CHAPTER VI.
A FIGHT FOR THE HORSES.
I met the man’s bullying look and glanced from him along the barrels of the guns which his companions held pointed at me; and then sat up.
“I don’t see the necessity for it,” I said, quietly.
“No, but I see it, and mean to do it. Get up at once, or you may find it difficult ever to rise again,” he said, savagely.
I scrambled up leisurely, dropping my hand into the pocket where I had my revolver, and my fingers closed on it as I held it ready to shoot without drawing it out.
One of the educational advantages of life in a rough mining camp in the West is the use of a revolver from the safe concealment of a pocket. This man didn’t appear to understand the trick. I didn’t want his blood on my hands; but I wasn’t going to let him tie me up as he proposed.
“Turn round,” he ordered.
“Wait a moment,” I said, quite coolly. “If you do this, how am I to know you’ll set me free again when you go?”
“Do as I tell you,” he cried savagely with another oath.
“No, by God, no.”
This was from Karasch, very loudly and angrily spoken, and the man turned from me to him.
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. This was my doing from the first. I set your man free to go and find you and bring you here; but this shan’t be done.”
The interruption was very timely, and I took advantage by it to edge away until I was sheltered from the guns by the leader’s body.
“What Karasch says is right enough. But you need not say any more, Karasch. There won’t be any more talk about binding me or anyone else.”
“By the Cross, but there will!” cried the leader fiercely, and was turning to give an order to his companions when I gripped him by the shoulder and held him.
“Don’t move. You’re just in the line between those two guns and me, and I can talk all the more comfortably while you stay there.” Karasch laughed, and the man tried in vain to wriggle out of my grip. “I’m covering you all the time with my revolver, and if you get away I shall shoot. You’ve been a deal nearer death all the while than you thought,” and I showed the ugly little muzzle above the edge of my pocket.
The argument carried conviction. He ceased to struggle, and changed colour.
“Tell those men of yours to throw their guns on the ground. They might go off by accident, and I’m not taking that kind of risk any longer.”
He hesitated, and I showed him a bit more of my pocket argument.
“I’m accustomed to be obeyed pretty quickly. Ask Karasch there,” I said, drily. Karasch laughed again and swore.
The leader shouted the command over his shoulder, and after some demur it was obeyed.
“Go and pick the guns up, Karasch, and get this man’s from his horse, and bring them to the tent,” I said, and waited while he fetched them.
Then I took my hand from the leader’s shoulder and stepped back.
“Now we shall all breathe a little more freely. You see the kind of soft fool you’ve got to deal with in me now, and you won’t make any more mistakes of this kind. There are two ways of doing what you’ve come to do—the rough and the smooth. You’ve tried the rough and have run up against a snag. Now we’ll go to the tent and talk over the smooth way.”
“Give us our prisoner, and we’ll go.”
“But Karasch and I wish to go with you, and I want to explain to you the little difficulty your man has put in the way. Come.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“If you’d rather go straight to hell, you can,” I exclaimed, fiercely. “Choose, and be quick about it.”
“I’ll come,” he said, sullenly.
“You can tell your men there we’re going to talk, and that they may as well bait their horses. We may be some time.”
He was getting to be quite an apt pupil. He turned and gave the order, and the two men stepped from their saddles and growled to him to make haste.
I led him round the tent to the shed where the three dead horses lay.
“Last night your man killed them. You see, there are three of them.”
“Well?”
“Well, there are three dead ones here, killed by your man, and there are three live ones out there on which you have just ridden up.”
“You don’t mean—what do you mean?” he asked. He was beginning to understand.
“How do you propose to make up that loss to me?”
He laughed uncomfortably. “You’re a cool hand,” he said.
“I’m cool enough just now,” I returned drily; “and none the safer on that account, perhaps, to fool with. How are you going to replace those three horses?”
“Speak out, and to hell with you,” he growled.
“I propose an exchange, that’s all. You can have these, and I’ll take yours and cry quits.”
His face was a study; rage battling with the conviction of helplessness as he glared at me.
“You are three to two, I know; but we’re well armed, and you have nothing but your knives. I could put a bullet into you at this minute just as easily, and much more surely than your men could have shot me a while since.”
He started, and I saw his hand go stealing to his sash.
“I shouldn’t draw it if I were you,” I said quietly.
He took the advice and stood thinking in sore perplexity.
Then I made my first mistake.
“I’ll treat you fairly. I shall pay you for the horses, and will send you a couple of hundred gulden for each of them, good Austrian money.”
His eyes lighted; and I read it for a sign of avarice.
“Six hundred gulden,” he said slowly and with gusto. “Six hundred gulden. It is a large sum of money; but we should be without horses;” and he looked at me cunningly.
“I’ll make it a thousand.”
“Easy to promise. As easy a thousand as ten.”
“What I promise I can do.”
“May the Stone of the Sepulchre crush me if I understand,” he exclaimed after a pause.
“It may help you to decide if I remind you I can take the horses without even promising a single gulden.”
“And about the prisoner?”
“She goes with me.”
“Why?”
“Because she prefers to.”
“So that we lose the payment for her as well as our horses.”
“How much were you to be paid?”
He paused as if in doubt how much to ask.
“Five hundred gulden each. There are six of us.” He watched me closely as he named the amount.
“Three thousand gulden! She must be a prisoner of importance. Who is she?”
“It’s a long road to Maglai and a difficult.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Your man told mine she was a witch.” He laughed.
“So we were told. Any tale was good enough to listen to at that price. We can’t talk so glibly about hundreds and thousands of gulden as you can.”
“Then YOU don’t think she is a witch?”
“I believe what I’m paid to believe—if the pay is high enough. And no one would pay such a sum for a mere witch.”
“I’ll pay you the three thousand gulden and the six hundred as well, if you let me have the horses quietly, and tell Karasch what you told me, that the prisoner is no witch.”
He laughed again, and with sudden change to earnest he shot a sharp look at me and asked:
“How will you pay? Who are you to have such a sum?”
“No matter who I am. I will send you the money to any place and in any way you name.”
“Horses are horses, and I know who is to pay for the prisoner when we get to Maglai.”
“And I’ll increase the price four thousand gulden if you give me the name of the man who has employed you.”
“I’d like to serve you, if you really had money to throw away like that.”
“I’m paying to avoid trouble and to gain information; but I mean to have the horses in any case. You can choose.”
He paused to think again.
“You must be very rich. If I thought you’d pay, I’d do it.”
“You can take my word.”
“You don’t look it,” he said doubtingly, and with an accent of regret.
“I’m through with the talk. Choose,” I answered, shortly.
“I’m ready to risk it, but I must speak to the others.”
“That’s right enough. You can do that; but you must bring the horses up to the side of the tent first.”
I let him go in front of me round the tent, and he called to his companions to lead the horses over to us. Karasch met them half way, and he and I tethered them while the three men held a long and animated discussion.
I told Karasch what had passed, emphasising what the leader had said about the prisoner being no witch.
“But you said she had put a charm over your life, Burgwan.”
“Because I saw you were set on killing her. She is no witch, but a prisoner of great importance. They are to have three thousand gulden for taking her to Maglai.”
“Three thousand gulden!” he cried, his eyes wide at the thought of such a sum. To him it was a fortune.
“Would anyone pay so much for a witch, Karasch?”
He shook his head.
“The man may be lying.”
I called to him, and he came and confirmed what he had said to me so stoutly that Karasch was convinced.
“Are you agreed yet?”
“There would be no difficulty if we were sure of you. Can he pay such a sum as four thousand florins?” he asked Karasch, nodding his head toward me.
“It is a big fortune,” was the answer, with a shrug of the shoulders. “But what he promises he always does.”
Not a very convincing banker’s reference that at the best; and the leader shook his head.
“That’s the point. It’s only a promise,” he said, slowly, with a shake of the head. “Have you got any of it here to give us now?” The question was asked casually enough, as if it were no more than the occasion warranted; but I saw more than that in it.
“I’ve told you I’d pay you afterwards. That’s the last word.”
“I’ll try what I can do then;” and with that he went back to his companions, and the earnest conference was resumed.
“I don’t trust him,” said Karasch.
“Let us get away quietly with the horses, and we’ll trust to ourselves, Karasch,” said I.
“Can you pay such a sum as he named?”
“Yes, ten times the amount, Karasch; and ten times that again if necessary.”
“Great Lord of the Living!” he exclaimed. “And yet you come here to the hills in this way!”
The three men had now apparently ended their conference, and the leader came across to me.
“Two of us are agreed,” he said, as he reached me, “but one will not without proof. Let me see our comrade whom you shot. He must have a voice in it too.”
“He is in the tent here,” I answered. We entered it, and he went and knelt by the wounded man.
I did not trust him any more than did Karasch, and, although I noticed nothing to rouse my suspicions, I watched the two closely, and kept my hand on the revolver in my pocket, and told Karasch to watch the two outside.
So far all had gone as well as I could have wished. We had the horses under our hands, and the men were divided so that we could deal with them in turn should they attempt to put up a fight.
Such a thing seemed far from their thoughts, moreover. From the snatches of talk I heard, the leader appeared to be arguing with his comrade, urging him to agree, and answering the objections which he raised. Words began to run high between them presently, and at length the leader cursed the other volubly for a fool and got up.
“I can do nothing with this pig,” he exclaimed angrily to me.
“You must settle your own matters, and be quick about it,” I returned sharply.
I was getting very anxious now on account of mademoiselle. She had been shut up in the cottage all the time, and knowing nothing of what was passing between the men and me it was easy to guess the effect which so trying a suspense would have upon her.
“What can I do? He vows that if I yield to you he will denounce me at Belgrade—idiot, pig, and fool that he is,” he cried furiously, pacing the floor and throwing his hands about. “We are equally divided now, two to two.”
“The money I shall pay would be a fortune for the two who help me. The others would have no part in earning it, and no right to share it. Two thousand gulden, you know.”
He had passed me, and at the words turned and stood looking at me with an expression of consummate cunning.
“You are the devil to tempt a man,” he muttered.
“Give me your help in this, and I’ll make your share three thousand,” I said, in a low tone.
“Three thousand gulden,” he murmured under his breath. “Three thousand gulden for myself.”
“And you shall have the horse we have and come with us as guide to where we wish to go. You know the country?”
“Every yard of it. Three thousand gulden!” He murmured it almost caressingly, like a man dazed at the prospect of such riches. “I’ll do it,” he exclaimed, and threw up his hand. “You’ll swear on the cross to pay me?”
He made a couple of steps toward me as he spoke, and I stepped back, not wishing him to come too close.
“Now,” he cried, and sent up a great shout.
There was a guttural sound behind me, and the next instant I felt the burning sting of steel in my flesh as the wounded man thrust a knife into my leg with a force and suddenness that made me stagger; a clutch on my coat followed, which upset my balance and drew me back all a-sprawl across him.
Only by the narrowest chance did I escape death then—the chance that in falling I so hampered the man that he could not deliver the second thrust for which he had already lifted his knife. He struck at me, but missed his aim. The blade pierced my coat only, and, mercifully, I was unhurt. I was out of his reach before he could strike again, and with a heavy kick I put his arm out of action and sent the knife flying across the tent while I shouted for Karasch.
It was all the work of an instant, and I was barely on my legs before the leader rushed at me. My fingers were still closed on my revolver and I fired, but in the confusion missed him, and we grappled one another in grim earnest.
He was a more powerful man than I, and although I strove with all my strength and used every trick of the wrestling ring that I knew, I could not shake him off. He knew I was losing blood from the wound in my leg; and he clung to me, pinning my arms to my side, and waiting for my strength to give out, as assuredly it must.
For some minute or two matters were thus; his arms wrapped round me with the force of iron clamps, fixing mine to my sides; his muscular body pressed, straining against mine, and our faces so close that I could feel his breath on me as it came through his dilated nostrils.
Then chance was my friend once more. As I writhed and staggered in my desperate efforts to shake off his terrible grip, and we tossed and swayed in that grim, wild struggle, he caught his foot and down we went crash to the ground, he undermost. His grip relaxed for the instant, and with a frantic effort I thrust myself free from him, and scrambling up jumped out of his reach.
In a second I had the drop on him; and when he regained his feet and faced me with a heavy club he had picked up, he was looking down the barrel that meant death.
If I hadn’t been a chicken-hearted fool I should have shot him down on the spot; but instead I offered him his life; and then, as if in contempt of my weakness, Fortune deserted me.
“Throw your hands up, or I’ll put a bullet into you,” I cried.
He stood a second as if weighing the chances, and then from outside came the noise of trouble. The crash of breaking wood, a cry from the girl, the savage growl of Chris, and an angry shout in Karasch’s deep voice.
It was almost the last thing I knew of that fight.
Maddened by the sounds I sprang to rush from the tent, when the wounded man, resourceful daredevil as he was, made his last effort and flung his rug right at my face.
The last thing I saw was the leader springing toward me with his uplifted club; I fired at him; and the same moment a blow on the head finished the fight, and I went down stunned and senseless.