Part 19

Not far from them was a small group which, judging by the number of people who approached questioningly, possessed more or less authoritative information. To it Arnold strolled casually.

"What is the matter, comrade?" he asked of one man.

The Communist swore. "I don't know, but from what I can make out the man they arrested last night is not the White Knight after all. May God smite down the fools for their mistake if it's true!"

Arnold's heart leaped, but the next moment he was convinced that the man was making up the story to provoke an interest in himself. He moved on, but again and again the tale was the same. The prisoner inside was not the White Knight!

He turned back to Elizabeth. "I do not understand it," he whispered. "Do you know what they are saying? That the man they captured last night is not the White Knight."

Elizabeth's hand flew to her lips. Only with an effort did she keep from calling out in surprise. For a few seconds her face beamed with a celestial happiness, but as quickly it altered, and there returned the engraven look of hopeless despair.

"I cannot believe it, Arnold. I, who was there, know that the man with the scars, the White Knight himself, was captured. For some reason best known to themselves the Communists are spreading the rumour--perhaps because they wish to discourage attempts at rescue."

After that the time passed slowly. From where they were Arnold and Elizabeth could see men coming and going into the palace. Firstly, although they did not know it, went in Gunzi, then later Garami. More time elapsed. Suddenly Arnold gripped Elizabeth's wrist in a steely grasp.

"Whatever you do," he muttered hoarsely, "don't make a sound, but--look!"

Coming out of the palace door was the White Knight, but only those two knew it. To the rest of the crowd he was merely another man making his exit from the palace.

He made his way somewhat in the direction where stood Arnold and Elizabeth, but, as he came nearer, Arnold's heart turned cold with disappointment. Man though he was, he felt the tears springing to his eyes, so great was the shock.

"Oh, God!" he whispered. "I have made a mistake. But in the distance he was the image of Geoffrey."

Perhaps his eyes were clouded temporarily by his feeling of despondency, or perhaps her eyes were more discerning. At any rate she recognized, not the face, but the garments.

"They are his clothes. I will swear it. Oh, Heaven! Do I not recognize every garment, every patch, every tear? Monsieur, that man must be the White Knight."

Arnold shook his head. "God knows, mademoiselle, I would willingly believe it, but--he is not the White Knight. Look at his face!"

When Elizabeth looked she had to agree. That man was not the White Knight.

The hours passed, and gradually the crowd dispersed, for at last it was officially confirmed--the Soviet had not caught the White Knight.

With the passing of time Arnold believed more and more that the report was trickery on the Council's part. It was the White Knight who had been captured. Had he not seen his leader a few hours ago at the ferry, surrounded by two dozen Terrorists?

Now, with the other people gone, for Elizabeth and him to stop where they were would have been making themselves conspicuous.

"Come," he said, and his voice was expressionless. "Let us go. We must not stop here."

"But where?"

He spread out his arms. "Back to the room where--where Geoffrey was--captured."

"That will be my--my penance," she whispered.

"I know nowhere else," he apologized. "I must guard you as I would guard myself, for--for Geoffrey will be expecting that of me."

Somehow they made their way back, though the streets were crowded, and their despondent spirits made the work of threading through all the harder. Stumbling up the stairs they reached the room and threw open the door. Arnold started. Sitting on the bed was the man whom they had seen in the crowd round the palace.

"What are you doing here?" he asked angrily.

Now that the man had cast aside not only his scarf, but also his hat, he could see all the more easily that, despite a slight resemblance to the White Knight, the man on the bed could no more be Wenzel than he himself. Not only was this man's face free from blemishes, but so was his head. Arnold knew well the vivid, blood-red scar which scraped Wenzel's scalp, and in the mass of straight hair--almost black when compared to the shade of Geoffrey's curly head--there was not the slightest sign of it.

"Why shouldn't I be here?" mumbled the man.

"Because it happens to be my room. Come on, comrade--outside!" Arnold was in no mood for argument, and there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes which should have warned the intruder.

The other man shrugged his shoulders. "I was here before you," he said. "Mademoiselle can prove that." He nodded his head in the direction of Elizabeth.

Arnold clenched his fists. "What do you mean?"

"What I say, my friend, that I was here last night, and thanks to her ladyship"--his tone was hard--"arrested in mistake for the White Knight."

"You--arrested in mistake--but----" Then it was true, and the White Knight was not in prison. But, in that case, where was the White Knight?

Elizabeth could have spoken in joy, but Arnold stopped her. He mistrusted the man. It almost seemed as if there were a trap somewhere. He felt suddenly afraid.

"I do not know what you say," he said coolly. "This lady has never met the White Knight in all her life."

The man yawned. "You said that very well, but--it isn't really the truth, is it, Arnold?" And then Arnold knew that despite the evidence of his eyes the man who sat on the bed really was the White Knight.

_CHAPTER XIX_

The faint light from the guttering candle was barely sufficient to illuminate the tiny kitchen, for a draught blew in through a broken window, twisting and flicking the flame from side to side. Yet, despite the shadows, there was no mistaking the figure of the man who sat at the table, his head buried in his outstretched arms, his shoulders shaking with emotion.

Through the cracked window watched the White Knight, and the pathos of the scene hurt him, the silent grief, the loneliness of the cottage, the very solitude of the man--a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved, and yet there seemed no one to help carry the burden of the unhappy man within.

Szamuelly in his Death Train had come and gone--the White Knight had missed him by an hour--and somehow Wenzel could not doubt that the anguish he now witnessed was a direct result of that flying visit.

He moved round to the door, and gently twisting the handle pushed and entered.

The man at the table glanced up, and the White Knight saw that his face was twisted with pain.

Dully he looked Wenzel up and down. "What do you want?" he asked tonelessly.

"A word or two with you," Wenzel replied.

Immersed in the depths of his own thoughts, the man did not understand. "What do want?" he asked for the second time.

Tragedy tinged the air, and Wenzel felt its influence. "A few words, comrade," he said quietly. "I shall not keep you long."

After a time his meaning seemed to sink into the man's consciousness, for suddenly the corners of his lips puckered downward. "Go away, friend. I talk to no one to-night."

Wenzel did not move. "Yet I would ask you to listen. Tell me one thing--when I looked through the window I saw your shoulders shaking; your eyes seem red with weeping. A man does not give way without good cause. Tell me your sorrow."

The man's eyes glittered, and he half rose from his seat. "What the Hell does it matter to you? Get out!" he muttered savagely. "Leave me to myself." But from the look of desperation in his eyes Wenzel divined his purpose.

"No, my friend, not until I have spoken with you. You must not kill yourself. It is not God's will."

"God!" The man sneered. "There is no God, or if there is He has forgotten Hungary. Who are you to talk to me of God? Have you had a son butchered to death before your very eyes? Have you heard your son crying for death, shrieking with pain?--God, the murderous hounds! The devils!"

"You mean--Szamuelly?"

For a moment Wenzel regretted mentioning the name, for suddenly the man's expression changed. Sadness and heartache dissolved from his face. Instead, his features became distorted by a spasm of unrelenting hatred. His eyes gleamed wickedly, his lips drew back in a snarl, exposing his coarse and rotted teeth, while his breath hissed in the intensity of his feelings.

"Szamuelly! Szamuelly!" He choked. "May his entrails rot in Hell! May the vampires suck his blood! May God blast his soul! I curse him, he and all of his, his sons and his sons' sons; his daughters, his daughters' daughters, and all who may speak to them in friendship! Curse him, I say! Curse him!" With a sobbing cry the man's head fell on to his crooked arms.

Wenzel neither spoke nor moved. Gradually the paroxysm passed, then the man looked up again, tears frankly falling from his eyes, and dropping, with dismal splashes, upon the rough wooden table.

"The only son left to me here in the village. Pity the grief of an old man, friend, an old man who, five years ago, had a house full of healthy sons around him. Six there were--from twelve years of age to thirty. They were not a marrying sort, so remained with their old father.

"Six of them, five years ago. Two killed in 1915, one in 1916, and another in 1917--blast the War! Four sons out of five--and all for nothing. Have we not lost after all? Is not Hungary beaten, conquered, ground down? Only one came back to me; he, together with the youngest and me--we were going to start life anew, but, my God! the eldest was forced to stop in Budapest and join the railway, to sweat and toil for Bela Kun.

"I wish to Heaven both he and the youngest had been killed in the War! Better to die fighting, say I, battling against enemies, than to--to be tortured to death in front of the eyes of your father by your own countrymen. Yes, comrade, that is what happened to my youngest. Just seventeen years of age, and Szamuelly--Szamuelly had him hanged because he wouldn't wear the Red cockade. He would have killed me, because I too wouldn't have worn the cursed colour, but the swine was in a hurry.

"'Tell what I have done to all would-be Whites,' he said, with a laugh. That's what he said to me, the father of the poor butchered boy. Oh, Jesus Christ, why have You deserted us in our hour of need? Why do You not smite these heretics who spit on Your Cross? ... And now, comrade, what do you want?"

It was as though the old man suddenly recollected that there was another man present, for he ended with a snarl.

"I want--the help of you and your remaining son, comrade--I am the White Knight."

The man gazed at him with incredulous eyes, his trembling lips, his shaking hands testifying to the shock he had received, but, as the fact filtered into his brain, he dropped suddenly to his knees, and seizing Wenzel's hand in his own, he kissed it passionately, again and again, until Wenzel, in embarrassment, withdrew it.

"The White Knight! The White Knight!" With the assistance of the White Knight the old man shakily rose to his feet and tottered back to his chair. "God be praised! You, Excellency, you are the man who has sworn to kill Szamuelly, you, Excellency, are the White Knight, the Enemy of the Commune, and you need my help, and the help of my--only son...." He drew himself up and gazed with steadfast eyes at Wenzel. "God forgive me!" he muttered piously. "God forgive me for my words. He has not forgotten us.... And now, Excellency?"

His voice finished briskly, and the White Knight knew that he need fear no betrayal from this man.

"Firstly," he said, "your promise. You must not kill yourself."

The man gazed at him with reproach. "Excellency, I am yours to command."

"Good! You are a railwayman?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"You are in the telegraph service?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"And your son? I believe he also is in the telegraph department at the Budapest terminus. Is that not so?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Good! Your name, my friend, it is Hervesi?"

"Correct, Excellency."

"Now, listen, Hervesi; tell me firstly how you knew that I had sworn to kill Szamuelly."

"I heard a week ago from my son in Budapest, Excellency. He met a man named Gunzi, who was searching for the White Knight. 'For why?' asked my son. 'Because he threatens to kill our great Szamuelly,' replied this Gunzi. Then my son, so he told me, chuckled inwardly, and made inquiries about the White Knight, and heard of all your wonderful deeds, Excellency, so when I saw him three days ago he told me all."

"Does he hear much news?"

"Plenty, Excellency. He sleeps in the same room as a man named Nyistor, a labourer who is now Assistant Commissary for Agriculture."

The White Knight smiled. Matters were turning out far better than he had ever expected.

"What thinks your son, then, Hervesi, of the Commune?"

The railwayman's face twisted into a snarl. "As I, Excellency. He fought for glorious Hungary, for your country and mine, not for these filthy Russian murderers."

"Not my country, Hervesi," said Wenzel quietly.

"Not your country, Excellency?" The man looked puzzled. "I do not understand."

"I am not Hungarian--I am British."

"You--British? Then you are--an enemy!" Instantly Hervesi's face became suspicious.

"Not an enemy of you or any other honest Hungarian, Hervesi. Only an enemy of the Commune. I--I was engaged to a Hungarian lady, Hervesi, but when I got back from the War I found that the Communists had--killed her, killed her as surely as they killed your son."

"The swine, the swine! So that is why you help us? We Hungarians never wanted to fight the British, Excellency, but we were the puppets of German intrigue. Why did England fight us? We were--we are friends of England."

"England does not forget the fact, Hervesi," but Wenzel said it with a heavy heart, for even then the Peace Conference was disintegrating the unhappy country, forgetting all ties of past friendship in the wild, mad effort to punish the war-makers--and in doing so punished only the cat's-paws of Germany, while Germany herself---- At that stage the past was not yet past, and Wenzel hastened to turn the subject.

"You are a thinker, Hervesi. Good, it is so much the better. But listen. It is true what your son has told you: I have sworn to kill Szamuelly. But my task is difficult. In his Death Train he tears across the country, never remaining in any one place, only just long enough to kill honest Hungarians, and then he is gone again. I cannot catch him up. Even to-night I am an hour late, even now Szamuelly is many miles away from me.

"I must have an ally. Your son can help me. Whenever he can obtain news of Szamuelly's destination he can wire through to you, so that I can be there first, and by God's will I can fulfil my oath. Do you think he will do that for me, Hervesi?"

"Excellency, I answer for him as I answer for myself. Szamuelly must die," and all unconsciously he uttered the words which for weeks now had haunted the White Knight.

* * * * * *

The country was stirring; the faint rumblings of discontent were growing louder and more insistent, the seeds sown by the counter-revolutionaries were ripening for the crop. The honest peasants were tired of selling their goods for the worthless paper money of the Soviet, the workmen were realizing that fifty Soviet crowns were of little more use than five blue crowns of the old Austro-Hungarian Bank.

The knell of the Commune was sounding, the tocsin for liberty ringing, and the people of Hungary were muttering angrily, ominously. Only in Budapest was the call still unheeded, though not unheard, for there Bela Kun and his cronies ruled supreme, and people were afraid to express their feelings for fear of reprisals--revenge which might come from Cserni, whose red car continually raced the streets of the city, from Szamuelly with his Death Train, or from the inhuman spider Korvin-Klein, who sat in his web devouring the virulent as well as the inoffensive Whites with an impartiality only equalled by his insatiable appetite.

Away in distant parts the Whites were openly preparing for battle. The Vends of Western Hungary, forced to flee to Austria, were being joined by Hungarian officers commanded by Baron Lehar. In Szeged, where the fuel of counter-revolution burned brightest, a White Government was being formed, with Nicholas Horthy as Minister of War and Paul Teleki as Foreign Secretary, while Generals Soos and Gombos were organizing the White Army.

If the members of the Supreme Soviet Council, kept fully acquainted with the situation by their numerous spies, were experiencing the first warnings of their coming doom, under the thrall of the ranting Bela Kun they hesitated to betray the fact.

With an incredible faith in his waning star, to the Dictator, any omens of a dark future were hidden by roseate-hued visions of a World Commune, with himself second only to Lenin or Trotsky. With an unbounded nerve, of which one could scarcely dream him capable, he demanded of the Allies the fulfilment of their promise that on the cessation of hostilities against the Czechs the Tisza should be evacuated by the Rumanians, for day by day, keeping pace with the atrocities committed by the Communists upon their own people, the enemies of Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Serbia, and Rumania, were advancing on all sides, sometimes repulsed, but more often gaining the victory over the less organized Red guards.

That Clemenceau, President of the Peace Conference, treated his message with disdain, ordering that Hungary should observe the conditions of the Armistice before he would treat with the Soviet Council, meant nothing to the impudent Dictator, who ironically replied to Clemenceau that he, Bela Kun, doubted the power of the President to impose his will upon the Rumanians or the Czechs.

Then, in defiance of the Peace Conference, he issued orders for mobilization, and upon the walls of Hungary's villages and towns appeared huge, glaring posters of a sailor's figure, running and holding aloft a Red flag, which bore the inscription: "FEGYUERBE!" Ex-soldiers, who for long years had fought the Serbians and Russians, gazed upon the crude recruiting pictures, read the call "To Arms," and realized that fighting must continue, even while their friends and relations who remained at home were stabbed in the back by the self-chosen leaders of the nation for whom they would have to fight.

Thus Bela Kun and his satellites failed to heed the writing on the wall--the passing of the Bavarian Soviet, the miscarriage of the Austrian Soviet, the failure of the Russian Soviet to come to their assistance--and laughed at the Allies, at the threatening armies of the Whites, at the invading hordes of the neighbouring Slavs.

There was only one who really sensed the change--Szamuelly; in an effort to intimidate the recalcitrants his Death Train tore from one end of the country to the other, and all the time he hanged, butchered, murdered, and the trail of corpses he left in his tracks grew longer and longer.

From Szamuelly and his hangmen the innocent and guilty alike fled in terror; and the volume of their curses grew louder, till their reverberating echoes reached the ears of the spies, who in due course then reported to the fiend himself.

At the constant repetition of the threats he merely laughed: it was not the individual he feared, but the concerted whole. In his lightning trips he did not fail to notice the signs of the growing White menace, and so he said to Bela Kun, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" setting a good example.

Yet his day was to come, and Szamuelly had a hint of it one morning when he received a letter addressed to him at the Batthyany Palace.

He slit open the envelope. Inside was a plain post card on which were written six words only:

Szamuelly shall die. THE WHITE KNIGHT

Szamuelly felt a surge of murderous hate toward the sender, and sent for Gunzi.

When the detective arrived Szamuelly handed over the card to the other.

"Look, Comrade Gunzi, look! Here is another message which I have to-day received through the post."

The detective took and inspected it with a quizzical eye. "He seems certain of himself," he muttered calmly.

Szamuelly smashed his fist down upon the table before him. "Do you think I sent for you to hear that?" he shouted furiously, but to the acute ears of the detective there was an undercurrent of fear in the voice of the other.

"Well, what do you want of me?" he asked coolly.

"Is there still no trace of the braggart?"

Gunzi shook his head, and his lips tightened. "Not yet, comrade. He is as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp, yet I shall trace him in the end. At Aszod, had not Gonnard fled to Budapest, I should have arrested the White Knight, and by now he would be but a memory."

"Bah, child's talk! Did you not arrest him here, in Budapest itself; did you not actually imprison him in a cell underneath Parliament House, and did not you and the fools on the Council let him free against my advice? I should have hanged that man whether he had been the White Knight or not."

Gunzi bit his lip. "Who could have foreseen that the White Knight had such a cunning trick up his sleeve? That day in the Hapsburg Palace I would have sworn an oath it was not he."

"Even now I do not understand. I cannot get Korvin-Klein to talk. Was it or was it not the White Knight who appeared before us that morning?"

"It was. My men trailed him for a time, and then--he disappeared entirely. They reported to me. I hurried to the room where I had arrested him the night before and there I found a message from him thanking me for my help in his escape."

"Yes, yes. All that I know. But what of his scars, the difference in his expression, in the man himself?"

Gunzi shrugged his shoulders. "The White Knight could most easily tell you that. Myself, I have only a theory."

"And that?"

"I believe that the White Knight's scars were nothing but grease-paint. During the night he wiped them off."

"Good God!" Even into Szamuelly's unwilling eyes there crept a glow of admiration, till suddenly he remembered the message he had just received, and shivered.

"Gunzi, you must catch him soon. I begin to feel nervous."

"Why should you? You are surrounded by reliable men. I do not think even the White Knight can pierce through your gang of Terror Boys."

"But the White Knight is uncanny."

Gunzi sneered. "The White Knight is human. He baffled me for a short time at Aszod, but in the end I got on his track. Give me a week or two longer and I shall bring him to you, and the next time... I hope the Council will take your advice, Comrade Szamuelly, and hang him anyway, right man or not." A spasm of rage convulsed his face. "God! to think we had the White Knight in our hands and let him go!"

* * * * * *

Hidden in a small copse some hundred yards distant from the track, two men waited for the Death Train, which was due to thunder toward them at any moment. From where they were they could just see the red light which sent out its warning ray from between the iron parallels, and behind which lay a felled tree.

"Why the red light, Geoffrey, why the warning? Would it not be better to let the Death Train crash into the obstruction, and so send it, Szamuelly, and all his hangmen to Hell together?"