Chapter 3

For two minutes or an hour he sat there--he knew not which. His companion, with sudden renewal of consciousness of the _déshabille_ of her dressing-gown, retreated to the corner of the brass bed. She sat down, to scrutinize the better this strange intruder. The moonlight which fell in pale green bars across the Bokhara beneath her slippered feet; the melodramatic situation which had brought them together; the unmistakable gentility of this compelling intruder of her maidenly domain; the curious collapse of his aggressiveness--all these things united to cast a sympathetic spell over her. She was foolish--to the extreme of placing herself in a ridiculous situation! She was culpable--in protecting a self-confessed butcher! She was weak--in yielding to girlish sentiment by permitting this man to shatter the conventionalities,--she who had been accustomed, throughout her twenty years of adulation and awe-inspiring respect, to a servile respect from every man, woman, and child! And, worst of all to an essentially feminine mind, she had allowed this presumptuous, calculating stranger to override her better judgment, to subjugate her resistance, without a visible tribute to the charms which had stirred the masculine souls of a continent!

And yet, in spite of--perhaps, _because of_--all these illogical, provoking, equilibrium-shattering irritants--she sat there, patiently, eagerly awaiting an explanation. Consistency, thy name is not Maidenhood!

Suddenly he looked at her.

"Do you know what a feud is?" was the curious prologue.

Her answer was apt and surprising.

"Feud? Spain is the garden of feuds."

"So is Kentucky. That's where I'm from. You're Spanish, then?"

"Yes!"

"Then you'll understand and sympathize.... Those shots you heard ended a feud which has lived through three or four generations. They brought me back to earth, to life, to a realization of things about me, after the most horrible nightmare through which I've ever passed. I know my own name now,--and I had almost forgotten it since I went back home--so short a time, so many centuries ago!"

Then Warren Jarvis told her the story; his eyes were half closed, and with his fingers clasped and intertwined beneath his square-chiseled chin he recounted the steps of the recent event with the monotone of one who chants a mechanically memorized tale. She understood at last.

"But what did he do when you went to his room in the hotel?"

"Just what I expected--in fact, what I prayed for! As the door opened he fired his revolver--and I carry the witness inside this crimson handkerchief. I had my own weapon in my coat pocket ... it's a trick I learned in Central American revolutions. I fired from my waist, burned a hole in my overcoat--and burned a hole in the heart of that murderous hound."

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and walked to the window, just as he had done back in Meadow Green so short a time before.

"Dad, dear old dad! I know you're satisfied. I let him take the first chance, and it was his last."

He was silent. The girl twisted the dressing-gown in her slender, nervous fingers. She waited for him to speak. He turned about, and dropped his hands, palm outward, as he quietly ended it all with the question: "Now, can you understand why the law would not give me justice?"

"Is he dead--are you sure?"

"I didn't wait--I came ... to ... visit you. Now are you going to drive me out?... You don't know what it is to fight single-handed against fearful odds. That's how I planned to spend my summer. To fight the endless fight alone...."

She leaned forward eagerly as she answered: "Oh, yes, I do! I know what it means.... I, too, have been fighting against fearful odds!"

Jarvis looked at her sharply.

"There is no man to fight for you?"

"No man who dares."

"Oh, God! If there had only been a woman left for me to fight for!... But with my mother gone it was simply a hopeless, desperate determination to square the score at any cost, and then cry 'Quits!' and care nothing."

She drew back, studying the outline of his agile body, as he stood silhouetted against the moonlight.

"And are you alone?"

"Alone."

"And if you're caught," there was a curious eagerness in her low voice, "it means payment with your life?"

"Yes!"

"Suppose that I decided to help you--to do more than I have done?"

Jarvis discarded his fatalism, as he caught at this loophole.

"What do you mean?"

"You have no fear of death? You are not afraid of ghosts?"

"Ghosts? Don't joke with me. I am an American."

"Yes--ghosts--they are not confined to America, or China, or Africa. I mean Spanish ghosts."

Jarvis' laugh was almost bitter, as he responded with a tense earnestness:

"After to-night I am not afraid of the living or the dead. What are you thinking about?"

After a hesitation, poignant in its baffling anxiety, she rose and walked toward him, absolutely forgetful of their curious meeting and their lack of a common ground of interest.

"If you escape from here, it will be because I helped you. We might say, I saved your life,--if what you tell me is true and if I do it from a selfish motive entirely, I am justified. I have work for you ... hard, dangerous work, and as I am frank, it may mean your life in the end. It's a chance, and you have nothing to lose."

"And if I agree?"

"You will begin by taking the ancient feudal oath of my country."

"Isn't my word enough? I'm a Kentuckian, you know."

"But I insist."

Jarvis smiled indulgently.

"Very well--I'll swear the blackest oath you can utter." His eyes twinkled. "Let's hear it all now."

The girl drew back her shoulders haughtily. It was apparent that she took this curious idea more seriously than the prelude would suggest.

"What is your name?"

"Jarvis."

"All of it?"

"Warren Jarvis."

She raised her hands, to the Kentuckian's surprise.

"Kneel then, Warren of Jarvis!... No, not that way,--on one knee only!"

"I beg your pardon." Jarvis began to feel ridiculous, in spite of himself. But there were reasons for humoring this curious beauty. The footsteps were still audible in the hall.

"Now repeat this oath: I, Warren of Jarvis" (he followed word for word), "Señor of all the domains, fiefs, keeps, and marches of Warren of Kentucky..."

"Whew!" and he stifled a laugh as he echoed the words.

The girl continued: "Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions..."

"Sounds like I were marrying her--I beg your pardon. 'Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions!'"

The shade of a smile played over his features.

The girl caught his hand in hers, placed her left in both of his, and then continued: "And receive them back as vassal and retainer and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause, according to the feudal laws of Castile and Aragon!"

As he finished the repetition, she added: "Arise, vassal!"

With the spirit of the ceremony, he jestingly caught her hand and kissed it, as he arose. She drew back sharply.

"That is part of the ceremony, but I meant to omit it."

Warren Jarvis laughed provokingly.

"That seemed to me the only sensible part of it--again I beg your pardon. But who on earth is this Maria Theresa of Aragon person whose hired man I have become?"

The girl drew herself up with a hauteur which could never have been imitated upon the stage. Her dark eyes glinted coldly as she replied: "I--I am her Serene Highness--Maria Theresa--Princess of Aragon!"

Jarvis looked at her, waiting for the cue to the joke. She was serious. It was all so unreal, so ridiculous--and yet back there on the floor of the room down the corridor lay Jim Marcum. This mad, sad, heart-rending, adventure must have driven him to insanity. He rubbed his brow, looked out of the window, heard the unromantic honk-honk of a piratical night-owl taxicab on the street so far below. He steadied his mental equilibrium, and looked again at the self-possessed young woman, whose regal manner was as convincing as all the other details were unconvincing. On the table lay a fortune in jewels and rings and a necklace. He had not noticed them before. He remembered the Spanish conversation which he had heard through the bathroom door. He realized from the size and elegance of the rooms that this must indeed be a regal suite in the great hotel.

And the girl's steady look never wavered.

American humor, in the presence of royalty, came to his aid in this staggering blow to his credence.

"Good-_night_! You a Princess ... and I've been ordering you around with a gun! Great Scott ... what _next_?"

V

EXIT JARVIS, LAUGHING

The Princess turned toward the door, for a step could be heard in the corridor.

"Before that official returns we must have a plan. I thought it out while you were behind the door. But, perhaps, it will be too hard a task for you."

"I'll try it. Anything to get out of here! And I would like to know what it is you want me to do for you--what about the ghost?"

"I will tell you in good time. Just now for your escape. It is getting late, and the hours are speeding past. You are in a hopeless trap here. Now, my trunk..."

"What about it?"

"I am sending it on board the _Mauretania_ at six o'clock, and no one could possibly suspect."

Jarvis turned to study this curious vehicle of transportation. It was a strong, well-built piece of baggage, indeed; but to be cooped up in it, at the mercy of baggageman and truckman, hoisters and stewards--the thought was staggering.

"You're joking," he began, but she resolutely shook her wealth of hair.

"It's the only chance, and a daring one at that. I am jeopardizing my own safety by assisting you. Surely, if life is so uncertain for you at best, you cannot lose by a trial."

Jarvis stooped over it, and began lifting out the trays, to study the questionable roominess of the interior.

"What about these?" he asked, and as he spoke a locket dropped to the floor. The girl darted forward to pick it up, and Jarvis observed it for the first time. Her solicitude seemed unusual to the Kentuckian.

"Did I break something?"

"No. It's nothing. I mean, it's all right. It's just a locket. I broke it myself yesterday, on purpose. It means a great deal to me, and perhaps to you. Some day you may know the reason why ... Shall we send the trays to the steamer by messenger?"

Jarvis thought for an instant. Here was such an utterly improbable method of escape, such a strange new twirl in his whirlpool of adventure, that he had to find his bearings.

"I have it now," he explained. "You had better telephone--we must have someone we can trust implicitly."

The Princess crossed toward the desk telephone on the small table by her bed, and looked at him inquiringly.

"Ask the operator to connect you with the Hotel Belmont. That's just across the street. My room is 417. Rusty, my servant, is there. He is waiting for some word from me, as he knew the possibilities when I met Jim Marcum. He can be counted on till Judgment Day and then a few hours afterwards! Tell him to come here at once--mention my first name only, with no other explanation--that will bring him and give no other clew to an outsider. You never can tell about a telephone. But fortunately, I registered there under a different name. Try it now."

The girl had the receiver off the hook. After a short delay she was talking directly with the faithful servitor, whose trembling voice betokened his anxiety. But Rusty was too sage to ask too many questions--he had served in affairs of delicacy before this.

"Hello--is this Mr. Rusty?... Yes? Well, listen carefully. You are to come right over to the Manhattan Hotel across the street and a bellboy will be waiting for you at the desk. He is to bring you up to room 1121."

Jarvis interrupted: "Tell him to keep his mouth shut!"

The Princess balked at the colloquialism.

"And--and--don't talk to anyone ... What's that?... Oh, yes. '_Warren._'... There, he'll be coming over immediately."

Jarvis, the executive, was now in action.

He had emptied the trunk as she was talking, tossing out fascinating feminine mysteries of lace and silks, with a nonchalance which brought a twinkle into the dark eyes. He turned again.

"Hurry, now--call up the clerk downstairs. Tell them to look out for Rusty and send him up here."

More delicate symphonies of Parisian architecture were thrown on the floor, and Warren had taken out his pocket-knife.

"Hello, hello," called the Princess. "I'm expecting a man."

"A colored man," was Warren's parenthesis.

"Yes,... a colored man ... to get some bundles. He will come right to the desk ... please send him up at once ... It is very important."

The Princess observed Jarvis' attempt to bore a hole in the side of the trunk. He was laboring diligently, until the blade snapped.

"Confound it!"

"Why are you doing that?"

"I must breathe, you know ... Now, how can I cut a hole in the blessed thing?" He scratched his forehead in a quandary.

The Princess brought him her shears from the dresser. In a few minutes he had made two openings which seemed to satisfy him, but it had been no easy task.

"What time does the boat sail?"

"Nine o'clock."

"Good. That will give Rusty time to get aboard with these trays and my baggage. Let me see, it is a quarter of six now--how quickly the dawn has slipped in!"

There was a knock on the outer door, and Jarvis again disappeared behind the bathroom portal, with instinctive caution.

At a call from the Princess, the door opened after she had slid back the upper bolt. The girl stepped back abashed at the appearance of the excited negro. Rusty rolled his eyes, suspiciously taking in the contents of the room.

"Whar's Marse Warren?" and his voice was hoarse. Jarvis stepped into view. "Lawd bless you, Marse Warren. I done thought dat Marcum got you dis time."

"Never mind what you thought. Help me wrap up these trays. We sail for Europe in two hours."

Rusty gasped, shot another big-eyed look at the beautiful girl and then at his master.

"Two hours--good Lawd!--you mean WE?"

The Princess was holding out a steamer rug in silence.

"Yes, Rusty, you and I. Here, give me a hand with this rug," and with the aid of his servant he made a quick job of the bundling. "Now, take these--with our baggage from the Belmont--to the steamship _Mauretania_ of the Cunard line. Buy accommodations.... Mind, you won't see me until after we get out to sea. You stay in your stateroom and sit tight until you hear from me."

He took out his wallet.

"You understand now? Cunard line. You can find it some way--just take a taxi, and get there as fast as you can. The clerk at the hotel will get the tickets over the telephone, and you can pay him when you settle for the whole bill, with that other money I gave you. Now, get hold of this money, and keep hold of it. No gin now, Rusty!"

He turned around, and observed the amused surprise on the face of his fair companion.

"I beg your pardon.... This is Rusty;--Rusty, this is the Princess of Aragon...."

Rusty bowed.

"Howdy do, Mrs. Princess!"

"There, that will do. Is it all clear for you now?"

"Yassir. I takes everything to the steamboat--gets accommo--accommo--wall, I knows what you means, Marse Warren, if I cain't spell it. I gets them things for us and Mrs. Princess."

The girl reddened under the beaming smile, but Jarvis quickly interceded.

"Not for the Princess; just for us two. What's the name of the boat?"

"The _Mary Tania_!"

"That'll do. Now be off, and don't get left behind."

As Rusty made his exit with the bulky bundle, the Princess smiled: "Good-by, Rusty," and he bobbed his head with a broader grin than ever as he disappeared down the corridor toward the elevator.

"Time nearly up," muttered Warren, as he took off his coat. "Pardon the disrobing--but I'll be more at ease in my shirt-sleeves. It's a stingy little room to spend three hours in. I'll lie this way, with my head toward this corner. Remember, this trunk must not go into the hold of the ship--have it marked 'Wanted' and 'This End Up.' I'll take the shears along and cut another hole from the inside if it gets too suffocating."

The girl walked to the table and picked up the revolver, which she held out.

"You'd better take this, too."

"How do you know you can trust me now?"

There was a veiled irony in her retort, although it was accompanied by a smile: "I don't. I have to take that chance. I have no other choice at this late hour."

"You must have a pretty good reason for it in the back of your head. But what about this ghost? I may never hear the sequel. At least give me some food for thought during my travels in the dark."

"Are you afraid?"

"Lord, no! I merely wanted to know. Well, I'll wait. But, now, honest Injun, as we say down in Kentucky, are you a really, sure-enough princess?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Somehow you are not quite like what I thought a princess would be.... I mean, you're different from the popular conception of a royal person. Your English is so perfect."

"I learned it in an English boarding-school."

"Your informality--for it has been put to a severe test these last few hours,--your adaptability,--you have more understanding, more sympathy, more heart."

She turned away and tilted a haughty chin.

"In that last respect, sir, you will find me quite like the popular conception."

A knocking on the door interrupted further interchanges on the peculiarities of royalty. Jarvis clambered inside the vehicle of his escape, and drew down the lid, with a farewell smile.

"Trunks, lady, for the steamer!" came the voice of the porter, as he resumed his thumping on the door panel.

"Just a minute." The Princess hurriedly bundled up the scattered garments, jumbling them upon the bed. She turned the key in the trunk and, with a quick feminine survey of the field for damaging, overlooked evidence, called to her maid.

"Nita, admit the porter."

The servant appeared with surprising promptness. The man pushed in his truck, with the obsequious manner which is a prelude to the smirking appreciation of a handsome gratuity.

"Have the other trunks gone, my good man?" queried her Serene Highness.

"Yes'm. Last night, mum."

"This trunk goes on a special wagon."

"Yes'm."

At this juncture the house detective appeared at the doorway. He stopped and looked questioningly at the broken lock. He was alert as a weasel despite his ponderous physique: he fingered it, and studied the evidence of fresh splinters. The Princess continued calmly.

"Have it marked 'Wanted'" (and as she indicated with a jeweled finger), "'This End up with Care.'"

The porter nodded.

"I'll put special stickers on it, mum. You'll find it in your stateroom when you get to the steamer. Is that all, mum?"

"Handle it gently, porter."

"Shure, lady and I never smashed one in me life! I'll handle it as rivirintly as if it held the relics of a saint, mum. I'm that careful in me worruk. So don't worry one little bit, mum."

As he started out with the heavy piece of luggage on his truck, the detective stopped him sternly.

"Just a minute. How did that lock get broken?"

The Princess felt herself changing color, yet she shrugged her shoulders as she turned away.

Nita suddenly chattered in Spanish to her, and the detective shot a sharp glance at the girl.

"What does she say?" he cried. "She knows something about it."

"She says the other porter banged the door before we came in, for it was that way when she entered to arrange my clothes. I have had my sleep interrupted all night long, and I do not care for any insolence now."

The detective looked a bit sheepish, but stuck to his inquest.

"When did you come?"

"Yesterday."

"And when do you go away?"

"We sail this morning for Europe."

"Huh," and there was a suggestion of doubt in his grunt. "The police are making an investigation in the hotel. They would like to have a look at these rooms. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. My maid will show them around."

"What time do you sail? Does this trunk go on board?"

"Yes,--I want it sent on a special wagon, for I fear we will be late. The steamer sails at nine o'clock."

The detective nodded to the porter, who brushed close by the Princess with his cargo.

"_Bon voyage!_" she said with a smile.

"What's that?" asked the detective.

"I merely called my maid. You're an unusually impertinent and inquisitive man. In my country gentlewomen are shown some degree of courtesy, even by hotel servants," she remarked icily.

The detective's ruddy face grew redder.

"Well, I dunno about your country, whatever that is. But in this country, and in this hotel there don't nothin' get by me. That's all. Come on in, boys."

Two bluecoats entered the room, gazed awkwardly about, and walked to the window to peer down at the street. Then they passed out, not without, it must be admitted, an envious glance at the collection of jewels on the table.

As the door closed behind them, her Serene Highness turned toward Nita, as she relaxed in the chair by the dressing-table.

"You may dress my hair, child. I wonder how the door was broken?"

"Ah, madame," was the guileless response. "_Quién sabe?_"

VI

OVER THE SEA AND FAR AWAY

That journey to the _Mauretania_ was never to be forgotten by Warren Jarvis; and yet so weird, bruising, jumbling, and altogether horrible was it, that he could never distinctly remember its details.

With hands stretched tensely against the corners of the trunk, he warded off as best he could the shocks of the skilled baggage-breakers along the route. Again and again, an unexpected twist would bang his throbbing head against the adamantine sides, and with a wince, a sharp, in-drawn breath, he would hold himself "together" for one more bump!

The air was stifling; yet the foresight of cutting the holes gave him enough oxygen to maintain his senses. At last, after æons of suffering which reminded him of nothing so much as his initiation into the college fraternity, he felt himself being dragged up the side of the great ocean greyhound.

More jolts, more rolls and bangs, and at last, with muscles wrenched, a swollen forehead and nerves aquiver, there was rest.

"I'm in her cabin at last--and now for a graceful exit!" he told himself, with an enforced jocularity. But this was no easy task. He spent a full half-hour, working and prying with the shears against the lock which imprisoned him with indomitable force from the outside of the iron-and-leathern prison.

Upon the outer deck of the great turbiner, the Princess nervously fought her way through the great throng of voyagers and their friends. Nita was close by her side. It seemed impossible to capture a steward who was not busy with the bearing of bouquets and wine baskets. In other circumstances this young personage would have been furious at the lack of respect which she had been educated to expect from the throngs of her own country.

But to-day her only anxiety was to find her elusive quarters for the strange cruise, to learn whether or not her new knight-errant were alive or dead from the rigors of his escape.

At last, with the aid of an extravagant _largesse_, she was conducted to her staterooms.

As she entered the parlor of her luxurious suite, the first sight which caught her eye was the trunk, inverted! The printed sign of direction, "This End up with Care," were upside down!

She gasped, and looked nervously about to note the expression upon the face of Nita. That young woman was busy studying the handsome features of the ingratiating bedroom-steward. So engrossed was she that she stumbled over the elevated sill of the door from the promenade deck.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, miss!" apologized the steward. "Did you hurt yourself? These doors are always troublesome until you get used to them. But they are necessary to keep out the water in rough weather."