Part 13

"You know it wasn't exactly fair," he said.

The boy considered, then answered, honestly:

"It wasn't, then, but what are we going to do about it? You are a Houseman, and you have come to spy out the secrets of Doom the Forbidden. Any of the men who saw you would kill you like a snake."

"Perhaps so, but they would not wait until my back was turned or get a girl to help them."

Constans suddenly realized that he stood free of his bonds. The boy had severed them with his clasp-knife, that being the quickest means of releasing his captive.

"We will fight for it, then," he said, simply.

Constans nodded.

It was not at all an even match, for Constans was at least thirty pounds lighter than his adversary, and his slightly longer reach of arm was more than counter-balanced by the latter's ability to take any amount of punishment.

Half a dozen ineffectual passes and they clinched. Constans was forced backward; he tripped and fell. The blows, short but savage, rained down upon his face. He tried to strike back, but his throat was gripped hard; he was suffocating. Consciousness was about to desert him, and he felt vaguely angry at this betrayal of his senses; then the light returned, and he sat up, his head swimming. A man stood between him and his late opponent. It was Quinton Edge, and the recognition was a mutual one.

"Oh, you!" drawled Quinton Edge, with that well-remembered, fine-gentleman inflection. "I am almost sorry that I interfered, but this young lady would have it so, and a woman's will is always law. Eh, Ulick?"

But the boy Ulick scowled. "It was no business of yours," he said, angrily.

"That depends. Besides, it stands to reason that no man likes to see his own property mishandled. You don't realize, my good fellow, that you have a fist as rough as a shark-skin."

"Your property!" echoed the boy, in disdain. "Prove it."

"Easily," smiled Quinton Edge, and drew aside the lock of hair that concealed the V-shaped nick in Constans's left ear.

"Oh!" said Ulick, shortly. He had been quick to see and interpret the appeal in his prisoner's eyes. "It makes not a particle of difference," asserted Ulick, stubbornly. "He is my captive, taken in fair fight, and he belongs to me for all of his nicked ear. I sha'n't give him up, and that's my last word to you, Master Quinton Edge."

Half a dozen men entered the hall hurriedly; the girl Esmay must have summoned them when she had disappeared a few minutes before. Sturdy varlets they were, clad in green jerkins and armed with ashen lances pointed with steel. As Constans came afterwards to know, they were of the personal body-guard of the old Dom Gillian, to whom the boy Ulick was both grandson and presumptive heir. Now Quinton Edge was not yet ready to measure swords with Dom Gillian. So he veiled his irritation and answered, equably:

"You know the law about harboring a House-dweller, and since you choose to violate it"--here he shrugged his shoulders detestably--"let Dom Gillian see to it. Yet, for the sake of peace, I will ask you once more to surrender this serf, who bears my mark and is legally proved my property. In the end it may save a mountain of trouble. What say you?"

"No!" thundered Ulick, roundly, for he was angered at the implied threat, and would have held his ground now out of pure stubbornness. Whereupon Quinton Edge smiled and sauntered out, adjusting the ruffles at his wrist and carrying himself as gallantly as though he had been the victor, not the vanquished, in this little contest of wills.

Constans went up to Ulick and held out his hand. "Thank you," he said, awkwardly, and Ulick flushed in his turn.

The guardsmen were crowding about the two boys, looking curiously at Constans. But Ulick ordered them out imperiously, and they obeyed, being men of slow wit and not used to argue with their superiors. Ulick turned to Constans. "Well, that was fair enough, to make up for--for the other thing?"

Constans nodded a hearty assent; he hesitated, and then spoke, steadily: "But you must understand that I would rather fight again than wear the iron collar of a slave, or call any one master, even you. You will kill me, for you are the better man with the naked fist. But I should prefer it that way."

"Will you leave this with me?" asked Ulick, nodding his head wisely, and Constans wondered and submitted.

They went out into the breathless noon of an August day. Two or three men were loitering about, and Ulick frowned as he saw them.

"I shall have to take you to my grandsire," he whispered. "These are Quinton Edge's men, and they are doubtless under orders to watch us. This way," and Constans followed obediently.

Ulick stopped at a beautiful Gothic edifice, built about a small court-yard, in which a score of the green-jerkined guardsmen were lounging. In a corner stood a wooden cistern for the collection of rain-water from the roof-spouts. Ulick drew a pannikin of water and offered it to Constans that he might bathe his face, which was badly puffed and marked. How reviving, the touch of the cool, clean liquid! Constans arose, mightily refreshed; then, in response to his guide's look, he followed him into the main hallway of the house and up the broad stairs.

The building, judging from its size and appointments, must have been the dwelling of one of the richest members of the ancient plutocracy, and the traces of a splendid luxury were to be seen on all sides. The colored marbles underfoot, the gilding overhead, the gorgeous, albeit torn and weather-stained tapestries that covered the walls--these things were eloquent of a pristine magnificence that could hardly have been equalled, even in this city of palaces. Constans kept looking about him with all his eyes, but Ulick strode along indifferently. Every son of the Doomsmen might possess a dwelling measurably as fine as this if he chose to look for it, but from a practical point of view the sole qualification for a man's house was that it should be standing in plumb and tolerably weather-proof. Gold-leaf and silken hangings would not keep out the rain, and it was folly to spend time in making repairs. When a house became uninhabitable it was a simple matter to move into another.

The apartment into which they now entered was long and lofty. The thick curtains remained drawn before the windows, excluding so much of the light that Constans had great difficulty in finding his way about. Then, his eyes adjusting themselves to the obscurity, he saw before him a divan piled high with pillows. Propped up against them was the figure of an old man.

And such a man! In his prime he must have been a very colossus of strength and stature, and even now, in his senility, the muscles that had made terrible those great limbs could be plainly traced. For this was Dominus Gillian, whose name had been first a byword and then a terror, and even now was a power to conjure with; Dom Gillian, renegade and hero, gallows-bird and world-builder, but ever and in all things a man, as all other men will bear witness.