The Gilded Chair: A Novel

by Melville Davisson Post

Cyrus Childers went over to another table, got a cigar, deliberately bit off the end, lighted it, pulled a soft hat over his head and went out.

The Duke followed behind him, but at the door, under the light, he stopped a moment, and put a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher. The Marchesa Soderrelli and Caroline Childers remained in the library. In the corridor confused sounds, coming from outside, were audible, and another window in the stairway broke. The old man gave these things no visible attention; he neither lagged nor hurried. A few minutes before he had closed the door of the château; he stopped now, drew the bolts, and threw it open. Then he stepped up into the full light of the door, and stood looking calmly out. The Duke, bare-headed, stepped up beside him, holding the rifle with one hand behind his back.

Outside a crowd of figures, scattered over the court, drew together and advanced toward the door. It was possible, under so bright a moon, to observe these persons distinctly, and the Duke of Dorset was not reassured by what he saw. They were the scum of Japan; a mob such as the devil, selecting at his leisure, might have put together—dirty, uncouth, a considerable mob, reinforced every moment by others entering the northern border of the court in little groups of perhaps half a dozen. The ones nearest to the château were servants, but foresters were beginning to arrive, equally sinister, equally repulsive to the eye. The mob, drawing together by a common instinct, stopped about fifty paces from the door, hesitated and chattered. At the distance the Duke could not catch the words, but he recognized the language in which they were uttered.

Cyrus Childers spoke then to the Duke beside him.

"I am going out to talk to these people," he said. "Please remain here."

He spoke without turning his face. Then he stepped down into the court and walked as he had walked through the corridor, deliberately, with unconcern, out to the mob waiting in the middle of the court. The voices died down and ceased as he approached. The moving figures stopped on their feet. The old man walked on until he came up close to the mob; then he took the cigar out of his mouth and began to speak. At the distance the Duke could not hear what he said; he seemed to address certain individuals and, now and then, to put a question.

The Duke stood gripping the stock of his rifle, expecting the man to be attacked. But instead the mob seemed brought to reason; it was wholly silent and, the Duke thought, wholly motionless. The old man talked for perhaps five minutes. Then he put his cigar back into his mouth, made a gesture with his hand like a speaker dismissing an audience, turned and began to walk back leisurely to the château. He had covered perhaps half the distance, when a single voice crashed out of this mob, loud, harsh, grating.

At the cry the mob surged forward as at a signal. The Duke of Dorset brought the rifle from behind him, like a flash, to his shoulder. He saw the mob hang a moment on its toes. He heard in several dialects shouted assurance that the gun was harmless. Then, hoping to drive the mob back by the exposure of its error, he fired close over it, so the whistle of the bullets could be heard. But the whole mass was already on the way. It rushed, hurling a shower of missiles. The Duke, struck violently, was thrown back against the door; he heard a scattering popping, as of twigs snapping in a fire, and a clattering of stones against the wall.

Then he got on his feet and understood what had happened. The mob had charged, believing the gun useless; had discovered the error on the way, and was now running for cover to the stables. A stake, thrown by some gigantic arm, had struck across the gun barrel, which he had involuntarily raised to protect his body, and the violent impact of the blow had carried him against the door. His fire had failed to check the rush of the mob in time. It had passed over the old man before it broke. He lay out there on the trampled turf, one arm doubled under him.

The Duke thrust a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher and stepped out into the court. But no man, in the crowd scurrying to cover, turned. They vanished like rats into a wall. The Duke crossed the court, reached the body of the old man, took it up, and began to return with it to the house. Then, from somewhere about the stables, that irregular popping began. The Duke saw, or thought he saw, a hand holding a pistol thrust out from the partly open door of a horse stall. He stopped, put down the body, swung the muzzle of the Mannlicher on the spot and fired; a fragment of the door as big as a man's hand detached itself and flew into splinters. The popping instantly ceased, and the Duke went on into the château, unmolested, with his burden.