Chapter XXIV The Wages of Sin
Promenade à Berlin—A Sudden Stop—Grootz Chuckles—Place aux Dames—The Last Two Miles—Polignac Pays the Penalty—Zo!
About four o’clock on a November afternoon, fine for the time of year, two horsemen rode up to the inn at Eyndhoven. Huge clouds of steam rose from their horses into the cold air; the panting of the beasts told of a forced pace. Dismounting, the riders called for refreshment and a change of horses: they were anxious to push on at once.
When their hasty meal was finished, while the master was paying the bill, the man went into the inn yard and tried to enter into conversation with a servant standing there in charge of a large empty travelling carriage.
“Whose carriage is that?” he asked.
“Monsieur de Polignac’s,” was the surly answer.
The man started slightly, but no one would have suspected anything but pure curiosity from the tone of his next question.
“Who is it waiting for?”
“Monsieur de Polignac.”
The reply was still more surly.
“The roads will be heavy for travelling. Bad enough for horsemen, worse for coaches. Maybe the gentleman is not going far?”
“Maybe not.”
“The Breda road?”
“What is that to you?”
“No offence, comrade. A man may ask a question, to pass the time. Bid you good-day!”
Seeing that he was unlikely to get any further information he sauntered off, but disappeared as quickly as possible into the inn.
“Mounseer’s coach is in yard, sir,” he said quietly, “and a-waiten for Mounseer.”
“Ah! Are we in time, Sherry? Call the ostler.”
When the man appeared, Harry slipt a coin into his hand.
“Monsieur de Polignac is making a journey. Tell me all you know about it.”
The man replied that the coach had been sent to the inn two days before. Monsieur de Polignac was expected at any moment. He had recently sold his estate and was leaving for Germany. It was thought that he wished to take his departure quietly, for he had always been unpopular with his tenants, and he ran the risk of a hostile demonstration if the time of his setting out were known. He probably intended to slip secretly away from his house and make his real start from Eyndhoven. A large quantity of his baggage had passed through the town a few days before; but, strangely enough, a carter coming in had reported that Monsieur’s wagons were going south, which was certainly not towards Berlin, the alleged destination. On the road they had taken there was great danger of their falling into the hands of the French, for it was not more than five or six leagues from Marshal Villeroy’s lines, and Monsieur as a Huguenot refugee would meet with scant consideration from his countrymen.
“Has Monsieur de Polignac himself been to Eyndhoven lately?” asked Harry.
“No, Mynheer; the arrangements were made for him by an English officer who fought at Blenheim, where the great duke gave the French such a drubbing a few months back. He was a masterful man; gave orders that the horses were to be ready at a moment’s notice and to be kept in good condition. Only this morning a messenger came with instructions for the coach to be ready by eight o’clock to-night, with a stock of wine and provisions which Monsieur will take with him.”
Harry was perturbed at this news. It was clear that Polignac intended to depart in haste; but whether on political grounds, having found his character as spy detected, or in pursuance of the plot hinted at by Simmons, it was impossible to know. If the latter, there was certainly not a moment to lose, and it behoved to push on with all speed to Lindendaal. Fresh horses had been waiting for some minutes. Harry and Sherebiah were soon in the saddle, and set off at a gallop along the miry road, into the gathering night.
Some hours previously a traveller approaching Lindendaal from the opposite direction had passed through Breda. He had found it impossible there to get a change of team for his coach; all the horses in the town were out, conveying to their homes the gentry of the countryside who had come into Breda for a grand ball given the night before by the officers of the garrison, the finale of a week of entertainments. Not even Mynheer Grootz’s liberal offers sufficed to secure a team at once. The motive of his journey was clearly urgent, for instead of waiting a few hours until some of the hacks returned, he pushed on at once with his tired animals to Tilburg, four leagues farther on the road. There he succeeded in hiring fresh horses, and without delay continued his journey.
He was himself very much fatigued, having risen from a sick bed on receiving the letter sent him by Harry from Landau. As he drew out of Oerschot, where the team was again changed, he pulled up the wooden slat blinds, and settled himself in the corner of his seat for a short nap. So much exhausted was he that he was still sound asleep when, nearly two hours later, the coach reached the end of the park wall of Lindendaal.
It was now growing dark. All at once Grootz was roused from sleep by the stopping of the coach. In his half-awake condition he thought that he was at his journey’s end, and was rising to lower the blinds when there was a shout and the report of a pistol-shot. Wide-awake in an instant he groped in the darkness for his own pistol. But just as he laid his hand upon it the coach jolted on again, throwing him back into his seat. It was rattling and swaying from side to side, the horses being urged to their utmost speed. His first impulse was to let down the blinds and endeavour to get a shot at one of the men who had waylaid him. Then he hesitated; a sudden thought had occurred to him; he gave a quiet chuckle, and peeped through the slats of the blinds, first on one side, then on the other. He could just see that a horseman was riding at each side of the carriage, and through the small window at the back he saw a third following. He smiled grimly, and, holding his pistol ready, waited for what he suspected must happen before long.
His own postilion, he guessed, had been killed or wounded by the pistol-shot he had heard, and the coach was now driven by a stranger. He was thus one against four. He might shoot one of them, but would clearly be at the mercy of the three others. It was a lonely road; there was nothing for the present to be gained by resistance, and besides, he had a further reason for biding his time. Delay would not worsen his own situation; while if his suspicions were correct the longer he remained passive the better his purpose would be served.
After a headlong, rattling, bumping flight of about two miles, as it seemed to Grootz, he heard the horseman on his right shout an order to the postilion. The coach was pulled up; the horseman threw himself from the saddle, and wrenching open the door peered in.
“I regret, Madame, the necessity——”
He started back, for in the waning light he had just become aware that there was but one figure in the carriage, and that clearly the figure of a man.
“Triché, morbleu!” he cried in fury. “Someone shall pay for this. Come out, or I will empty this pistol into you!”
The only answer was the click of a pistol within the coach, and a flash from the corner. Grootz’s weapon had missed fire. Whipping his own pistol from his belt Polignac fired; and the Dutchman fell back, hit in the shoulder. With a cry to his companions Polignac sprang on his horse, and galloped furiously back along the road he had come, the other two horsemen hard at his heels. Immediately afterwards the postilion cut the traces and set off in haste after his employer, leaving Grootz, the coach, and one horse to themselves.
Five minutes later, from the Eyndhoven direction, up rode two horsemen at speed. It was now almost totally dark; the coach could barely be discerned in the middle of the road, and Harry, who was foremost, pulled up only just in time to save his horse’s knees. In a moment he was out of the saddle; Sherebiah was by his side, and while the man held the horses, Harry, anxiety tearing at his heart, looked into the coach. There was a huddled heap upon the floor.
“Steel and tinder!” he cried to Sherebiah.
A light was struck.
“Good heavens! it is Mynheer Grootz.”
He bent down and touched the wounded man’s hand, fearing he might be already dead. The touch revived Grootz from his swoon.
“On to Lindendaal!” he said faintly and brokenly. “Leave me! Ladies in danger. Take care. Desperate men: four; at once!”
Loth as Harry was to leave his friend in so ill a plight, the imminence of the peril to which the ladies were exposed was predominant.
“I will send a man back to you, Mynheer,” he said. “Sherebiah, we must hasten.”
The short halt had given the horses time to recover their wind. They had not travelled far, nor had they far to go. The two sprang to their saddles, and as they rode off into the darkness there was a look on Harry’s face that boded ill for Polignac or any of his party. Never before, even when carried bound on board the Merry Maid, even when his own life had been attempted, had he felt the overmastering desire for vengeance that burnt within him now. The sight of his friend and benefactor wounded and helpless had quickened his indignation with Polignac and his crew into a fury of resentment, and at the back of his consciousness there was another and a subtler feeling which he did not pause to analyse. With eyes staring into the distance, ears strained to catch the slightest sound, every sense on the alert, he led the way over the heavy miry road, Sherebiah a short length behind. If anyone could have seen the riders’ faces he would have been struck by the contrast between their expressions. Harry’s was grim and tense with white rage; Sherebiah’s round cheeks wore their settled look of cheerful placidity—the unruffled carelessness of a man of peace.
It was a furious gallop, over the two miles from the halted coach to the gates of Lindendaal. Harry’s eager eyes at length caught a twinkle of light ahead to the right of the road. A moment later the faint sound of a shout came down the wind, then the crack of a pistol-shot. Digging his spurs into his steed’s heaving flanks he drew his sword; it was a matter of seconds now. He flew past the ruined barn, standing bare and black on the right; and there, before him on the road, shone a light, from a carriage lamp as he supposed. Now mingled with shouts and oaths he heard the clash of steel; in a moment there loomed up before him at the entrance to the balustraded avenue a dark still mass, and in the yellow glare of the lamp he perceived two men on foot fighting desperately. He was still some yards away when he saw the man farthest from him shorten his sword and run his opponent through the body, then with lightning speed prepare to meet the horseman, whether friend or foe, whose coming the ring of hoofs had announced. As he dashed forward, Harry recognized in the sinister features and the wry mouth the evil face of Polignac. Leaning low over his horse’s neck he made a sweeping blow with his heavy cavalry sabre that would have cut the Frenchman’s spare frame into halves had he not with rare presence of mind sunk on one knee and allowed the blade to swish harmlessly over his head.
Harry was carried on for some yards before he could check the impetus of his horse, and then he found himself in the thick of a fight in which he could distinguish neither friend nor foe. A fierce oath on his right, however, proclaimed the identity of one of the group, and, turning, he saw the bulky form of Captain Aglionby on horseback outlined against the light from the distant house. Leaving Polignac for the moment Harry made straight for his elder enemy, who was wheeling to deal with the new-comer. It was no moment for nice sword-play on either side; cut and thrust, lunge and parry—thus the two engaged in the dark. Blade clashed on blade, horse pressed against horse, their hoofs struck sparks; nothing to choose between the combatants except that Aglionby was between Harry and the light.
Suddenly the captain made a supreme effort to quell his assailant by main force for good and all. Rising in his saddle, he brought his sword down with the full weight of his arm. But, thanks to the friendly light from Lindendaal, Harry saw the movement in time. Parrying the swashing blow with ease, he replied with a thrust that tumbled the captain groaning from his saddle. The horse plunged and galloped madly into the night. Harry did not wait to discover the full effect of his blow, but wheeled round to find Polignac, the duel on his left having terminated in the flight of one of the parties and pursuit by the other.
At the moment of wheeling he heard the voice of Sherebiah at his elbow.
“Hold, sir! ’Tis done. Mounseer ha’ paid his score.”
“You have killed him?”
“My sword went through un. He be on ground: no risin’ for he.”
“Then secure Aglionby. He fell from his horse a few yards up the road.”
He himself sprang from the saddle and ran to the door of the coach. Wrenching it open, he saw by the light of the lamp Adèle de Vaudrey erect on the seat, supporting the unconscious form of her mother. The girl’s cheeks were the colour of death; her lips were ashen; upon her face was the fixed look of resigned despair.
“Mademoiselle,” cried Harry breathlessly, “all is well. You are safe.”
A sob broke from the girl’s dry lips; tears welled in her eyes.
“Mother has swooned,” she said in a whisper.
Harry darted to the canal side, stuck his handkerchief on the point of his sword and let it down to the water, returning with it dripping wet to the coach. Bathing the lady’s temples they revived her, and Adèle whispered the news that they were safe. Madame’s nerves were quite unstrung; incapable of heeding what was said to her she wept and laughed alternately, to Harry’s great alarm.
“We must get her home,” said Adèle.
“Yes; I will find a man to lead the coach. You will not mind my going: Mynheer Grootz is wounded two miles away.”
“Oh, Monsieur Harry, go then at once. I can take care of Mother.”
Harry ran back to the road to find Sherebiah, who in his absence had made an examination of the ground with the aid of the carriage lamp. Polignac was stone dead; his body lay at the very brink of the canal. There was no sign of Aglionby or of the other two men, though traces of blood were found on the spot where the captain had fallen. Of the house party two men were badly wounded; these Harry despatched to the house for ministration while himself with Sherebiah hurried back at full speed to Mynheer Grootz. The coach stood undisturbed where they had left it. Grootz lay on the seat, conscious but very weak.
“Well?” he said, as they appeared.
“Well, thank God!” replied Harry. “The ladies are safe, Polignac is dead, Aglionby and the rest have fled.”
“Zo!”
Quite content, the merchant said no more. He was taken at a walking pace to Lindendaal.