A Prince to Order

by Charles Stokes Wayne

Grey’s broken, unrefreshing, dreamful slumber of the night before, followed by a tiresome, distressing day, resulted early in the evening in a drowsiness that he could not shake off. For a while he dozed in a chair by an open window, but when the clock had struck eleven he arose and prepared for bed, and in a little while he was sleeping soundly behind his blue velvet curtains.

The night, however, was warm and close after the rain of the day, and, as the hours wore on, the sleeper grew restless and turned uneasily from side to side, by-and-by waking at each turning and seeking a cool spot between the sheets. At length sleep forsook him altogether, and he lay quite wide awake peering into the darkness in an effort to distinguish objects. But the night was very black and the room was enveloped in a pall of ink, save where the reflection from the street lamps spread patches of dim yellow light on wall and ceiling. The stillness, too, was oppressive. The boulevard was dead, and within doors no sound except the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantel-shelf was audible.

He waited longingly for the clock to strike that he might know how many hours must elapse before the dawn; and as he waited, his senses alert, there broke softly on the silence the stealthy tread of feet in the passage on the other side of the wall near which he lay. No sooner had he heard the footsteps than they ceased, and the sound was succeeded by a muffled, metallic clicking from the direction of his door. With Lindenwald’s warning in mind he had turned the key in the lock before retiring, and he recalled this now with a sense of satisfied security; but even as he did so he was conscious of the door being pushed slowly but creakingly ajar, and then the tread that he had heard without he heard within. He held his breath, not in affright, for he was, he realised, wonderfully composed, but lest he scare away the intruder before the object of his visit was made plain.

Another second and a figure had crossed in the dim light that came from one of the windows. It was a rather undersized figure, Grey thought, but its attitude was crouching, almost creeping, and he might be deceived. Quickly a hand went to the cord loops at either side of the casements and dropped the curtains, and now the room was devoid of even the dim illumination from the street lamps. Then again, for a heart-beat, there was a blade of light visible as the visitor’s arm shot quickly between the lowered window hangings and drew cautiously together the open sashes, first one and then the other.

The steps now approached the bed—very slowly, haltingly, as though the intruder stopped at each footfall to listen. Grey waited, with every muscle tense, his nerves a-strain, wondering, speculating as to this night prowler’s next move. For a little while his approach ceased and the suspense grew maddening. The man had evidently halted in the centre of the room. Then there came the faintest tinkle of glass touched to glass, so faint that the ticking of the clock made question whether it was not imagination; and then the stealthy stepping was resumed, but more nearly silent than before, until the man in the bed, with heart pounding, teeth shut tight and breath indrawn and held, knew that the other was there beside him—leaning in over him, between the curtains, with a hand outstretched....

Blindly, into the pitch dark, with all its power of nerve and muscle, Grey’s clenched fist shot upward just as a cloth, wet with a liquid so suffocatingly volatile as to stagger him for the instant, dropped on his face. He heard a startled cry, half moan, half groan, and then a crash as a body reeled backward and, losing its balance, toppled over a chair. On his feet in a flash, Grey made haste to follow up his advantage. His foot touched his fallen assailant and he flung his full weight down upon him, groping wildly in the dark to find his arms and pinion them. But the fellow wriggled like a worm—twisting agilely, squirming from under his clutch—and his arms evaded capture. Locked in a desperate embrace they rolled over and over, now half rising to their knees, now thrown back again, upsetting tables and chairs, pounding their heads stunningly on floor and wall, clutching at each other’s hair, gripping each other’s throats—a wrestling match in which science had neither time nor place; a struggle for capture on the part of one, and for escape on the part of the other.

Grey was the stronger of the two, the heavier, the more muscular, but his foe was all elasticity, wiry, resilient, untiring, indomitable. The minutes passed without any apparent advantage to either. The smaller man was swearing in four languages and Grey was breathing hard. The noise they were making, as they rose and fell and overturned furniture, was thunderous. Each moment Grey expected the house would be awakened and assistance would arrive. Perspiration was pouring from his every pore; his pyjamas were in ribbons, his body and limbs half naked. Vainly he strove to strike and stun his adversary. His blows were dodged as if by instinct and his knuckles were bleeding where they had come in contact with the floor.

At length he succeeded in laying hold of the fellow’s face, his nose and mouth in his iron grasp, but instantly the jaws wrenched open and then closed savagely with Grey’s finger between viciously incisive teeth. A cry of pain escaped him as for the smallest moment a wave of faintness swept over him, and then he felt his antagonist slipping sinuously from under him and he grabbed wildly for a fresh hold. He caught a wrist and tried to cling to it, but the teeth were cutting to the bone, grinding on the joint, and the wrist slid through his grasp and the head followed in a twinkling. He rolled over and lunged out again, but the steely jaws had at that instant released his mangled finger, and even as he was striving to reach, struggling pantingly to his knees, he heard the door open quickly and he knew that he was alone.

He sank back to a sitting posture, breathing hard and deeply, but the air seemed suddenly to have grown thick and foul and choking, and he clambered to his feet and sought in the darkness for a window. Presently the touch of the curtains rewarded him. He thrust them frantically aside, pushed open the sashes and then dropped down again with his head and shoulders far out over the balcony, drinking in the cool, fresh air of the very early morning.

And it was here, in this position, a minute later that Johann, who had after considerable deliberation decided to investigate the cause of the disturbance, found him pale and exhausted, with the remnants of his pyjamas spattered with blood from his bleeding finger.