The Snare
by Rafael Sabatini
(first published in 1917)
Chapter XIV
The Champion
With the possible exception of her ladyship, I do not think that there was much sleep that night at Monsanto for any of the four
chief actors in this tragicomedy. Each had his own preoccupations.
Sylvia's we know. Mr. Butler found his leg troubling him again,
and the pain of the reopened wound must have prevented him from
sleeping even had his anxieties about his immediate future not
sufficed to do so. As for Sir Terence, his was the most deplorable
case of all. This man who had lived a life of simple and downright
honesty in great things and in small, a man who had never stooped
to the slightest prevarication, found himself suddenly launched upon
the most horrible and infamous course of duplicity to encompass the
ruin of another. The offence of that other against himself might
be of the most foul and hideous, a piece of treachery that only
treachery could adequately avenge; yet this consideration was not
enough to appease the clamours of Sir Terence's self-respect.
In the end, however, the primary desire for vengeance and vengeance
of the bitterest kind proved master of his mind. Captain Tremayne
had been led by his villainy into a coil that should presently crush
him, and Sir Terence promised himself an infinite balm for his
outraged honour in the entertainment which the futile struggles of
the victim should provide. With Captain Tremayne lay the cruel
choice of submitting in tortured silence to his fate, or of turning
craven and saving his miserable life by proclaiming himself a
seducer and a betrayer. It should be interesting to observe how
the captain would decide, and his punishment was certain whatever
the decision that he took.
Sir Terence came to breakfast in the open, grey-faced and haggard,
but miraculously composed for a man who had so little studied the
art of concealing his emotions. Voice and glance were calm as he
gave a good-morning to his wife and to Miss Armytage.
"What are you going to do about Ned?" was one of his wife's first
questions.
It took him aback. He looked askance at her, marvelling at the
steadiness with which she bore his glance, until it occurred to him
that effrontery was an essential part of the equipment of all
harlots.
"What am I going to do?" he echoed. "Why, nothing. The matter is
out of my hands. I may be asked to give evidence; I may even be
called to sit upon the court-martial that will try him. My evidence
can hardly assist him. My conclusions will naturally be based upon
the evidence that is laid before the court."
Her teaspoon rattled in her saucer. "I don't understand you,
Terence. Ned has always been your best friend."
"He has certainly shared everything that was mine."
"And you know," she went on, "that he did not kill Samoval."
"Indeed?" His glance quickened a little. "How should I know that?"
"Well . . . I know it, anyway."
He seemed moved by that statement. He leaned forward with an odd
eagerness, behind which there was something terrible that went
unperceived by her.
"Why did you not say so before? How do you know? What do you know?"
"I am sure that he did not."
"Yes, yes. But what makes you so sure? Do you possess some
knowledge that you have not revealed?"
He saw the colour slowly shrinking from her cheeks under his
burning gaze. So she was not quite shameless then, after all.
There were limits to her effrontery.
"What knowledge should I possess?" she filtered.
"That is what I am asking."
She made a good recovery. "I possess the knowledge that you should
possess yourself," she told him. "I know Ned for a man incapable of
such a thing. I am ready to swear that he could not have done it."
"I see: evidence as to character." He sack back into his chair and
thoughtfully stirred his chocolate. "It may weigh with the court.
But I am not the court, and my mere opinions can do nothing for Ned
Tremayne."
Her ladyship looked at him wildly. "The court?" she cried. "Do
you mean that I shall have to give evidence?"
"Naturally," he answered. "You will have to say what you saw."
"But—but I saw nothing."
"Something, I think."
"Yes; but nothing that can matter."
"Still the court will wish to hear it and perhaps to examine you
upon it."
"Oh no, no!" In her alarm she half rose, then sank again to her
chair. "You must keep me out of this, Terence. I couldn't—I
really couldn't,"
He laughed with an affectation of indulgence, masking something
else.
"Why," he said, "you would not deprive Tremayne of any of the
advantages to be derived from your testimony? Are you not ready
to bear witness as to his character? To swear that from your
knowledge of the man you are sure he could not have done such a
thing? That he is the very soul of honour, a man incapable of
anything base or treacherous or sly?"
And then at last Sylvia, who had been watching them, and seeking
to apply to what she heard the wild expressions that Sir Terence
had used to herself last night, broke into the conversation.
"Why do you apply these words to Captain Tremayne?" she asked.
He turned sharply to meet the opposition he detected in her. "I
don't apply them. On the contrary, I say that, as Una knows, they
are not applicable."
"Then you make an unnecessary statement, a statement that has
nothing to do with the case. Captain Tremayne has been arrested
for killing Count Samoval in a duel. A duel may be a violation of
the law as recently enacted by Lord Wellington, but it is not an
offence against honour; and to say that a man cannot have fought a
duel because a man is incapable of anything base or treacherous or
sly is just to say a very foolish and meaningless thing."
"Oh, quite so," the adjutant, admitted. "But if Tremayne denies
having fought, if he shelters himself behind a falsehood, and says
that he has not killed Samoval, then I think the statement assumes
some meaning."
"Does Captain Tremayne say that?" she asked him sharply.
"It is what I understood him to say last night when I ordered him
under arrest."
"Then," said Sylvia, with full conviction, "Captain Tremayne did
not do it."
"Perhaps he didn't," Sir Terence admitted. "The court will no doubt
discover the truth. The truth, you know, must prevail," and he
looked at his wife again, marking the fresh signs of agitation she
betrayed.
Mullins coming to set fresh covers, the conversation was allowed to
lapse. Nor was it ever resumed, for at that moment, with no other
announcement save such as was afforded by his quick step and the
click-click of his spurs, a short, slight man entered the quadrangle
from the doorway of the official wing.
The adjutant, turning to look, caught his breath suddenly in an
exclamation of astonishment.
"Lord Wellington!" he cried, and was immediately on his feet.
At the exclamation the new-comer checked and turned. He wore a
plain grey undress frock and white stock, buckskin breeches and
lacquered boots, and he carried a riding-crop tucked under his left
arm. His features were bold and sternly handsome; his fine eyes
singularly piercing and keen in their glance; and the sweep of those
eyes now took in not merely the adjutant, but the spread table and
the ladies seated before it. He halted a moment, then advanced
quickly, swept his cocked hat from a brown head that was but very
slightly touched with grey, and bowed with a mixture of stiffness
and courtliness to the ladies.
"Since I have intruded so unwittingly, I had best remain to make my
apologies," he said. "I was on my way to your residential quarters,
O'Moy, not imagining that I should break in upon your privacy in
this fashion."
O'Moy with a great deference made haste to reassure him on the score
of the intrusion, whilst the ladies themselves rose to greet him.
He bore her ladyship's hand to his lips with perfunctory courtesy,
then insisted upon her resuming her chair. Then he bowed—ever
with that mixture of stiffness and deference—to Miss Armytage
upon her being presented to him by the adjutant.
"Do not suffer me to disturb you," he begged them. "Sit down,
O'Moy. I am not pressed, and I shall be monstrous glad of a few
moments' rest. You are very pleasant here," and he looked about
the luxuriant garden with approving eyes.
Sir Terence placed the hospitality of his table at his lordship's
disposal. But the latter declined graciously.
"A glass of wine and water, if you will. No more. I breakfasted
at Torres Vedras with Fletcher." Then to the look of astonishment
on the faces of the ladies he smiled. "Oh yes," he assured them,
"I was early astir, for time is very precious just at present,
which is why I drop unannounced upon you from the skies, O'Moy."
He took the glass that Mullins proffered on a salver, sipped from
it, and set it down. "There is so much vexation, so much hindrance
from these pestilential intriguers here in Lisbon, that I have
thought it as well to come in person and speak plainly to the
gentlemen of the Council of Regency." He was peeling off his stout
riding-gloves as he spoke. "If this campaign is to go forward at
all, it will go forward as I dispose. Then, too, I wanted to see
Fletcher and the works. By gad, O'Moy, he has performed miracles,
and I am very pleased with him—oh, and with you too. He told me
how ably you have seconded him and counselled him where necessary.
You must have worked night and day, O'Moy." He sighed. "I wish
that I were as well served in every direction." And then he broke
off abruptly. "But this is monstrous tedious for your ladyship,
and for you, Miss Armytage. Forgive me."
Her ladyship protested the contrary, professing a deep interest
in military matters, and inviting his lordship to continue. Lord
Wellington, however, ignoring the invitation, turned the
conversation upon life in Lisbon, inquiring hopefully whether they
found the place afforded them adequate entertainment.
"Indeed yes," Lady O'Moy assured him. "We are very gay at times.
There are private theatricals and dances, occasionally an official
ball, and we are promised picnics and water-parties now that the
summer is here."
"And in the autumn, ma'am, we may find you a little hunting," his
lordship promised them. "Plenty of foxes; a rough country, though;
but what's that to an Irishwoman?" He caught the quickening of
Miss Armytage's eye. "The prospect interests you, I see."
Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a
while, what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to
wash the dust of his morning ride from his throat. When at last
he set down an empty glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation
of his readiness to deal with official matters, and, rising, he
announced himself entirely at his lordship's service.
Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the
details of several matters that are not immediately concerned with
this narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence's
desk, at which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop
and cocked hat from the chair where he had placed them.
"And now," he said, "I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour
to come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel
Forjas."
Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him
with a sudden sharp inquiry.
"You published my order against duelling, did you not?"
"Immediately upon receiving it, sir."
"Ha! It doesn't seem to have taken long for the order to be
infringed, then." His manner was severe. his eyes stern. Sir
Terence was conscious of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless
his answer was calmly regretful:
"I am afraid not."
The great man nodded. "Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher
this morning. Captain What's-his-name had just reported himself
under arrest, I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from
you giving the grounds for this. The deplorable part of these
things is that they always happen in the most troublesome manner
conceivable. In Berkeley's case the victim was a nephew of the
Patriarch's. Samoval, now, was a person of even greater
consequence, a close friend of several members of the Council.
His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh
difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious." And abruptly he asked
"What did they quarrel about?"
O'Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other's gimlet eye.
"The only quarrel that I am aware of between them," he said, "was
concerned with this very enactment of your lordship's. Samoval
proclaimed it infamous, and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words
passed between them, but the altercation was allowed to go no
further at the time by myself and others who were present."
His lordship had raised his brows. "By gad, sir," he ejaculated,
"there almost appears to be some justification for the captain.
He was one of your military secretaries, was he not?"
"He was."
"Ha! Pity! Pity!" His lordship was thoughtful for a moment.
Then he dismissed the matter. "But then orders are orders, and
soldiers must learn to obey implicitly. British soldiers of all
degrees seem to find the lesson difficult. We must inculcate it
more sternly, that is all."
O'Moy's honest soul was in torturing revolt against the falsehoods
he had implied—and to this man of all men, to this man whom he
reverenced above all others, who stood to him for the very fount
of military honour and lofty principle! He was in such a mood
that one more question on the subject from Wellington and the whole
ghastly truth must have come pouring from his lips. But no other
question came. Instead his lordship turned on the threshold and
held out his hand.
"Not a step farther, O'Moy. I've left you a mass of work, and
you are short of a secretary. So don't waste any of your time on
courtesies. I shall hope still to find the ladies in the garden
so that I may take my leave without inconveniencing them."
And he was gone, stepping briskly with clicking spurs, leaving
O'Moy hunched now in his chair, his body the very expression of the
dejection that filled his soul.
In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still
seated by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by
now been removed. She rose at his approach and in spite of gesture
to her to remain seated.
"I was seeking Lady O'Moy," said he, "to take my leave of her. I
may not have the pleasure of coming to Monsanto again."
"She is on the terrace, I think," said Miss Armytage. "I will
find her for your lordship."
"Let us find her together," he said amiably, and so turned and
went with her towards the archway. "You said your name is
Armytage, I think?" he commented.
"Sir Terence said so."
His eyes twinkled. "You possess an exceptional virtue," said he.
"To be truthful is common; to be accurate rare. Well, then, Sir
Terence said so. Once I had a great friend of the name of Armytage.
I have lost sight of him these many years. We were at school
together in Brussels."
"At Monsieur Goubert's," she surprised him by saying. "That would
be John Armytage, my uncle."
"God bless my soul, ma'am!" he ejaculated. "But I gathered you
were Irish, and Jack Armytage came from Yorkshire."
"My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there.
But father, none the less, was John Armytage's brother."
He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight,
supple lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His
lordship, remember, never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine
woman. "So you're Jack Armytage's niece. Give me news of him, my
dear."
She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a rich
marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at
Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood
friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no
opportunity to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the
niece. Her own personal charms may have contributed to it, for the
great soldier was intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.
They reached the terrace. Lady O'Moy was nowhere in sight. But
Lord Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be
troubled.
"My dear," he said, "if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack's
sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it."
She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go,
arguing a sudden agitation.
"You tempt me, sir," she said, with a wistful smile.
"Then yield to the temptation, child," he urged her kindly, those
keen, penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.
"It isn't for myself," she responded. "Yet there is something I
would ask you if I dare—something I had intended to ask you in
any case if I could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is
why I was waiting there in the garden just now. It was to waylay
you. I hoped for a word with you."
"Well, well," he encouraged her. "It should be the easier now,
since in a sense we find that we are old friends."
He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his,
that she melted at once to his persuasion.
"It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler," she began.
"Ah," said he lightly, "I feared as much when you said it was
not for yourself you had a favour to ask."
But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had
misunderstood her.
"Mr. Butler," she said, "is the officer who was guilty of the
affair at Tavora."
He knit his brow in thought. "Butler—Tavora?" he muttered
questioningly. Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking.
"Oh yes, the violated nunnery." His thin lips tightened; the
sternness of his face increased. "Yes?" he inquired, but the
tone was now forbidding.
Nevertheless she was not deterred. "Mr. Butler is Lady O'Moy's
brother," she said.
He stared a moment, taken aback. "Good God! Ye don't say so,
child! Her brother! O'Moy's brother-in-law! And O'Moy never
said a word to me about it."
"What should he say? Sir Terence himself pledged his word to
the Council of Regency that Mr. Butler would be shot when taken."
"Did he, egad!" He was still further surprised out of his
sternness. "Something of a Roman this O'Moy in his conception of
duty! Hum! The Council no doubt demanded this?"
"So I understand, my lord. Lady O'Moy, realising her brother's
grave danger, is very deeply troubled."
"Naturally," he agreed. "But what can I do, Miss Armytage?
What were the actual facts, do you happen to know?"
She recited them, putting the case bravely for the scapegrace Mr.
Butler, dwelling particularly upon the error under which he was
labouring, that he had imagined himself to be knocking at the gates
of a monastery of Dominican friars, that he had broken into the
convent because denied admittance, and because he suspected some
treacherous reason for that denial.
He heard her out, watching her with those keen eyes of his the
while.
"Hum! You make out so good a case for him that one might almost
believe you instructed by the gentleman himself. Yet I gather
that nothing has since been heard of him?"
"Nothing, sir, since he vanished from Tavora, nearly, two months ago.
And I have only repeated to your lordship the tale that was told by
the sergeant and the troopers who reported the matter to Sir Robert
Craufurd on their return."
He was very thoughtful. Leaning on the balustrade, he looked out
across the sunlit valley, turning his boldly chiselled profile to
his companion. At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: "But if this
were really so—a mere blunder—I see no sufficient grounds to
threaten him with capital punishment. His subsequent desertion, if
he has deserted—I mean if nothing has happened to him—is really
the graver matter of the two."
"I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of
Regency—a sort of scapegoat."
He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost
terrified her. Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable. "Ah!
You are oddly well informed throughout. But of course you would
be," he added, with an appraising look into that intelligent face
in which he now caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage. "Well,
well, my dear, I am very glad you have told me of this. If Mr.
Butler is ever taken and in danger—there will be a court-martial,
of course—send me word of it, and I will see what I can do, both
for your sake and for the sake of strict justice."
"Oh, not for my sake," she protested, reddening slightly at the
gentle imputation. "Mr. Butler is nothing to me—that is to say,
he is just my cousin. It is for Una's sake that I am asking this."
"Why, then, for Lady O'Moy's sake, since you ask it," he replied
readily. "But," he warned her, "say nothing of it until Mr. Butler
is found." It is possible he believed that Butler never would be
found. "And remember, I promise only to give the matter my
attention. If it is as you represent it, I think you may be sure
that the worst that will befall Mr. Butler will be dismissal from
the service. He deserves that. But I hope I should be the last
man to permit a British officer to be used as a scapegoat or a
burnt-offering to the mob or to any Council of Regency. By the
way, who told you this about a scapegoat?"
"Captain Tremayne."
"Captain Tremayne? Oh, the man who killed Samoval?"
"He didn't," she cried.
On that almost fierce denial his lordship looked at her, raising
his eyebrows in astonishment.
"But I am told that he did, and he is under arrest for it this
moment—for that, and for breaking my order against duelling."
"You were not told the truth, my lord. Captain Tremayne says that
he didn't, and if he says so it is so."
"Oh, of course, Miss Armytage!" He was a man of unparalleled valour
and boldness, yet so fierce was she in that moment that for the life
of him he dared not have contradicted her.
"Captain Tremayne is the most honourable man I know," she continued,
"and if he had killed Samoval he would never have denied it; he
would have proclaimed it to all the world."
"There is no need for all this heat, my dear," he reassured her.
"The point is not one that can remain in doubt. The seconds of the
duel will be forthcoming; and they will tell us who were the
principals."
"There were no seconds," she informed him.
"No seconds!" he cried in horror. "D' ye mean they just fought a
rough and tumble fight?"
"I mean they never fought at all. As for this tale of a duel, I
ask your lordship: Had Captain Tremayne desired a secret meeting
with Count Samoval, would he have chosen this of all places in
which to hold it?"
"This?"
"This. The fight—whoever fought it—took place in the quadrangle
there at midnight."
He was overcome with astonishment, and he showed it.
"Upon my soul," he said, "I do not appear to have been told any
of the facts. Strange that O'Moy should never have mentioned that,"
he muttered, and then inquired suddenly: "Where was Tremayne
arrested?"
"Here," she informed him.
"Here? He was here, then, at midnight? What was he doing here?"
"I don't know. But whatever he was doing, can your lordship
believe that he would have come here to fight a secret duel?"
"It certainly puts a monstrous strain upon belief," said he. "But
what can he have been doing here?"
"I don't know," she repeated. She wanted to add a warning of O'Moy.
She was tempted to tell his lordship of the odd words that O'Moy
had used to her last night concerning Tremayne. But she hesitated,
and her courage failed her. Lord Wellington was so great a man,
bearing the destinies of nations on his shoulders, and already he
had wasted upon her so much of the time that belonged to the world
and history, that she feared to trespass further; and whilst she
hesitated came Colquhoun Grant clanking across the quadrangle
looking for his lordship. He had come up, he announced, standing
straight and stiff before them, to see O'Moy, but hearing of Lord
Wellington's presence, had preferred to see his lordship in the
first instance.
"And indeed you arrive very opportunely, Grant," his lordship
confessed.
He turned to take his leave of Jack Armytage's niece.
"I'll not forget either Mr. Butler or Captain Tremayne," he promised
her, and his stern face softened into a gentle, friendly smile.
"They are very fortunate in their champion."
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