CHAPTER V.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9300, 28 December 1895, Page 2

CHAPTER V.

"These ruffians have seized her. They g will kill her," I cried. Duroc sprang down with the inarticulate c shouts of one whose reason had left him. c He struck the door so frantically with his , naked hand that he left a blotch of blood B with every blow. " Here is the key," I shouted, picking one j from the floor. "She must have thrown it in at the instant that she was seized." c My companion snatched it f r§m mc with a t shriek of joy. A moment later he clashed it down on the boards. It was so small that it " was lost in the enormous lock. Duroc sank upon one of the boxes with his head between s his hands. He sobbed in his despair. I could have sobbed too when I thought of the r woman and how helpless we were to save a her. c But I am not so easily baffled. After all this key must have been sent to us for a purpose. The lady could not bring us that of the c door because this murderous stepfather of hers j would most certainly have it in his pocket. Yet this other key must have a meaning, or why should she risk her life to place it in our hands. It would say little for our wits 1 if we could not find out what the meaning f might be. fc I set to work moving all the cases out B from the wall, and Duroc, gaining new hope 1 from my energy, helped mc with all his t strength. It was no light task, for many s of them were large and heavy. On we went, b working like maniacs, slinging barrels and g cheeses and boxes pell mell into the middle of the room. At last there only remained j one huge barrel of vodki, which stood in 3 the corner. With our united strength we rolled it out, and there was a little low 1 wooden door in the wainscot behind it. The j key fitted, and with a cry of delight we saw £ it swing open before us. With the lamp in s my hand I squeezed my way in, followed by r my companion. 3 We were in the powder magazine of the 0 castle—a rough walled cellar with barrels a all round it, and one with the top staved in k in the centre. The powder from it lay in a black heap on the floor. Beyond there was 3 another door, but it was locked. B " We are no better off than before," cried Duroc. " We have no key." 0 " We have a dozen," I cried, j "Where?" k I pointed to the line of powder barrels, j " You would blow this door open ?" " Precisely." " But you would explode the magazine." It was true, but I was not at the end of t my resources. "We shall blow open the store room door," I cried. f I ran back and seized a tin box which had , t been filled with candles. It was about the [. size of my busby—large enough to hold 1 several pounds of powder. Duroc filled it c while I cut off the end of a candle. When we had finished it would have puzzled a colonel of engineers to make a better petard. y I put three cheeses on top of each other and i. placed it above them so as to lean against ,f the back. Then we lit our candle end and ran for shelter, shutting the door of the r magazine behind us. a It was no joke, my friends, to lie among il all these tons of powder with the knowledge i that if the flame of the explosion should t penetrate through one thin door our I blackened limbs would be shot higher than s the castle keep. Who could have believed c that a half-inch of candle would take so c long to burn ? My ears were straining all c the time for the thudding of the hoofs of the ,t Cossacks who were coming to destroy us. I s had almost made up my mind that the >f candle must have gone out, when there was n a smack like a bursting boom. Our door I flew to bits, and pieces of cheese, with a I. shower of turnips, apples, and splinters of ,t cases, were shot in among us. As we ,f rushed out we had to stagger through an " impenetrable smoke, with all sorts of debris il beneath our feet; but there was a glimmering square where the dark door had o been. The petard had done its work, g In fact it had done more for us than we g had ventured to hope. It had shattered 0 gaolers as well as gaols. The first thing d that I saw as I came out was a man with a 1 butcher's axe in his hand lying flat upon his t back with a gaping wound across his force head. The second was a huge dog with d two of its legs broken, twisting in agony t upon the floor. As it reared itself I saw a the broken ends flapping like flails. At I the same instant I heard a cry, and there c was Duroc thrown against the wall, with li the other other hound's teeth in his throat, r He pushed it off with his left hand, while ; again and again he passed his sabre through r its body ; but it was not until I blew out its n brains with my pistol that the iron jaws I relaxed, and the fierce bloodshot eyee were t glazed in death. a There was no time for us to pause. A 5 woman's scream from in front—a scream of mortal terror, that told even now we might I be too late. There were two other men in a the hall, but they cowered away from our t drawn swords and furious faces. The blood a . was streaming from Duroc's neck and dyeing the grey fur of his pelisse. Such was the ' lad's fire, however, that he shot in front of mc, and it was only over his shoulder that 1 caught a glimpse of the scene as we rushed 0 into the chamber in which we had first seen the master of the Castle of Gloom. The baron was standing in the middle of the room with his tangled mane bristling B like an angry lion, He was, as I have said, • a huge man, ■with enormous shoulders, and as he stood there with his face flushed with 1 rage and his sword advanced I could not but i think that in spite of all his villainies he had - a proper figure for a grenadier. The lady i ° lay cowering ia a chair behind him. A weal 3 across one of her white arms, and a dog whip ; ■ upon the floor were enough to show that our ' 5 escape had hardly been ia time to save her : from his brutality. He gave a howl like a wolf as we broke in, and was upon us in an 5 instant, hacking and driving with a curse at r every blow, i I have already said that the room gave no >

space for a\vorcisraan3hip. My young com. panion was in front of mc in the narrow passage between ths table and the wall, so that I could only look on without being able to aid him. The lad knew something of his weapon, and \~as as fierce and active as a wild cat, l»ut in so narrow sikivio the weight and strength of the giant gave him the advantage. Uesides hs was an admirable swordsman. His parade and riposte were as quick as lightning. Twice he touched Duroc upou the shoulder, and then us the lad slipped o;> a lunge he whirled up his sword to finish aim before he could recover his feet. I wa3 quicker than he, however, cud took the cut upon tae pommel of my sabre. " tixcusc mo," said I, "but yon have still to deal with Etienne Gerard." He drew back and leaned against the tapestry covered wall breathing in little hoarse gasps, for his foul living was against him. "Take your breath," said I. "I Mill await your convenience." "You have no cause of quarrel against mc," he panted. I " I owe you some little attention," said I, "for having shut mc up in your store room. Besides, if all other were wanting, I see cause enough upon this lady's arm." " Have your way then," he snarled and leaped at mc like a madman. For a minute I saw only the blazing blue eyes, and the red glazed point which stabbed and stabbed, rasping off to right or to left, and yet ever back at my throat and my breast. I liad never known that such good sword play was to be found at Paris in the days of the revolution. Ido not suppose that in all my little affairs I have met six men who had a better knowledge of their weapon. But he knew that I was his master. He read death in my eyes, and I could read that he read it. The flush died from his face. His breath came in shorter and in thicker gasps. Yet he fought on even after the final thrust had come, and died still hacking and cursing, with foul cries upon his lips and his blood clotting upon his orange beard. I who speak to you have seen so many battles that my old memory can scarce contain their names, and yet of all the terrible sights which these eyes have rested upon there is none I care less to think of than that strange beard with the crimson stain in the centre, from which I had drawn my sword point. It was only afterwards that I had time to think of all this. His monstrous body had hardly crushed down upon the floor before the woman in the corner sprang to her feet, clapping her hands together and screaming out in her delight. For my part I was disgusted to see a woman take delight in such a deed of blood, and I gave no thought of the terrible wrongs which must have bsfallen her before she could so far forget the gentleness of her sex. It was on my tongue to tell her sharply to be silent when a strange choking smell took the breath from my nostrils, and a sudden yellow glar brought out the.figures of the faded hangings. "Duroc, Duroc," I shouted, tugging at his shoulder. '' The castle is on fire." But the boy lay senseless upon the ground exhausted by his wounds. I rushed out into the hall to see whence the danger came. It was our explosion which had set a light to the dry frame work of the door. Inside the store room some of the boxes were already blazing. I glanced in, and as I did so mj , blood was turned to water by the sight of the powder barrels beyond, and of the loose heap on the floor. It might be seconds, it could not be more than minutes, before the flames would be at the edge of it. These eyes will be closed in death, my friends, before they cease to see those crawling lines of fire and the ,^lftck : heap beyond. How little I can remember of what followed. Vaguely I can recall how I rushed into the chamber of death, how I seized Duroc by one limp hand and dragged him down the hall, the woman keeping pace with mc and pulling at the other arm. Out of the gateway we rushed, and on down the snow covered p:ith until we were on the fringe of the fir forest. It wa3 at that moment that I heard a crash behind mc, and glancing around, saw a great spout of fire shoot up into the wintry sky. An instant I later there seemed to be a second crash, far louder than the first, an&'l saw the fir trees and the stare whirling round mc, and I fell unconscious across the body of my comrade. It was some weeks before I came to myself in the poathouse of Arendorf, and longer still before I could be told ali that had befallen mc. It was Duroc, already able to go soldiering, who came to my bedside, and gave mc an account of it. He it was who told mc how a piece of timber had struck mc on the head and had laid mc almost deaxl upon the ground. From him too I learned how the Polish girl had run to Arensdorf, how she had roused our hussars, and how she had only just brought them back in time to save us from the spears of the Cossacks, who had been summoned from their bivouac by that same black bearded secretary whom we had seen galloping so swiftly over the snow. As to the brave lady who had twice saved our lives, I could not learn very much about her at that moment from Duroc, but when I chanced to meet him in Paris two years latet, after the campaign of Wagram, I was not very much surprised to find that I needed no introduction to his bride, and that by the queer turns of fortune he had himself, had he chosen to use it, that very name and title of the Baron* Straubenthal, which showed him to be the owner of the blackened ruin 3of the Castle of Gloom. : •• (To be continued).