'With your help I'll beat them yet, John! Thirty miles? I'll be there before daylight! I can go by the stars once I find the road.'

He stuck his heels into the horse's side, but Rallywood still held the bridle.

A wild gust tore round them, and in the succeeding lull Rallywood laid his hand on the other man's knee.

'Major Counsellor, you are my prisoner,' he said.

'How's this, John?' the question came thin, pitiful and weak. A new doubt, the old affection, and a strange helplessness mingled in the words, and they cut deep into Rallywood's ears.

'That was a bad knock on the head,' muttered the Major apologetically, and sank forward on the horse's neck again unconscious.

CHAPTER XXV.

A QUESTION OF TWO MORALITIES.

The road towards the block-house ran along the river bank past the Kofn Ford. They went slowly on together through the starry windy night, Rallywood with his hand on the bridle and the wounded man holding limply to the saddle.

The _tsa_ raved and rocked in the pine trees, through the pauses of the storm a wolf barked, and the black, tumbled water was still swelling and gulping under the low stars. But the tumult of noises only served to accentuate the hideous loneliness which is the salient characteristic of the Frontier.

Counsellor, with an unaccustomed warfare in his heart--rage and the pity of it working together--stared into s.p.a.ce across the leaping river.

As the two men drew near the ford, they saw the dim figure of a horseman riding down the bank on the opposite side, with the evident intention of crossing. The approaches to the ford were flooded, for the angry water fretted out its banks at such times and deepened into dangerous swirls over the crossing-place.

Rallywood checked the horse to shout and signal to the man that the ford was impa.s.sable, but his voice was drowned by the harsh throated noises of the night. Weak as was the starlight, something of the loose reckless swing in the saddle told Rallywood that the rider was Anthony Unziar.

Unziar galloped down the stones of the incline and plunged into the torrent. It was clear from where he took the water that he intended to make for the little beach below the block-house. His course was marked by a whitish rise in the water; now and then the watchers on the bank lost sight of the struggling figure as a tree-trunk whirled past and hid him, or he seemed to sink in some tormented eddy, but he came into view again and always nearer. At the last moment, whether horse and man were exhausted or whether a furious tangle of cross-currents caught them, they were swung round and away from the landing-point.

It was now evident that Unziar saw Rallywood, for in answer to the latter's signs that he must make for the shallows lower down, Unziar waved some object over his head as if to call attention to it. The suck of the current was fast drawing him away, but with another strong effort he got the horse's head round; they heard his faint shout upon the wind then the words came more clearly:

'Carry them on--Selpdorf!' He flung something forwards; the gale caught and hurled it on to the rocks at Rallywood's feet.

When they looked again Unziar had disappeared.

Hurrying up to the block-house, Rallywood sent off some troopers to Unziar's a.s.sistance; then with some difficulty got his prisoner, who was stiff and dizzy, on his feet and supported him to the room where Madame de Sagan and Valerie had rested on the night of the snow-storm.

Rallywood did all that could be done for Counsellor, then he sat down at the narrow table to face his position. The _tsa_ battered at the little window, and the camp-bed creaked under Counsellor's weight as he turned and groaned upon it, while Rallywood sat with soul and body absorbed in the consciousness that at last the time of which Counsellor had warned him was come, the time when he should find his enemies dressed in red.

Under almost any other circ.u.mstances it would have been possible to retire from the position with honour. Had war been declared between England and Maasau, he could have resigned his commission. But to-night he found himself without any such means of escape, fast in the jaws of the cleverly-contrived trap set for him by Selpdorf.

But he scarcely yet knew the worst. Presently Counsellor spoke.

'This thing has gone beyond a joke,' he said, 'What does it mean?' The glance from under the overhanging gray brows had regained its fire.

'My orders are simple enough. I am to keep you here until to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock.'

'By doing so you will ruin Maasau as a free State and bring a most serious defeat upon the British policy.' Counsellor's voice was rasping. 'Are you prepared for that?'

Both men were strenuous, and bred deep into the bone of each were the same dominant qualities.

'I am prepared to carry out my orders,' answered Rallywood; 'I had them practically from the Duke himself.'

'The Duke is of the same mind in which I found him at the Castle, though he may be forced to dissemble,' a.s.serted Counsellor; then with a twist he sat up as his glance fell upon the square dark object lying on the table between them. 'John Rallywood, do you know what that is?'

'The despatches thrown to me by Unziar.'

'That case is mine; it contains my private instructions; you can guess something of their importance from the fact that I have been robbed of them. You must give them back to me! As an Englishman and an honest man, I call upon you to give them back to me.'

Rallywood's long nervous fingers closed over the packet.

'It is impossible!' he said. 'As an Englishman, yes, but as an honest man, well, it--it is hard to say.'

'Are you mad?' cried Counsellor.

'I have not had long to think it out, and it is a tangled question,'

replied Rallywood wearily.

'A tangled question? I take it you are first of all an Englishman?'

'In my private capacity, and that deals with my private honour; but I have undertaken another responsibility from which I cannot withdraw at pleasure. I am a sworn soldier of Maasau, and as such my public honour has first claim.'

It was a simple rendering of a tremendous problem, but it served for Rallywood.

'Then----' said Counsellor.

There was a rush and a scuffle, but Rallywood was young and strong and more active than the Major.

'Confound you!' Counsellor fell back a step or two, breathing hard.

There are some situations which by their elemental force destroy all other emotions. The situation at Kofn guard-house was one of these. The point at issue between these two men pierced to the bed-rock of national loyalty. Perhaps Blivinski was right. Love of country was part of their physical equipment, yet by the irony of circ.u.mstances they were pitted against each other.

'Will you give me your parole?' asked Rallywood with his back to the door.

Counsellor drew out a big watch.

'For fifteen minutes,' he said. 'It is now half-past nine; at forty-five minutes past I shall hold myself once more free to do what I can. You understand? In the meantime we will talk.'

Rallywood motioned Counsellor back to the camp bed while he himself sat down on the table.

'I fancy, John, we are both rather in the dark about all this,' began Counsellor. 'Tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine.'

'My orders were clear enough,' Rallywood said. 'I was to take charge of a prisoner, to be brought to me by the incoming mail at the spot where I met you. You arrived queerly, I admit, rolling along the down line, but you are undoubtedly the person of whom I was instructed to take charge.'

'Ah--I begin to see. There may be many men in Maasau who would rob me, but there is only one man who could do it so clumsily.'

'Count Sagan?'

'Naturally. But to return, I left you at the Castle looking for Colendorp; whether you found him or not does not come into this affair.