CHAPTER XXI.
THREE TO ONE.
A glance round told me the attack had been shrewdly planned indeed.The spot in which we all were was a large square anteroom or landingplace, lighted from above. Four or five doors opened from it into therooms on either side, and the narrow stairway was the only means ofcommunication with the rest of the house. I was caught like a rat in atrap, anti unless I could beat off the men who were thus attacking meat such dangerous odds, I was as good as a dead man.
I whipped out my sword and pushed Olga back into the room we had left,just in time to parry the first wild lunges Devinsky made at me; and atthe first touch of the steel all my coolness came to me.
Everything must turn on the first minute or two; and knowing my man Iset all my skill to work to keep him so engaged as to hamper theattempts of the other two to get to close quarters with me.
I worked back into a corner of the place, close to the door of theroom, and then as I darted out lunge after lunge with the swiftestdexterity, my three opponents were compelled to get into each other'sway in their hurried manoeuvres to avoid my strokes. By this means Ihampered their fighting strength and lessened it by at least one man,since all three could not possibly get to strike at me at the sametime. But even thus the odds were too heavy.
Devinsky was nothing like my equal with the sword, and his rage and madhate now rendered him less deadly than usual: but with two others tohelp him, I could hardly hope to win in the end. For this reason as Ifought I uttered shout after shout to the man below to come to myassistance.
These cries had also the effect of disconcerting my opponents.
Then a lucky chance happened.
One of the men in jumping back out of the way of one of my thrustsstumbled over the second, and sent this one for a moment intoDevinsky's way. I saw my chance and seized it in an instant. In atrice I rushed at the half prostrate man and disdaining to kill himwhen his guard was down, I kicked him with my heavy riding boot withall my force in the face, and sent him reeling back, groaning and halfchoked with the blood that came gushing out of his nose and mouth,while his sword, went rattling across the floor to where Olga stood,looking on aghast, breathless and open mouthed in her fear.
But the chance nearly cost me dear, for the man's companion turned onme and thrust at me with such directness and rapidity as all but endedthe fight; for his sword went through the fleshy part of my arm, justabove the elbow. An inch or so nearer the body would have sent itright through my heart. It was the last thrust he ever made, however.The next instant my blade had found his heart, and with a groan hedropped.
Before I could withdraw it, however, Devinsky uttered a cry of hate,and dashing at me thrust at my heart with all his strength.
He must have killed me but for Olga.
That splendid girl had picked up the fallen man's sword and now, seeingmy plight, she sprang forward, at the hazard of her life, crying out"Coward!" and struck down Devinsky's sword with all her force.
"Good," I cried; and the next instant, I had wrenched my weapon freeand held the man.
"Take care. Back to the room, or behind me, child," I cried, when Iheard my opponent curse in his foiled attempt to kill me and saw himturn as if to attack Olga. "Now, you butcher, it's you and I alone;and you or I, to live."
"As you will," he said, and I saw him clench his teeth and set his facein the way men do who know that they are face to face with a risk wherefailure means death.
My blood was up now, and I meant death too. He had given up all rightto expect anything else, and I had no mind to let him off. If ever aman had earned death he had. He had heaped on me every indignity thatone man could put on another, and to crown it all he had just tried tomurder me. I would kill him with less compunction than one kills adog; and I set about the task with the coolest deliberation and purpose.
The scene was a grim and ghastly one enough. The floor was allslippery in places with the blood of the man I had killed, whose bodylay huddled up against the wall, as well as of the other who sat on theground still spitting and coughing and mumbling and cursing from thefearful effects of my kick. In the middle we two stood fighting to thedeath, watching one another with the fire of hate and blood lust in oureyes and on our set faces: while Olga, all eagerness excitement andtension, stood in the doorway watching us with white drawn face anddilated eyes; the deeply drawn breath coming in spasms through herdistended nostrils and slightly parted lips.
I forced the fight with all my power, and my blade flashed about myantagonist until all his skill was useless even to defend himselfagainst my point, while any offensive tactic was out of the question.I wounded him three times, once so close to the heart that Olga criedout: and at length recalling the knack with which I had disarmed him inour former encounter, I used it now; and after a few more swift andcunning passes I whipped his sword from his grasp and sent it rattlingto the other end of the place.
My eye flashed as I drew back my arm for the death thrust.
"Ah, don't, Alexis," cried Olga, in a sort of whisper of horror."Don't kill him!"
It stopped me instantly, and my arm fell.
"As you will," I answered readily; "but he doesn't deserve it. You oweyour life to the woman you've tried to wrong, not to me," I said tohim, shortly. "Stand out of the way and let us pass."
He moved aside doggedly, eyeing us with surly sullen hate, as Olga,trembling violently now that the excitement was over, went on first,and I followed her through the stairway and down and out of the house.
When we reached the courtyard, the postchaise which I had ordered tofollow us from the inn had arrived, and Olga and I entered it at once.
"Thank God, we are out of the house," was my companion's ferventexclamation, as the carriage turned into the road and we left thegloomy place behind us.
"Would to God we were out of Russia!" said I, speaking from my heart."Then..." I paused and looked into her face.
"All may yet come right," answered Olga, meeting my eyes and puttingher hand in mine. My clasp closed on it, and we sat thus for somemoments, just hand in hand, each silently happy in the knowledge of theother's love.
Then I bent toward her and gradually drew her to me, my eyes all thetime lighted with the light from hers.
"It is love, Olga; lovers' love?" I asked in a passionate whisper.
For answer she smiled and whispered back:
"It has always been, Alexis;" and she met my betrothal kisses withwarmth equal to mine. And after that we did not care to say a word,but leant back in the carriage as it flew through the country in thegathering gloom of the evening, bumping, jolting, rolling, andcreaking. What cared we for that? Olga was fast in my arms her headon my breast and her face close to mine, so close that we were temptedever and again to let the story of our love tell itself over and overagain in our kisses; and neither Olga nor I had a thought of resistingthe temptation.
This would have gone on for hours, so far as I was concerned; I was ina veritable Palace of Delight with freshly avowed love as my onethought. But Olga roused herself suddenly with a start and a littlecry.
"Oh, Alexis, what have you made me do? Your wound."
I had forgotten all about it, but now when she mentioned it my left armfelt a little stiff.
"I am ashamed of myself," she cried. "What a love must mine be, that Iwant to dream of it with selfish pleasure when you are wounded. Youmake me drink oblivion with your kisses."
"Love is a fine narcotic," replied I, laughing. "I felt no wound whileyou looked at me. But now that you bring me down to earth with a rush,I begin to remember it. But it is nothing much, and will best waittill we are in Moscow."
"Do you think I will let anyone see that wound before I do? Why, itwas gained for my sake. And you love me? And now"--"now" was a longloving kiss and a lingering look into my face as she held it betweenher hands, while her eyes were radiant with delight. Then shesighed--"Now, I am all sister again."
I was looking my doubts of this
and meant to test them, shaking my headin strong disbelief, when the carriage stopped suddenly. Looking out Isaw that we were at the inn, and must therefore have been driving longover two hours. It had seemed scarce a minute.
"Will you get out while we change horses, sir?" asked the Prince'sservant, who had come with the carriage on horseback.
"My brother is wounded and must have attendance at once," said Olga, inso self-possessed a tone that I smiled.
"Only a scratch," said I, as if impatiently. "But my sister is alwaysfidgety."
We went into the house then, and Olga insisted upon examining thewound, and when she saw the blood I had lost, not much, but makingbrave shew on my white linen, she was all solicitude, and anxiety. Shesent the maids flying this way and that, one to fetch hot water,another bandages, a third lint, and altogether made such a commotion inthe place that one would have thought I had been brought there to die.
She bathed the little spot so tenderly and delicately too, asking everymoment if her touch hurt me; and she washed it and then covered it, andbandaged it and bound it up, and did everything with such infinite carethat I was almost glad I had been wounded.
And the whole process she accompanied with a running fire of would-bescolding comment upon the trouble that brothers gave, the obstinatecreatures they were, the rash and foolish things they did, how muchmore bother they were than sisters, and a great deal more to the sameeffect--till I thought the people would see through the acting asclearly as I did, assisted as I was by the thousand little glints andglances she threw to me when the others were not looking our way.
Then she held a long consultation with the landlady--a large woman whoseemed as kindly in heart as she was portly in body--whether it wouldbe safe for me to go on to the city that night, or whether a doctor hadnot better be brought out to me there: and it took the persuasion andassurances of us all to win her consent to my going on.
I tried to punish her for this when we were in the carriage again, bytelling her I supposed she was unwilling to travel on with me. But Iwasted my breath and my effort, as she was all the way in the highestspirits.
"I don't quite know which I like best," she said, laughing. "Beingsister with a knowledge of--of something else, as I was just now at theinn, or--or..."
"Or what?"
"Or riding with Hamylton Tregethner," she answered, laughing again,gleefully. "Do you notice how easily I can say that dreadful name?"
"I notice I like it better from your lips than from any others."
"I've practised it--and it was so difficult. But I might even get tolike it in time, you know."
"By the way, I remember you once told me you didn't like HamyltonTregethner."
"Ah, yes. That was my brother's old friend. A very disagreeableperson. He wanted to take my brother away from Moscow. A person mustbe very unpleasant who wishes to divide brother and sister. Don't youthink so?"
"That depends on the rate of exchange," said I.
"Perhaps; but at that time there was no talk of exchange at all."
"And no thought of it?"
"Ah!" And for answer she nestled to me again and merged the sister inthe lover with a readiness and pleasure that shewed what she thought ofthat particular exchange.
And with these little intervals of particularly sweet and pleasantlight and shade we travelled the miles to Moscow, in what seemed to usboth an incredibly short time.