's neck again unconscious.

CHAPTER XXV

A QUESTION OF TWO MORALITIES

The road towards the block-house ran along the river bank past the Kofn Ford. They went slowly on together through the starry windy night, Rallywood with his hand on the bridle and the wounded man holding limply to the saddle.

The tsa raved and rocked in the pine trees, through the pauses of the storm a wolf barked, and the black, tumbled water was still swelling and gulping under the low stars. But the tumult of noises only served to accentuate the hideous loneliness which is the salient characteristic of the Frontier.

Counsellor, with an unaccustomed warfare in his heart – rage and the pity of it working together – stared into space across the leaping river.

As the two men drew near the ford, they saw the dim figure of a horseman riding down the bank on the opposite side, with the evident intention of crossing. The approaches to the ford were flooded, for the angry water fretted out its banks at such times and deepened into dangerous swirls over the crossing-place.

Rallywood checked the horse to shout and signal to the man that the ford was impassable, but his voice was drowned by the harsh throated noises of the night. Weak as was the starlight, something of the loose reckless swing in the saddle told Rallywood that the rider was Anthony Unziar. Unziar galloped down the stones of the incline and plunged into the torrent. It was clear from where he took the water that he intended to make for the little beach below the block-house. His course was marked by a whitish rise in the water; now and then the watchers on the bank lost sight of the struggling figure as a tree-trunk whirled past and hid him, or he seemed to sink in some tormented eddy, but he came into view again and always nearer. At the last moment, whether horse and man were exhausted or whether a furious tangle of cross-currents caught them, they were swung round and away from the landing-point.

It was now evident that Unziar saw Rallywood, for in answer to the latter's signs that he must make for the shallows lower down, Unziar waved some object over his head as if to call attention to it. The suck of the current was fast drawing him away, but with another strong effort he got the horse's head round; they heard his faint shout upon the wind then the words came more clearly:

'Carry them on – Selpdorf!' He flung something forwards; the gale caught and hurled it on to the rocks at Rallywood's feet.

When they looked again Unziar had disappeared.

Hurrying up to the block-house, Rallywood sent off some troopers to Unziar's assistance; then with some difficulty got his prisoner, who was stiff and dizzy, on his feet and supported him to the room where Madame de Sagan and Valerie had rested on the night of the snow-storm.

Rallywood did all that could be done for Counsellor, then he sat down at the narrow table to face his position. The tsa battered at the little window, and the camp-bed creaked under Counsellor's weight as he turned and groaned upon it, while Rallywood sat with soul and body absorbed in the consciousness that at last the time of which Counsellor had warned him was come, the time when he should find his enemies dressed in red. Under almost any other circumstances it would have been possible to retire from the position with honour. Had war been declared between England and Maäsau, he could have resigned his commission. But to-night he found himself without any such means of escape, fast in the jaws of the cleverly-contrived trap set for him by Selpdorf.

But he scarcely yet knew the worst. Presently Counsellor spoke.

'This thing has gone beyond a joke,' he said, 'What does it mean?' The glance from under the overhanging gray brows had regained its fire.

'My orders are simple enough. I am to keep you here until to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock.'

'By doing so you will ruin Maäsau as a free State and bring a most serious defeat upon the British policy.' Counsellor's voice was rasping. 'Are you prepared for that?'

Both men were strenuous, and bred deep into the bone of each were the same dominant qualities.

'I am prepared to carry out my orders,' answered Rallywood; 'I had them practically from the Duke himself.'

'The Duke is of the same mind in which I found him at the Castle, though he may be forced to dissemble,' asserted Counsellor; then with a twist he sat up as his glance fell upon the square dark object lying on the table between them. 'John Rallywood, do you know what that is?'

'The despatches thrown to me by Unziar.'

'That case is mine; it contains my private instructions; you can guess something of their importance from the fact that I have been robbed of them. You must give them back to me! As an Englishman and an honest man, I call upon you to give them back to me.'

Rallywood's long nervous fingers closed over the packet.

'It is impossible!' he said. 'As an Englishman, yes, but as an honest man, well, it – it is hard to say.'

'Are you mad?' cried Counsellor.

'I have not had long to think it out, and it is a tangled question,' replied Rallywood wearily.

'A tangled question? I take it you are first of all an Englishman?'

'In my private capacity, and that deals with my private honour; but I have undertaken another responsibility from which I cannot withdraw at pleasure. I am a sworn soldier of Maäsau, and as such my public honour has first claim.'

It was a simple rendering of a tremendous problem, but it served for Rallywood.

'Then – ' said Counsellor.

There was a rush and a scuffle, but Rallywood was young and strong and more active than the Major.

'Confound you!' Counsellor fell back a step or two, breathing hard. There are some situations which by their elemental force destroy all other emotions. The situation at Kofn guard-house was one of these. The point at issue between these two men pierced to the bed-rock of national loyalty. Perhaps Blivinski was right. Love of country was part of their physical equipment, yet by the irony of circumstances they were pitted against each other.

'Will you give me your parole?' asked Rallywood with his back to the door.

Counsellor drew out a big watch.

'For fifteen minutes,' he said. 'It is now half-past nine; at forty-five minutes past I shall hold myself once more free to do what I can. You understand? In the meantime we will talk.'

Rallywood motioned Counsellor back to the camp bed while he himself sat down on the table.

'I fancy, John, we are both rather in the dark about all this,' began Counsellor. 'Tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine.'

'My orders were clear enough,' Rallywood said. 'I was to take charge of a prisoner, to be brought to me by the incoming mail at the spot where I met you. You arrived queerly, I admit, rolling along the down line, but you are undoubtedly the person of whom I was instructed to take charge.'

'Ah – I begin to see. There may be many men in Maäsau who would rob me, but there is only one man who could do it so clumsily.'

'Count Sagan?'

'Naturally. But to return, I left you at the Castle looking for Colendorp; whether you found him or not does not come into this affair. Perhaps he was in Sagan's way and he removed him – '

'With a knife.'

'That is quite in the Count's manner. Well, I got safely to England, where my business took a day and a half longer than I expected. I received my despatches, and five hundred miles from here I took the precaution of removing them from my despatch-box. After we left the Frontier station I noticed that our train had lost half its length, and that I was in the last carriage. I didn't like it. It is never healthy for a despatch-box to travel in an end compartment. That is tempting of Fate.'

Counsellor stopped as if to collect his thoughts again.

'After a little the pace slackened and I felt a sharp jolt. They were switching me on to the down line, an improvement upon the original plan so like the Count's manner that it almost proves he must have been on the spot superintending operations. Next it was a face at the window. I used my revolver, but they stunned me and robbed me and left it to the night mail to close my mouth for good. Now you know where you are, John Rallywood; you are abetting a crime, and a crime against your own country, against England!'

Rallywood laughed, but a laugh against oneself has a bad sound with it.

'It seems the day has come when I find my enemies dressed in red!' he said.

'Why, yes, if you choose to put it so. If you either carry these despatches on for Unziar or remain to keep me prisoner, you play Germany's game for her.'

'Perhaps not,' suggested Rallywood. 'The Chancellor sent me here.'

Counsellor's short angry grunt of derision surprised him.

'Mademoiselle Valerie may be loyal, but Selpdorf is at the bottom of the whole plot. Does he guess there is any bond of liking or interest between you and his daughter? If so, he sent you here to break you! He knew that between the conflicting claims of a man's public and private honour lie shame and often death. Do you not see that amongst them they are bent on ruining you? Just now, when I hoped all might be yours that a man can ask for! Your Chicago cousin at Queen's Fain is dying and you are his heir. Yet you are to be ruined – ruined by the hate of Elmur and Sagan, and what are you to Selpdorf but a fly to be crushed whose presence annoys him?'

'Are you sure of this? His sending me to be witness of your assassination fits in badly with the theory of his collusion.'

'Perfectly; Sagan stultified the scheme, that was all. Selpdorf forgot that Sagan is a wild beast who can only be fed with blood!' Counsellor paused. 'The highway robbery with violence to which I have been subjected is Sagan's bull-headed translation of Selpdorf's hint to detain me. Thus, according to their calculations, before I can get to Révonde the Duke will have been induced to lend himself to some other course. It is not hard to read their tactics. They run on old lines. So you see there is only one way out of it – you must help me, John.'

What advice he might have offered to Rallywood as simple man to man occupied no place in Counsellor's intentions. He was England's envoy as opposed to her antagonists, and into the scale in her favour he meant to throw the whole of his personal influence with Rallywood.

Rallywood made a sign of dissent.

'But surely you will not side with Sagan's party as against the Duke?' urged Counsellor.

'The Duke has been known to change his mind before now.'

Counsellor bit savagely at his moustache. The minutes were flying.

'I wonder if old Gustave has allowed himself to be humbugged yet once more!' he said to himself. 'John, on which side do you suppose Valerie Selpdorf would wish to see you?'