CHAPTER XV

THE TRUMP CARD

The sun crept behind a distant mountain peak. In this country of little twilight the transition from day into night was speedy, and almost as Olga watched from her window the last rays seemed to vanish; symbol to her of the vanishing of hope and the encroachment of she knew not what.

She reflected, as she sat there by the window, on the events of the night before. Following her capture by a band of brigands, she had been convoyed through the hill country by a trail almost as difficult as that which Fenton and Crane had followed. They had arrived in the dense darkness of night at an old building perched on the crest of one of the highest peaks--apparently a disused hunting lodge. The fears of the princess, which had increased with each hour spent on the trail, were somewhat allayed when she found there were a couple of maids in the lodge. But while that was comforting in one respect, the fact that they evidently knew and respected her rank proved to her that it was no band of mountain marauders who had carried her off. The girls were not gipsies. Her first thought that she would be held for a ransom was replaced by a feeling of vague uncertainty.

The lodge had not been used for some time, although several of the rooms had been hastily furnished; furnished too with a certain degree of elegance. This was an added circumstance which provided the princess with scope for uneasy speculation as to her present position and the likely developments of the future. In a vague way she began to realise the motive behind her abduction.

Any doubts that may have lingered had vanished at noon that day with the arrival of a young woman who rode up a wide path around the mountain side from the opposite direction to that along which the princess had been brought. The new-comer was received with every evidence of respect by the two dusky brigands who guarded the lodge. Watching from the window of a room on the ground floor, which had been appropriated to her as a bedroom, Olga had felt a sudden stirring of resentment when she recognised in the fair stranger the woman to whom Fenton had been so attentive--the woman, moreover, who had involved him in a restaurant brawl and for whose sake he had been prepared to fight a duel. If Olga were still ignorant of the real nature and the depth of her interest in the Canadian, she must surely have been astonished at the jealous promptings which took possession of her as she surreptitiously regarded the dancer through the broken shutter which rattled in the wind outside her window. The new-comer undeniably was attractive.

The interview which followed between them had left the princess in a state of mental puzzlement and doubt. Mademoiselle Petrowa had told her a most surprising story, speaking in French for the benefit of possible eavesdroppers; a story of plots and counter-plots in which the narrator herself appeared in a double role, ostensibly an agent of Miridoff, actually a member of the Russian Secret Service. The story seemed highly improbable, and yet there was much to substantiate it--the presence of the dancer in Varden's library and her claim to having been on hand when the attempt was made to assassinate Prince Peter. And in addition there had been something about the little dancer, an air of sincerity, that had done much to impress the princess with the truth of her story.

* * * * *

As Olga sat in the gathering gloom her thoughts were occupied largely by this surprising development. If the other woman's story were true, then her relations with Fenton might easily be understood. The princess was anxious to believe it, but doubts persisted, doubts which originated in jealous consciousness of the undoubted charms of the dancer. By this time Olga frankly admitted to herself that she had been, and still was, jealous. Her jealousy was a revelation to her.

The door opened and with firm, heavy step a man entered the room. Olga turned and saw that her visitor was Miridoff himself. His presence explained much that she had hitherto been unable to fathom.

There was an unmistakable change in the demeanour of the Grand Duke. He carried himself with the conscious air of a conqueror. He emanated triumph. He came, quite apparently, to dictate terms; but it was in tones of courtesy that he first addressed her.

"Your highness," he said, bringing his heels together with a stiff military bow, "I trust that I do not intrude. There is a matter which I must discuss with you immediately, however, and I must beg your attention for a few minutes."

Beneath the man's outward show of courtesy and his arrogant air, there was something sinister and threatening. Miridoff believed in pushing any advantage mercilessly. Against an unarmed adversary he would not hesitate to use his sword. Success bred in him no magnanimity for his opponent, but rather increased his presumption. Olga dimly realised something of the mental attitude of her adversary, and for the first time the real danger of her position appealed to her certainly and clearly. She faced him, however, with no evidence of fear.

"Am I indebted to your grace for the way in which I have been treated, for my detention as a prisoner in this house?" she demanded.

"No," answered Miridoff. "The motive for this was purely political. There is no reason why I should not explain it to you, though I did not come to discuss the ethics of your position here. By the time you are free to return to Serajoz certain events will have happened which will make it necessary for you to subscribe to the explanation of your disappearance now generally accepted--that you were carried off by a wandering tribe of mountain gipsies. No harm can come, therefore, of perfect candour at the present moment."

With an air of complete assurance, Miridoff drew a chair up close and sat down.

"I can see that your abduction was a mistake," he went on. "At least, it has been found unnecessary from a purely political standpoint. The advantage we thought to gain by getting you into our power was, of course, to hold you as a hostage against the continued activity of your august father. Two days ago, when all Serajoz was clamouring for war on Austria, our only hope seemed to be to force the prince to abandon the allied cause. Since then, however, the militant wing of our party has prevailed, and a plan has been put into operation that cannot fail"--he paused and regarded her with an air of intense satisfaction--"to bring Ironia into the war against Russia by this time to-morrow! The active opposition of your royal father is no longer to be feared. I have a reason for explaining this which you will perhaps divine later."

"Then you have come to tell me that I am free?"

"Not at all," replied Miridoff, his complacency quite unruffled by the obvious scorn in her tone. "It is no longer necessary to detain you for political reasons--the comings and goings of a hundred princesses could now have no effect on the course of events. But there is still a personal matter to be settled between us!"

He leaned forward in his chair and regarded her with an insolently possessive smile. As his gaze rested on her slender girlish figure and appraised the rich beauty of her face, complacency gradually gave way to passion and determination.

"You refused to marry me," he said abruptly, sharply. "I have come to give you certain reasons for changing your mind."

The princess replied with quiet contempt and a determination equal to his own.

"I refuse to discuss the subject with you. My decision was final. You may keep me here for ever. You may kill me. You cannot force me to marry you!"

Miridoff stood up and regarded her sombrely.

"Since our first talk on this subject I have not flattered myself that I could win you in any other way than by force," he said. "Consequently, force it must be. This is what I have decided."

Me took a stride up and down the room before halting again in front of her. His tone, when he began to speak, was much the same as he would have employed in outlining a military manoeuvre. He could see but one side of the situation--his own determination to conquer the girl and the plan he had formed to accomplish that purpose. That she would suffer in the carrying out of that plan had not been taken into consideration. If this side of it had occurred to him, he would have dismissed it as an inevitable factor in any conflict of wills, and a quite negligible factor.

"Last evening his highness Prince Peter found it necessary to take the train for a point near the Mulkovinian border. We know the mission on which he was bound, and we are also well informed with reference to his future movements. This morning he left Bradosk on horseback and rode over to Ronda. He left Ronda three hours ago and expects to visit two other points during the night.

"As I said before, the influence and the activities of Prince Peter are now of no real consequence. In the face of the magnificent train of events which come to a culminating point to-night, your royal father is impotent, his efforts futile. But still, we do not believe in taking any risks. Sometimes the impossible happens. The success of our campaign will be just so much more certain if Peter is put out of the way.

"The road that he travels to-night runs through thick woods. At a spot well suited to the purpose will be stationed a member of the Society of Crossed Swords, one who has the reputation of being the best marksman in the north provinces. His highness is now beyond reach of any message. Even if his own party at Serajoz knew of his danger, they could not get a message of warning to him; for at Ronda he altered his previous plans and struck out in a new direction. There are no telegraph wires in the section where Prince Peter rides to-night."

He paused in front of her.

"The inference," and his voice was cunningly modulated to deepen the effect of his words, "is that your august father will not reach Serajoz."

Olga listened to the recital of this monstrous plan in silence, her mind literally numbed by its unexpectedness and brutality. The one terrible fact obsessed her mind: her father rode that night to his death and no power on earth could save him. She was powerless to exercise her quick woman's wit. She did not attempt to reason. It did not even occur to her to question the truth of what he had told her. The diabolical nature of the plot caused her all the more readily to accept as true his matter-of-fact explanation of it.

Miridoff had paused, but, as the girl did not speak, he went on in the same deliberate, even tone:

"The plan was not of my making. In fact in view of the relations between us, I was opposed to it--at first. I gave my consent knowing that I still had the power to stop the carrying out of that plan. The man selected for the work has gone. It was a wise selection; he is the most determined man we have. There is only one thing that will prevent him from carrying out the mission on which he has been sent. If this ring," he drew a gold band from his finger and held it up before her, "were carried to him, he would put his pistols back in his belt and return forthwith to Kirkalisse. A messenger who knows the mountain roads could leave here within the next three hours and arrive in time to save your father's life."

All the time he had been talking, Olga had sat with head bowed in statue-like rigidity. At last she lifted her head wearily, as if the physical movement were an effort. There was no longer defiance or determination in her glance. A dull fear was there and unwilling acquiescence. She had no other choice.

"What is your price?" she asked.

Miridoff slipped the ring back on his finger. "It will be sent when you are my wife," he said.

There was another pause. When Olga spoke again her voice was quiet, but had an oddly strained tone. "Tell me all," she said. "You have a plan----"

"Yes, I have arranged everything," replied Miridoff. "I have kept before me this consideration, that no hint of what occurs this night must ever be known to others. When the Grand Duke Miridoff weds the Princess Olga it must be in the cathedral at Serajoz with the full sanction and in the presence of His Majesty the King. But in the meantime, if the life of your highness's father is to be saved, the link must be forged that will bind you to me. To-night a band of wandering gipsies are camped in the Hawk's Rest, a short distance from here. I have arranged with the chief of the gipsies that to-night he will marry over the tongs a man and woman who will come to him. The contracting parties will be masked, so that not even the chief himself will know who it is he has joined together. When the ceremony has been performed, this ring is to be handed to him to be carried by one of the young men of the tribe to a certain rendezvous where waits the best marksman in the north country.

"I have arranged it in this way," went on Miridoff, "to convince you of the sincerity of my intentions. See, I give the ring to you as an earnest of my good faith. After the ceremony you shall hand it yourself to the gipsy chief, and see it passed to the messenger."

He looked at her steadily a moment, then went on: "There is one thing else. Let me warn you. The gipsy chief is the only one who shares with me the knowledge of where the messenger must go, and he is too completely in my power to divulge the secret--to be amenable to pressure from any source. So you see it is only by obeying me in every particular that you can save your father's life."

Olga had subsided on the couch, her head resting on her arms. Deep fear and a sense of the hopelessness of further struggle against this clever spider who had caught her in his web took possession of her. She knew there was no way out.

"The plan I propose is too irregular to please me," pursued Miridoff, "but it is the only possible solution. In three hours I must start out on a work of great importance. There is not a priest who could be brought here within the time, and in any case this is the only way that can bind you to me without advertising the method of our union to a gossiping world. Marry me to-night and to-morrow you return to Kail Baleski. It shall be given out that you have been rescued from the brigands who carried you off, and at once our marriage shall be properly solemnised before the Patriarch of Ironia. Is it not a most romantic marriage I am offering you?"

Olga stood up and faced him. Something of all that she was giving up, things known and things hoped for, seemed to present itself to her then in that fleeting moment. She covered her face in her hands.

"I will marry you," she whispered.

"Good!" cried Miridoff. "I knew you would see the matter in its right light, my pretty one." Then his voice suddenly changed. "But come, no more of this pettishness. You have taken the step now. Can you not trust me that you will not regret it?"

She remained quite motionless.

"I must go now," he went on. "In three hours' time you must be at Hawk's Rest. You must go alone. My men here will direct you. You will be given a mask."

He turned and strode towards the door. Arriving there, he paused and turned back. There was a moment's silence. Confused and distressed in mind as she was, Olga was conscious of a subtle change in his attitude.

"Olga," he cried, his arrogant composure giving away before a deeper emotion, "although to-night I have it in my power to make and unmake empires, I would rather fail in my mission than lose you. I told you that I would force you to marry me, and now I almost believe I am better satisfied to get you in this way. It has come down from the days of the cave man that an unwilling bride sometimes makes the best wife. Measure the depth of my love by the extremes I have adopted to get you!"

Her words followed hot upon his. "Listen, your grace," she cried, suddenly and passionately, "I am prepared to marry you to save my father's life. I do not know if he is really in your power as you say. It may be that you have lied. You are capable of gross trickery. But I can't withhold my consent on such a chance. The possibility of danger to my father is the only consideration. I will marry you, and if I find that you have tricked me--or if any harm befall my father now or at any future time--I swear I will kill you!"