Part 15

The third man yelled with surprise. Hypnotized by the sudden attack, his limbs refused to move until he saw three shadows advancing toward him with an uncanny quietness.

His hand darted to his belt; even as he pulled out the heavy Army revolver his fingers tightened on the trigger, and a stream of bullets whipped through the air, the attendant flickering flashes of light momentarily lighting up the drama with a ghastly clarity.

Almost before the guard's last shot had finished echoing reverberatingly round the square it was challenged by two new reports, and even while Apor whirled round and dropped, and Gonnard, the third man, grunted and gently collapsed, the guard shrieked, and then he too slumped to the ground, where he lay still and motionless.

Wenzel was conscious that one other shadow still remained upright. "Who is it?" he asked hoarsely.

"I am untouched--and you, Geoffrey?"

"Safe--but I am afraid Apor is down."

It was Apor himself who answered: "Only a flesh wound in the arm, Wenzel."

"Thank God! But now we must run like Hell. Quick, Arnold, help Apor."

Already Apor was making an effort to stumble to his feet, but his manacled hands made the task difficult. Arnold bent down and practically lifted him to his feet.

"Away with you," Wenzel growled--his ear caught the sound of running footsteps inside Parliament House--"they are coming."

For one second Arnold hesitated: "And you, Geoffrey?"

"Leave me, I will join you--later," he answered quietly.

There was no time to argue. With a quick run Arnold and Apor disappeared into the night _en route_ for a previously arranged destination, and Wenzel laughed softly to himself. Provided that nothing unforeseen should happen, in five minutes' time Apor would be safe, and once again the White Knight would have scored another triumph.

He knew that he should run--he could hear the reinforcements, shouting in their excitement, just inside the door. Four, three more paces and they would be in the open, their revolvers cocked ready to spit at the shadow which he knew would be faintly visible to them. Yet, before he left, there was one more task to do.

Gonnard was lying at his feet: alive or dead he knew not, nor was there time to investigate. That would do later. He picked the body up and flung it across his shoulder. The first guard came through the door, and Wenzel fired. His aim was true, the man fell heavily.

There were dismayed cries from the others, and the rush ceased suddenly. It was all that Wenzel required. He turned, and his long legs carried him across the square and away into the friendly darkness, while the bullying Red guards cowered back, shooting indiscriminately from the cover of the protecting doorway.

There was no pursuit, and as Wenzel quickly drew farther away the crackle of the shooting sounded fainter, until suddenly it stopped, and the White Knight knew that revenge for the death of Elizabeth's cousin was now certain.

He was well away, and rapidly drawing near the Suspension Bridge. He stopped short as he approached it, but there was not a soul to be seen, and he continued on his way across it. In the centre he halted again, and slipped the unconscious commissary from his shoulder.

Gonnard was not dead. His heart was thumping irregularly, but strongly, and even as Wenzel laid him down the wounded man stirred, moaned with pain, and spoke.

"My ankle! What has happened? My ankle, it hurts. Where am I?" He spoke as though his mind were in a haze.

Wenzel bent over to him and whispered in his ear: "In the hands of the White Knight, Comrade Gonnard, and to-day----"

He heard the Communist gasp. There was a moment's silence, tense and dramatic, then Gonnard shrieked with horror. Wenzel clapped his hand roughly over the mouth of the other, and the noise died away to a faint gurgle.

With the other hand Wenzel fumbled in his coat. Always prepared for emergencies, there was a length of rope in his pocket. Sternly and unemotionally he adjusted a noose, and slipped it round the neck of the commissary. The other end he tied to the steelwork of the bridge.

Easily, as though he were lifting a baby, he raised the Communist up. Once again he whispered in his ear: "The White Knight pays the debts of two Hungarian officers, comrade."

Then he dropped the helpless commissary toward the water: Gonnard fell the length of the rope, moaning. The noose tautened--the corpse swayed to and fro like a pendulum--and with a set face, on which there was not the slightest expression of pity or horror, the White Knight passed on his way. In the country of lawlessness there was but one law: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" His merely the hand of judgment--alas, the only hand!

* * * * * *

"Suicide!" was the general verdict of the large crowd which gathered round to watch the unusual spectacle of a man hanging in mid-air, suspended from the bridge.

The news spread rapidly. Some one recognized the corpse as that of a commissary. The rumour came to the ears of the Council, the meeting was hurriedly adjourned, and many of its members hastened to the bridge.

Some one pulled the body up. The pockets were searched ... and the Communists glanced affrightedly at one another. There was no need to explain the tiny piece of carved wood which the searchers discovered.

The white knight spoke for itself.

_CHAPTER XV_

When Elizabeth eventually awoke from her last unsettled sleep she became conscious that her body was cramped, aching in every bone, and she hazily wondered why. Next she frowned, for her eyes failed to recognize her surroundings. Then she tried to flick from her face an unruly, annoying hair, and not until she found it impossible to move her arms did her mind become clear.

All at once she remembered the events of the day before--her abduction, her agonized wait through the long hours for the return of her jailer--and finally she recollected relaxing. After that she assumed she must have fallen asleep.

She still sat upright on the chair, the one and only article of furniture in the attic other than an equally rickety table--and an empty soap-box. Her mouth caused her more terrible pain than she had ever imagined existed, and she wondered how the hurt of it could have allowed her to sleep. Her arms felt numb and paralysed.

Despite everything she felt a wave of exhilaration: she was still unharmed, uncontaminated. It was almost a good omen.

This feeling did not last long, for gradually it evaporated, a blank despair taking its place. There was no means of knowing the time, but a faint suspicion of chill in the air made her suspect it to be still early morning. Even so, it meant that she had been missing from the _château_ for twelve or thirteen hours, sufficient time to have confirmed the worst misgivings of her father and of her fellow-refugees.

Thoughts of her father hurt. His gentle soul would suffer from the uncertainty of her fate. What would he imagine had happened to her? Would he suspect the truth? She endeavoured to persuade herself that such a thought would be farthest from his mind, but unfortunately she realized only too well that one of the most possible solutions of her disappearance would be what had actually occurred.

What would the White Knight say? As not infrequently happened, her thoughts turned toward her two brief recollections of her rescuer. Extraordinarily enough, each time she had met him they had remained in pitch darkness, so her only memory of him was his voice.

The thought of him thrilled her. In thinking of him who was known as the White Knight she became aware of an extraordinary glow of warmth within her, as though, at the mention of his name, there was kindled an inward fire. Her blood pounded through her body all the more hotly because of it, and, almost against her will, her brain visioned dreams--light fairy fancies which airily danced to the blithe tune of her innermost desires.

As yet she was unaware of the reason. In her life of partial seclusion, her father and his work had occupied the greater part of her thoughts, so that his alone would not be the triumph when his book finally saw the light of day. Her work and her encouragement had been invaluable to him.

With her day occupied, and her maternal instincts satisfied in the loving care of her father, men had somehow failed to find a place within the limit of her mental horizon. Love, marriage, and motherhood had been names only; to be venerated in due course admittedly, but as yet relegated to some future time.

She naïvely believed her interest in the White Knight to be unexpressed thanks for his deliverance of her father and herself from the clutches of the Communists, and therefore it did not seem unusual that the memory of the deep vibrant clarity of his voice should ring so repeatedly in her ears. Strangely enough, the quality of their voices was to each of them a revelation of the other, for it had been the fearlessness, the steadiness, the sweet cadence of Elizabeth's tone which had first attracted the White Knight's attention, though afterward her voice ceased to be remarkable because it inevitably became an integral part of her charm and beauty.

She was convinced that, to judge by the little she knew of him, he was all that an English gentleman should be, and so she was wont to visualize him as being tall, and owning more than his fair share of strength, for had he not fought the swift Danube current, landing them both in safety--a feat she had previously believed impossible?

He had been excellently educated; his cultured voice assured her of that; his accent, the result of four years' practice that he might converse worthily with Zita, was irreproachable, his foreign mannerisms discernible only to the acutest eye.

Of his age she was more uncertain. Physically she would have surmised that he was at the zenith of manhood; in strategy and generalship he seemed apparently older by a score of years. That this last assumption might be correct she hated to admit, not realizing that four tense years at the Front more than made up for a thrice longer period lived under mor peaceful conditions.

As to his characteristics, she considered it scarcely incumbent upon her to criticize one who risked his life daily to aid the helpless nobility of a country against which he had but lately been fighting, and in any event she could not conceive that in such a man there could be anything other than good.

It was only about his looks that she was doubtful. In her imagination she saw him with strong but sympathetic blue eyes, possibly shadowed by slightly heavy eyebrows. His hair, she felt, would be of a nut-brown colour, alive with crisp, irregular curls, while his face surely would be long, consistent with his height. His nose undoubtedly was finely chiselled, his chin round, firmly betraying the masterfulness of its owner.

The White Knight! How applicable was the name! He was indeed a knight-errant, truly a 'White' knight as opposed to the 'Reds.' Like a legendary figure of the past, he might have arisen from the ashes of forgotten heroes, have been a reincarnation of one of the saintly king-warriors with whom the pages of Hungary's history abound.

Such was her dream-picture of him, such was the cloak of perfection in which she had wrapped his personality!

* * * * * *

There was a sudden clamour in the street below, and Elizabeth realized that for a brief time she had forgotten her plight in contemplation of the White Knight.

She heard a voice shrieking, "Long live the Commune!" and shuddered. How long would the hated Commune exist? Had not the Communists already dragged their country into the lowest depths of degradation, without wishing to exist solely for the purpose of completing the ruin? During her stay in the _château_ she had learned the real meaning of Communism, what it had done to her country, and to Russia also.

She tried to struggle to her feet, but found that her legs were lifeless. The rigid attitude of her sleep had prevented the blood from circulating; when she tried to stretch she found she could not move her limbs.

Her under lip trembled slightly. Sleep banished, dreams dissolved, once again the full realization of her plight returned to her. Why had the Communist not returned? How could she escape before he did? Her eyes gleamed more brightly and her mouth tightened to control the quivering muscles. Her courage returned in full, overpowering even the knowledge of her helplessness. Had she not struggled for hours the night before till her wrists bled, fruitlessly endeavouring to free her hands? Had she not worked her mouth till it was swollen and sore to dispose of the gag, without the slightest suggestion of success to encourage her?

For all that she would try once again. Whatever she might suffer now, it would be as nothing compared to what she would have to endure should the commissary return. Before anything, however, she realized it was necessary to force her legs into activity again.

She began by concentrating all her will-power to fidget her toes about. For some time there was no response, so she tried tightening the muscles of the limbs with spasmodic jerks. The effort of doing this caused her exquisite torture. Acute, tormenting pains shot up and down the arteries, so that she had to bite her lips to prevent a moan escaping.

Again and again she worked her muscles so, till at last feeling returned to her toes. After that her work became easier, if more painful, until finally she felt she could stand, and with a great effort braced herself up to her feet.

She had overestimated the strength of her legs. They were unable to bear the weight of her body, and she fell to the ground with a heavy crash which jarred every nerve in her body, twisting her arms until she wondered if either of them was broken.

For ten minutes she remained as she had fallen, a hundred different pains racking her body, while her brain havered on the borderline of consciousness. Only an indomitable will to refrain kept her from fainting.

At the end of that time she recommenced her exertions, but now she was in an even more awkward position than before. There seemed only one way of gaining her feet. Rolling to the wall she placed her back to it, and pushing with her slowly reviving legs gradually forced herself upward until she stood.

She crossed to the window and looked down upon the street below, but it was quieter. Evidently the crowd who had just been noisily acclaiming the merits of the Commune had departed for another quarter; there were not more than half a dozen people in all to be seen, of which number three were women and two children.

The sight served to cheer her more than anything else. She felt that if she could but escape from the room she might yet gain a safer part of the city without molestation. Yet--how to free her hands?

Despairingly she gazed round the room. There seemed nothing in any shape or form which could possibly assist her. Obviously there was but one thing to do--to continue twisting her wrists as much as possible in the hope of finally loosening the handkerchief.

Perhaps half an hour passed, but it became more apparent that she was no freer than she had been at first. She angrily chided herself on her woman's weakness, confident that a man could have wrenched his hands apart from sheer strength.

She could feel her wrists bleeding again, the skin bruised by the rasping of the material. She did not know how much blood was escaping, but there was enough to make her hands sticky, and she became afraid that if the cloth should become saturated it might shrink.

Feverishly she continued struggling, and for some time without any signs of success, but suddenly her thumb slipped through into a fold. She forced it higher and still higher till it hurt, but all at once it was free. The rest was easy. While her index finger struggled to follow suit, she forced the material farther down the hand, till a few seconds later her arms were free, and her mouth too.

Then she cried--not from pain or fear, but from pure relief. Only a few seconds before she had believed her task impossible, and then, unexpectedly, she had succeeded. There remained now only the door.

Drying her tears she approached it and caught hold of the handle with both hands. Placing her feet against the wall, she pulled, but the door held steadily, and presently she had to stop to regain her breath, but for only two minutes or so, when once again she took up her position.

Her hands turned on the handle; she pulled, and the door swung open. Gonnard had thought it locked, but the key had merely turned in the lock; the tumblers had not moved. Elizabeth laughed, a trifle hysterically. She had pulled so hard, when all she need have done was to have walked out....

What did it matter? The way to freedom was before her, and, stopping only to dust herself as far as possible, and wipe away as much of the blood from her wrists as she could, she crept cautiously down the steps and into the street.

* * * * * *

It would have been difficult to decide which of the three men walking toward the Château Juhusz was the happiest. Apor would have sworn it to be himself. During his brief imprisonment he had not been without hope that the White Knight would rescue him, even if he was more than fully aware of the difficulties which his leader would be bound to encounter.

This supreme confidence upheld him, right until the time when he had fallen asleep in his cell. At the Communists' threats, at the brutal jesting of his jailers, he had merely laughed lightly. Somehow or other the White Knight would rescue him!

Because of his high spirits the reaction was all the greater when, a few hours later, he awoke to find a leering face bending over him.

"Come along, my friend, get up." The words had rung ominously to Apor's ear.

"And why?" he had asked. The Red guard had grinned.

"Because why?" he had repeated. "Because Bela Kun has just telephoned through and ordered you to be taken at once to the Suspension Bridge to be dropped over."

"My God! But that would be murder. Surely I am at least entitled to a trial?"

The guard shrugged his shoulders. "It is none of my business, comrade. Besides, what do you want a trial for? The result would be the same."

Apor could not deny it. As assistant commissary he had seen more than enough of the methods of the Communists to know how true was the remark.

The blow had been a heavy one. Convinced that for some mysterious reason the Communists had suddenly changed their plans with regard to him, he had been forced to realize how impossible it would be for the White Knight to rescue him, and so, with a sinking heart, he had resigned himself to fate, prepared to meet his death as a man should.

By the time the handcuffs were snapped upon his wrists he had given up all hope of rescue, and though he walked with a steady step there had been a bitter smile upon his lips. He had not understood the reason for the urgent need of his death--the Communists knew, of course, of his connexion with the Whites, but as far as he was then aware, they were not cognizant of the fact that he was also a member of the White Knight's band.

So, in his own mind, Death had stood at his shoulder, and yet, unbelievably, miraculously, he had been rescued. Instead of being dead he was alive, and his heart filled with a bubbling happiness. No longer need he pretend; now he could openly declare himself a White, and fight for the relief of his country from the clutches of the Bolsheviks.

Arnold, on his part, was filled with a sense of satisfaction, and, better still, a pleasurable anticipation. Satisfied, because Apor was safe, and pleased--more than pleased--because in a few minutes' time he would see Cecile again, would look into her eyes, where he hoped to see the flame of welcome, of gladness, because he was still safe and unhurt.

Their love still remained unspoken, yet to themselves neither disguised its existence, just as each recognized that it should remain unrevealed until other times--better times--when the Red octopus should be slaughtered.

And Wenzel ... in one stroke he had fulfilled his oath to Elizabeth and, by an ingenious plan, had rescued Apor. The one puzzling aspect in the drama--namely, how it was that Gonnard was in Budapest--did not worry him for long. What mattered how he came there? He had met his fate, and Elizabeth was avenged.

Elizabeth! It was because he was near Elizabeth that the White Knight was conscious of an infectious gaiety in the air. Within a few minutes they would reach the clearing. Then, while Apor and Arnold went in, he would climb one of the bordering trees, and with greedy eyes would watch every fleeting expression which would cross her face, every graceful movement of her body, while she walked the weedy gardens of the _château_ with Cecile, with Arnold, or with her father.

He was content just to watch her so, to worship her from afar. Beyond that he knew he might never dare venture. If once she saw him--his searing scars... He visioned her face if that should ever happen, and saw how it would twist into horror; how she would shrink away in disgust.

He forced these thoughts from his brain and indulged in more roseate dreams. Arnold, he knew, understood, and would diplomatically arrange that for a short time she should wander where he could best see her. Dear old Arnold! What did it matter to him what happened to Hungary? What had been his reason for helping Hungary? Only an innate pity for the helpless, a gallant, old-fashioned quixotism, a love of adventure, and, above all, friendship for the man who was now his leader. That was all! Wenzel smiled to himself. All, originally, but now Arnold had another interest in Hungary. He had been rewarded. Well, he deserved it. He had risked his life for Hungary, and sooner or later, if all went well, he would pluck one of her choicest blooms for himself.

No brighter was the sun which bathed the country in its benevolent smile than the thoughts of the three men and the faces of two. Whatever his inward thoughts, Wenzel's expression never changed. He knew from past experience that, hideous as was his face in repose, it became positively satanical when he smiled, for then his face puckered up, his wounds twisted into grotesque shapes, and to look upon him thus was as if looking upon the visage of a satyr, a mocking mask of demon-like cunning.

They reached the edge of the clearing. With a slight motion of his head Wenzel sent his two friends forward, then climbed the branches of an adjacent tree, from where he could see and yet remain unseen.

To his impatient glance it seemed as if Apor and Arnold lagged in their walk to the _château_, but at last they disappeared within. Not long to wait now! A few minutes more and he would see Elizabeth! Already he knew every sweet expression by heart.

It seemed hours before anything happened, though actually it was but four to five minutes--just long enough for an hysterical father to pour the story of Elizabeth's disappearance into Arnold's horrified ears, and for the tired and despondent searchers to confirm and corroborate.

Unsuspectingly Wenzel waited. He wondered why Arnold had not yet succeeded in enticing Elizabeth into the garden. Then from his leafy retreat he saw Arnold hurrying toward him.

Wenzel's eyes narrowed and his nerves seemed to tighten warningly. There was something in Arnold's attitude, in his unusual walk and expression, which prepared Wenzel for bad news. He quickly swung himself down from the tree, and dropped even as Arnold approached.

"What is it, Arnold? There is something wrong?"

Arnold's glance wavered and dropped. "There is, Geoffrey," he said huskily. "I--I--Elizabeth Kiss has--disappeared."