“Gentlemen,” said he, “I grieve to disappoint you; but I have hired this lodging for the night.”
The leader stopped, discountenanced, and leaned back against his followers. “You are awake?” he stammered.
“It is a habit of mine.”
The leader puffed out his cheeks and assumed an appearance of dignity.
“Then we are saved some loss of time. For we were coming to awake you.”
“It was on that account, no doubt,” said Wogan, folding his arms, “that you have all taken off your boots. But, pardon me, your four friends behind appear in spite of what I have said to be thrusting you forward. I beg you to remain on the step on which you stand. For if you mount one more, you will put me to the inconvenience of drawing my sword.”
Wogan leaned back idly against the wall. The Princess should now be on the road and past the inn—unless perhaps Whittington was at watch beneath the windows. That did not seem likely, however. Whittington would work in the dark and not risk detection. The leader of the four had stepped back at Wogan’s words, but he said very bravely,—
“I warn you to use no violence to officers in discharge of their duty. We hold a warrant for your arrest.”
“Indeed?” said Wogan, with a great show of surprise. “I cannot bring myself to believe it. On what counts?”
“Firstly, in that you stole away her Highness the Princess Clementina from the Emperor’s guardianship on the night of the 27th of April at Innspruck.”
“Did I indeed do that?” said Wogan, carelessly. “Upon my word, this cloak of mine is frayed. I had not noticed it;” and he picked at the fringe of his cloak with some annoyance.
“In the second place, you did kill and put to death, at a wayside inn outside Stuttgart, one Anton Gans, servant to the Countess of Berg.”
Wogan smiled amicably.
“I should be given a medal for that with a most beautiful ribbon of salmon colour, I fancy, salmon or aquamarine. Which would look best, do you think, on a coat of black velvet? I wear black velvet, as your relations will too, my friend, if you forget which step your foot is on. Shall we say salmon colour for the ribbon? The servant was a noxious fellow. We will.”
The leader of the four, who had set his foot on the forbidden step, withdrew it quickly. Wogan continued in the same quiet voice,—
“You say you have a warrant?” And a voice very different from his leader’s—a voice loud and decisive, which came from the last of the four—answered him,—
“We have. The Emperor’s warrant.”
“And how comes it,” asked Wogan, “that the Emperor’s warrant runs in Venice?”
“Because the Emperor’s arm strikes in Venice,” cried the hindermost again, and he pushed past the man in front of him.
“That we have yet to see,” cried Wogan, and his sword flashed naked in his hand. At the same moment the man who had spoken drew a pistol and fired. He fired in a hurry; the bullet cut a groove in the rail of the stair and flattened itself against the passage wall.
“The Emperor’s arm shakes, it seems,” said Wogan, with a laugh. The leader of the party, thrust forward by those behind him, was lifted to the forbidden step.
“I warned you,” cried Wogan, and his sword darted out. But whether from design or accident, the man uttered a cry and stumbled forward on his face. Wogan’s sword flashed over his shoulder, and its point sank into the throat of the soldier behind him. That second soldier fell back, with the blood spurting from his wound, upon the man with the smoking pistol, who thrust him aside with an oath.
“Make room,” he cried, and lunged over the fallen leader.
“Here’s a fellow in the most desperate hurry,” said Wogan, and parrying the thrust he disengaged, circled, disengaged again, and lunging felt the soldier’s leather coat yield to his point. “The Emperor’s arm is weak, too, one might believe,” he laughed, and he drove his sword home. The man fell upon the stairs; but as Wogan spoke the leader crouched on the step plucked violently at his cloak below his knees. Wogan had not recovered from his lunge; the jerk at the cloak threw him off his balance, his legs slipped forward under him, in another moment he would have come crashing down the stairs upon his back, and at the bottom of the flight there stood one man absolutely unharmed supporting his comrade who had been wounded in the throat. Wogan felt the jerk, understood the danger, and saw its remedy at the same instant. He did not resist the impetus, he threw his body into it, he sprang from the stairs forwards, tearing his cloak from the leader’s hands, he sprang across the leader, across the soldier who had fired at him, and he dropped with all his weight into the arms of the third man with the pierced throat. The blood poured out from the wound over Wogan’s face and breast in a blinding jet. The fellow uttered one choking cry and reeling back carried the comrade who supported him against the balustrade at the turn of the stairs. Wogan did not give that fourth man time to disengage himself, but dropping his sword caught him by the throat as the third wounded man slipped between them to the ground. Wogan bent his new opponent backwards over the balustrade, and felt the muscles of his back resist and then slacken. Wogan bent him further and further over until it seemed his back must break. But it was the balustrade which broke. Wogan heard it crack. He had just time to loose his hands and step back, and the railing and the man poised on the rail fell outwards into the courtyard. Wogan stepped forward and peered downwards. The soldier had not broken his neck, for Wogan saw him writhe upon the ground. He bent his head to see the better; he heard a report behind him, and a bullet passed through the crown of his hat. He swung round and saw the leader of the four with one of his own pistols smoking in his hand.
“You!” cried Wogan. “Sure, here’s a rabbit attacking a terrier dog;” and he sprang up the stairs. The man threw away the pistol, fell on his knees, and held up his hands for mercy.
“Now what will I do to you?” said Wogan. “Did you not fire at my back? That’s reprehensible cowardice. And with my own pistol, too, which is sheer impertinence. What will I do with you?” The man’s expression was so pitiable, his heavy cheeks hung in such despairing folds, that Wogan was stirred to laughter. “Well, you have put me to a deal of inconvenience,” said he; “but I will be merciful, being strong, being most extraordinary strong. I’ll send you back to your master the Emperor with a message from me that four men are no manner of use at all. Come in here for a bit.”
Wogan took the unfortunate man and led him into the parlour. Then he lit a lamp, and making his captive sit where he could see any movement that he made, he wrote a very polite note to his Most Catholic Majesty the Emperor wherein he pointed out that it was a cruel thing to send four poor men who had never done harm to capture Charles Wogan; that no King or Emperor before who had wanted to capture Charles Wogan, of whom there were already many, and by God’s grace he hoped there would be more, had ever despatched less than a regiment of horse upon so hazardous an expedition; and that when Captain O’Toole might be expected to be standing side by side with Wogan, it was usually thought necessary to add seven batteries of artillery and a field marshal. Wogan thereupon went on to point out that Peri was in Venetian territory, which his Most Catholic Majesty had violated, and that Charles Wogan would accordingly feel it his bounden duty not to sleep night or day until he had made a confederation of Italian states to declare war and captivity upon his Most Catholic Majesty. Wogan concluded with the assurances of his profoundest respects and was much pleased by his letter, which he sealed and compelled his prisoner upon his knees to promise to deliver into the Emperor’s own hands.
“Now where is that pretty warrant?” said Wogan, as soon as this important function was accomplished.
“It is signed by the Governor of Trent,” said the man.
“Who in those regions is the Emperor’s deputy. Hand it over.”
The man handed it over reluctantly.
“Now,” continued Wogan, “here is paper and ink and a chair. Sit down and write a full confession of your audacious incursion into a friendly country, and just write, if you please, how much you paid the landlady to hear nothing of what was doing.”
“You will not force me to that,” cried the fellow.
“By no means. The confession must be voluntary and written of your own free will. So write it, my friend, without any compulsion whatever, or I’ll throw you out of the window.”
Then followed a deal of sighing and muttering. But the confession was written and handed to Wogan, who glanced over it.
“But there’s an omission,” said he. “You make mention of only five men.”
“There were only five men on the staircase.”
“But there are six horses in the stables. Will you be good enough to write down at what hour on what day Mr. Harry Whittington knocked at the Governor’s door in Trent and told the poor gout-ridden man that the Princess and Mr. Wogan had put up at the Cervo Inn at Ala.”
The soldier turned a startled face on Wogan.
“So you knew!” he cried.
“Oh, I knew,” answered Wogan, suddenly. “Look at me! Did you ever see eyes so heavy with want of sleep, a face so worn by it, a body so jerked upon strings like a showman’s puppet? Write, I tell you! We who serve the King are trained to wakefulness. Write! I am in haste!”
“Yet your King does not reign!” said the man, wonderingly, and he wrote. He wrote the truth about Harry Whittington; for Wogan was looking over his shoulder.
“Did he pay you to keep silence as to his share in the business?” asked Wogan, as the man scattered some sand over the paper. “There is no word of it in your handwriting.”
The man added a sentence and a figure.
“That will do,” said Wogan. “I may need it for a particular purpose;” and he put the letter carefully away in the pocket of his coat. “For a very particular purpose,” he added. “It will be well for you to convey your party back with all haste to Trent. You are on the wrong side of the border.”