The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER LIV

THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO

But at long and last the most tardy-footed day comes to an end. And so, just as fast as on any common day, the sun at last dropped to the edge of the horizon and slowly sank, leaving a shallowing lake of orange color behind.

The red roofs of Thorn grew gray, with purple veins of shadow in the interstices where the streets ran, or rather burrowed. The nightly hum of the city began. For, under the cruel rule of the wolves of the castle, Thorn was ever busiest in the right. Indeed, the cheating of the guard had become a business well understood of all the citizens, who had a regular code of signals to warn each other of its approach.

Lights winked and kindled in the Wolfsberg over against me. I could see the long array of lighted windows where the Duke would presently be dining with Michael Texel, High Councillor Gerard von Sturm, and most of his other intimates. There, beneath, were the stables of the Black Riders, and before them men were constantly passing and repassing with buckets and soldier gear.

I wondered if the Duke had news of the approach of the enemy.

So soon as I judged it safe I went to the top of the Red Tower and unfolded the paper which Jan the Lubber Fiend had brought me. It was without name and address or signature, and read as follows:

"To-night we shall be all in readiness. When the time is ripe let a fire be lighted upon some conspicuous tower or high place of the city. Then we will come."

Thereafter Helene, being lonely, climbed up and sat down beside me. I handed her the paper.

"To-night will be a stormy one in Thorn and the Wolfsberg, little one," said I. "I fear you and I are not yet out of the wood."

The Little Playmate read the letter and gave it back to me. I tore it up, and let the wind carry away the pieces one by one, small, like dust, so that scarce one letter clave to another.

Her hand stole into mine.

"Ah," she sighed, "I am beginning to believe in it now! To-night may be as dangerous as yesternight. But at least we are together, never to be separated. And to us two that means all."

It was a strange marriage night, this of ours—thus to sit on the roof of the Tower, under the iron beacon which had been placed there in my grandfather's time, and listen to the hum and murmur of the city, straining our eyes meanwhile through the darkness to catch the first spear-glint from the army of the Prince.

"If they do not come by midnight, or if Jan Lubber Fiend does not light his fire by the White Gate, we must e'en risk it and kindle this one here on the Red Tower."

So the night passed on till it was about eleven, or it might be a quarter of an hour later. Then all suddenly I saw a little crowd of men disengage themselves from that private entrance of the Hall of Judgment by which, on the day of the trial, Dessauer and I had entered. They made straight towards the Red Tower at a quick run.

"Dear love," said I to Helene, "see yonder! Be ready to light the beacon. I fear me much that our time has come to fight for life."

"Kiss me, then," she said, "and I will be ready for all that may be. At worst, we can die together, true husband and true wife."

Presently there came a thundering knock at the door of the Red Tower. I crouched on the stairs behind and listened intently. I could hear the breathing of several men.

"He is surely within," said a voice. "The tower has been watched every moment of the day."

Again came the loud knocking.

"Open—in the name of the Duke!" cried the voice. And the door was rattled fiercely against its fastenings.

But I knew well enough that it could hold against any force of unassisted men. For my father had ever taken a special pride in the bars and defences of the single low door which led into his much-threatened residence.

So I crouched in the dark of the stairs and listened with yet more quivering intentness. Presently I could hear shoulders set to the iron-studded surface, and a voice counted, softly, "One—two—three—and a heave!" But though I discerned the laboring of the men straining themselves with all their might, they might as well have pushed at the rough-harled wall of the Wolfsberg.

"It will not do," I heard one say at last. "We cannot hope to succeed thus. Bring the powder-bag and prepare the fuse."

So then I knew indeed that our time was at hand. I mounted the stairs three at a time till I came to the room where Helene was waiting for me in the dark.

"Fire the beacon on the Tower!" I bade her—"our enemies are upon us!"

"And after that may I come to you, Hugo?" she said.

"Nay, little one, it is better that you bide on the roof and see that the beacon burns. You will find plenty of tow and oil in the niche by the stair-head."

I could hear Helene give vent to a little sigh. But she obeyed instantly, and her light feet went pattering up the stairs.

Then I waited for the explosion, which seemed as if it would never come. I had my dagger in my belt, but of pure instinct my right hand seized the Red Axe. For I had more skill of that than any other weapon, and as I had cast it down when they brought us in from the scaffold that morning, it lay ready to my hand.

So I waited at the stair-head, and watched keenly the narrow passage up which the men must come one by one. I measured my distance with the axe-handle, and made a trial sweep or two, so that I might be sure of clearing the stones on either side. I could not see that there would be much difficulty in holding the place for a while, if only Prince Karl would haste him and come. For to me the game of breaking heads and slicing necks would be easy as cracking nuts on an anvil—at least, so long as they would come up singly.

Presently I heard the roar of burning fuel above me, and immediately after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the flames flicked upward and clapped their fiery applausive palms.

But at the same moment, from the foot of the stairs, there came the loud report of the explosion beneath the door of the Red Tower, the rumble of stones, and then an eager rush of men to see what had been effected.

"Now for it!" I thought, as I gripped the Red Axe.

But it was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its branches, but with the rough bark still upon it.

Without, in the square, the turmoil increased, and the streets echoed with shouting. A wild hope came into my heart that Prince Karl had not awaited the summons of the beacon, and that his troops were already in the streets of Thorn. But even as the thought passed through my brain I knew that it was vain.

On the other hand, it was evident that in the town the general alarm had been given, for the trumpets blew from the ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and the call to arms resounded incessantly in the court-yard. I doubted not also that many a stout burgher was getting him under arms—and but few of them to fight for the Duke.

Suddenly the bars of the door jangled on the stones under the swinging blows of the battering-ram. I heard feet clatter on the stair. They came with a rush, but long ere they had arrived at the top the pace slackened. Only one man at a time could come up the stairway, and it is always a drag upon the enthusiasm of an assault when at least two cannot advance together. The light flickered and filtered in from the torches in the streets, and the reflected glow of the bonfire on the roof made the stair-head clear as a lucid twilight.

I waited, with the axe swinging loosely in one hand. A head bobbed up, clad in a steel cap. Bat as the unseen feet propelled it upward the Red Axe took little reck of the head. Betwixt the steel cap and the rim of steel of the body armor appeared a gray line of leather jerkin and a thinner white line of neck. The Red Axe swung. I bethought me that it was a bad light to cut off calves' heads in. But the Red Axe made no mistake. I had learned my trade. There was not even a groan—only a dull thud some way underneath, such as you may hear when the children of the quarter play football on the streets.

Then the foremost of the assailants were blocked by the fallen body, and the feet of the men behind were stayed as the strange round plaything rebounded among them.

"Back!" they cried, who were in front.

"Forward!" replied those who were hindmost and knew nothing.

"Come, men—on and finish it!" cried the voice which had commanded the powder-flask and the tree—the voice I now knew to be that of Duke Otho himself.

But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would not rid him of his enemies.

"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted.
"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!"

Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair.

"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a single true man among you—but there is not one worth spitting upon!"

"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark—"you have most at stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow fast enough!"

"God strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame you cowards."

He paused to prepare his weapons.

"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!"

Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps beneath me.

My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers.

"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for all with the iron crown."

There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing furiously upon me, sword in hand.

"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so fast he came.

"Murderer!" I shouted.

And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe flashed as it swept full circle with scarce a pause, but it took the head of a man with it on its way.

Otho von Reuss was crowned. Helene, the Little Playmate, was avenged.