"I am not afraid," he answered. "The passion with Boris and Ulick alike is genuine enough, albeit of somewhat different sort. As you care for neither, it should be a matter of indifference whose property you become."

The blood burned redly under the girl's brown skin. "No one but a woman could know how unforgivable is that insult," she said. Then, with a suddenly conceived appeal to the man himself:

"But why a bargain at all? You have the strength, the courage, the brains--why chaffer when you have but to strike once to win all? You stand between Boris and Ulick; crush them both in a single embrace and take their birthright of power."

"Bah!" said the Doomsman, contemptuously. "Do you think that the mere possession of the wolf-skin is the object of the hunt? It is the game that amuses me and not the final distribution of the stakes. The game, I say, and it happens to suit my humor to play it in this particular way.

You are simply a piece on the board, and I may win with you or lose with you, or conclude to throw you back in the box without playing you at all--just as it pleases me."

"The means are at least nobler than the end," retorted the girl. "A lofty ambition, truly, to stand behind a screen and pull the strings of a puppet, who in turn lords it over a handful of rick burners and cattle reivers. Even my uncle Hugolin, Councillor Primus of Croye, cuts a better figure when, clad in his state robe of silver-fox fur, he presides over his parliament of shopkeepers."

"Granted," returned Quinton Edge, "but one and all dance together when I choose to pipe. Is it such a contemptible thing to rule a small world, if, indeed, it be the world? I take all that there is to be taken. Could Alexander or Caesar do more?"

"I am beginning to comprehend," she said, slowly. "An ambition that confessedly overleaps all bounds is at least not an ignoble one."

He turned and searched her eyes.

"You will play the game with me?"

"No."

"Yet a moment ago you were considering it--the possibility, I mean."

"For the moment--yes. After three months of Arcadia House dulness almost any amusement would seem worth while. But, frankly speaking, it is the nature of the risk that appalls me. I cannot afford to lose my stake nor even to adventure it."

"To speak plainly?"

"Well, then, you contribute to the common capital but one thing--your brains. Later on, if the play goes against us, you may have to throw on the table your liberty, and, in the last extremity, your life. But that is the utmost limit of your losses. I, on the contrary, must contribute myself to the hazard, and no man understands what that means to a woman."

"How long is it since the woman has understood?" he asked, mockingly, but Esmay was silent.

"Well, then, if I cannot have you with me I want you actively against me--the more balls in the air, the better sport for the juggler. And at least we understand each other."

"There is just the one question--perhaps an obvious one."

"Yes."

"Boris or Ulick? For of course you know which of them is to be the old Dom's heir."

"I do."

"I am to be informed of my purchaser's name--after the bargaining is over? And only then?"

"Since you choose to put it in that way--yes."

Neither chose to break the silence that fell between them, and Esmay, catching up her skirt, turned to go.

"Good-night," she said, but Quinton Edge did not answer. Apparently he had forgotten her very existence; he sat with feet out-stretched to the fire, his eyes fixed upon the curl of blue smoke that hung above his pipe bowl.

Esmay went up to the room on the second floor which she shared with her sister. Nanna was already in bed and asleep, but she started up as Esmay entered, like a dog that has been listening in its dreams for its master's footsteps. "Are you coming to bed?" she asked, drowsily, and fell back among the pillows without even waiting for the answer.

Esmay, unconscious of the cold, remained seated at the window looking out upon the river, her mind busy with the ultimatum which had just been presented to it. That it was an ultimatum, she could not doubt; Quinton Edge had been in deadly earnest in confronting her with her fate--a double-faced one, as she thought, with a little shiver. She could not avoid seeing it, no matter which way she turned.

A waning moon in a clouding sky. Even as she looked the two faces seemed to start out from the uncertain shadows--Boris, the Butcher--involuntarily, she shrank back from the window--never that!

Ulick? Yes, she had been fond of Ulick; they had been comrades and friends for so long as she could remember. But Ulick in this new light--ah, that was different again. Strangely enough she found herself contemplating this last possibility even more fearfully than she had the first. If the "Butcher" but laid a finger upon her, surely her arm was strong enough to drive the dagger home. But if it were Ulick, what could she do but turn the weapon against her own breast.

Plan and counterplan, and the argument invariably came back to where it began--she must call upon Constans for the aid which he had promised to place at her disposal. Hardly two hours had passed since they had made the compact, and now she was come to ask for its fulfilment. What would he think of her? How interpret a precipitancy so foreign to the cool assurance of her bearing in the garden? She frowned; the instinct that urges a woman to any folly short of the supreme blunder of unveiling herself to masculine eyes took possession of her. But only for a moment, for again the imminence of the peril in which she stood broke over her like a wave. There was but one thing to do; the signal must be set this very night. The returning expedition from the south might even now be encamped at the High Bridge, and if Constans could help her at all it must be at once.

Without waiting to parley further with herself, Esmay went to the door opening into the hall and looked out. The hour must be close upon midnight; the house was quiet and dark.

A piece of white cloth had been the signal agreed upon, and a fluttering handkerchief should answer the purpose well enough without being too conspicuous to alien eyes. Nanna still slept, and Esmay, slipping into the hallway, stood listening for a moment. Then she went on boldly; the moon was still high, and she would not need a light.

It had been arranged that the signal should be displayed from the southwestern window of the cupola crowning the main roof. But the stairs to the third story and attic were in a wing; to reach them she must traverse a long corridor which led past the apartments occupied by Quinton Edge. Esmay noticed a gleam of yellow light upon the threshold of his half-closed door as she passed it on winged feet, but there was nothing extraordinary in that--it often burned there throughout the entire night. But he was talking to somebody; she could hear distinctly the opposition of the two voices. Who could it be? for none of the servants ever entered these rooms, and she had never known of any stranger being invited thither. She stopped and listened for a moment or two. But she could make out nothing distinctly, and then she flushed hotly to think that she had been tempted to eavesdropping. Let her be satisfied in knowing that Quinton Edge was in his room and busily engaged; at least, he would not disturb her.

The upper stories of the house had not been occupied for many years, and it took all the girl's courage to carry her through the shadow-haunted garret and up the ladder leading to the cupola proper. But she accomplished the task of putting the signal-cloth in position, and, still shaking with cold and excitement, began to retrace her steps.

At the entrance to Quinton Edge's room she stopped again, not out of curiosity, but as though yielding to the pressure of an invisible hand.

The door still stood ajar, but there was no sound of voices. Again it was the invisible hand that seemed to draw the door away, permitting the girl to look within. An empty room, save for the figure that sat at the table, his head buried in his hands, the whole attitude one of intense weariness and dejection. Even as she stood there he looked up, and she saw his face mirrored in the glass that hung suspended from the opposite wall. It was Quinton Edge's face, indisputably; but could she ever have imagined that such capacity of pain lay behind the mask she knew so well? The dark eyes seemed to seize and hold her fast; then she realized that they saw nothing beyond their own mirrored reflection. Again the head sank forward into the hollowed hands, and only the slow heave of the shoulders made certain that it was a living man who sat there in the silence.

Noiselessly closing the door, Esmay regained her room and, all clothed as she was, crept into bed. Nanna stirred sleepily and put out a protecting arm. How blessed the comfort of that strong, warm clasp!

XVII

THE AWAKENING

Constans climbed to his observatory on the roof of the "Flat-iron" as usual that next morning. It was a fine, bright day and so clear that he could see for miles without the use of his glass. And there was something to see--far away to the north he discovered a thin thread of smoke that must mark the spot of a newly extinguished camp-fire. At last the raiders were back from the Southland; they would be within the city boundaries by this time and should arrive at the Citadel Square by noon at the latest.

Glancing down into the fortress he saw that already tidings of the return must have been received. Torch signals had probably been sent during the night from the High Bridge announcing the fact of the arrival, and now all was bustle and excitement.

It was a colorful and inspiriting scene--soldiers engaged in polishing their accoutrements or clouting up hitherto neglected rents in cloak or tunic; musicians tuning their simple instruments; negro slaves grooming horses; women busy over saucepans that bubbled upon extemporized furnaces of piled-up bricks; children and dogs on all sides, chattering, squealing, under everybody's feet, alternately and impartially cuffed and caressed. An air of joyous expectancy lightened every face, for now the long months of waiting and of anxiety were past; the outriders of Doom had returned from the Southland with goodly store of corn and wine and of fat beeves for future feasting. It was, indeed, chilled and aged blood that did not run the faster on this day of days.

Outside of the White Tower stood a groom, holding the bridle of a horse whose housings were of the most gorgeous description, a blaze of crimson cloth and gold thread. The owner's spear, with its pennon of embroidered silk, stood close at hand, its iron-shod shaft wedged tightly into a convenient crack in the pavement. Upon the banneret, Constans, with his glass, made out the symbol used by Quinton Edge, a raven in mid-air bearing a skull in his beak. Evidently he was to command the guard of honor who would escort the returned warriors down the Palace Road, and the hour must be close at hand. A few moments later and Quinton Edge himself appeared, issuing forth from the White Tower. A splendidly gorgeous figure he presented, for over his close-fitting suit of claret cloth he wore a surcoat of white velvet ornamented with gold lace and buttons of amethyst. His hat of soft felt was decorated with a white ostrich-plume, exquisitely curled and secured by a jewelled clasp, and in his left hand he carried an ivory truncheon tipped with gold, the emblem, doubtless, of his high position in the councils of the Doomsmen.

Apparently he was in good-humor this morning; he chatted animatedly with those nearest to him, and once or twice he even laughed aloud.

A trumpet sounded, and, without much pretence at military smartness, the escorting party scrambled into their saddles and the cavalcade moved forward through the north gate and up the Palace Road. By noon at the latest they should return, and preparations immediately began for the feast that was to be given in honor of the long-absent warriors now happily restored to the society of their families and friends. A score or more of wine-casks were rolled out from the public stores and made ready for broaching. In the centre of the square the board flooring had been removed from a huge circular pit that measured twenty feet across by six or eight in depth; it was lined and bottomed with flat paving-stones. A fire of hard-wood had been burning in it for hours, the preliminary to a gigantic barbecue of fat oxen. Upon the open space in front of the guard-huts, slaves were erecting long trestle-tables to serve as the banqueting-board. The day had turned so warm that there would be no discomfort in dining out-of-doors, for all that the date was March 22d and the last snow-fall still lay a foot or more in depth in the side streets. The square itself had been thoroughly cleaned, or it would have been a veritable sea of slush. Astonishing! but as the sun's rays became more and more inclined to the vertical, it became apparent that the day would not only be warm but actually hot.

Constans had grown tired of making his observations at long range; he resolved to descend and mingle boldly with the people in the square. He had only Quinton Edge to fear, and it should be easy to keep out of his way. Moreover, this was a golden chance for him to pick up some intimate information about the defences of the Citadel Square.

Carefully adjusting the details of his ecclesiastical costume, Constans prepared to descend. His last act was to cast a perfunctory glance in the direction of Arcadia House, and it seemed that his eye caught the flutter of something white. He raised the binoculars--it was true, the signal was there, a handkerchief tied to the lattice-blind of the cupola window.

Constans frowned and reflected. It was only last night that the girl had asserted her entire ability to look after herself--it was like a woman to be so soon of another mind. And there was Ulick--Ulick who would have shed the last drop in his veins to serve her. Yet she would have none of him, and she had deliberately tied Constans's hands in exacting the promise that he should not reveal her whereabouts to the man who of all things desired to serve her. There could be no reasoning with this wilful young person; she would have her way in spite of all the masculine logic in the world, and he realized the fact with a growing resentment.

Yet there was his promise and it must be kept. He would go again to Arcadia House sometime during the afternoon or evening, for the matter was not one of absolute urgency. In the latter case two signals would have been displayed, and there was but the one. So, dismissing the matter from mind for the present, he made his way to the street and joined with the crowd that was continually passing in and out of the north gate.