The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📗

nothing, except as we, its lords and masters, may compel it to work our will?"[Pg 227]

The muttering of thunder broke in upon the priest's last words. A storm-cloud was driving in from the west, low-hanging and menacing. The priest's face changed.

"He comes! he comes!" he continued, with fanatic intensity. "This is our lord, in very truth, who now stands before us, calling upon his people to turn to him ere it be too late. Yet three days, and Doom, Doom the Mighty, is fallen, is fallen! He has said it—yet three days."

The two women stayed neither to see nor to listen further. Hand-in-hand they gained the street and ran in the direction of the Citadel Square, heedless of the rain that was now beginning to fall. Several blocks away they paused, exhausted, compelled to seek shelter in a doorway from the fury of the storm. Some one was already there—a man. He turned as they entered, and Esmay saw that it was Ulick.

For several moments they stood side by side without exchanging a word, and, indeed, no speech would have been audible amid the almost continuous crashing of the thunder-peals. Then, as the first violence of the storm expended itself, Esmay heard her name uttered, and realized that Ulick was holding her hand in both his own.

"Don't!" she pleaded, and drew her hand away.

Ulick's face hardened. "I might have known it," he said, bitterly. "Yet he who has been false to friendship may betray love as well."

"He is dead," she said, and Ulick started.

"Constans—dead!" he stammered.

"Hanged at the yard-arm of the Black Swan. But Quinton Edge still lives."[Pg 228]

"You loved him?" persisted Ulick, the sense of his injury still strong within him.

The girl drew herself up proudly. "Yes, I loved him—that is for you and all the world to know. But be comforted; he cared not a whit for me. That, in the end, was made plain enough."

Ulick's fare was pale. "But he still stands between us?" he said.

"Yes," she answered, simply.

The rain had almost ceased; Esmay made a movement to depart.

"There is nothing—no way in which I can serve you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I am going back to Arcadia House, but I shall have Nanna with me. There is nothing to fear."

He regarded her fixedly. "What can you do against Quinton Edge? He is the master—our master."

"I do not know; I have not thought. But I can watch and I can wait."

"Waiting! If that were all——"

"No, no! it could not be." She colored hotly, and he stopped, abashed.

"You must go now," she went on, gently. "Ulick, dear Ulick, I am sending you away, but, indeed, it is better so. And I shall remember—always."

He would have spoken again, but something in her face restrained him. He bent and kissed her reverently, as a brother might, and went out. And she, watching him go, found her vision suddenly blurred by a mist of tears. For there is something in every woman's heart that pleads a true man's cause, for all that she may not accept the gift he proffers.[Pg 229]

Nanna had disappeared into the house some few minutes before; now she returned from her journey of discovery, wearing an expression of gravity quite new to her. "Come," she said, "I want to show you something."

She drew Esmay after her down the draughty passage that led to the offices of the long-since-deserted dwelling-house. There was a large apartment at the end of the passage—the kitchen, to judge from the character of the fittings. The room had been formerly lighted by electricity, and Nanna pointed out a lampwire whose free end was dangling in close proximity to a lead water-pipe. Underneath was a small heap of oil-soaked rags.

"You remember what we saw at the House of Power?" said Nanna, significantly.

Esmay examined the wire carefully. At the broken end the insulating fabric had been stripped off and the copper scraped clean and bright with a knife-blade.

"I found this on a nail in the passage," went on Nanna, and held out a bit of cloth that had been torn from a garment. It was of that peculiar weave worn only by the priests of the Shining One.

Esmay looked at it with troubled eyes. "What does it mean?" she asked, but Nanna only shook her head.

"Of course, I remember what happened at the temple," said Esmay, hesitatingly. "We saw him turn a handle, and the wire a hundred feet away spouted fire. If a hundred feet, why not half a mile?"

"It is a trap," asserted Nanna.

"But for what purpose?"

Nanna was not to be moved. "A trap," she per[Pg 230]sisted. "I do not understand, but I can feel what it is just as do the wolverine and the fox. Come away."

They walked down the street.

"What could Prosper hope to catch in such a snare—for whom could he have set it?" asked Esmay, putting into audible language the question over which both were puzzling. "Unless," she went on, thoughtfully—"unless this is only one of many."

Nanna nodded. "Dozens, hundreds of them, and scattered all over the city. It is the harvest-field of which he spoke."

As they passed a street corner that commanded a view of the Palace Road, Nanna caught Esmay by the arm and bade her look. Towering head and shoulders above the throng of idle men and gossiping women strode Prosper, the priest, and as he went he proclaimed the woe that must shortly come upon the city, a message to which none gave heed. But for all their mocking he would not forbear, and long after he had passed out of sight Esmay could distinguish the accents of his powerful voice rising above the din that strove to drown it:

"Yet three days, and Doom the Mighty—is fallen, is fallen!"[Pg 231]

XXIII

THE RED LIGHT IN THE NORTH

It had been Constans's original plan to cross the river some miles above Croye, and so avoid attracting the attention of the Doomsmen should any of their parties be afield. The expedition would then move cautiously down the east bank in the hope of surprising the guard at the High Bridge, and so gain entrance to the city. But Piers Major, at the council of war that first evening, brought about a reconsideration.

"Against the citadel," he said, shrewdly, "we should rather choose to direct an unexpected blow. The bridge may be carried by a rush, but not so the stone walls that guard the heart of Doom. In that assault a man's life must be paid for each rung gained on the scaling-ladders. We have no batteries with which to hammer at the gate-hinges, and as for a siege—well, it is weary work starving out rats whose fortress is a granary in itself. Let us move, indeed, but cautiously, prudently.

"Splendor of God!" shouted Red Oxenford, and he sprang to his feet. A man of full habit and ruddy face he had been in his day, but since the death of the young Alexa he seemed to have aged and whitened visibly. His eyes were bright, as though with fever, and he went on with growing vehemence:[Pg 232]

"Are we, then, chapmen of Croye, calling to collect an overdue account—prepared to sit down in humble expectancy at Dom Gillian's door until it may pleasure him to open it? Caution, expediency! he is no friend to Oxenford who would utter such words as these."

But Piers Major was not to be daunted. He put his hands on the shoulders of the angry man and forced him backward into his seat.

"Nay, but you have not heard me out," continued Piers Major. "It is a debt, indeed, for which we are pressing payment—only one of blood rather than of gold. All the more reason, then, that the settlement should be in full and the cost of collection kept small. Now, Dom Gillian has shut his door in our faces, and it is a strong one. If we so elect we may butt out our brains against it, and be none the better off.

"A fortress and a woman, there is always more than one way in which they may be taken. Let us find that back door, and some of us may quietly enter there while the others are parleying at the front. Once within the walls, the fire-sticks should quickly clear the house for us."

"Ay, man," broke in Oxenford, impatiently, "but all this is words, not deeds. What can we do so that Dom Gillian hangs from his own door-post before a second rising of the sun?"

"I propose, then," answered Piers Major, "that the score of men who are armed with the new weapons shall take boat down the river and make a landing to the south of the Citadel Square, remaining in hiding until the rising of the moon to-morrow night. The main body will force the High Bridge at the coming dawn, and should be able to drive the Doomsmen to[Pg 233] cover within the next twelve hours. Then the frontal attack in force and the gun-fire from behind. If they follow each other at the proper interval, our victory is assured."

"It is your idea that I should go with the flanking-party?" asked Constans.

"Naturally, since you alone know the city. We can reach the Citadel Square from our side without difficulty, for it is a simple matter of hewing our way thither. But with your party it must be the progress of the snake through the grass."

Without further parley the plan proposed was adopted. Piers Major would command the main body in person—about one hundred and fifty men in all. Constans selected Piers Minor, son of Piers Major, as his lieutenant, and, somewhat to his surprise, Oxenford elected to join the smaller command. "It is the better chance," he explained, grimly, "for my getting a face-to-face look at the old, gray wolf."

Fortunately, the question of transportation for the river party was quickly settled. One of Messer Hugolin's flat-boats, coming down from the upper river with a cargo of hides, had anchored for the night a half-mile up-stream; it was an easy matter to impress crew and vessel into service. The hides were tossed ashore, and by midnight the expedition was ready to start. The scow was fitted with two masts, carrying square sails, and, as the wind was directly astern and blowing strongly, the clumsy craft swept away from her moorings with imposing animation, leaving a full half-acre of bubbles to mark her wake.

"For the third time," said Constans to himself as he sat in the bow with his back to the squat foremast[Pg 234] and watched the river flowing darkly by. Twice now had he measured strength with Doom the Forbidden, and twice had the battle been drawn, the issue left undecided. This time one or the other must fall.

The long night wore away, and presently the sky was streaked with the pink and saffron of the coming dawn. A landing was made without difficulty, and Constans was soon leading his little band through the rubbish-encumbered thoroughfares to the appointed station. The men marched along in sulky silence, for their night's rest on the open boat-deck had been an uncomfortable one, and they wanted their breakfast.

Constans had determined to make use of his old quarters in the "Flat-iron" building, on the south side of the Citadel Square, and his relief was great when the last man passed within the shelter of its walls. Once mustered in one of the large rooms on the fourth floor, the haversacks and canteens were quickly requisitioned, and the men feasted gloriously upon oat-cake and cold coffee, brewed from parched grain, with a pipe for dessert. After this agreeable interlude, there was nothing to do but to wait, and the majority curled themselves up in some convenient corner and resumed their interrupted slumbers. Constans posted himself at a window overlooking the square, with the intention of keeping close watch on all that passed below. But, in spite of all his efforts, Nature insisted upon her rights, and he, too, slept.

Over at Arcadia House, Nanna, being wakeful with the torture of an aching tooth, happened to glance through the north windows of the room occupied by the sisters and saw a dull-red glow on the horizon—a[Pg 235] conflagration. She aroused Esmay, and the two girls watched it, wondering.

"It is in the direction of the High Bridge," said Esmay, and Nanna nodded acquiescence. "And it is the morning of the third day," continued Esmay, and Nanna nodded again.

The fire was a long way off, low down on the northern sky-line. But every now and then a crimson streamer would leap upward almost to the zenith, showing how great and vehement the conflagration must