ill not consent to these changes?' again demanded
Colendorp.

'Then'--Elmur laid a hand on the old man's shoulder, but Sagan shook it
off--'then, Captain Colendorp, he must go--to make room for another who
can better fill his place! Just as Wallenloup must go to give room to
another and less obstructive chief.'

Colendorp's dark eyes glared straight in front of him. Had it been
Adiron--Adiron, as true a man, would have feigned agreement and blown
the plot afterwards. But never Colendorp! He was narrow-minded, poor,
embittered, scenting insult in every careless word, proud, loyal,
desperate. Mentally his vision was limited; he could see but one thing
at a time, but he saw it very large.

Sagan's treachery passed by him in that moment of mad feeling. He felt
and felt only the deadly affront offered to him of all the officers of
the Guard--the coarse bribe of the colonelcy dangled before his starving
nose, for he alone of all the Guard had been deemed corruptible! The
thought held more than the bitterness of death.

He looked from wall to wall, and knew himself an unarmed man, so he made
ready to die as a soldier and a gentleman. But first he must clear his
tarnished honour--tarnished with the foul proposal made to him by Count
Simon of Sagan. He had passed through life a cold and, in his own sense
of the word, an honourable man, disliked, feared and avoided outside his
own most intimate circle. He had been driven by the irresistible destiny
of character to live a lonely man, and now the strength of a lonely man
was his--the strength that can make an unknown death a glory for the
sake of honour, not honours. So he spoke.

'You were very good, Count Sagan, to make choice of me before all the
Guard for--this!' he said in his cold voice; 'may I ask why you so
favoured me?'

'Because I can read a man.'

'And you read me so? Then hear me. I take the place you have given me. I
take my place as the least staunch of all the Guard. You have told me
so much, unmasked so clearly what you intend to do, that, unless I fall
in with your wishes, I can never hope to leave this room except feet
foremost. I say this. Now see me act as the least staunch of the Guard!'

Without warning he leaped upon Sagan, hurling him backwards with the
force of the sudden impact, and buried his fingers in the grey bristling
beard. He had but his bare hands with which to slay the enemy of the
Duke, and used them with the strength of envenomed pride.