Part 11

But it was very different with my opponent. A glance at his face told me that he was vastly disturbed. The rage and hate of me still flashed from his eyes and turned his cheeks livid; but there was another emotion besides these; and what it was, and all that it meant to me, I was very soon to see. I was surprised to notice, too, that the sight of him no longer filled me with any anger or bitterness. He had become merely a subject for close and minute observation. I was scarcely conscious of the presence of anyone else in the room.

We took our places at the table opposite one another in silence. The fateful pistols, covered by a thick green cloth, lay between us; and two little bulges in the cloth, one to the right of me and one to the left, denoted where they lay. I saw him look swiftly from one to the other of them, and then catch his breath slightly. That gesture was the first indication.

Then his chief second broke the tense silence.

"We have decided that Senor Mayhew shall spin the coin and Colonel Livenza shall call. It is an old Ferdinand dollar with the King's head; and you will please call "Head" or "Value." If you are correct in your guess, you will point to which pistol you choose, and will then fire. If you select the blank cartridge, Senor Carbonnell will have the other pistol and will exercise the right to fire when he pleases. If you lose the toss, Senor Carbonnell will select the pistol and fire, and you will exercise the right to fire when you please. Are you both agreeable, gentlemen?"

We murmured our assent simultaneously; and I saw Livenza catch his breath again, wince slightly, and clutch his left hand nervously--his second indication.

It was now Mayhew's turn, and my friend was so agitated that his hands trembled and he fumbled clumsily with the coin, and for a moment could not toss it up. But he sent it flying up at the second attempt, and while it was in the air Livenza should have called. But the word stuck in his mouth too long, and the coin fell with a dull thud on the thick cloth without his call.

"Something caught my throat," he said, in a low apologetic tone and a shamefaced manner. "I must trouble you again," he added to Mayhew.

I needed no more. I had the clue I sought, and the little incident quickened my interest.

Mayhew spun it again, this time with no faulty preface.

"Head," called Livenza, while it was still high in air, and when it came down he could not restrain the impulse to stoop forward eagerly to see the coin as it fell. That action brought his face in a different angle of the light, and on his brow I saw some beads of sweat.

"It is head," said Mayhew. "Colonel Livenza fires first."

A gleam of satisfaction lighted my opponent's face, followed instantly, however, by an expression of such fateful, almost agonising indecision as I have never seen on a man's face, and hope never to see again. It was beyond his control to hide it. He glanced from one to the other of the spots where the pistols showed, then closed his eyes; his brow drew into deep furrows, and he bit his lips and clenched his hands as every muscle and nerve in his body seemed to grow suddenly rigid with the strain. Then, drawing a deep breath through his dilated nostrils, he flung out his hand and pointed toward the pistol on my right and his left; while the deep breath he had drawn escaped in a rush through the trembling lips with a sound that could be heard all over the room.

Captain Pescada threw back the covering cloth, handed Livenza the pistol he had chosen, and pushed the other to me. I left it lying on the table, and the next instant was looking into Livenza's eyes along the barrel of his pistol, held none too steadily within a few feet of my head.

I was conscious for a moment of the four white anxious faces of the men who were watching us with staring eyes and bated breath, and was kept at the tension long enough to feel a wish that Livenza would fire, when the report rang out and I felt the hot blast of the powder in my face, and was dazzled by the flash as I realised that I was unhurt. I heard an oath and a groan of despair from my opponent, and the first object I could see clearly was Livenza, now salt-white, trembling like a man with an ague, and swaying as he clung to the table for support.

So strong had been my conviction of safety that I had passed through the trying ordeal without even a change of colour, so Mayhew told me afterwards; and was certainly in complete command of my nerves as I entered upon the second stage of the grim drama.

I saw my way as clearly as though written instructions were actually in my hands. He was a coward. Brave enough for the ordinary routine matters of life and of his profession as a soldier, he yet lacked the courage to face the certain death that was waiting for him in the barrel of the pistol lying to my hand; and throughout the whole scene he had been oppressed and overborne by the fear of what such a minute as this must mean for him. It was through his cowardice, his readiness to sacrifice honour for life, that I was to win my way to the knowledge I needed and achieve my purpose.

I began the task with studied cruelty. I bent on him such a look of stern hate and menace as I could assume, and dallied deliberately with his terror before I even laid finger on the pistol stock. Then I smiled as in grim triumph, and picking up the pistol looked carefully at it, and from it across the space between us to him.

His fight for strength was literally repulsive to witness. Terror possessed him so completely that both nerves and muscles refused to obey the direction of the brain, and the pause I made proved the breaking point in his endurance.

"I can't stand; give me a chair," he gasped, piteously.

"Stand back, gentlemen, if you please," I thundered, when his seconds were going to him; and the sound of my voice increased his already crushing fear, so that he swayed and fell forward on the table, like a man collapsed in drink, his arms extended and his hands clenched in a veritable agony of despair and terror.

I allowed a full thirty seconds to pass in a silence that must have been awesome for him, and then let drop the first hint of hope.

"It is my right to fire when I please. I have not said I shall exercise it to-night."

At that I saw the strength begin to move in him again. His fingers relaxed, he drew his arms back and then gradually his body, and at length raised himself slowly and looked at me--question, doubt, fright, appeal, hope, all struggling for expression--a look that, had I been as full of rage and yearning for revenge as he had been and as he believed me to be, would have sufficed to stay my finger on the trigger or have driven me to fire in the air. I have never seen such haggard misery.

There was another pause, in which I looked at him, my face set apparently upon the execution of an implacable resolve to kill him. When it had had its effect and I saw the grey shades of renewed despair falling upon him, I said--

"Gentlemen, I will ask you to withdraw a while. It may be that a way can be found out of this business which may lead to my waiving or indefinitely postponing my right. If Colonel Livenza is willing, I will speak with him privately."

A hurried whispered conference between him and his seconds followed, and then we two were left alone.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*A COWARD'S STORY*

After a very short pause Livenza's very shame at his own panic began to give him a sort of firmness of bravado. The worst about him had been made clear; he had shown that he was afraid and was willing to purchase his life; and it was a matter in which he must make the best terms he could. The pressure of imminent death once removed, he could breathe again. In the future he was to be my creature, and he recognised it. That was how I read the sullen, scowling look he gave me as he drew himself up slowly and crossed his arms.

"You can sit down if you wish," I said, curtly, in the tone of a master, to make him feel my authority and to recall to him his former craven appeal.

"I have no wish: I can stand."

"You know your life is forfeit," and I glanced at the pistol in my hand, "and that I have the right to send the bullet crashing into your brain, if I please?"

He winced, and the light of fear glanced again in his eyes. I couldn't have shot him in cold blood, of course, and the thrust was a cruel one. But I knew that he could have shot me under the circumstances, and that he would read my disposition by his own. He was a brute, and must be treated as a brute.

"If you mean to shoot me, do it," he cried.

"I am willing to let you purchase your life, but the terms will be heavy."

"I am in your power and must pay them," he answered, sullenly, but with unmistakable relief.

"First, then, understand this: What has passed here to-night shall never be breathed by either my friends or myself. So far as we are concerned your reputation outside shall stand just where it did when you entered the room. On that I give you my word of honour--if you deal straightly with me. A sign of treachery or a single lie from you, and the truth shall be told."

"I agree to that, of course."

"Moreover, my right to fire this shot is merely postponed, not waived. You will put down in writing what will justify me should your treachery ever make it necessary for me to shoot you."

"I will do that." He was beginning to speak fluently and readily now.

"You will now answer my questions. Are you in Sebastian Quesada's pay or in his power?"

"In his power. He concocted a false charge against me some time ago, confronted me with the proofs, and threatened to have me prosecuted. I dare not face the charge, and from that moment he has used me for various tasks."

"Amongst them this business of the young King's abduction?"

He started violently as I made this rather bold shot.

"What do you know?"

"Everything--except the details." The reply was perhaps a little exaggeration; but I was guessing everything very fast.

"If he knows I have spoken of it to you, he will ruin me. I might as well be dead."

"He will never know, unless you are fool enough to tell him. He sent you to Senorita Castelar's house this afternoon?"

"Yes. He said you would be there." He was sufficiently recovered now for his private feelings to reassert themselves somewhat, and there was a gleam of the old hate of me in his eyes as he gave the answer which let in such a flood of additional light upon my knowledge of Quesada's treachery. I made another long shot.

"He has promised to help your suit with the senorita?"

"You are the devil. You do know everything, indeed," he cried. "Who are you?"

"You are to answer, not question," I returned, sternly. It was now as clear as the sun at noonday that Quesada had planned this quarrel of ours, sending Livenza to catch me with Sarita, with the certain assurance that his jealousy would lead to a duel in which one of us would be certain either to fall or to be laid by during the completion of his plans. He stood to gain almost equally by the death of either. "You took with you some final instructions about this plot; what were they?" I asked, after a moment's pause.

For the first time he hesitated, and I saw the beads of sweat standing thick on his forehead, as he looked at me, trembling like a blade of grass.

"You are asking me for more than my life," he murmured, his very teeth chattering in his irresolution.

"Answer me, or----" I thundered, lifting the pistol a few inches.

"You will never breathe a word of this?" he implored.

"Answer me," I cried again, with implacable sternness.

"He gave me the privately agreed upon route of His Majesty's drive for to-morrow afternoon." He spoke in a voice low and hoarse, and the sentence was broken by three or four pauses, as if the effort to utter it was almost beyond his strength.

"Give it me," I said, instantly.

"I--I dare not," he answered, his voice no louder than a whisper.

"Give it me," I repeated.

"I--I can tell it you," he said, after a long pause.

"Give it me," I cried, sternly. "I shall not ask again."

He plunged a trembling hand into an inner pocket, and without withdrawing it gave me a glance of piteous entreaty.

"Anything but this!" he pleaded. "God have mercy on me; anything but this, senor, I beg you. I was to have destroyed it."

"As you will. Then our conference fails. I will call in our seconds and----"

But he did not let me finish, for with a groan of despair he brought the paper out and laid it on the table.

I picked it up, and a glance showed me what a prize it was. The writing was Quesada's, and it gave the route of the drive and actually suggested the place where the abduction could be made--a spot on the road to Buenavista, close to where the bridge crossed the Manzanares on the way to Aravaca, and specified the time, five o'clock; adding the significant note--"Only one aide in carriage, no escort; coachman and footman."

When I had read it he held out his hand for it, dreaming apparently that I should return it; and when I put it in my pocket he threw up his hands with a deep sigh of despair.

"Why was to-morrow chosen instead of the following day?"

"I don't know. There have been several changes."

I stopped to think. I had indeed made a splendid haul, and there was little else Livenza was likely to be able to tell me. There was one question I had yet to answer; but it was certain that he would not know any more than I. What was Sebastian's object in all this? I had thought of the probable solution when I was with Sarita--that he was playing for his own hand and meant to get rid of the young King and to crush the Carlists by one and the same stroke; and to pit myself against a man shrewd enough to conceive such a policy and daring enough to put it to the actual test, seemed like madness. But I had made up my mind to attempt it; and the document I now had in my pocket would be a powerful weapon if only I could see the means to use it shrewdly.

As I stood a minute or two revolving these matters, Livenza was staring at me with the fascinated gaze with which a hunted animal will watch the beast of prey that threatens its life, and at length said--

"Is there anything more. I am not well, senor."

"No, you have saved your life; but you will remain close in your rooms until I send you word. To all but Sebastian Quesada you will be ill in bed. Any message he sends you, you will immediately forward to me; and he must not know that you are not acting just as usual. I will find someone who will nurse you day and night and watch you."

"I cannot serve both you and Sebastian Quesada. I cannot do it. I must have either your protection or his," he cried, feebly.

"You will have mine," I answered, in a tone I might have used had I been the master of countless legions. "Serve me in this matter, and you will have your reward. Fail me, and I swear I will take your life."

Without giving him time to answer, I called in the other men, and found that Captain Pescada had gone away, leaving many apologies. I apologised for having kept the others waiting.

"Colonel Livenza is ill, gentlemen," I added. "He has given me proofs of his desire to make ample amends for the insult of this evening, offered under what he declares to have been a complete misunderstanding. While he is arranging matters I have consented to withhold my right under the duel. He will put this in writing with an acknowledgment that I shall be entitled to exercise that right should he fail in what he has undertaken to do, and I wish you to put your names to the document."

He was so broken that he could scarcely keep a steady enough hand to write what was necessary; and while he was so engaged, I drew Mayhew on one side.

"You know many people in Madrid: do you know of any young doctor who would undertake to stay here with Livenza for a couple of days at most, but certainly until after to-morrow night, never losing sight of him and seeing that he does not commit suicide?"

"He won't commit suicide," said Mayhew, contemptuously.

"I know that; but it will make a good excuse for us to give to the doctor who is to watch him," I returned, drily. "It must be a man who won't talk either. And you'll give me your word to say nothing of that distressing scene of his cowardice. There's a good deal in this thing--a good deal. And will you look up Captain Pescada in the morning and get a pledge of secrecy from him?"

"Certainly I will; and I think I know the man you want."

"Can you rouse him up to-night? Of course, I'll see he's well paid. I don't want to be here any longer than necessary; and as soon as this thing's done," nodding to where Livenza was writing, "perhaps you could fetch him."

The arrangements as I planned them were carried out without much further loss of time, and as soon as the paper had been read over and signed, and Livenza's seconds had left, Mayhew started in search of his friend. Livenza went to bed, and when the young doctor came and I had given him my instructions, Mayhew and I left the house together.

"It's all very mysterious, Ferdinand," he said, fishing.

"Very, Silas; but I hope things will come right in the end."

"You're well out of an ugly business."

"Or deeper in--it remains to be seen which," I answered, cryptically, and smiled. "But whichever it is, our friendship will have to stand the strain of silence about it. I'm sorry, for I should much like to have you in it with me. But it can't be--at any rate yet. All the better for you, perhaps."

"That brute meant to kill you," he said, after a pause.

"Not the only good intention that's missed fire to-night, probably."

"I couldn't understand you a bit. You were as cool and certain as if you knew you'd come out on top."

"I think I did know it, too, in a way. Anyhow, I felt dead certain, and that was just as good. But I know a lot more than I did, I'm glad to say."

"What do you mean?" he asked, with quick curiosity.

"I know what it means to stand fire at close range."

"All right; I won't question you. But you're a strange beggar;" and he laughed. I thought I could afford to laugh, too, so I joined him. I might not have many more occasions for much laughter, at any rate for a while; and soon after that we parted at the door of his house.

It was very late, but I sat for an hour smoking, studying the route of the young King's drive for the next day, and making my plans; and when I turned in my nerves were still in good enough trim for me to get to sleep at once. I had had a very full and very exciting day, but unless I was mistaken the morrow would prove much more critical for me, and probably a no less fateful one for Spain.

I sent a letter first thing in the morning to the Embassy, excusing myself from attendance there on the plea of sudden business; and, hiring a horse, rode out to the spot where the attempt on the young King was to be made that afternoon.

It was cleverly chosen, indeed. A very quiet, lonely place, where the road dipped and then ran in a cutting between high banks up a sharp incline--such a place, indeed, as was exactly suited to the work. Fortunately I knew the district well, and where the various roads about there led; and I could form a pretty good idea of how the thing would be done.

I picked out a good spot where I could keep concealed, watch what transpired, and then follow in pursuit. My plan was a very simple one: To let the affair take place and the abductors get away with the King; then to follow, and just when they were confident all had gone well, strike in and act according to circumstances. My danger lay in the fact that I must be alone; but the personal risks of that were less than any attempt to get others to join me.

Of course, a mere word of warning sent to the palace would be sufficient to cause a change in the route for the King's drive, and so check the plot for that afternoon. But that was by no means my sole object. I was bent on making a bold stroke for my own gain; and for this I was as anxious as any Carlist could be for the momentary success of the scheme. I must not only call check, but checkmate, to the desperate man I was fighting.

The knowledge I had gained from Vidal de Pelayo, that the Carlists would attempt to carry the King to Huesca, gave me a clue as to the line across country they were sure to take, and a gallop of a few miles refreshed my knowledge of it, and also showed me where in my turn I could make my rescue.

I returned to Madrid about noon, confident and in high spirits as the result of my ride, and my next task was to secure the fleetest and strongest horse that could be hired; and I had scarcely reached my rooms after arranging this when a very singular incident occurred.

A letter was brought me from Sebastian Quesada, and my servant told me the messenger was waiting for a reply. I opened and read it with great astonishment.

"Time changed. Six o'clock--not five; return route. Same spot. Communicate instantly."

I had had no message from him, or invitation for a drive or ride that day. The letter was just in the brief style of twenty others he had sent me, and it seemed that some former invitation must have miscarried. I was on the point of penning a line to him to this effect when a light suddenly broke upon me.

The letter was not for me at all. It had been put by mistake in the wrong envelope. I saw the address was in Quesada's own hand, and in his hurry he had apparently committed the blunder of mixing the two notes.

This referred without a doubt to the great event of the day, and my pulses tingled at the thought. I sent for the messenger.

"Did Senor Quesada give you this with his own hand?" I asked the man, whom I knew as a confidential servant of the Minister's.

"Yes, senor. I took it first to the British Embassy, but they told me you had not been there to-day, and as my instructions were to await your answer, I came here."

"Quite right," I answered, casually. "I'm sorry I shall not be able to do what your master wishes. I have hurt my hand and cannot write," and I lifted my right hand, round which I had bound my handkerchief. I could not send a written reply, as I did not know what I had to answer, and could afterwards blame his servant if my verbal message suggested any discrepancy.

As soon as his back was turned I was in a carriage driving fast to Livenza's. I guessed that as this letter was for him, mine might have been enclosed to him, thus forming the counterpart of the mistake.

My guess was right, and I found him puzzling over a letter asking me in most pressing terms to join Quesada that afternoon in a long ride, and to dine with him quietly afterwards. I saw the object--to make it impossible for me to interfere in the business of that day, supposing by any chance I had got wind of it.

That being his purpose, how would he act when he got my reply? The story of the injured hand would seem to him to be the result of the trouble with Livenza; but it was almost certain that he would come himself to see me. If he did so, and found me absent, he might suspect, and perhaps even at the eleventh hour postpone the coup.

A question to Livenza showed me how he would communicate the change of time to those whom it concerned, and the moment I had arranged that I rushed back to my rooms, swathed my hand in bandages, improvised a sling under my coat, and sat down to wait. It was then three o'clock, and I must be away in two hours--by five, that was--if I was not to run a risk of being late, or perhaps of being observed.