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III
THE VIRGIN WITH THE LAMP

Whatever Marie Zerkovitch's feelings might be, Fate had its hand on her and turned her to its uses. It was she who had directed Sophy's steps to the old house ten doors down the Street of the Fountain from St. Michael's Square. It was no more than half a mile from her own villa on the south boulevard (from which the Street ran to the Square), and she had long known the decent old couple – German Jews – who lived and carried on their trade in the house over whose front hung the sign of the Silver Cock. The face of the building was covered with carved timbers of great age; the door of the shop stood far back within a black and ancient porch. Behind the shop were a couple of rooms where Meyerstein and his wife lived; above it one large room, with a window which jutted far out over the narrow street. In this room, which was reached by a separate door in the left side of the porch and a crazy flight of a dozen winding stairs, lived Sophy, and thence she sallied out daily to give her lessons to her two pupils.

By the window she sat on the night of the King's name-day, on a low chair. The heavy figure of a girl carrying a lamp – a specimen of her landlord's superfluous stock – stood unemployed on the window-sill. The room was dark, for the path of light from the illuminations, which made the roadway below white, threw hardly a gleam on to its sombre walls; but Sophy had no need of a lamp and every need to save her money. She sat in the gloom, busy in thought, the fresh evening air breathing soft and cool on her brow from the open window.

Swift to build on slenderest foundations, avid to pile imagination on imagination till the unsubstantial structure reached the skies, her mind was at work to-night. The life and stir, the heat and tumult, of the city, were fuel to her dreams. Chances and happenings were all about her; they seemed to lie, like the water for Tantalus, just beyond the reach of her finger-tips; her eyes pierced to the vision of them through the dusky blackness of the ancient room. In response to the confused yet clamorous cry of the life around her, her spirit awoke. Dead were the dear dead; but Sophy was alive. But to be a starving French mistress at Slavna – was that a chance? Yes, a better than being cook-maid at Morpingham; and even in the kitchen at Morpingham Fortune had found her and played with her awhile. For such frolics and such favor, however fickle, however hazardous, Sophy Grouch of Morpingham was ever ready. Dunstanbury had come to Morpingham – and Lady Meg. Paris had brought the sweet hours and the gracious memory of Casimir de Savres. Should Slavna lag behind? Who would come now? Ever the highest for Sophy Grouch! The vision of the royal escort and its pale young leader flashed in the darkness before her eagerly attendant eyes.

Suddenly she raised her head. There was a wild, quick volley of cheering; it came from the Golden Lion, whose lights across the Square a sideways craning of her neck enabled her to see. Then there was silence for minutes. Again the sound broke forth, and with it confused shoutings of a name she could not make out. Yes – what was it? Mistitch – Mistitch! That was her first hearing of the name.

Silence fell again, and she sank back into her chair. The lights, the stir, the revelry were not for her, nor the cheers nor the shouts. A moment of reaction and lassitude came on her, a moment when the present, the actual, lapped her round with its dim, muddy flood of vulgar necessity and sordid needs. With a sob she bowed her head to meet her hands – a sob that moaned a famine of life, of light, of love. "Go back to your scullery, Sophy Grouch!" What voice had said that? She sprang to her feet with fists clinched, and whispered to the darkness: "No!"

In the street below, Mistitch slapped his thigh.

Sophy pushed her hair back from her heated forehead and looked out of the window. To the right, some twenty yards away and just at the end of the street, she saw the figures of three men. In the middle was one who bulked like a young Falstaff – Falstaff with his paunch not grown; he was flanked by two lean fellows who looked small beside him. She could not see the faces plainly, since the light from the Square was behind them. They seemed to be standing there and looking past the sign of the Silver Cock along the street.

A measured, military footfall sounded on her left. Turning her head, she saw a young man walking with head bent down and arms behind him. The line of light struck full on him, he was plain to see as by broadest day. He wore a costume strange to her eyes – a black sheepskin cap, a sheepskin tunic, leather breeches, and high, unpolished boots – a rough, plain dress; yet a broad, red ribbon crossed it, and a star glittered on the breast; the only weapon was a short, curved scimitar. It was the ancient costume of the Bailiff of Volseni, the head of that clan of shepherds who pastured their flocks on the uplands. The Prince of Slavna held the venerable office, and had been to Court in the dress appropriate to it. He had refused to use his carriage, sending his aides-de-camp home in it, and walked now through the streets of the city which he had in charge. It was constantly his habit thus to walk; his friends praised his vigilance; his foes reviled his prowling, spying tricks; of neither blame nor praise did he take heed.

Sophy did not know the dress, but the face she knew; it had been but lately before her dreaming eyes; she had seen it in the flesh that morning from the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris.

The three came on from her right, one of the lean men hanging back, lurking a little behind. They were under her window now. The Prince was but a few yards away. Suddenly he looked up with a start – he had become aware of their approach. But before he saw them the three had melted to one. With a shrill cry of consternation – of uneasy courage oozing out – Rastatz turned and fled back to the Square, heading at his top speed for the Golden Lion. In the end he was unequal to the encounter. Sterkoff, too, disappeared; but Sophy knew the meaning of that; he had slipped into the shelter of the porch. Her faculties were alert now; she would not forget where Sterkoff was! Mistitch stood alone in the centre of the narrow street, his huge frame barely leaving room for a man to pass on either side.

For a moment the Prince stood still, looking at the giant. Incredulity had seemed to show first in his eyes; it changed now to a cold anger as he recognized the Captain. He stepped briskly forward, and Sophy heard his clear, incisive tones cut the air:

"What extraordinary emergency has compelled you to disobey my orders, Captain Mistitch?"

"I wanted a breath of fresh air," Mistitch answered, in an easy, insolent tone.

The Prince looked again; he seemed even more disgusted than angry now. He thought Mistitch drunk – more drunk than in truth he was.

"Return to barracks at once and report yourself under stringent arrest. I will deal with you to-morrow."

"And not to-night, Sergius Stefanovitch?" At least he was being as good as his word, he was acting up to the vaunts he had thrown out so boldly in the great hall of the Golden Lion.

"To-morrow we shall both be cooler." He was almost up to Mistitch now. "Stand out of my way, sir."

Mistitch did not budge. "There's room for you to pass by," he said. "I won't hurt you. But the middle of the road belongs to me to-night."

His voice seemed to grow clearer with every word; the critical encounter was sobering him. Yet with sobriety came no diminution of defiance. Doubtless he saw that he was in for the worst now, that forward was the word, and retreat impossible. Probably from this moment he did not intend the Prince to pass alive. Well, what he intended was the wish of many; he would not lack shelter, friends, or partisans if he dared the desperate venture. Be it said for him that there were few things he did not dare. He dared now, growing sober, to stand by what the fumes of wine had fired his tongue to.

For a moment after the big man's taunt the Prince stood motionless. Then he drew his scimitar. It looked a poor, weak weapon against the sword which sprang in answer from Mistitch's scabbard.

"A duel between gentlemen!" the Captain cried.

The Prince gave a short laugh. "You shall have no such plea at the court-martial," he said. "Gentlemen don't waylay one another in the streets. Stand aside!"

Mistitch laughed, and in an instant the Prince sprang at him. Sophy heard the blades meet. Strong as death was the fascination for her eyes – ay, for her ears, too, for she heard the quick-moving feet and the quicker breathing of a mortal combat. But she would not look – she tried not even to listen. Her eyes were for a man she could not see, her ears for a man she could not hear. She remembered the lean fellow hidden in the porch, straight under her window. She dared not call to warn the Prince of him; a turn of the head, a moment of inattention, would cost either combatant his life. She took the man in the porch for her own adversary, his undoing for her share in the fight.

Very cautiously, making no sound, she took the heavy lamp – the massive bronze figure of the girl – raised it painfully in both her hands, and poised it half-way over the window-sill. Then she turned her eyes down again to watch the mouth of the porch. Her rat was in that hole! Yet suddenly the Prince came into her view; he circled half-way round Mistitch, then sank on one knee; she heard him guard the Captain's lunges with lightning-quick movements of his nimble scimitar. He was trying the old trick they had practised for hundreds of years at Volseni – to follow his parry with an upward-ripping stroke under the adversary's sword, to strike the inner side of his forearm and cut the tendons of the wrist. This trick big Captain Mistitch, a man of the plains, did not know.

A jangle – a slither – a bellow of pain, of rage! The Prince had made his stroke, the hill-men of Volseni were justified of their pupil. Mistitch's big sword clattered on the flags. Facing his enemy, with his back to the porch, the Prince crouched motionless on his knee; but it was death to Mistitch to try to reach the sword with his unmaimed hand.

It was Sophy's minute; the message that it had come ran fierce through all her veins. Straining to the weight, she raised the figure in her hands and leaned out of the window. Yes, a lean hand with a long knife, a narrow head, a spare, long back, crept out of the darkness of the porch – crept silently. The body drew itself together for a fatal spring on the unconscious Prince, for a fatal thrust. It would be death – and to Mistitch salvation torn from the jaws of ruin.

"Surrender yourself, Captain Mistitch," said the Prince.

Mistitch's eyes went by his conqueror and saw a shadow on the path beside the porch.

"I surrender, sir," he said.

"Then walk before me to the barracks." Mistitch did not turn. "At once, sir!"

"Now!" Mistitch roared.

The crouching figure sprang – and with a hideous cry fell stricken on the flags. Just below the neck, full on the spine, had crashed the Virgin with the lamp. Sterkoff lay very still, save that his fingers scratched the flags. Turning, the Prince saw a bronze figure at his feet, a bronze figure holding a broken lamp. Looking up, he saw dimly a woman's white face at a window.

Then the street was on a sudden full of men. Rastatz had burst into the Golden Lion, all undone – nerves, courage, almost senses gone. He could stammer no more than: "They'll fight!" and could not say who. But he had gone out with Mistitch – and whom had they gone to meet?

A dozen officers were round him in an instant, crying: "Where? Where?" He broke into frightened sobs, hiding his face in his hands. It was Max von Hollbrandt who made him speak. Forgetting his pretty friend, he sprang in among the officers, caught Rastatz by the throat, and put a revolver to his head. "Where? In ten seconds – where?" Terror beat terror. "The Street of the Fountain – by the Silver Cock!" the cur stammered, and fell to his blubbering again.

The dozen officers, and more, were across the Square almost before he had finished; Max von Hollbrandt, with half the now lessened company in the inn, was hot on their heels.

For that night all was at an end. Sterkoff was picked up, unconscious now. Sullen, but never cringing, Mistitch was marched off to the guard-room and the surgeon's ministrations. Every soldier was ordered to his quarters, the townsfolk slunk off to their homes. The street grew empty, the glare of the illuminations was quenched. But of all this Sophy saw nothing. She had sunk down in her chair by the window, and lay there, save for her tumultuous breathing, still as death.

The Commandant had no fear, and would have his way. He stood alone now in the street, looking from the dark splash of Mistitch's blood to the Virgin with her broken lamp, and up to the window of the Silver Cock, whence had come salvation.

IV
THE MESSAGE OF THE NIGHT

The last of the transparencies died out; the dim and infrequent oil-lamps alone lit up the Street of the Fountain and St. Michael's Square. They revelled still down at the Hôtel de Paris, whither Max von Hollbrandt and a dozen others had hurried with the news of the evening's great event. But here, on the borders of the old north quarter, all grew still – the Golden Lion empty, the townsmen to their beds, the soldiers to barracks, full of talk and fears and threats. Yet a light burned still in the round room in the keep of Suleiman's Tower, and the Commandant's servant still expected his royal master. Peter Vassip, a sturdy son of Volseni, had no apprehensions – but he was very sleepy, and he and the sentries were the only men awake. "One might as well be a soldier at once!" he grumbled – for the men of the hills did not esteem the Regular Army so high as it rated itself.

The Commandant lingered in the Street of the Fountain. Sergius Stefanovitch was half a Bourbon, but it was the intellectual half. He had the strong, concentrated, rather narrow mind of a Bourbon of before the family decadence; on it his training at Vienna had grafted a military precision, perhaps a pedantry, and no little added scorn of what men called liberty and citizens called civil rights. What rights had a man against his country? His country was in his King – and to the King the Army was his supreme instrument. So ran his public creed, his statesman's instinct. But beside the Bourbon mother was the Kravonian father, and behind him the long line of mingled and vacillating fortunes which drew descent from Stefan, Lord of Praslok, and famous reiver of lowland herds. In that stock the temperament was different: indolent to excess sometimes, ardent to madness at others, moderate seldom. When the blood ran hot, it ran a veritable fire in the veins.

And for any young man the fight in the fantastically illuminated night, the Virgin with the broken lamp, a near touch of the scythe of death, and a girl's white face at the window? Behind the Commandant's stern wrath – nay, beside – and soon before it – for the moment dazzling his angry eyes – came the bright gleams of romance.

He knew who lodged at the sign of the Silver Cock. Marie Zerkovitch was his friend, Zerkovitch his zealous follower. The journalist was back now from the battle-fields of France and was writing articles for The Patriot, a leading paper of Slavna. He was deep in the Prince's confidence, and his little house on the south boulevard often received this distinguished guest. The Prince had been keen to hear from Zerkovitch of the battles, from Marie of the life in Paris; with Marie's tale came the name, and what she knew of the story, of Sophie de Gruche. Yet always, in spite of her praises of her friend, Marie had avoided any opportunity of presenting her to the Prince. Excuse on excuse she made, for his curiosity ranged round Casimir de Savres's bereaved lover. "Oh, I shall meet her some day all the same," he had said, laughing; and Marie doubted whether her reluctance – a reluctance to herself strange – had not missed its mark, inflaming an interest which it had meant to balk. Why this strange reluctance? So far it was proved baseless. His first encounter with the Lady of the Red Star – Casimir's poetical sobriquet had passed Marie's lips – had been supremely fortunate.

From the splash of blood to the broken Virgin, from the broken Virgin to the open window and the dark room behind, his restless glances sped. Then came swift, impulsive decision. He caught up the bronze figure and entered the porch. He knew Meyerstein's shop, and that from it no staircase led to the upper floor. The other door was his mark, and he knocked on it, raising first with a cautious touch, then more resolutely, the old brass hand with hospitably beckoning finger which served for knocker. Then he listened for a footstep on the stairs. If she came not, the venturesome night went ungraced by its crowning adventure. He must kiss the hand that saved him before he slept.

The door opened softly. In the deep shadow of the porch, on the winding, windowless staircase of the old house, it was pitch dark. He felt a hand put in his and heard a low voice saying: "Come, Monseigneur." From first to last, both in speech and in writing, she called him by that title and by none other. Without a word he followed her, picking his steps, till they reached her room. She led him to the chair by the window; the darkness was somewhat less dense there. He stood by the chair.

"The lamp's broken – and there's only one match in the box!" said Sophy, with a low laugh. "Shall we use it now – or when you go, Monseigneur?"

"Light it now. My memory, rather than my imagination!"

She struck the match; her face came upon him white in the darkness, with the mark on her cheek a dull red; but her eyes glittered. The match flared and died down.

"It is enough. I shall remember."

"Did I kill him?"

"I don't know whether he's killed – he's badly hurt. This lady here is pretty heavy."

"Give her to me. I'll put her in her place." She took the figure and set it again on the window-sill. "And the big man who attacked you?"

"Mistitch? He'll be shot."

"Yes," she agreed with calm, unquestioning emphasis.

"You know what you did to-night?"

"I had the sense to think of the man in the porch."

"You saved my life."

Sophy gave a laugh of triumph. "What will Marie Zerkovitch say to that?"

"She's my friend, too, and she's told me all about you. But she didn't want us to meet."

"She thinks I bring bad luck."

"She'll have to renounce that heresy now." He felt for the chair and sat down, Sophy leaning against the window-sill.

"Why did they attack you?"

He told her of the special grudge which Mistitch and his company had against him, and added: "But they all hate me, except my own fellows from Volseni. I have a hundred of them in Suleiman's Tower, and they're stanch enough."

"Why do they hate you?"

"Oh, I'm their school-master – and a very strict one, I suppose. Or, if you like, the pruning-knife – and that's not popular with the rotten twigs."

"There are many rotten twigs?"

She heard his hands fall on the wooden arms of the chair and pictured his look of despair. "All – almost all. It's not their fault. What can you expect? They're encouraged to laziness and to riot. They have no good rifles. The city is left defenceless. I have no big guns." He broke suddenly into a low laugh. "There – that's what Zerkovitch calls my fixed idea; he declares it's written on my heart – big guns!"

"If you had them, you'd be – master?"

"I could make some attempt at a defence anyhow; at least we could cover a retreat to the hills, if war came." He paused. "And in peace – yes, I should be master of Slavna. I'd bring men from Volseni to serve the guns." His voice had grown vindictive. "Stenovics knows that, I think." He roused himself again and spoke to her earnestly. "Listen. This fellow Mistitch is a great hero with the soldiers and the mob. When I have him shot, as I shall – not on my own account, I could have killed him to-night, but for the sake of discipline – there will very likely be a disturbance. What you did to-night will be all over the city by to-morrow morning. If you see any signs of disturbance, if any people gather round here, go to Zerkovitch's at once – or, if that's not possible or safe, come to me in Suleiman's Tower, and I'll send for Marie Zerkovitch too. Will you promise? You must run no risk."

"I'll come if I'm afraid."

"Or if you ought to be?" he insisted, laughing again.

"Well, then – or if I ought to be," she promised, joining in his laugh. "But the King – isn't he with you?"

"My father likes me; we're good friends. But 'like father, unlike son' they say of the Stefanovitches. I'm a martinet, they tell me; well, he – isn't. Nero fiddled – you remember? The King goes fishing. He's remarkably fond of fishing, and his advisers don't discourage him. I tell you all this because you're committed to our side now."

"Yes, I'm committed to your side. Who else is with you?"

"In Slavna? Nobody! Well, the Zerkovitches, and my hundred in Suleiman's Tower. And perhaps some old men who have seen war. But at Volseni and among the hills they're with me." Again he seemed to muse as he reviewed his scanty forces.

"I wish we had another match. I want to see your face close," said Sophy. He rose with a laugh and leaned his head forward to the window. "Oh no; you're nothing but a blur still!" she exclaimed impatiently.

Yet, though Sophy sighed for light, the darkness had its glamour. To each the other's presence, seeming in some sense impalpable, seemed also diffused through the room and all around; the world besides was non-existent since unseen; they two alone lived and moved and spoke in the dead silence and the blackness. An agitation stirred Sophy's heart – forerunner of the coming storm. That night she had given him life; he seemed to be giving back life to her life that night. How should the hour not seem pregnant with destiny, a herald of the march of Fate?

But suddenly the Prince awoke from his reverie – perhaps from a dream. To Sophy he gave the impression – as he was to give it more than once again – of a man pulling himself up, tightening the rein, drawing back into himself. He stood erect, his words became more formal, and his voice restrained.

"I linger too long," he said. "My duty lies at the Tower yonder. I've thanked you badly; but what thanks can a man give for his life? We shall meet again – I'll arrange that with Marie Zerkovitch. You'll remember what I've told you to do in case of danger? You'll act on it?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

He sought her hand, kissed it, and then groped his way to the stairs. Sophy followed and went with him down to the porch.

"Be careful to lock your door," he enjoined her, "and don't go out to-morrow unless the streets are quite quiet."

"Oh, but I've a French lesson to give at ten o'clock," she remonstrated with a smile.

"You have to do that?"

"I have to make my living, Monseigneur."

"Ah, yes," he said, meditatively. "Well, slip out quietly – and wear a veil."

"Nobody knows my face."

"Wear a veil. People notice a face like yours. Again thanks, and good-night."

Sophy peeped out from the porch and watched his quick, soldierly march up the street to St. Michael's Square. The night had lightened a little, and she could make out his figure, although dimly, until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. She lingered for a moment before turning to go back to her room – lingered musing on the evening's history.

Down the street, from the Square, there came a woman – young or old, pretty or ugly, fine dame or drudge, it was too dark to tell. But it was a woman, and she wept as though her heart were broken. For whom and for what did she weep like that? Was she mother, or wife, or sweetheart? Perhaps she wept for Sterkoff, who lay in peril of death. Perhaps she loved big Mistitch, over whom hovered the shadow of swift and relentless doom. Or maybe her sorrow was remote from all that touched them or touched the girl who listened to her sobs – the bitter sobs which she did not seek to check, which filled the night with a dirge of immeasurable sadness. In the darkness, and to Sophy's ignorance of anything individual about her, the woman was like a picture or a sculpture – some type or monument of human woe – a figure of embodied sorrow, crying that all joy ends in tears – in tears – in tears.

She went by, not seeing her watcher. The sound of her sobbing softened with distance, till it died down to a faint, far-off moan. Sophy herself gave one choked sob. Then fell the silence of the night again. Was that its last message – the last comment on what had passed? Tears – and then silence? Was that the end?

Sophy never learned aught of the woman – who she was or why she wept. But her memory retained the vision. It had come as the last impression of a night no moment of which could ever be forgotten. What had it to say of all the rest of the night's happenings? Sophy's exaltation fell from her; but her courage stood – against darkness, solitude, and the unutterable sadness of that forlorn wailing. Dauntlessly she looked forward and upward still, yet with a new insight for the cost.

So for Sophy passed the name-day of King Alexis.