Then Count Sagan, secure of his enemy, let himself go. He lifted the sword from the table, and casting one more glance at the prisoner, he placed the gleaming point upon the floor, bending the delicate blade, and stamping upon it midway with his booted heel. There was a shallow ring as the steel broke, then a clash of metal as the Count flung the hilt upon the point, as if the touch contaminated him.
'John Rallywood, this court has found you guilty and condemned you to die! And I, Count Simon of Sagan, colonel-in-chief of the Guard of Maäsau, now pronounce upon you the sentence of death. Trusted by the Guard, you chose to betray them! Where is the oath of fealty by which you swore to obey? We are polluted by your treason, we are tainted by your shame! Are you afraid to speak? Is your voice frozen in your throat? The greater part of your punishment should be in its shame. But you cannot feel it! You and shame are strangers—the last infamy of the base! You are loathsome, a mercenary false to his salt, a hound who sold himself for money first and for disgraceful gain afterwards! How can I touch you? Where can I prod you? On what nerve, since the nerve of shame is dead? Like the groom, one could only punish you with a whip. I shall lay the matter before the Duke. I will urge it upon my colleagues,' he swept his arm round the table; 'a hundred with the whip or to run the gauntlet of the Guard. That would touch you more than words, or shame, or death! Ha, that reaches you!' he cried, and then there was a fierce exultation in the raucous volleying words, 'You have disgraced the Guard but we cannot for reasons of state publicly disgrace you. But you shall be shot—shot like a dog! You shall not meet death face to face as many a brave man has met it, but you shall be shot, cringing with your back to the gun-muzzles—like the cur you are!'
Rallywood's pale features had flushed for a second. There was a brutality about Sagan's denunciations which shocked the men around him. Rallywood deserved something, but not this, not that! Unziar's eyes burned, Wallenloup was frowning. But Sagan swept on. He was a man who trampled horribly upon a fallen foe.
At last Wallenloup could bear it no longer. He rose to his feet and saluting the Count led the way from the room, the line closing with Rallywood between Adolf and Unziar as guard.
Left alone in the great dim vaulted chamber, Sagan stood upright and watched the door through which they had filed out, and there came upon him in the dying daylight a terrible moment, such as all uncontrolled natures must at times know. A sense of the futility of all things, a knowledge that life has lost its taste, the hideousness of finally baffled desire.
He hurled out his heavy arms with a wild gesture.
'Where have they gone? Where are they, the strong lusts and hates and triumphs—the satisfactions of the old days? The world has grown puny. It is empty, empty, empty!'
CHAPTER XXX.
'UPON THE GREAT WORLD'S ALTAR-STAIRS.'