CHAPTER V
THE OPEN ROAD
"Ye heard what he said? That the child is in his apartments in the castle?" O'Rourke asked Chambret.
The three men—Chambret, Charles, and Bosquet, the surgeon—were kneeling around the body of the prince. That man dead, his plan for the continuance of the duel was abandoned by mutual consent. Charles, for one, was ghastly, livid, plainly with neither heart nor stomach for another fight.
Chambret looked up from the face of the dying man.
"I heard," he said grimly.
O'Rourke stood above him, pulling down his cuffs composedly, and holding his coat and hat beneath his arm.
"What are ye going to do?" demanded Chambret.
"Go out for a breath of air, mon ami," replied the Irishman. "I'll carry the good news to madame, if ye've no objection."
"Ah, my friend, I thank you."
"Say no more about it, me boy."
He walked steadily to the door, pulled it open, after unbolting, and stepped out, closing it behind him. The duchess was instantly by his side, her hands stretched forth in an agony of supplication.
"Monsieur, monsieur!" she cried. "You are not hurt?"
"Not a word for Chambret!" he thought. "I must get out of this, and quickly." Aloud: "Not even scratched," he lied, to baffle commiseration, and kept his arm by his side. Though he felt the blood trickling down within his sleeve, a hot stream, yet it was too dark for the woman to see.
"Georges is—dead," he told her, shortly; "and ye'll find your son, madame, hidden in his rooms in the castle."
"Thank God!" She was silent for a moment. "My little son!" she said softly. "Ah, monsieur, you have saved him from—who knows what? How can I show my gratitude?"
"By forgetting the O'Rourke, madame," he said almost roughly.
"What do you mean?" She caught him by the sleeve as he turned away. "You are not going, monsieur?"
"Instantly, madame."
"But why—why?"
"Madame, because me work is done here. Goodnight, madame."
"But, monsieur, monsieur! Ah, stay!"
He shook his arm free, with no effort to ameliorate his rudeness.
"Good night, madame," he repeated stiffly, with his heart in his throat; and was off, swinging down the forest path.
He had not taken a dozen paces, however, before she had caught up with him; and he felt her arms soft and clinging about his neck.
"Ah, monsieur, monsieur!" she cried; and her tone thrilled the ardent man through every fiber of him. "You have not deceived me as to your motive, O most gallant and loyal gentleman!"
She drew his head down, though he resisted, and kissed him once, full upon the lips. Then, wistfully, "Au revoir, monsieur," she said, and permitted him to leave her.
For the second time that night he dropped upon his knee and carried her hand to his lips. When he arose, it was with an averted face; he dared not look again upon her.
"Farewell, madame," he said gently, and struck off briskly down the path. Nor did he pause to look back.
After some minutes he heard the voice of Chambret calling his name out frantically; and at that moment, discovering a by-path, O'Rourke took it, the better to elude pursuit. Presently, coming upon a purling little brook, deep in the silent, midnight heart of the forest, he sat him down upon the bank and there washed and bandaged his wound after a fashion. Then rising, he strode swiftly on, fagged with weariness and sick at his heart, but true to his code of honor; and to hold true to that, it seemed most essential that he should leave the eyes of Madame la Grand Duchesse de Lützelburg far behind him.
Late in the night he emerged from the forest and came upon a broad, inviting highroad, along which he settled down into a steady, league-consuming stride; and the continuous exercise began to send the blood tingling through his veins, making a brighter complexion for his thoughts. He kept his face towards the East—the mysterious East—and covered much ground.
It was a wonderful windy night of stars, bright, clear, bearing in upon the receptive mind of the imaginative Celt a sense of the vastness of the world. He lifted his head, sniffing eagerly at the free breezes, himself as free, and like the wind a vagrant, penniless. He was abroad in the open, foot-loose, homeless; the world lay wide before him, it seemed—the world of his choice, his birthright of the open road. And in his ears the Road was sounding its siren Call to the Wanderer.
And so he struck out, at first eastwards, but later verging towards the south, his mind busied with thoughts of wars and rumors of wars, in the many-hued land south and east of the Mediterranean, where a free sword was respected, where honor and advancements and, above all, real fighting were to be had for the trouble of looking them up.
His thoughts reverted to Chambret and what talk had passed between the two of them, back in the Café de la Paix in Paris, bearing upon Madame la Princesse, Beatrix de Grandlieu, his heart's mistress. And because the events of the night were fresh in his memory, and because his transient weakness in the face of the charms of the Grande Duchesse had stirred the embers of his deep and abiding love for his princess, his mind dwelt upon her long and tenderly.
For a time it seemed as though she were with him in the spirit, during that long night walk, and that her lips were comforting him with words of cheer; bidding him hope and be of good heart.
And, if so, he reasoned, it must mean that he was to strike out for the East and the fortune that lay waiting for him to discover it—at the rainbow's end. So he came to a logical determination to follow its biddings, to dally no longer, to strike with all his strength for honor and fortune and the right to wed his love.
Danny, he understood, was in Alexandria. "And 'tis meself that misdoubts but that he's up to some manner of divvlemint there," considered O'Rourke. "'Tis me duty to look him up and attind to his morals. … I have neglicted the la-ad sadly: I have so. And sure and there's no doubt at all but that he'll be glad to see me! … Moreover, Alexandria's a great port. 'Twould be possible to take ship from there for almost anywhere on the, face of the earth—including Egypt."
He nodded sagaciously. "Egypt!" he mused. "'Tis a fair land and troublous. I feel meself strangely drawn to Egyptland, where there is like to be much fighting. … Now, let us consider this proposition without prejudice. Whom would I be knowing in Egypt who'd be willing to give me a lift into the thick of a shindy?"