A prince of lovers

by Sir William Magnay

Ludovic’s pistol rang out, and a man fell. Ompertz pointed his empty pistol, and, seeing their comrade go down, the assailants checked their onslaught. But the Count was coming up behind them; his furious tones sounded above the rest, and the stimulus of that dominant spirit put an end to hesitation. If death was a risk in front, it was a certainty behind them, and the Count had a peculiarly unpleasant lethal prescription for cowards and blunderers. So the men were fain to attack, in spite of the ugly little barrel which swept round upon them as they spread out to surround the doomed pair.

But now the precious fire could no longer be husbanded. Ompertz, hemmed in, shot down with his second pistol the most aggressive of their adversaries. The man’s fall caused but a momentary backward sway of the on-coming force, which was now ready to attack at all points, and make short and final work of their victims. As the great body dropped with a half-choked cry and a thud, his companions, with savage cries of rage, brandished their weapons and made a simultaneous rush to close in.

Back to back the two doomed men stood, grimly determined to make as many lives as possible pay for their own, since all else but death was out of the question. Ludovic was now utterly possessed by the spirit of blind, despairing recklessness. The sense of the terrible irony of his fate had passed from his mind. All hope was gone; one after the other his kingdom and his love had been snatched from him, and now Fate’s shears were already meeting on the thread of his life. So free of the world and all it held dear for him did he feel, that he could laugh and enjoy the desperate excitement of that last struggle, where, since he could not win, he could delight in reducing his opponent’s gain. In those terrible moments, when the murdering swords and villainous faces with eyes drunk with the lust for slaughter pressed round him, he fought with a coolness and effect which forced from him a laugh at his own success. He could not have imagined their holding out like that. He heard, above the guttural hubbub, the Count’s voice roaring, as much, it seemed, in impatient annoyance as encouragement. Then from Ompertz behind him came a loud exclamation of triumph, a shout as gaily jubilant as a man might give on a successful stroke at tennis, but it meant that another of the Count’s ruffians had been accounted for, and the debt which their lives were to pay was growing.

But almost immediately afterwards the soldier gave a different cry.

“Ah! I am done for!”

Instantly Ludovic turned to see his comrade practically disarmed, his uplifted hand grasped but the hilt of his shattered sword.

“My beauty! Gone at last, and on these swine,” he cried ruefully.

There was but one sword now to defend two men. Ompertz, with a despairing oath, hurled the sword-hilt full in the face of the man who was about to thrust at him. The fellow’s intention was naturally checked by the blow which took him fairly on the mouth, and, profiting by the moment’s respite, Ompertz made a vigorous spring out of the immediate reach of his assailants, but instead of trying to escape rushed desperately towards the Count.

“Count!” he cried, throwing out his arms, “kill me, as you please, but save him. He is Prince Ludwig of Drax-Beroldstein.”

He stopped, for, with an exclamation of angry surprise, the Count had turned from him and ran forward, peering through the semi-darkness at a sight which had suddenly attracted him. For a moment Ompertz supposed that it was Ludovic who was the object of his attention, and he, too, ran back to where he had left him, fearing that he must by now have fallen. To his surprise he found Ludovic standing alone; his assailants had drawn away from him, and were facing, in, as it seemed, some consternation, the mounted troops which had now advanced from the shadow of the rocks into the open. The sudden cessation in the attack was incomprehensible to both men. But, taking in the situation as he found it, Ompertz lost no time in snatching a cutlass from one of the dead men, and then sprang to the King’s side.