above. He raised his empty pistol, and the Duke, squalling with fear, ran back into his quarters. Green laughed and said to himself that even if he was killed now he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had shamed the Duke, who was always boasting about his bravery in battle. Of course, his action had also made it absolutely necessary for the Duke to have him killed at once, so that Green could not tell others that he’d put him to flight.
He grinned crookedly. What would happen when the soldiers received the Duke’s orders, directly contradicting the Duchess’s? The poor fellows would scarcely know what to do. The man’s commands would of course supersede the woman’s. But the woman would be furious and she would later on find some means of punishing those who did succeed in killing Green.
It was at that moment that he lost his smile and paled with fright. A loud deep-chested barking nearby. Not outside the apartment’s door, but inside!
He cursed and whirled around just in time to see the large body launched toward his throat, the white fangs flashing and the green fire shining from its eyes as the moonlight struck them.
Even in that moment of panic he realized that he’d forgotten the small door set inside the larger one so that Alzo could have admittance at any time. And if the big dog could get through, then soldiers could also crawl through!
Instinctively he thrust out the pistol and squeezed the trigger. It did not go off, for there was no powder in the pan. But the barrel did jam into the great mouth and deflect Alzo from his target, Green’s throat. Even so, Green was knocked backward by the impact, and he felt the sharp teeth clamping down on his wrist. Those jaws were capable of biting through his arm, and though he felt no pain, he was sickened by the thought that he’d see a bloody stump when Alzo danced away from him. However, his arm, though dripping blood from large gashes, was not hurt badly. The dog had been deterred by the barrel shoved down his throat, choking him so that he could think of nothing for the moment but getting clear of it.
The pistol clattered on the iron floor of the balcony. Alzo shook his head, unaware in his frenzy that he was rid of the weapon. Green leaped up from the sitting position into which Alzo’s charge had flung him against the railing. Snarling as viciously as the dog, he braced his feet against the juncture of the floor and railing and launched himself straight out. At the same time, the canine jumped. They met head on, Green’s skull driving into the open mouth and knocking the dog backward because his impetus was greater. Though the huge jaws bit down at his scalp, they snapped on air, and the animal fell to one side, growling. Green seized hold of the long tail, rolled away from the teeth now snapping at his ankles, and jerked at the tail so that the dog would swing away from him. He rose to one knee, pushed the dog away from him, though still keeping his frenzied grip with two hands, and jumped to his feet. Frantically, the animal twisted around and bit at the imprisoning hands. But he succeeded only in biting his own flank. Howling in anguish, he tried to lunge away. Green, making a supreme effort, raised the tail in the air. Naturally, the body came along with it. At the same time he half-turned from the animal, bent forward and, with a convulsive motion, using his bowed back as a lever, threw Alzo over his head.
8
The terrible growling suddenly changed to a high-pitched howl of despair as Alzo flew over the railing and out into the air above the walk. Green, leaning over to watch him, did not feel sorry for him. He was exultant. He’d hated that dog and had dreamed of just such a moment.
Alzo’s yelping was cut off as he struck the parapet beside the walk, bounced off, and then dropped from view into the depths beyond. Green’s strength had been greater than he’d suspected, for he had thought only to toss the one hundred and fifty pound beast over the railing.
There was no time for savoring triumph. If the dog could get through that little door, so could soldiers. He ran out into the room, expecting that at least a dozen men had crawled in. But there was no one. Why? The only thing he could think of was that they were afraid, knowing that if he at once dispatched the dog, he could leisurely knock them over the head in their helpless on-all-fours position.
The door shook beneath a mighty impact. They’d taken the wiser, if the less courageous, course of battering rams. Green loaded his pistol, spilling the powder at his first attempt to prime the pan because his hands shook so. He fired, and a large hole appeared in the wood. However, part of the ball also stuck out, for the door was planked thickly against just such weapons.
The battering ceased and he heard a thud as the ram was dropped on the floor in hasty retreat. He smiled. As they were still operating under the Duchess’s instructions to take him alive—not yet countermanded by the Duke’s—they would not want to face pistol fire with only swords in hand. And in the first reflex to the shot they’d undoubtedly forgotten that a ball couldn’t penetrate the wood.
“This is living!” said Green out loud. And he wondered that his voice shook as much as his legs did, and yet he felt a wild exultance shooting through his fear and knew that he was tasting both with a fine liking. Perhaps, he thought, he really liked this moment—even if his death was around the corner—because he’d been repressed so long and violence was a wonderful therapy for releasing his resentment and clamped-down-on fury. Whatever the reason, he knew that this was one of the high moments of his life and that if he survived he’d look back on it with pleasure and pride. And that was the strangest thing of all, since in his culture the young were taught to abhor violence. Luckily, they weren’t so conditioned against it that the very thought of it paralyzed them. No hard neural paths had been set up against the action of violence; it was just that, philosophically speaking, they loathed the concept. Fortunately, there was a philosophy of the body, too, a much older and deeper one. And while it was true that man could no more live without philosophy of the mind than he could without bread, it had no place in Green at present. The fiery breath that flooded his body now and made him so sensitive to what a fine thing it was to be alive while death was knocking at the door did not rise from any mental abstraction or profound meditation.
Green rolled back the carpets that led from the room to the balcony, for he wanted a firm footing if it became necessary to make a running broad jump from the balcony in an effort to clear the walk below and drop into the moat. He’d have to have very good timing and do everything just right the first time, like a parachute jump, otherwise he’d end up with broken bones on the hard stones below.
Not that he was going to make that leap unless he just had to. But he was leaving an avenue open if his other measures didn’t work.
Again he ran to the bureau and drew out a large bag of gunpowder, weighing at least five pounds. In the open end of this he inserted a fuse, and tied the neck around it. While he was doing this, he heard shouts and cheers as the soldiers returned to the door, picked up their ram and hurled themselves at the thick planking. He did not bother shooting again but instead lit the fuse with a candle. Then he walked to the large door, pushed out the small dog’s door and tossed the bag through it. He jumped back and ran, though there was little chance that the resultant explosion would harm the door.
There was a silence as the soldiers were probably staring paralyzed at the smoking fuse. Then—a roar! The room shook, the door fell in, blasted off its hinges, and black smoke poured in. Green ran into the cloud, got down on all fours, scuttled through the doorway, cursed desperately when the hilt of his sword caught on the doorframe, tore loose and lunged through into the dense smoke that filled the anteroom. His groping hands felt the ram where it had dropped, and the wet warm face of a soldier who’d fallen. He coughed sharply from the biting fumes but went on until his head butted into the wall. Then he felt to his right, where he imagined the door was, came to it, passed through and on into the next room, also filled with a cloud. After he’d scuttled like a bug across its floor, he dared to open his eyes for a quick look. The smoke was thinner and was pouring out the door to the
