The Snare
by
Rafael Sabatini
Part 5 out of 6
The sergeant pondered a moment. "Only that he had been bringing
it when he found Count Samoval's body."
"That is all I wish to ask, Sir Harry," O'Moy intimated, and
looked round at his fellow-members of that court as if to inquire
whether they had drawn any inference from the sergeant's statements.
"Have you any questions to ask the witness, Captain Tremayne?" the
president inquired.
"None, sir," replied the prisoner.
Came Private Bates next, and Sir Terence proceeded to question him..
"You said in your evidence that Captain Tremayne arrived at Monsanto
between half-past eleven and twenty minutes to twelve?"
"Yes, sir."
"You told us, I think, that you determined this by the fact that you
came on duty at eleven o'clock, and that it would be half-an-hour
or a little more after that when Captain Tremayne arrived?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is quite in agreement with the evidence of your sergeant.
Now tell the court where you were during the half-hour that
followed - until you heard the guard being turned out by the
sergeant."
"Pacing in front of quarters, sir."
"Did you notice the windows of the building at all during that time?"
"I can't say that I did, sir."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" echoed the private.
"Yes - why not? Don't repeat my words. How did it happen that
you didn't notice the windows?"
"Because they were in darkness, sir."
O'Moy's eyes gleamed. "All of them?"
"Certainly, sir, all of them."
"You are quite certain of that?"
"Oh, quite certain, sir. If a light had shown from one of them I
couldn't have failed to notice it."
"That will do."
"Captain Tremayne - " began the president.
"I have no questions for the witness, sir," Tremayne announced.
Sir Harry's face expressed surprise. "After the statement he has
just made?" he exclaimed, and thereupon he again invited the prisoner,
in a voice that was as grave as his countenance, to cross-examine
he witness; he did more than invite - he seemed almost to plead.
But Tremayne, preserving by a miracle his outward calm, for all that
inwardly he was filled with despair and chagrin to see what a pit
he had dug for himself by his falsehood, declined to ask any
questions.
Private Bates retired, and Mullins was recalled. A gloom seemed to
have settled now upon the court. A moment ago their way had seemed
fairly clear to its members, and they had been inwardly
congratulating themselves that they were relieved from the grim
necessity of passing sentence upon a brother officer esteemed by all
who knew him. But now a subtle change had crept in. The statement
drawn by Sir Terence from the sentry appeared flatly to contradict
Captain Tremayne's own account of his movements on the night in
question.
"You told the court," O'Moy addressed the witness Mullins, consulting
his notes as he did so, "that on the night on which Count Samoval met
his death, I sent you at ten minutes past twelve to take a letter to
the sergeant of the guard, an urgent letter which was to be forwarded
to its destination first thing on the following morning. And it was
in fact in the course of going upon this errand that you discovered
the prisoner kneeling beside the body of Count Samoval. This is
correct, is it not?"
"It is, sir."
" Will you now inform the court to whom that letter was addressed?"
"It was addressed to the Commissary-General."
"You read the superscription?"
"I am not sure whether I did that, but I clearly remember, sir, that
you told me at the time that it was for the Commissary-General."
Sir Terence signified that he had no more to ask, and again the
president invited the prisoner to question the witness, to receive
again the prisoner's unvarying refusal.
And now O'Moy rose in his place to announce that he had himself a
further statement to, make to the court, a statement which he had
not conceived necessary until he had heard the prisoner's account
of his movements during the half-hour he had spent at Monsanto on
the night of the duel.
"You have heard from Sergeant Flynn and my butler Mullins that the
letter carried from me by the latter to the former on the night
of the 28th was a letter for the Commissary-General of an urgent
character, to be forwarded first thing in the morning. If the
prisoner insists upon it, the Commissary-General himself may be
brought before this court to confirm my assertion that that
communication concerned a complaint from headquarters on the
subject of the tents supplied to the third division Sir Thomas
Picton's - at Celorico. The documents concerning that complaint
- that is to say, the documents upon which we are to presume that
the prisoner was at work during tine half-hour in question - were
at the time in my possession in my own private study and in another
wing of the building altogether."
Sir Terence sat down amid a rustling stir that ran through the
court, but was instantly summoned to his feet again by the president.
"A moment, Sir Terence. The prisoner will no doubt desire to
question you on that statement." And he looked with serious eyes
at Captain Tremayne.
"I have no questions for Sir Terence, sir," was his answer.
Indeed, what question could he have asked? The falsehoods he had
uttered had woven themselves into a rope about his neck, and he
stood before his brother officers now in an agony of shame, a man
discredited, as he believed.
"But no doubt you will desire the presence of the
Commissary-General?" This was from Colonel Fletcher his own
colonel and a man who esteemed him - and it was asked in accents
that were pleadingly insistent.
"What purpose could it serve, sir? Sir Terence's words are partly
confirmed by the evidence he has just elicited from Sergeant Flynn
and his butler Mullins. Since he spent the night writing a letter
to the Commissary, it is not to be doubted that the subject would
be such as he states, since from my own knowledge it was the most
urgent matter in our hands. And, naturally, he would not have
written without having the documents at his side. To summon the
Commissary-General would be unnecessarily to waste the time of the
court. It follows that I must have been mistaken, and this I admit."
"But how could you be mistaken?" broke from the president.
"I realise your "difficulty in crediting, it. But
there it is. Mistaken I was."
"Very well, sir." Sir Harry paused and then added "The court will
be glad to hear you in answer to the further evidence adduced to
refute your statement in your own defence."
"I have nothing further to say, sir," was Tremayne's answer.
"Nothing further?" The president seemed aghast. " Nothing, sir."
And now Colonel Fletcher leaned forward to exhort him. "Captain
Tremayne," he said, "let me beg you to realise the serious
position in which you are placed."
"I assure you, sir, that I realise it fully."
"Do you realise that the statements you have made to account for
your movements during the half-hour that you were at Monsanto
have been disproved? You have heard Private Bates's evidence to the
effect that at the time when you say you were at work in the offices,
those offices remained in darkness. And you have heard Sir Terence's
statement that the documents upon which you claim to have been at
work were at the time in his own hands. Do you realise what
inference the court will be compelled to draw from this?"
"The court must draw whatever inference it pleases," answered the
captain without heat.
Sir Terence stirred. "Captain Tremayne," said he, "I wish to add
my own exhortation to that of your colonel! Your position has
become extremely perilous. If you are concealing anything that may
extricate you from it, let me enjoin you to take the court frankly
and fully into your confidence."
The words in themselves were kindly, but through them ran a note of
bitterness, of cruel derision, that was faintly perceptible to
Tremayne and to one or two others.
Lord Wellington's piercing eyes looked a moment at O'Moy, then
turned upon the prisoner. Suddenly he spoke, his voice as calm
and level as his glance.
"Captain Tremayne - if the president will permit me to address you
in the interests of truth and justice - you bear, to my knowledge,
the reputation of an upright, honourable man. You are a man so
unaccustomed to falsehood that when you adventure upon it, as you
have obviously just done, your performance is a clumsy one, its
faults easily distinguished. That you are concealing something the
court must have perceived. If you are not concealing something
other than that Count Samoval fell by your hand, let me enjoin you
to speak out. If you are shielding any one - perhaps the real
perpetrator of this deed - let me assure you that your honour as
a soldier demands, in the interests of truth and justice, that you
should not continue silent."
Tremayne looked into the stern face of the great soldier, and his
glance fell away. He made a little gesture of helplessness, then
drew himself stiffly up.
"I have nothing more to say."
"Then, Captain Tremayne," said the president, "the court will pass
to the consideration of its finding. And if you cannot account for
the half-hour that you spent at Monsanto while Count Samoval was
meeting his death, I am afraid that, in view of all the other
evidences against you, your position is likely to be one of
extremest gravity.
"For the last time, sir, before I order your removal, let me add
my own to the exhortations already addressed to you, that you
should speak. If still you elect to remain silent, the court, I
fear, will be unable to draw any conclusion but one from your
attitude."
For a long moment Captain Tremayne stood there in tense, expectant
silence. Yet he was not considering; he was waiting. Lady O'Moy
he knew to be in court, behind him. She had heard, even as he
had heard, that his fate hung perhaps upon whether Richard Butler's
presence were to be betrayed or not. Not for him to break faith
with her. Let her decide. And, awaiting that decision, he stood
there, silent, like a man considering. And then, because no woman's
voice broke the silence to proclaim at once his innocence, and the
alibi that must ensure his acquittal, he spoke at last.
"I thank you, sir. Indeed, I am very grateful to the court for the
consideration it has shown me. I appreciate it deeply, but I have
nothing more to say."
And then, when all seemed lost, a woman's voice rang out at last:
"But I have!"
Its sharp, almost strident note acted like an electric discharge
upon the court; but no member of the assembly was more deeply
stricken than Captain Tremayne. For though the voice was a woman's,
yet it was not the voice for which he had been waiting.
In his excitement he turned, to see Miss Armytage standing there,
straight and stiff, her white face stamped with purpose; and beside
her, still seated, clutching her arm in an agony of fear, Lady O'Moy,
murmuring for all to hear her:
"No, no, Sylvia. Be silent, for God's sake!"
But Sylvia had risen to speak, and speak she did, and though the
words she uttered were such as a virgin might wish to whisper with
veiled countenance and averted glance, yet her utterance of them
was bold to the point of defiance.
"I can tell you why Captain Tremayne is silent. I can tell you
whom he shields."
"Oh God!" gasped Lady O'Moy, wondering through her anguish how
Sylvia could have become possessed of her secret.
"Miss Armytage - I implore you!" cried Tremayne, forgetting where
he stood, his voice shaking at last, his hand flung out to silence
her.
And then the heavy voice of O'Moy crashed in:
"Let her speak. Let us have the truth - the truth!" And he
smote the table with his clenched fist.
"And you shall have it," answered Miss Armytage. "Captain Tremayne
keeps silent to shield a woman - his mistress."
Sir Terence sucked in his breath with a whistling sound. Lady O'Moy
desisted from her attempts to check the speaker and fell to staring
at her in stony astonishment, whilst Tremayne was too overcome by
the same emotion to think of interrupting. The others preserved a
watchful, unbroken silence.
"Captain Tremayne spent that half-hour at Monsanto in her room. He
was with her when he heard the cry that took him to the window.
Thence he saw the body in the courtyard, and in alarm went down at
once - without considering the consequences to the woman. But
because he has considered them since, he now keeps silent."
"Sir, sir," Captain Tremayne turned in wild appeal to the president,
"this is not true." He conceived at once the terrible mistake that
Miss Armytage had made. She must have seen him climb down from
Lady O'Moy's balcony, and she had come to the only possible,
horrible conclusion. "This lady is mistaken, I am ready to - "
"A moment, sir. You are interrupting," the president rebuked.
And then the voice of O'Moy on the note of terrible triumph sounded
again like a trumpet through the long room.
"Ah, but it is the truth at last. We have it now. Her name! Her
name!" he shouted. "Who was this wanton?"
Miss Armytage's answer was as a bludgeon-stroke to his ferocious
exultation.
"Myself. Captain Tremayne was with me."
CHAPTER XVIII FOOL'S MATE
Writing years afterwards of this event - in the rather tedious
volume of reminiscences which he has left us - Major Carruthers
ventures the opinion that the court should never have been
deceived; that it should have perceived at once that Miss Armytage
was lying. He argues this opinion upon psychological grounds,
contending that the lady's deportment in that moment of
self-accusation was the very last that in the circumstances she
alleged would have been natural to such a character as her own.
"Had she indeed," he writes, "been Tremayne's mistress, as she
represented herself, it was not in her nature to have announced it
after the manner in which she did so. She bore herself before us
with all the effrontery of a harlot; and it was well known to most
of us that a more pure, chaste, and modest lady did not live. There
was here a contradiction so flagrant that it should have rendered
her falsehood immediately apparent."
Major Carruthers, of course, is writing in the light of later
knowledge, and even, setting that aside, I am very far from agreeing
with his psychological deduction. Just as a shy man will so
overreach himself in his efforts to dissemble his shyness as to
assume an air of positive arrogance, so might a pure lady who had
succumbed as Miss Armytage pretended, upon finding herself forced
to such self-accusation, bear herself with a boldness which was no
more than a mask upon the shame and anguish of her mind.
And this, I think, was the view that was taken by those present.
The court it was - being composed of honest gentlemen - that felt
the shame which she dissembled. There were the eyes that fell
away before the spurious effrontery of her own glance. They were
disconcerted one and all by this turn of events, without precedent
in the experience of any, and none more disconcerted - though not
in the same sense - than Sir Terence. To him this was checkmate
- fool's mate indeed. An unexpected yet ridiculously simple move
had utterly routed him at the very outset of the deadly game that
he was playing. He had sat there determined to have either
Tremayne's life or the truth, publicly avowed, of Tremayne's
dastardly betrayal. He could not have told you which he preferred.
But one or the other he was fiercely determined to have, and now
the springs of the snare in which he had so cunningly taken Tremayne
had been forced apart by utterly unexpected hands.
"It's a lie!" he bellowed angrily. But he bellowed, it seemed, upon
deaf ears. The court just sat and stared, utterly and hopelessly at
a loss how to proceed. And then the dry voice of Wellington followed
Sir Terence, cutting sharply upon the dismayed silence.
"How can you know that?" he asked the adjutant. "The matter is one
upon which few would be qualified to contradict Miss Armytage. You
will observe, Sir Harry, that even Captain Tremayne has not thought
it worth his while to do so."
Those words pulled the captain from the spell of sheer horrified
amazement in which he had stood, stricken dumb, ever since Miss
Armytage had spoken.
"I - I - am so overwhelmed by the amazing falsehood with which Miss
Armytage has attempted to save me from the predicament in which I
stand. For it is that, gentlemen. On my oath as a soldier and a
gentleman, there is not a word of truth in what Miss Armytage has
said."
"But if there were," said Lord Wellington, who seemed the only
person present to retain a cool command of his wits, "your honour
as a soldier and a gentleman - and this lady's honour - must still
demand of you the perjury."
"But, my lord, I protest - "
"You are interrupting me, I think," Lord Wellington rebuked him
coldly, and under the habit of obedience and the magnetic eye of
his lordship the captain lapsed into anguished silence.
"I am of opinion, gentlemen," his lordship addressed the court,
"that this affair has gone quite far enough. Miss Armytage's
testimony has saved a deal of trouble. It has shed light upon much
that was obscure, and it has provided Captain Tremayne with an
unanswerable alibi. In my view - and without wishing unduly to
influence the court in its decision - it but remains to pronounce
Captain Tremayne's acquittal, thereby enabling him to fulfil towards
this lady a duty which the circumstances would seem to have rendered
somewhat urgent."
They were words that lifted an intolerable burden from Sir Harry's
shoulders.
In immense relief, eager now to make an end, he looked to right and
left. Everywhere he met nodding heads and murmurs of "Yes, Yes."
Everywhere with one exception. Sir Terence, white to the lips, gave
no sign of assent, and yet dared give none of dissent. The eye of
Lord Wellington was upon him, compelling him by its eagle glance.
"We are clearly agreed," the president began, but Captain Tremayne
interrupted him.
"But you are wrongly agreed."
"Sir, sir!"
"You shall listen. It is infamous that I should owe my acquittal
to the sacrifice of this lady's good name."
Damme! That is a matter that any parson can put right," said his
lordship.
"Your lordship is mistaken," Captain Tremayne insisted, greatly
daring. "The honour of this lady is more dear to me than my life."
"So we perceive," was the dry rejoinder. "These outbursts do you
a certain credit, Captain Tremayne. But they waste the time of the
court."
And then the president made his announcement
"Captain Tremayne, you are acquitted of the charge of killing Count
Samoval, and you are at liberty to depart and to resume your usual
duties. The court congratulates you and congratulates. itself
upon having reached this conclusion in the case of an officer so
estimable as yourself."
"Ah, but, gentlemen, hear me yet a moment. You, my lord - "
"The court has pronounced. The matter is at an end," said
Wellington, with a shrug, and immediately upon the words he rose,
and the court rose with him. Immediately, with rattle of sabres and
sabretaches, the officers who had composed the board fell into groups
and broke into conversation out of a spirit of consideration for
Tremayne, and definitely to mark the conclusion of the proceedings.
Tremayne, white and trembling, turned in time to see Miss Armytage
leaving the hall and assisting Colonel Grant to support Lady O'Moy,
who was in a half-swooning condition.
He stood irresolute, prey to a torturing agony of mind, cursing
himself now for his silence, for not having spoken the truth and
taken the consequences together with Dick Butler. What was Dick
Butler to him, what was his own life to him - if they should they
should demand it for the grave breach of duty he had committed by
his readiness to assist a proscribed offender to escape - compared
with the honour of Sylvia Armytage? And she, why had she done this
for him? Could it be possible that she cared, that she was concerned
so much for his life as to immolate her honour to deliver him from
peril? The event would seem to prove it. Yet the overmastering joy
that at any other time, and in any other circumstances, such a
revelation must have procured him, was stifled now by his agonised
concern for the injustice to which she had submitted herself.
And then, as he stood there, a suffering, bewildered man, came
Carruthers to grasp his hand and in terms of warm friendship to
express satisfaction at his acquittal.
"Sooner than have such a price as that paid - " he said bitterly,
and with a shrug left his sentence unfinished.
O'Moy came stalking past him, pale-faced, with eyes that looked
neither to right nor left.
"O'Moy!" he cried.
Sir Terence checked, and stood stiffly as if to attention, his
handsome blue eyes blazing into the captain's own. Thus a moment.
Then:
"We will talk of this again, you and I," he said grimly, and passed
on and out with clanking step, leaving Tremayne to reflect that the
appearances certainly justified Sir Terence's resentment.
"My God, Carruthers ! What must he think of me?" he ejaculated.
"If you ask me, I think that he has suspected this from the very
beginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitude
towards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either to
convict or wring the truth from you."
Tremayne looked askance at the major. In such a tangle as this
it was impossible to keep the attention fixed upon any single thread.
"His mind must be disabused at once," he answered. "I must go to
him."
O'Moy had already vanished.
There were one or two others would have checked the adjutant's
departure, but he had heeded none. In the quadrangle he nodded
curtly to Colonel Grant, who would have detained him. But he
passed on and went to shut himself up in his study with his mental
anguish that was compounded of so many and so diverse emotions.
He needed above all things to be alone and to think, if thought were
possible to a mind so distraught as his own. There were now so many
things to be faced, considered, and dealt with. First and foremost
- and this was perhaps the product of inevitable reaction - was the
consideration of his own duplicity, his villainous betrayal of trust
undertaken deliberately, but with an aim very different from that
which would appear. He perceived how men must assume now, when
the truth of Samoval's death became known as become known it must
- that he had deliberately fastened upon another his own crime. The
fine edifice of vengeance he had been so skilfully erecting had
toppled about his ears in obscene ruin, and he was a man not only
broken, but dishonoured. Let him proclaim the truth now and none
would believe it. Sylvia Armytage's mad and inexplicable
self-accusation was a final bar to that. Men of honour would scorn
him, his friends would turn from him in disgust, and Wellington, that
great soldier whom he worshipped, and whose esteem he valued above
all possessions, would be the first to cast him out. He would appear
as a vulgar murderer who, having failed by falsehood to fasten the
guilt upon an innocent man, sought now by falsehood still more
damnable, at the cost of his wife's honour, to offer some mitigation
of his unspeakable offence.
Conceive this terrible position in which his justifiable jealousy
- his naturally vindictive rage - had so irretrievably ensnared him.
He had been so intent upon the administration of poetic justice, so
intent upon condignly punishing the false friend who had dishonoured
him, upon finding a balm for his lacerated soul in the spectacle of
Tremayne's own ignominy, that he had never paused to see whither all
this might lead him.
He had been a fool to have adopted these subtle, tortuous ways; a
fool not to have obeyed the earlier and honest impulse which had led
him to take that case of pistols from the drawer. And he was served
as a fool deserves to be served. His folly had recoiled upon him to
destroy him. Fool's mate had checked his perfidious vengeance at a
blow.
Why had Sylvia Armytage discarded her honour to make of it a cloak
for the protection of Tremayne? Did she love Tremayne and take
that desperate way to save a life she accounted lost, or was it that
she knew the truth, and out of affection for Una had chosen to
immolate herself?
Sir Terence was no psychologist. But he found it difficult to
believe in so much of self-sacrifice from a woman for a woman's sake,
however dear. Therefore he held to the first alternative. To
confirm it came the memory of Sylvia's words to him on the night of
Tremayne's arrest. And it was to such a man that she gave the
priceless treasure of her love; for such a man, and in such a sordid
cause, that she sacrificed the inestimable jewel of her honour? He
laughed through clenched teeth at a situation so bitterly ironical.
Presently he would talk to her. She should realise what she had done,
and he would wish her joy of it. First, however, there was something
else to do. He flung himself wearily into the chair at his
writing-table, took up a pen and began to write.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TRUTH
To Captain Tremayne, fretted with impatience in the diningroom,
came, at the end of a long hour of waiting, Sylvia Armytage. She
entered unannounced, at a moment when for the third time he was on
the point of ringing for Mullins, and for a moment they stood
considering each other mutually ill at ease. Then Miss Armytage
closed the door and came forward, moving with that grace peculiar
to her, and carrying her head erect, facing Captain Tremayne now
with some lingering signs of the defiance she had shown the
members of the court-martial.
"Mullins tells me that you wish to see me," she said the merest
conventionality to break the disconcerting, uneasy silence.
"After what has happened that should not surprise you," said
Tremayne. His agitation was clear to behold, his usual
imperturbability all departed. "Why," he burst out suddenly, "why
did you do it?"
She looked at him with the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips,
as if she found the question amusing. But before she could frame
any answer he was speaking again, quickly and nervously.
"Could you suppose that I should wish to purchase my life at such
a price? Could you suppose that your honour was not more precious
to me than my life? It was infamous that you should have sacrificed
yourself in this manner."
"Infamous of whom?" she asked him coolly.
The question gave him pause. "I don't know!" he cried desperately.
"Infamous of the circumstances, I suppose."
She shrugged. "The circumstances were there, and they had to be met.
I could think of no other way of meeting them."
Hastily he answered her out of his anger for her sake: "It should
not have been your affair to meet them at all."
He saw the scarlet flush sweep over her face and leave it deathly
white, and instantly he perceived how horribly he had blundered.
"I'm sorry to have been interfering," she answered stiffly, "but,
after all, it is not a matter that need trouble you." And on the
words she turned to depart again. "Good-day, Captain Tremayne."
"Ah, wait!" He flung himself between her and the door. "We must
understand each other, Miss Armytage."
"I think we do, Captain Tremayne," she answered, fire dancing in
her eyes. And she added: "You are detaining me."
"Intentionally." He was calm again; and he was masterful for the
first time in all his dealings with her. "We are very far from any
understanding. Indeed, we are overhead in a misunderstanding
already. You misconstrue my words. I am very angry with you. I
do not think that in all my life I have ever been so angry with
anybody. But you are not to mistake the source of my anger. I
am angry with you for the great wrong you have done yourself."
"That should not be your affair," she answered him, thus flinging
back the offending phrase.
"But it is. I make it mine," he insisted.
"Then I do not give you the right. Please let me pass." She
looked him steadily in the face, and her voice was calm to coldness.
Only the heave of her bosom betrayed the agitation under which she
was labouring.
"Whether you give me the right or not, I intend to take it," he
insisted.
"You are very rude," she reproved him.
He laughed. "Even at the risk of being rude, then. I must make
myself clear to you. I would suffer anything sooner than leave
you under any misapprehension of the grounds upon which I should
have preferred to face a firing party rather than have been rescued
at the sacrifice of your good name."
"I hope," she said, with faint but cutting irony, "you do not intend
to offer me the reparation of marriage."
It took his breath away for a moment. It was a solution that in
his confused and irate state of mind he had never even paused to
consider. Yet now that it was put to him in this scornfully
reproachful manner he perceived not only that it was the only
possible course, but also that on that very account it might be
considered by her impossible.
Her testiness was suddenly plain to him. She feared that he was
come to her with an offer of marriage out of a sense of duty, as an
amende, to correct the false position into which, for his sake, she
had placed herself. And he himself by his blundering phrase had
given colour to that hideous fear of hers.
He considered a moment whilst he stood there meeting her defiant
glance. Never had she been more desirable in his eyes; and
hopeless as his love for her had always seemed, never had it been
in such danger of hopelessness as at this present moment, unless he
proceeded here with the utmost care. And so Ned Tremayne became
subtle for the first time in his honest, straightforward, soldierly
life. "No," he answered boldly, "I do not intend it."
"I am glad that you spare me that," she answered him, yet her pallor
seemed to deepen under his glance.
"And that," he continued, "is the source of all my anger, against
you, against myself, and against circumstances. If I had deemed
myself remotely worthy of you," he continued, "I should have asked
you weeks ago to be my wife. Oh, wait, and hear me out. I have
more than once been upon the point of doing so - the last time was
that night on the balcony at Count Redondo's. I would have spoken
then; I would have taken my courage in my hands, confessed my
unworthiness and my love. But I was restrained because, although I
might confess, there was nothing I could ask. I am a poor man,
Sylvia, you are the daughter of a wealthy one; men speak of you as
an heiress. To ask you to marry me - " He broke off. "You realise
that I could not; that I should have been deemed a fortune-hunter,
not only by the world, which matters nothing, but perhaps by
yourself, who matter everything. I - I -" he faltered, fumbling for
words to express thoughts of an overwhelming intricacy. "It was
not perhaps that so much as the thought that, if my suit should come
to prosper, men would say you had thrown yourself away on a
fortune-hunter. To myself I should have accounted the reproach well
earned, but it seemed to me that it must contain something slighting
to you, and to shield you from all slights must be the first concern
of my deep worship for you. That," he ended fiercely, "is why I am
so angry, so desperate at the slight you have put upon yourself for
my sake - for me, who would have sacrificed life and honour and
everything I hold of any account, to keep you up there, enthroned
not only in my own eyes, but in the eyes of every man."
He paused, and looked at her and she at him. She was still very
white, and one of her long, slender hands was pressed to her bosom
as if to contain and repress tumult. But her eyes were smiling,
and yet it was a smile he could not read; it was compassionate,
wistful, and yet tinged, it seemed to him, with mockery.
"I suppose," he said, "it would be expected of me in the
circumstances to seek words in which to thank you for what you have
done. But I have no such words. I am not grateful. How could I be
grateful? You have destroyed the thing that I most valued in this
world."
"What have I destroyed?" she asked him.
"Your own good name; the respect that was your due from all men."
"Yet if I retain your own?"
"What is that worth?" he asked almost resentfully.
"Perhaps more than all the rest." She took a step forward and set
her hand upon his arm. There was no mistaking now her smile. It
was all tenderness, and her eyes were shining. "Ned, there is only
one thing to be done."
He looked down at her who was only a little less tall than himself,
and the colour faded from his own face now.
"You haven't understood me after all," he said. "I was afraid you
would not. I have no clear gift of words, and if I had, I am trying
to say something that would overtax any gift."
"On the contrary, Ned, I understand you perfectly. I don't think
I have ever understood you until now. Certainly never until now
could I be sure of what I hoped."
"Of what you hoped?" His voice sank as if in awe. "What?" he asked.
She looked away, and her persisting, yet ever-changing smile grew
slightly arch.
"You do not then intend to ask me to marry you?" she said.
"How could I?" It was an explosion almost of anger. "You yourself
suggested that it would be an insult; and so it would. It is to
take advantage of the position into which your foolish generosity
has betrayed you. Oh!" he clenched his fists and shook them a moment
at his sides.
"Very well," she said. "In that case I must ask you to marry me."
"You?" He was thunderstruck.
"What alternative do you leave me? You say that I have destroyed
my good name. You must provide me with a new one. At all costs I
must become an honest woman. Isn't that the phrase?"
"Don't!" he cried, and pain quivered in his voice. "Don't jest
upon it."
"My dear," she said, and now she held out both hands to him, "why
trouble yourself with things of no account, when the only thing
that matters to us is within our grasp? We love each other, and - "
Her glance fell away, her lip trembled, and her smile at last took
flight. He caught her hands, holding them in a grip that hurt her;
he bent his head, and his eyes sought her own, but sought in vain.
"Have you considered - " he was beginning, when she interrupted him.
Her face flushed upward, surrendering to that questing glance of
his, and its expression was now between tears and laughter.
"You will be for ever considering, Ned. You consider too much,
where the issues are plain and simple. For the last time - will
you marry me?"
The subtlety he had employed had been greater than he knew, and it
had achieved something beyond his utmost hopes.
He murmured incoherently and took her to his arms. I really do not
see that he could have done anything else. It was a plain and
simple issue, and she herself had protested that the issue was
plain and simple.
And then the door opened abruptly and Sir Terence came in. Nor did
he discreetly withdraw as a man of feeling should have done before
the intimate and touching spectacle that met his eyes. On the
contrary, he remained like the infernal marplot that he intended
to be.
"Very proper," he sneered. "Very fit and proper that he should
put right in the eyes of the world the reputation you have damaged
for his sake, Sylvia. I suppose you're to be married."
They moved apart, and each stared at O'Moy Sylvia in cold anger,
Tremayne in chagrin.
"You see, Sylvia," the captain cried, at this voicing of the world's
opinion he feared so much on her behalf.
"Does she?" said Sir Terence, misunderstanding. "I wonder? Unless
you've made all plain."
The captain frowned.
"Made what plain?" he asked. "There is something here I don't
understand, O'Moy. Your attitude towards me ever since you ordered
me under arrest has been entirely extraordinary. It has troubled me
more than anything else in all this deplorable affair."
"I believe you," snorted O'Moy, as with his hands behind his back
he strode forward into the room. He was pale, and there was a set,
malignant sneer upon his lip, a malignant look in the blue eyes
that were habitually so clear and honest.
"There have been moments," said Tremayne, "when I have almost felt
you to be vindictive."
"D'ye wonder?" growled O'Moy. "Has no suspicion crossed your mind
that I may know the whole truth?"
Tremayne was taken aback. "That startles you, eh?" cried O'Moy,
and pointed a mocking finger at the captain's face, whose whole
expression had changed to one of apprehension.
"What is it?" cried Sylvia. Instinctively she felt that under this
troubled surface some evil thing was stirring, that the issues
perhaps were not quite as simple as she had deemed them.
There was a pause. O'Moy, with his back to the window now, his
hands still clasped behind him, looked mockingly at Tremayne and
waited.
"Why don't you answer her?" he said at last. "You were confidential
enough when I came in. Can it be that you are keeping something
back, that you have secrets from the lady who has no doubt promised
by now to become your wife as the shortest way to mending her recent
folly?"
Tremayne was bewildered. His answer, apparently an irrelevance,
was the mere enunciation of the thoughts O'Moy's announcement had
provoked.
"Do you mean to say that you have known throughout that I did not
kill Samoval?" he asked.
"Of course. How could I have supposed you killed him when I killed
him myself?"
"You? You killed him!" cried Tremayne, more and more intrigued.
And -
"You killed Count Samoval?" exclaimed Miss Armytage.
"To be sure I did," was the answer, cynically delivered, accompanied
by a short, sharp laugh. "When I have settled other accounts, and
put all my affairs in order, I shall save the provost-marshal the
trouble of further seeking the slayer. And you didn't know then,
Sylvia, when you lied so glibly to the court, that your future
husband was innocent of that?"
"I was always sure of it," she answered, and looked at Tremayne for
explanation.
O'Moy laughed again. "But he had not told you so. He preferred
that you should think him guilty of bloodshed, of murder even, rather
than tell you the real truth. Oh, I can understand. He is the very
soul of honour, as you remarked yourself, I think, the other night.
He knows how much to tell and how much to withhold. He is master of
the art of discreet suppression. He will carry it to any lengths.
You had an instance of that before the court this morning. You may
come to regret, my dear, that you did not allow him to have his own
obstinate way; that you should have dragged your own spotless purity
in the mud to provide him with an alibi. But he had an alibi all
the time, my child; an unanswerable alibi which he preferred to
withhold. I wonder would you have been so ready to make a shield
of your honour could you have known what you were really shielding?"
"Ned!" she cried. "Why don't you speak? Is he to go on in this
fashion? Of what is he accusing you? If you were not with Samoval
that night, where were you?"
"In a lady's room, as you correctly informed the court," came O'Moy's
bitter mockery. "Your only mistake was in the identity of the lady.
You imagined that the lady was yourself. A delusion purely. But
you and I may comfort each other, for we are fellow-sufferers at
the hands of this man of honour. My wife was the lady who
entertained this gallant in her room that night."
"My God, O'Moy!" It was a strangled cry from Tremayne. At last he
saw light; he understood, and, understanding, there entered his
heart a great compassion for O'Moy, a conception that he must have
suffered all the agonies of the damned in these last few days. "My
God, you don't believe that I - "
"Do you deny it?"
"The imputation? Utterly."
"And if I tell you that myself with these eyes I saw you at the
window of her room with her; if I tell you that I saw the rope
ladder dangling from her balcony; if I tell you that crouching there
after I had killed Samoval - killed him, mark me, for saying that
you and my wife betrayed me; killed him for telling me the filthy
truth - if I tell you that I heard her attempting to restrain you
from going down to see what had happened - if I tell you all this,
will you still deny it, will you still lie?"
"I will still say that all that you imply is false as hell
and your own senseless jealousy can make it.
"All that I imply? But what I state - the facts themselves, are
they true?"
"They are true. But - "
"True!" cried Miss Armytage in horror.
"Ah, wait," O'Moy bade her with his heavy sneer. "You interrupt
him. He is about to construe those facts so that they shall wear
an innocent appearance. He is about to prove himself worthy of
the great sacrifice you made to save his life. Well?" And he
looked expectantly at Tremayne.
Miss Armytage looked at him too, with eyes from which the dread
passed almost at once. The captain was smiling, wistfully,
tolerantly, confidently, almost scornfully. Had he been guilty of
the thing imputed he could not have stood so in her presence.
"O'Moy," he said slowly, "I should tell you that you have played
the knave in this were it not clear to me that you have played the
fool." He spoke entirely without passion. He saw his way quite
clearly. Things had reached a pass in which for the sake of all
concerned, and perhaps for the sake of Miss Armytage more than any
one, the whole truth must be spoken without regard to its
consequences to Richard Butler.
"You dare to take that tone?" began O'Moy in a voice of thunder.
"Yourself shall be the first to justify it presently. I should be
angry with you, O'Moy, for what you have done. But I find my anger
vanishing in regret. I should scorn you for the lie you have acted,
for your scant regard to your oath in the court-martial, for your
attempt to combat an imagined villainy by a real villainy. But I
realise what you have suffered, and in that suffering lies the
punishment you fully deserve for not having taken the straight
course, for not having taxed me there and then with the thing that
you suspected."
"The gentleman is about to lecture me upon morals, Sylvia." But
Tremayne let pass the interruption.
"It is quite true that I was in Una's room while you were killing
Samoval. But I was not alone with her, as you have so rashly
assumed. Her brother Richard was there, and it was on his behalf
that I was present. She had been hiding him for a fortnight. She
begged me, as Dick's friend and her own, to save him; and I
undertook to do so. I climbed to her room to assist him to descend
by the rope ladder you saw, because he was wounded and could not
climb without assistance. At the gates I had the curricle waiting
in which I had driven up. In this I was to have taken him on board
a ship that was leaving that night for England, having made
arrangements with her captain. You should have seen, had you
reflected, that - as I told the court - had I been coming to a
clandestine meeting, I should hardly have driven up in so open a
fashion, and left the curricle to wait for me at the gates.
"The death of Samoval and my own arrest thwarted our plans and
prevented Dick's escape. That is the truth. Now that you have it I
hope you like it, and I hope that you thoroughly relish your own
behaviour in the matter."
There was a fluttering sigh of relief from Miss Armytage. Then
silence followed, in which O'Moy stared at Tremayne, emotion after
emotion sweeping across his mobile face.
"Dick Butler?" he said at last, and cried out: "I don't believe a
word of it! Ye're lying, Tremayne."
"You have cause enough to hope so."
The captain was faintly scornful.
"If it were true, Una would not have kept it from me. It was to
me she would have come."
"The trouble with you, O'Moy, is that jealousy seems to have robbed
you of the power of coherent thought, or else you would remember
that you were the last man to whom Una could confide Dick's presence
here. I warned her against doing so. I told her of the promise you
had been compelled to give the secretary, Forjas, and I was even at
pains to justify you to her when she was indignant with you for
that. It would perhaps be better," he concluded, "if you were to
send for Una."
"It's what I intend," said Sir Terence in a voice that made a threat
of the statement. He strode stiffly across the room and pulled open
the door. There was no need to go farther. Lady O'Moy, white and
tearful, was discovered on the threshold. Sir Terence stood aside,
holding the door for her, his face very grim.
She came in slowly, looking from one to another with her troubled
glance, and finally accepting the chair that Captain Tremayne made
haste to offer her. She had so much to say to each person present
that it was impossible to know where to begin. It remained for Sir
Terence to give her the lead she needed, and this he did so soon as
he had closed the door again. Planted before it like a sentry, he
looked at her between anger and suspicion.
"How much did you overhear?" he asked her.
"All that you said about Dick," she answered without hesitation.
"Then you stood listening?"
"Of course. I wanted to know what you were saying."
"There are other ways of ascertaining that without stooping to
keyholes," said her husband.
"I didn't stoop," she said, taking him literally. "I could hear
what was said without that - especially what you said, Terence.
You will raise your voice so on the slightest provocation."
"And the provocation in this instance was, of course, of the
slightest. Since you have heard Captain Tremayne's story of course
you'll have no difficulty in confirming it."
"If you still can doubt, O'Moy," said Tremayne, "it must be because
you wish to doubt; because you are afraid to face the truth now that
it has been placed before you. I think, Una, it will spare a deal
of trouble, and save your husband from a great many expressions
that he may afterwards regret, if you go and fetch Dick. God knows,
Terence has enough to overwhelm him already."
At the suggestion of producing Dick, O'Moy's anger, which had begun
to simmer again, was stilled. He looked at his wife almost in
alarm, and she met his look with one of utter blankness.
"I can't," she said plaintively. "Dick's gone."
"Gone?" cried Tremayne.
"Gone?" said O'Moy, and then he began to laugh. "Are you quite sure
that he was ever here?"
"But - " She was a little bewildered, and a frown puckered her
perfect brow. " Hasn't Ned told you, then?"
"Oh, Ned has told me. Ned has told!" His face was terrible.
"And don't you believe him? Don't you believe me?" She was more
plaintive than ever. It was almost as if she called heaven to
witness what manner of husband she was forced to endure. "Then you
had better call Mullins and ask him. He saw Dick leave."
"And no doubt," said Miss Armytage mercilessly, "Sir Terence will
believe his butler where he can believe neither his wife nor his
friend."
He looked at her in a sort of amazement. "Do you believe them,
Sylvia?" he cried.
"I hope I am not a fool," said she impatiently.
"Meaning - " he began, but broke off. "How long do you say it is
since Dick left the house?"
"Ten minutes at most," replied her ladyship.
He turned and pulled the door open again. "Mullins?" he called.
"Mullins!"
"What a man to live with!" sighed her ladyship, appealing to Miss
Armytage. "What a man!" And she applied a vinaigrette delicately
to her nostrils.
Tremayne smiled, and sauntered to the window. And then at last
came Mullins.
"Has any one left the house within the last ten minutes, Mullins?"
asked Sir Terence.
Mullins looked ill at ease.
"Sure, sir, you'll not be after - "
"Will you answer my question, man?" roared Sir Terence.
"Sure, then, there's nobody left the house at all but Mr. Butler,
sir."
"How long had he been here?" asked O'Moy, after a brief pause.
"'Tis what I can't tell ye, sir. I never set eyes on him until I
saw him coming downstairs from her ladyship's room as it might be."
"You can go, Mullins."
"I hope, sir - "
"You can go." And Sir Terence slammed the door upon the amazed
servant, who realised that some unhappy mystery was perturbing the
adjutant's household.
Sir Terence stood facing them again. He was a changed man. The
fire had all gone out of him. His head was bowed and his face
looked haggard and suddenly old. His lip curled into a sneer.
"Pantaloon in the comedy," he said, remembering in that moment the
bitter gibe that had cost Samoval his life.
"What did you say?" her ladyship asked him.
"I pronounced my own name," he answered lugubriously.
"It didn't sound like it, Terence."
"It's the name I ought to bear," he said. "And I killed that liar
for it - the only truth he spoke."
He came forward to the table. The full sense of his position
suddenly overwhelmed him, as Tremayne had said it would. A groan
broke from him and he collapsed into a chair, a stricken, broken
man.
CHAPTER XX
THE RESIGNATION
At once, as he sat there, his elbows on the table, his head in his
hands, he found himself surrounded by those three, against each of
whom he had sinned under the spell of the jealousy that had blinded
him and led him by the nose.
His wife put an arm about his neck in mute comfort of a grief of
which she only understood the half - for of the heavier and more
desperate part of his guilt she was still in ignorance. Sylvia
spoke to him kindly words of encouragement where no encouragement
could avail. But what moved him most was the touch of Tremayne's
hand upon his shoulder, and Tremayne's voice bidding him brace
himself to face the situation and count upon them to stand by him
to the end.
He looked up at his friend and secretary in an amazement that
overcame his shame.
"You can forgive me, Ned?"
Ned looked across at Sylvia Armytage. "You have been the means of
bringing me to such happiness as I should never have reached without
these happenings," he said. "What resentment can I bear you, O'Moy?
Besides, I understand, and who understands can never do anything but
forgive. I realise how sorely you have been tried. No evidence
more conclusive that you were being wronged could have been placed
before you."
"But the court-martial," said O'Moy in horror. He covered his
face with his hand. "Oh, my God! I am dishonoured. I - I -" He
rose, shaking off the arm of his wife and the hand of the friend he
had wronged so terribly. He broke away from them and strode to the
window, his face set and white. "I think I was mad;" he said. "I
know I was mad. But to have done what I did - " He shuddered in
very horror of himself now that he was bereft of the support of
that evil jealousy that had fortified him against conscience itself
and the very voice of honour. Lady O'Moy turned to them, pleading
for explanation.
"What does he mean? What has he done?"
Himself he answered her: "I killed Samoval. It was I who fought
that duel. And then believing what I did, I fastened the guilt
upon Ned, and went the lengths of perjury in my blind effort to
avenge myself. That is what I have done. Tell me, one of you, of
your charity, what is there left for me to do?"
"Oh!" It was an outcry of horror and indignation from Una,
instantly repressed by the tightening grip of Sylvia's hand upon
her arm. Miss Armytage saw and understood, and sorrowed for Sir
Terence. She must restrain his wife from adding to his present
anguish. Yet, "How could you, Terence! Oh, how could you!" cried
her ladyship, and so gave way to tears, easier than words to
express such natures.
"Because I loved you, I suppose," he answered on a note of bitter
self-mockery. "That was the justification I should have given
had I been asked; that was the justification I accounted
sufficient."
"But then," she cried, a new horror breaking on her mind - "if
this is discovered - Terence, what will become of you?"
He turned and came slowly back until he stood beside her. Facing
now the inevitable, he recovered some of his calm.
"It must be discovered," he said quietly. "For the sake of
everybody concerned it must - "
"Oh, no, no!" She sprang up and clutched his arm in terror.
"They may fail to discover the truth,"
"They must not, my dear," he answered her; stroking the fair head
that lay against his breast. "They must not fail. I must see to
that."
"You? You?" Her eyes dilated as she looked at him. She caught
her breath on a gasping sob. "Ah no, Terence," she cried
wildly. "You must not; you must not. You must say nothing -
for my sake, Terence, if you love me, oh, for my sake, Terence!"
"For honour's sake, I must," he answered her. "And for the sake
of Sylvia and of Tremayne, whom I have wronged, and - "
"Not for my sake, Terence," Sylvia interrupted him.
He looked at her, and then at Tremayne.
"And you, Ned - what do you say?" he asked.
"Ned could not wish - " began her ladyship.
"Please let him speak for himself, my dear," her husband
interrupted her.
"What can I say?" cried Tremayne, with a gesture that was almost
of anger. "How can I advise? I scarcely know. You realise
what you must face if you confess?"
"Fully, and the only part of it I shrink from is the shame and
scorn I have deserved. Yet it is inevitable. You agree, Ned?"
"I am not sure. None who understands as I understand can feel
anything but regret. Oh, I don't know. The evidence of what you
suspected was overwhelming, and it betrayed you into this mistake.
The punishment you would have to face is surely too heavy, and you
have suffered far more already than you can ever be called upon to
suffer again, no matter what is done to you. Oh, I don't know!
The problem is too deep for me. There is Una to be considered,
too. You owe a duty to her, and if you keep silent it may be
best for all. You can depend upon us to stand by you in this."
"Indeed, indeed," said Sylvia.
He looked at them and smiled very tenderly.
"Never was a man blessed with nobler friends who deserved so
little of them," he said slowly. "You heap coals of fire upon
my head. You shame me through and through. But have you
considered, Ned, that all may not depend upon my silence? What
if the provost-marshal, investigating now, were to come upon the
real facts?"
"It is impossible that sufficient should be discovered to convict
you."
"How can you be sure of that? And if it were possible, if it
came to pass, what then would be my position? You see, Ned! I
must accept the punishment I have incurred lest a worse overtake
me - to put it at its lowest. I must voluntarily go forward and
denounce myself before another denounces me. It is the only way
to save some rag of honour."
There was a tap at the door, and Mullins came to announce that
Lord Wellington was asking to see Sir Terence.
"He is waiting in the study, Sir Terence."
"Tell his lordship I will be with him at once."
Mullins departed, and Sir Terence prepared to follow. Gently he
disengaged himself from the arms her ladyship now flung about
him.
"Courage, my dear," he said. "Wellington may show me more mercy
than I deserve."
"You are going to tell him?" she questioned brokenly.
"Of course, sweetheart. What else can I do? And since you and
Tremayne find it in your hearts to forgive me, nothing else matters
very much." He kissed her tenderly and put her from him. He looked
at Sylvia standing beside her and at Tremayne beyond the table.
"Comfort her," he implored them, and, turning, went out quickly.
Awaiting him in the study he found not only Lord Wellington, but
Colonel Grant, and by the cold gravity of both their faces he had
an inspiration that in some mysterious way the whole hideous truth
was already known to them.
The slight figure of his lordship in its grey frock was stiff and
erect, his booted leg firmly planted, his hands behind him clutching
his riding-crop and cocked hat. His face was set and his voice as he
greeted O'Moy sharp and staccato.
"Ah, O'Moy, there are one or two matters to be discussed before I
leave Lisbon."
"I had written to you, sir," replied O'Moy. "Perhaps you will
first read my letter." And he went to fetch it from the
writing-table, where he had left it when completed an hour earlier.
His lordship took the letter in silence, and after one piercing
glance at O'Moy broke the seal. In the background, near the window,
the tall figure of Colquhoun Grant stood stiffly erect, his hawk
face inscrutable.
"Ah! Your resignation, O'Moy. But you give no reasons." Again his
keen glance stabbed into the adjutant's face. "Why this?" he
asked sharply.
"Because," said Sir Terence, "I prefer to tender it before it is
asked of me." He was very white, yet by an effort those deep
blue eyes of his met the terrible gaze of his chief without
flinching.
"Perhaps you'll explain," said his lordship coldly.
"In the first place," said O'Moy, "it was myself killed Samoval,
and since your lordship was a witness of what followed, you will
realise that that was the least part of my offence."
The great soldier jerked his head sharply backward, tilting forward
his chin. "So!" he said. "Ha! I beg your pardon, Grant, for
having disbelieved you." Then, turning to O'Moy again: "Well," he
demanded, his voice hard, "have you nothing to add?"
"Nothing that can matter," said O'Moy, with a shrug, and they
stood facing each other in silence for a long moment.
At last when Wellington spoke his voice had assumed a gentler
note.
"O'Moy," he said, "I have known you these fifteen years, and we
have been friends. Once you carried your friendship, appreciation,
and understanding of me so far as nearly to ruin yourself on my
behalf. You'll not have forgotten the affair of Sir Harry Burrard.
In all these years I have known you for a man of shining honour,
an honest, upright gentleman, whom I would have trusted when I
should have distrusted every other living man. Yet you stand there
and confess to me the basest, the most dishonest villainy that I
have ever known a British officer to commit, and you tell me that
you have no explanation to offer for your conduct. Either I have
never known you, O'Moy, or I do not know you now. Which is it?"
O'Moy raised his arms, only to let them fall heavily to his sides
again.
"What explanation can there be?" he asked. "How can a man who has
been - as I hope I have - a man of honour in the past explain such
an act of madness? It arose out of your order against duelling,"
he went on. "Samoval offended me mortally. He said such things to
me of my wife's honour that no man could suffer, and I least of any
man. My temper betrayed me. I consented to a clandestine meeting
without seconds. It took place here, and I killed him. And then
I had, as I imagined - quite wrongly, as I know now - overwhelming
evidence that what he had told me was true, and I went mad."
Briefly he told the story of Tremayne's descent from Lady O'Moy's
balcony and the rest.
"I scarcely know," he resumed, "what it was I hoped to accomplish
in the end. I do not know - for I never stopped to consider
- whether I should have allowed Captain Tremayne to have been shot
if it had come to that. All that I was concerned to do was to
submit him to the ordeal which I conceived he must undergo when he
saw himself confronted with the choice of keeping silence and
submitting to his fate, or saving himself by an avowal that could
scarcely be less bitter than death itself."
"You fool, O'Moy-you damned, infernal fool!" his lordship swore at
him. "Grant overheard more than you imagined that night outside
the gates. His conclusions ran the truth very close indeed. But
I could not believe him, could not believe this of you."'
"Of course not," said O'Moy gloomily. "I can't believe it of
myself."
"When Miss Armytage intervened to afford Tremayne an alibi, I
believed her, in view of what Grant had told me; I concluded that
hers was the window from which Tremayne had climbed down. Because
of what I knew I was there to see that the case did not go to
extremes against Tremayne. If necessary Grant must have given full
evidence of all he knew, and there and then left you to your fate.
Miss Armytage saved us from that, and left me convinced, but still
not understanding your own attitude. And now comes Richard Butler
to surrender to me and cast himself upon my mercy with another tale
which completely gives the lie to Miss Armytage's, but confirms
your own."
"Richard Butler!" cried O'Moy. "He has surrendered to you?"
"Half-an-hour ago."
Sir Terence turned aside with a weary shrug. A little laugh that
was more a sob broke from him. "Poor Una!" he muttered.
"The tangle is a shocking one - lies, lies everywhere, and in the
places where they were least to be expected." Wellington's anger
flashed out. "Do you realise what awaits you as a result of all
this damned insanity?"
"I do, sir. That is why I place my resignation in your hands.
The disregard of a general order punishable in any officer is
beyond pardon in your adjutant-general."
"But that is the least of it, you fool."
"Sure, don't I know? I assure you that I realise it all."
"And you are prepared to face it?" Wellington was almost savage
in an anger proceeding from the conflict that went on within him.
There was his duty as commander-in-chief, and there was his
friendship for O'Moy and his memory of the past in which O'Moy's
loyalty had almost been the ruin of him.
"What choice have I?"
His lordship turned away, and strode the length of the room,
his head bent, his lips twitching. Suddenly he stopped and
faced the silent intelligence officer.
"What is to be done, Grant?"
"That is a matter for your lordship. But if I might venture - "
"Venture and be damned," snapped Wellington.
"The signal service rendered the cause of the allies by the
death of Samoval might perhaps be permitted to weigh against
the offence committed by O'Moy."
"How could it?" snapped his lordship. "You don't know, O'Moy,
that upon Samoval's body were found certain documents intended for
Massena. Had they reached him, or had Samoval carried out the
full intentions that dictated his quarrel with you, and no doubt
sent him here depending upon his swordsmanship to kill you, all
my plans for the undoing of the French would have been ruined.
Ay, you may stare. That is another matter in which you have
lacked discretion. You may be a fine engineer, O'Moy, but I
don't think I could have found a less judicious adjutant-general
if I had raked the ranks of the army on purpose to find an idiot.
Samoval was a spy - the cleverest spy that we have ever had to
deal with. Only his death revealed how dangerous he was. For
killing him when you did you deserve the thanks of his Majesty's
Government, as Grant suggests. But before you can receive those
you will have to stand a court-martial for the manner in which
you killed him, and you will probably be shot. I can't help
you. I hope you don't expect it of me."
"The thought had not so much as occurred to me. Yet what you
tell me, sir, lifts something of the load from my mind."
"Does it? Well, it lifts no load from mine," was the angry
retort. He stood considering. Then with an impatient gesture he
seemed to dismiss his thoughts. "I can do nothing," he said,
"nothing without being false to my duty and becoming as bad as
you have been, O'Moy, and without any of the sentimental
justification that existed in your case. I can't allow the
matter to be dropped, stifled. I have never been guilty of such
a thing, and I refuse to become guilty of it now. I refuse - do
you understand? O'Moy, you have acted; and you must take the
consequences, and be damned to you."
"Faith, I've never asked you to help me, sir," Sir Terence protested.
"And you don't intend to, I suppose?"
"I do not."
"I am glad of that." He was in one of those rages which were as
terrible as they were rare with him. "I wouldn't have you suppose
that I make laws for the sake of rescuing people from the
consequences of disobeying them. Here is this brother-in-law of
yours, this fellow Butler, who has made enough mischief in the
country to imperil our relations with our allies. And I am half
pledged to condone his adventure at Tavora. There's nothing for
it, O'Moy. As your friend, I am infernally angry with you for
placing yourself in this position; as your commanding officer I
can only order you under arrest and convene a court-martial to
deal with you."
Sir Terence bowed his head. He was a little surprised by all
this heat. "I never expected anything else," he said. "And it's
altogether at a loss I am to understand why your lordship should
be vexing yourself in this manner."
"Because I've a friendship for you, O'Moy. Because I remember
that you've been a loyal friend to me. And because I must forget
all this and remember only that my duty is absolutely rigid and
inflexible. If I condoned your offence, if I suppressed inquiry,
I should be in duty and honour bound to offer my own resignation
to his Majesty's Government. And I have to think of other things
besides my personal feelings, when at any moment now the French
may be over the Agueda and into Portugal."
Sir Terence's face flushed, and his glance brightened.
"From my heart I thank you that you can even think of such things
at such a time and after what I have done."
"Oh, as to what you have done - I understand that you are a
fool, O'Moy. There's no more to be said. You are to consider
yourself under arrest. I must do it if you were my own brother,
which, thank God, you're not. Come, Grant. Good-bye, O'Moy."
And he held out his hand to him.
Sir Terence hesitated, staring.
"It's the hand of your friend, Arthur Wellesley, I'm offering
you, not the hand of your commanding officer," said his lordship
savagely.
Sir Terence took it, and wrung it in silence, perhaps more deeply
moved than he had yet been by anything that had happened to him
that morning.
There was a knock at the door, and Mullins opened it to admit
the adjutant's orderly, who came stiffly to attention.
"Major Carruthers's compliments, sir," he said to O'Moy, "and his
Excellency the Secretary of the Council of Regency wishes to see
you very urgently."
There was a pause. O'Moy shrugged and spread his hands. This
message was for the adjutant-general and he no longer filled the
office.
"Pray tell Major Carruthers that I - " he was beginning, when Lord
Wellington intervened.
"Desire his Excellency to step across here. I will see him myself."
CHAPTER XXI
SANCTUARY
"I will withdraw, sir," said Terence.
But Wellington detained him. "Since Dom Miguel asked for you, you
had better remain, perhaps."
"It is the adjutant-general Dom Miguel desires to see, and I am
adjutant-general no longer."
"Still, the matter may concern you. I have a notion that it may
be concerned with the death of Count Samoval, since I have
acquainted the Council of Regency with the treason practised by
the Count. You had better remain."
Gloomy and downcast, Sir Terence remained as he was bidden.
The sleek and supple Secretary of State was ushered in. He came
forward quickly, clicked his heels together and bowed to the three
men present.
"Sirs, your obedient servant," he announced himself, with a
courtliness almost out of fashion, speaking in his extraordinarily
fluent English. His sallow countenance was extremely grave. He
seemed even a little ill at ease.
"I am fortunate to find you here, my lord. The matter upon which
I seek your adjutant-general is of considerable gravity - so much
that of himself he might be unable to resolve it. I feared you
might already have departed for the north."
"Since you suggest that my presence may be of service to you, I
am happy that circumstances should have delayed my departure,"
was his lordship's courteous answer. "A chair, Dom Miguel."
Dom Miguel Forjas accepted the proffered chair, whilst Wellington
seated himself at Sir Terence's desk. Sir Terence himself remained
standing with his shoulders to the overmantel, whence he faced
them both as well as Grant, who, according to his self-effacing
habit, remained in the background by the window.
"I have sought you," began Dom Miguel, stroking his square chin,
"on a matter concerned with the late Count Samoval, immediately
upon hearing that the court-martial pronounced the acquittal of
Captain Tremayne."
His lordship frowned, and his eagle glance fastened upon the
Secretary's face.
"I trust, sir, you have not come to question the finding of the
court-martial."
"Oh, on the contrary - on the contrary!" Dom Miguel was emphatic.
"I represent not only the Council, but the Samoval family as well.
Both realise that it is perhaps fortunate for all concerned that
in arresting Captain Tremayne the military authorities arrested
the wrong man, and both have reason to dread the arrest of the
right one."
He paused, and the frown deepened between Wellington's brows.
"I am afraid," he said slowly, "that I do not quite perceive their
concern in this matter."
"But is it not clear?" cried Dom Miguel.
"If it were I should perceive it," said his lordship dryly.
"Ah, but let me explain, then. A further investigation of the
manner in which Count Samoval met his death can hardly fail to
bring to light the deplorable practices in which he was engaged;
for no doubt Colonel Grant, here, would consider it his duty in
the interests of justice to place before the court the documents
found upon the Count's dead body. If I may permit myself an
observation," he continued, looking round at Colonel Grant, "it
is that I do not quite understand how this has not already
happened."
There was a pause in which Grant looked at Wellington as if for
direction. But his lordship himself assumed the burden of the
answer.
"It was not considered expedient in the public interest to do so
at present," he said. "And the circumstances did not place us
under the necessity of divulging the matter."
"There, my lord, if you will allow me to say so, you acted with
a delicacy and wisdom which the circumstances may not again permit.
Indeed any further investigation must almost inevitably bring these
matters to light, and the effect of such revelation would be
deplorable."
"Deplorable to whom?" asked his lordship.
"To the Count's family and to the Council of Regency."
"I can sympathise with the Count's family, but not with the
Council."
"Surely, my lord, the Council as a body deserves your sympathy in
that it is in danger of being utterly discredited by the treason
of one or two of its members."
Wellington manifested impatience. "The Council has been warned
time and again. I am weary of warning, and even of threatening,
the Council with the consequences of resisting my policy. I think
that exposure is not only what it deserves, but the surest means
of providing a healthier government in the future. I am weary of
picking my way through the web of intrigue with which the Council
entangles my movements and my dispositions. Public sympathy has
enabled it to hamper me in this fashion. That sympathy will be
lost to it by the disclosures which you fear."
"My lord, I must confess that there is much reason in what you say."
He was smoothly conciliatory. "I understand your exasperation.
But may I be permitted to assure you that it is not the Council as
a body that has withstood you, but certain self-seeking members,
one or two friends of Principal Souza, in whose interests the
unfortunate and misguided Count Samoval was acting. Your lordship
will perceive that the moment is not one in which to stir up public
indignation against the Portuguese Government. Once the passions
of the mob are inflamed, who can say to what lengths they may not
go, who can say what disastrous consequences may not follow? It
is desirable to apply the cautery, but not to burn up the whole
body."
Lord Wellington considered a moment, fingering an ivory paper-knife.
He was partly convinced.
"When I last suggested the cautery, to use your own very apt figure,
the Council did not keep faith with me."
"My lord!"
"It did not, sir. It removed Antonio de Souza, but it did not take
the trouble to go further and remove his friends at the same time.
They remained to carry on his subversive treacherous intrigues.
What guarantees have I that the Council will behave better on this
occasion?"
"You have our solemn assurances, my lord, that all those members
suspected of complicity in this business or of attachment to the
Souza faction, shall be compelled to resign, and you may depend
upon the reconstituted Council loyally to support your measures."
"You give me assurances, sir, and I ask for guarantees."
"Your lordship is in possession of the documents found upon Count
Samoval. The Council knows this, and this knowledge will compel
it to guard against further intrigues on the part of any of its
members which might naturally exasperate you into publishing those
documents. Is not that some guarantee?"
His lordship considered, and nodded slowly. "I admit that it is.
Yet I do not see how this publicity is to be avoided in the course
of the further investigations into the manner in which Count
Samoval came by his death."
"My lord, that is the pivot of the whole matter. All further
investigation must be suspended."
Sir Terence trembled, and his eyes turned in eager anxiety upon
the inscrutable, stern face of Lord Wellington.
"Must!" cried his lordship sharply.
"What else, my lord, in all our interests?" exclaimed the Secretary,
and he rose in his agitation.
"And what of British justice, sir?" demanded his lordship in a
forbidding tone.
"British justice has reason to consider itself satisfied. British
justice may assume that Count Samoval met his death in the pursuit
of his treachery. He was a spy caught in the act, and there and
then destroyed - a very proper fate. Had he been taken, British
justice would have demanded no less. It has been anticipated.
Cannot British justice, for the sake of British interests as well
as Portuguese interests, be content to leave the matter there?"
"An argument of expediency, eh?" said Wellington. "Why not, my
lord! Does not expediency govern politicians?"
"I am not a politician."
"But a wise soldier, my lord, does not lose sight of the political
consequences of his acts." And he sat down again.
"Your Excellency may be right," said his lordship. "Let us be
quite clear, then. You suggest, speaking in the name of the Council
of Regency, that I should suppress all further investigations into
the manner in which Count Samoval met his death, so as to save his
family the shame and the Council of Regency the discredit which must
overtake one and the other if the facts are disclosed - as disclosed
they would be that Samoval was a traitor and a spy in the pay of the
French. That is what you ask me to do. In return your Council
undertakes that there shall be no further opposition to my plans for
the military defence of Portugal, and that all my measures however
harsh and however heavily they may weigh upon the landowners, shall
be punctually and faithfully carried out. That is your Excellency's
proposal, is it not?"
"Not so much my proposal, my lord, as my most earnest intercession.
We desire to spare the innocent the consequences of the sins of a
man who is dead, and well dead." He turned to O'Moy, standing there
tense and anxious. It was not for Dom Miguel to know that it was
the adjutant's fate that was being decided. "Sir Terence," he cried,
"you have been here for a year, and all matters connected with the
Council have been treated through you. You cannot fail to see the
wisdom of my recommendation."
His lordship's eyes flashed round upon O'Moy. "Ah yes!" he said.
"What is your feeling in this matter, 'O'Moy?" he inquired, his
tone and manner void of all expression.
Sir Terence faltered; then stiffened. "I - The matter is one that
only your lordship can decide. I have no wish to influence your
decision."
"I see. Ha! And you, Grant? No doubt you agree with Dom Miguel?"
"Most emphatically - upon every count, sir," replied the intelligence
officer without hesitation. "I think Dom Miguel offers an excellent
bargain. And, as he says, we hold a guarantee of its fulfilment."
"The bargain might be improved," said Wellington slowly.
"If your lordship will tell me how, the Council, I am sure, will
be ready to do all that lies in its power to satisfy you."
Wellington shifted his chair round a little, and crossed his legs.
He brought his finger-tips together, and over the top of them his
eyes considered the Secretary of State.
"Your Excellency has spoken of expediency - political expediency.
Sometimes political expediency can overreach itself and perpetrate
the most grave injustices. Individuals at times are unnecessarily
called upon to suffer in the interests of a cause. Your Excellency
will remember a certain affair at Tavora some two months ago - the
invasion of a convent by a British officer with rather disastrous
consequences and the loss of some lives."
"I remember it perfectly, my lord. I had the honour of entertaining
Sir Terence upon that subject on the occasion of my last visit here."
"Quite so," said his lordship. "And on the grounds of political
expediency you made a bargain then with Sir Terence, I understand,
a bargain which entailed the perpetration of an injustice."
"I am not aware of it, my lord."
"Then let me refresh your Excellency's memory upon the facts. To
appease the Council of Regency, or rather to enable me to have my
way with the Council and remove the Principal Souza, you stipulated
for the assurance - so that you might lay it before your Council
- that the offending officer should be shot when taken."
"I could not help myself in the matter, and - "
"A moment, sir. That is not the way of British justice, and Sir
Terence was wrong to have permitted himself to consent; though I
profoundly appreciate the loyalty to me, the earnest desire to
assist me, which led him into an act the cost of which to himself
your Excellency can hardly appreciate. But the wrong lay in that
by virtue of this bargain a British officer was prejudged. He
was to be made a scapegoat. He was to be sent to his death when
taken, as a peace-offering to the people, demanded by the Council
of Regency.
"Since all this happened I have had the facts of the case placed
before me. I will go so far as to tell you, sir, that the officer
in question has been in my hands for the past hour, that I have
closely questioned him, and that I am satisfied that whilst he has
been guilty of conduct which might compel me to deprive him of his
Majesty's commission and dismiss him from the army, yet that conduct
is not such as to merit death. He has chiefly sinned in folly and
want of judgment. I reprove it in the sternest terms, and I
deplore the consequences it had. But for those consequences the
nuns of Tavora are almost as much to blame as he is himself. His
invasion of their convent was. a pure error, committed in the belief
that it was a monastery and as a result of the, porter's foolish
conduct.
"Now, Sir Terence's word, given in response to your absolute
demands, has committed us to an unjust course, which I have no
intention of following. I will stipulate, sir, that your Council,
in addition to the matters undertaken, shall relieve us of all
obligation in this matter, leaving it to our discretion to punish
Mr. Butler in such manner as we may consider condign. In return,
your Excellency, I will undertake that there shall be no further
investigation into the manner in which Count Samoval came by his
death, and consequently, no disclosures of the shameful trade in
which he was engaged. If your Excellency will give yourself the
trouble of taking the sense of your Council upon this, we may then
reach a settlement."
The grave anxiety of Dom Miguel's countenance was instantly
dispelled. In his relief he permitted himself a smile.
"My lord, there is not the need to take the sense of the Council.
The Council has given me carte blanche to obtain your consent to a
suppression of the Samoval affair. And without hesitation I accept
the further condition that you make. Sir Terence may consider
himself relieved of his parole in the matter of Lieutenant Butler."
"Then we may look upon the matter as concluded."
"As happily concluded, my lord." Dom Miguel rose to make his
valedictory oration. "It remains for me only to thank your lordship
in the name of the Council for the courtesy and consideration with
which you have received my proposal and granted our petition.
Acquainted as I am with the crystalline course of British justice,
knowing as I do how it seeks ever to act in the full light of day,
I am profoundly sensible of the cost to your lordship of the
concession you make to the feelings of the Samoval family and the
Portuguese Government, and I can assure you that they will be
accordingly grateful."
"That is very gracefully said, Dom Miguel," replied his lordship,
rising also.
The Secretary placed a hand upon his heart, bowing. "It is but
the poor expression of what I think and feel." And so he took his
leave of them, escorted by Colonel Grant, who discreetly
volunteered for the office.
Left alone with Wellington, Sir Terence heaved a great sigh of
supreme relief.
"In my wife's name, sir, I should like to thank you. But she
shall thank you herself for what you have done for me."
"What I have done for you, O'Moy?" Wellington's slight figure
stiffened perceptibly, his face and glance were cold and haughty.
"You mistake, I think, or else you did not hear. What I have done,
I have done solely upon grounds of political expediency. I had
no choice in the matter, and it was not to favour you, or out of
disregard for my duty, as you seem to imagine, that I acted as
I did."
O'Moy bowed his head, crushed under that rebuff. He clasped
and unclasped his hands a moment in his desperate anguish.
"I understand," he muttered in a broken voice, "I - I beg your
pardon, sir."
And then Wellington's slender, firm fingers took him by the arm.
"But I am glad, O'Moy, that I had no choice," he added more gently.
"As a man, I suppose I may be glad that my duty as
Commander-in-Chief placed me under the necessity of acting as I
have done."
Sir Terence clutched the hand in both his own and wrung it
fiercely, obeying an overmastering impulse.
"Thank you," he cried. "Thank you for that!"
"Tush!" said Wellington, and then abruptly: "What are you going
to do, O'Moy?" he asked.
"Do?" said O'Moy, and his blue eyes looked pleadingly down into
the sternly handsome face of his chief, "I am in your hands, sir."
"Your resignation is, and there it must remain, O'Moy. You
understand?"
"Of course, sir. Naturally you could not after this - " He
shrugged and broke off. "But must I go home?" he pleaded.
"What else? And, by God, sir, you should be thankful, I think."
"Very well," was the dull answer, and then he flared out. "Faith,
it's your own fault for giving me a job of this kind. You knew
me. You know that I am just a blunt, simple soldier - that my
place is at the head of a regiment, not at the head of an
administration. You should have known that by putting me out of
my proper element I was bound to get into trouble sooner or later."
"Perhaps I do," said Wellington. "But what am I to do with you
now?" He shrugged, and strode towards the window. "You had better
go home, O'Moy. Your health has suffered out here, and you are not
equal to the heat of summer that is now increasing. That is the
reason of this resignation. You understand?"
"I shall be shamed for ever," said O'Moy. "To go home when the
army is about to take the field!"
But Wellington did not hear him, or did not seem to hear him.
He had reached the window and his eye was caught by something that
he saw in the courtyard.
"What the devil's this now?" he rapped out. "That is one of Sir
Robert Craufurd's aides."
He turned and went quickly to the door. He opened it as rapid
steps approached along the passage, accompanied by the jingle of
spurs and the clatter of sabretache and trailing sabre. Colonel
Grant appeared, followed by a young officer of Light Dragoons who
was powdered from head to foot with dust. The youth - he was
little more - lurched forward wearily, yet at sight of Wellington
he braced himself to attention and saluted.
"You appear to have ridden hard, sir," the Commander greeted him.
"From Almeida in forty-seven hours, my lord," was the answer.
"With these from Sir Robert." And he proffered a sealed letter.
"What is your name?" Wellington inquired, as he took the package.
"Hamilton, my lord," was the answer; "Hamilton of the Sixteenth,
aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Craufurd."
Wellington nodded. "That was great horsemanship, Mr. Hamilton,"
he commended him; and a faint tinge in the lad's haggard cheeks
responded to that rare praise.
"The urgency was great, my lord," replied Mr. Hamilton.
"The French columns are in movement. Ney and Junot advanced to
the investment of Ciudad Rodrigo on the first of the month."
"Already!" exclaimed Wellington, and his countenance set.
"The commander, General Herrasti, has sent an urgent appeal to Sir
Robert for assistance."
"And Sir Robert?" The question came on a sharp note of apprehension,
for his lordship was fully aware that valour was the better part
of Sir Robert Craufurd's discretion.
"Sir Robert asks for orders in this dispatch, and refuses to stir
from Almeida without instructions from your lordship."
"Ah!!" It was a sigh of relief. He broke the seal and spread the
dispatch. He read swiftly. "Very well," was all he said, when he
had reached the end of Sir Robert's letter. " I shall reply to
this in person and at, once. You will be in need of rest, Mr.
Hamilton. You had best take a day to recuperate, then follow me
to Almeida. Sir Terence no doubt will see to your immediate needs."
"With pleasure, Mr. Hamilton," replied Sir Terence mechanically -
for his own concerns weighed upon him at this moment more heavily
than the French advance. He pulled the bell-rope, and into the
fatherly hands of Mullins, who came in response to the summons,
the young officer was delivered.
Lord Wellington took up his hat and riding-crop from Sir Terence's
desk. "I shall leave for the frontier at once," he announced.
"Sir Robert will need the encouragement of my presence to keep him
within the prudent bounds I have imposed. And I do not know how
long Ciudad Rodrigo may be able to hold out. At any moment we may
have the French upon the Agueda, and the invasion may begin. As
for you, O'Moy, this has changed everything. The French and the
needs of the case have decided. For the present no change is
possible in the administration here in Lisbon. You hold the
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