Part 21
"Oh, God!" he moaned. "Oh, God! Oh, God!" Then with a shriek he raised his voice, "Quicker, quicker!" and the Terrorist who was driving looked round with a startled air. "Quicker!" screamed Szamuelly, and the pace increased till the already shaky sides of the automobile began to rock unsteadily.
Szamuelly looked back; the relative positions of the two cars had scarcely changed ... once again he looked into the eyes of the White Knight....
He leaned forward. "Comrade, for God's sake ... the aerodrome! ... Behind us the White Knight ... lose his car, we will fly to Russia...."
The driver looked behind him, and the car swayed ominously toward an oncoming automobile as his nerveless fingers suddenly lost their firm grip on the wheel. Just in time the smooth-tongued one clutched and held the wheel on a straighter course.
The narrow escape from a terrible collision only served to make the driver turn still whiter, but at the same time he was filled with a desperate desire to escape, and instinctively he turned his attention to the car--anything to draw away from the dreaded White Knight--and his foot pressed still harder on the accelerator.
He knew the streets well, did Szamuelly's driver, for once upon a time, before he had been imprisoned for robbery with violence, he had been a chauffeur. Filled with a determination to lose their pursuer, without the slightest slackening, without a warning note, he shot off down a side road.
The car rocked over to a dangerous angle, but by a miracle settled down again, and the next second was away in the distance, even while Francis Bakocz, who was driving the pursuing car, little suspecting the sudden manœuvre, overshot the road and, with the brakes shrieking and wailing, came to a stop too late, so that he had to reverse and back. By the time he was in the side road Szamuelly's car had disappeared.
Francis looked at the White Knight inquiringly, but Wenzel was puzzled. As the car turned the Terrorist in his pay had shot his arm up into the air, and his pointing finger had waved in the direction of the heavens. It was a signal; that much Wenzel could guess; but what was its portent he could not gather.
Francis drove wildly on, tearing down the side road at breakneck speed, unheeding the cursing pedestrians who shook their fists and growled; but Szamuelly's Terrorist knew his work, and there was no sign of the car in front. To stop and inquire would be waste of time--in the meantime Szamuelly would escape--but there was apparently nothing else to be done; but, even as Francis slowed up, Wenzel suddenly turned, an idea germinating in his mind.
"Francis, quick, is there an aerodrome in this direction?"
The boy, for he was scarcely more in years, even if the last few months had aged him in experience, nodded.
Wenzel laughed. "That is where he has gone. For God's sake, get there quickly!"
In the meantime Szamuelly's car was nearing the aerodrome. Aeroplanes were waiting--he could see them, their outstretched wings gleaming whitely in the sun, their pilots scattered about the field.
The car drew up, steaming, and Szamuelly tumbled out.
"Comrade," he gasped to one of the pilots, "I am Comrade Szamuelly, a People's Commissary. I ... I seek a consultation in Russia with Lenin, concerning the glorious future of a united European Soviet. You will take me there. I will pay you well--very well--many thousands of crowns."
"Why shouldn't I, comrade? I am fond of money. Come to-morrow and I will see what I can do."
"To-morrow? To-morrow is of no use--I must go now, at once ... this very minute!" His voice rose, and the pilot looked at him with a questioning glance.
"You are in a hurry, comrade! What bites you? Lenin is not dying, is he?"
"Delay not, for God's sake, comrade! The White Knight is after us. He may arrive at any minute now." It was the smooth-tongued one who spoke.
His words were not without effect. The pilot's face creased into ugly lines, and he turned upon Szamuelly with a threatening air:
"Oh, ho, my friend! You do not speak altogether the truth. The White Knight! I have heard of him too often for my own peace of mind. You had best find some one else to take you. I do not relish hanging from the Suspension Bridge." He turned away.
"I will make it ten, twenty thousand crowns, comrade, if you will but take me." He was sobbing now.
The pilot laughed harshly. "Of what use are twenty thousand crowns in Hell, my friend? I prefer to spend them in Budapest. Find some one else."
With streaming tears Szamuelly begged the pilots, one after another, to take him to Russia. Once there, so he told them, they would be safe from the White Knight's vengeance. But his pleas were of no avail. They--who did not yet know the Commune was cracking up, even at that very moment--had no wish to abandon Hungary yet, and besides, they sneered, there were Rumanian planes and Czech planes to pass before Russia was reached, and they had had enough fighting to last them for a while.
Before five minutes had passed Szamuelly knew his quest was useless, and also by that time the train to Austria would be gone; before the next went, God alone knew what might happen! There was only one way out of the country.
He turned to his fellow-Terrorists. "Comrades, drive like Hell for the Austrian frontier. It is the only thing left now."
They bought petrol, for Szamuelly was afraid to confiscate, and started off, five minutes before Wenzel and Francis arrived. While the White Knight remained under cover Francis made inquiries.
The pilots looked at him with suspicion when he asked if Szamuelly had been there, but he seemed too young to be connected with the White Knight, so they grinned and told him that he was not likely to see the commissary any more.
"Why?" They laughed when Francis put the question. "Because he is on his way to Austria. The White Knight is after him."
"The White Knight! Who the Hell is he?" asked Francis naïvely. In asking the question he had meant to be diplomatic, but when ten minutes passed before they had finished telling him all about the White Knight he cursed himself for being such an idiot.
At length he got away. Wenzel's face hardened when he heard the news.
"Well?" he said, and gazed at Francis.
The boy grinned. "I am ready, monsieur."
Wenzel's eyes softened. "Good lad!" he exclaimed quietly, and Francis suddenly lost his fear of the hideous White Knight, whom he had met personally for the first time only a few days previously.
So they started off. Later they reached the road to the Austrian frontier, and not until then did Francis open out the throttle.
For the first hour they saw nothing of the car ahead, but when they made inquiries, at different farmhouses on the road, they heard that Szamuelly's car had passed about half an hour previously, so Francis increased the speed--so much so that by the time they had covered another thirty miles Szamuelly's car was but ten to fifteen minutes in advance of them.
While Francis was increasing his speed, the Terrorist in the car in front was slowing down. For the last two hours there had been no trace of the White Knight, and gradually the spirits of the Terror Boys, and even those of Szamuelly himself, rose higher.
Now there did not seem so much need for haste they began to linger, to talk more boldly and exchange reminiscences. Even the smooth-tongued one spoke a little more, for supposing the White Knight did not catch up again there was certainly enough money hidden in his clothes to last him for some time; and he was equally prepared to desert the White Knight as he had been his Communist leader.
The time passed by, and steadily the distance to the Austrian border decreased. Then suddenly Szamuelly saw, perhaps a mile back, a trail of dust rising into the air.
"By God! Look!" The words burst from hie lips unconsciously. The two Terrorists glanced back.
The chauffeur groaned: "The White Knight!" But his companion unconsciously scratched the palm of his hand--more good English money for his little store!
The Terrorist pressed down his foot, the car shot forward, and underneath the wheels the road slid past too quickly for the eye to follow; but Francis had seen them, and had the better car.
It was a long and thrilling chase; both cars were speeding to their limit, but yard by yard the White Knight crept closer, till Szamuelly was damp with a cold sweat.
A mile, half a mile, quarter of a mile, until at last the two cars were within pistol-shot of one another, and the hour of the White Knight's vengeance seemed very near.
Perhaps another fifteen minutes would have seen the two cars level, and then... Fate for once was against the White Knight. With an internal choking his car came to a gradual halt, and Francis swore. "Petrol," he said briefly. Fortunately there were spare tins behind, but in the meantime Szamuelly drew away.
What were the feelings of Szamuelly when he saw the pursuing car come to a sudden stop will never be known, but it must have seemed to him then that some kindly angel had come to his aid, and his fear dropped from him, so that, all at once, he was in the highest of spirits. He laughed, sang, and joked, confident that he had seen the last of the White Knight.
The car drove on; there was an intoxicating spirit of cheerfulness surrounding them. On ... on to Austria!
Szamuelly gave one final glance back, and saw, in the far distance, a rising cloud of dust, approaching with incredible rapidity, but fear no longer reigned in his heart, for, as the Communist glanced from side to side, he recognized Lajta Ujfalu in the distance, and knew that before many minutes passed he would be safe in Austria. Derisively he waved his hand. "Good-bye, White Knight!" he called out mockingly. "Good-bye, Hungary!"
On ... on. One thousand yards to safety, five hundred, four hundred ... and then--Nemesis!
As they passed a tiny copse there was a rain of bullets, and they saw a group of hidden, uniformed men--Hungarian _gendarmerie_, already self-organized at the first rumours of the Soviet's downfall. The driver sighed gently and collapsed. The car jumped forward for twenty yards--there was a tearing, rending crash--and the battered skeleton of what just before had been a live, pulsating automobile overturned.
Szamuelly staggered from out the wreckage. Through the bloody film which mistily obstructed his vision he saw men running toward him, shouting and shooting; suddenly he felt a burning, searing pain which vibrated through his body. He wanted to fall, to give up, but an instinct for life urged him forward. He braced up and staggered on--the frontier was just ahead--three hundred yards and he would be safe....
The fear of death lent him wings--the excitement of the chase blinded the eyes of the pursuing gendarmes--and suddenly Szamuelly knew he was across the frontier.... Safe! ... Safe! The Hungarians would never dare to shoot now.... He lurched on and on, smiling grimly, triumphantly.
The _gendarmes_ clustered together on the borderline, cursing, and watched their prey escape. There were no Austrian _Volkswehr_ to be seen, but, scarcely recovered from the heavy yoke of the Soviet, they feared to advance or to fire, and thus provoke international complications.
Such was the position when, with a sobbing grind, Francis brought his car to a stop. The White Knight jumped out, but there was no need for words. Szamuelly had all but escaped ... two minutes more and he would be beyond all hope of revenge.
With a rapid gesture Wenzel seized a rifle from out the hands of one of the _gendarmes_, and, putting it to his shoulder, sighted the staggering Communist. The figure was small and moving erratically.... Wenzel's hands shook unsteadily. With an effort of will he steadied them, and suddenly Szamuelly was clearly before his eyes, dead between the forked sight.
The rifle flashed--for one vibrant, palpitating second nothing happened. Then Szamuelly just dropped--never to move again....
"Too good a death," grumbled the awakened people of Hungary when they heard the news.
* * * * * *
That night Bela Kun, Weiss, Schwarz, Vago, Pogany, and Landler, together with all their families, stole quietly into one of the Budapest stations where a train was ready for them, steam up, impatiently awaiting the guard's command. The rats were fleeing--escaping with the connivance of the new Peidl Government, but, still more paradoxically, protected from their own people by an escort supplied by the Italian military mission stationed in Budapest.
Only one was missing from the party--Szamuelly! The clock ticked on, the time passed rapidly. In the end they could wait no longer. The guard signalled, the train steamed out, _en route_ to Austria; and so passed out of the pages of history Bela Kun and his colleagues. Once again justice was denied the people of Hungary, for with the help of the Allies the train reached and crossed the Austrian frontier, and the Communists were safe--safe to live thereafter a life of ease, when they ought to have hanged, while those they left behind, betrayed by their leaders to the last, later suffered the extreme penalty. Even to this day it is said that somewhere in Russia Bela Kun still lives.
_CHAPTER XXI_
Peace at last! With the occupation of Budapest by the Rumanians a sane Government was formed, inspired by a proclamation of the Archduke Joseph, and if the city were still systematically robbed by the Rumanian occupiers of what little was left to it, at any rate the thefts, under the name of reparations, were more legal, and less bitter.
To the gasping, starved citizens of Budapest the change was well worth it. At least they could walk the streets openly by day or night without fear of sudden death, of molestation and imprisonment which meant worse than death; they could, at any rate, obtain what food there was, without producing red or blue tickets.
For the first time in months there was peace and happiness in the hearts of the Hungarian people. Their chins uplifted, their eyes sparkling, they walked the streets of the cities, the highways and the byways of the country. Once again they had come into their own.
In less than a week the Château Juhusz was empty of all those who had been living there: empty of them all save one. No longer did the decaying walls echo with the sound of voices, no longer were its derelict rooms embellished with flowers, decorated with pieces of carved wood and crude charcoal drawings.
No more did the Count and Countess Bakocz hold court in their pitiful apology for a _salon_, nor did Imre Kiss, leaning still more heavily on his walking-stick, pass from room to room, his head bowed with thought, longing only once more to work upon his beloved manuscript, to write "Finis" to his tale of the glories of the Kings of Hungary.
If the drooping _château_ sighed for the absence of the elder victims of the Red Terror, how much more did it miss the youthful Francis, with his tales of the White Knight's daring, with his unconcealed pride in his first adventures under the Enemy of the Commune's leadership, the infectious laughter of Elizabeth Kiss, and best of all the flowering romance of Cecile and Arnold, their 'chance' meetings in darkened corners, their timid whispers, their hidden blushes.
Once again was the aged _château_ desolate, the sport of the wind which mockingly howled round its crumbling gables, and of the rain which dripped through its dissolving mortar, percolating into the interior, revivifying the moss; once again the weeds grew bolder in the grounds, already beginning to sprout where the amateur gardeners had stamped them out, and, as they grew, so for the second time the spirit of the _château_ decayed, after having been revived for a brief period by the occupation by the pursued and outlawed nobility.
Dank and dismal, the _château_ drooped, cheerless and uninviting--a home for nothing except for rats and mice, which once again invaded its unfortified barriers, burrowing through its rotting wood, and for the owls which snuggled back into their usurped corners.
Yet there was one who lived there still, one whose heart was as cold as the draughts, whose spirits were as mournful as the dismal moaning of the wind.
His work was finished. The task of the White Knight was ended, and here, where the woman he now cherished had lived, he attempted to forget, to wash from his mind all thoughts of his two Hungarian loves.
He was successful in weaning his thoughts from Zita, for Time, the master-healer, had washed his wound of the hurt: she was a lingering memory, a sweet fragrance of yesterday.
It was his recollection of Elizabeth which tortured him. She seemed so real, so near, and yet so far away. She was of the immediate present, as real as Zita was just a fairy phantom from some delicious dream.
When Geoffrey knew Hungary to be free at last from the tentacles of the Red octopus he realized that his work was ended. No more need to rescue unhappy victims of the Terror, no longer the necessity to counteract the evil purposes of the Communists, to hurry refugees across the border, to assist the Whites in preparing their great _coup d'état_.
What more could the world want of him now? Bitterly he answered his own query. Nothing! The world had no use for a vile, scarred, atrocious specimen of humanity such as he. It forgets so easily, and once the world ceased to remember the honour, the glory, of the scars of war, he would remain only a being of disgust, a revolting spectacle, an object of pity.
Pity! That would be worse than anything. Pity! Perhaps it would be: "Poor Geoffrey--but, you know..." The fatal "but." There would be no invitations for him--he might frighten the other guests! Not that he cared a damn; but supposing he married? ... And, like all mental arguments, his thoughts finished where they began--with Elizabeth.
Because of his attempted suicide--for he did not blink his eyes to the fact that it was attempted suicide deliberately to invite the Reds to murder him--he must bear a cross during the rest of his life. That was his punishment--his face his cross. Or was it rather his hopeless love for Elizabeth?
Those were days of bitterness! His brain no longer busy with schemes and plans for the succour of others, his time no longer fully taken up, his thoughts turned to himself and his future, and in desperation he fled to the empty _château_ to work out his own salvation, to forget!
To forget! It was not long before he realized that of all the places in which to do this he had chosen the worst. What chance was there of forgetting when every corner reminded him of Elizabeth--perhaps she had sat there--or there--or there? She--she had slept in that room, he remembered--and that room became his shrine.
In the woods were the flowers she had loved so much--their sweet, dewy smell was reminiscent of her, as was the purity of the white flowers, for they were her soul, the richness of the red flowers, for they were her cheeks, the softness of the pansies, for they were her eyes.
The insects chirruped of her, the whispering of the wind through the forest trees sang of her, the tiny brooklet running near by babbled of her. Worst of all the moon, the broad, round face of the moon, as it majestically rose into the clear heavens, winked derisively at him, or frowned at him, shedding its silver beams through the interlaced boughs of the trees.
So the days passed, the heart of Geoffrey growing more sullen and more cold, until the spirit of the White Knight wilted beneath the triple load of misery, self-torture, and hopeless love.
The time arrived when he could not bear to look upon his own reflection, so he ceased to shave and grew a long, silky beard and a moustache.
He fed on what stores the refugees had left behind, and slept on the rough bed which Arnold had used when he was at the _château_, living the life of a hermit, trying to forget ... trying to forget ... and failing!
* * * * * *
The moon was rising, just skirting the trees, when one night Geoffrey became conscious of voices.
He was going to swear, but even as the words trembled on his lips he started, for he recognized the voices. Arnold and Elizabeth! What were they doing near the old _château_? He was in one of the front rooms, but like a wraith, and with as little noise, despite his great size, he slipped out into the surrounding forest, suspecting that they might enter the _château_.
The voices came nearer; they were chattering idly of current events in Budapest, but half-way across the clearing Elizabeth raised her hand and restrained Arnold.
"Please, monsieur," she said, and the sound of her voice stole through the quiet air to where Geoffrey was hidden. "Please, monsieur, I would like to stop here."
Arnold obediently halted. Then suddenly Elizabeth saw the old fountain, and, crossing to it, stood there, watching it in the light of the moon.
"Poor Mercury," she said wistfully; "he seems so solitary--alone in this big forest with no one near. He must have been a merry little chap in the old days, before he became overgrown with moss. I am going to sit down. Won't you rest beside me, Monsieur Arnold, so that I may talk to you?"
She seated herself on the edge of the large empty basin, and gazed around. From his place of concealment Geoffrey watched, and the beauty of the scene tortured him so that he closed his eyes. The silver rays of the moon bathed the clearing and the _château_ in a pure white light which softened the decay, till one could almost picture it as it must have appeared in those far-off days when it had been the centre of life and love, of activity and of idleness: the playground of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, with their colours and their swords, with their lace petticoats and their fans.
Never had Elizabeth looked so beautiful; it seemed to Geoffrey that never before had a background so admirably become her. If it were he who sat beside her, if it were only he! He caught his breath in a little gasp.
"How you must have wondered at me, Monsieur Arnold!" Elizabeth was saying to him as he sat beside her. "Did you think me mad, asking you to escort me here one night?"
"Indeed no," Arnold replied in his deep voice. "On the contrary, mademoiselle, I myself was more than pleased to come. This _château_ has wonderful memories for me--memories of one night, just like this, not so long ago, when ... when Cecile..." He stopped awkwardly.
"Why, of course. I had forgotten," and it seemed to Geoffrey as if there was a sigh in her voice. "You are very happy, monsieur?"
"Happy!" There was a wealth of gladness in that one word which spoke for itself. "Mademoiselle, a short while ago, in the middle of the Terror, I would have said that this world was a Hell for some other and better world. Now it seems to me that it must be Heaven itself."
"Heaven!" she repeated in a whisper. "Heaven! Well, it might be, if..." She turned to Arnold suddenly. "What of the White Knight? Where is he?"
"Heaven only knows, mademoiselle," Arnold groaned. "Some time after the Rumanians took control he disappeared without a word. Since then I have hunted high and low for him without success."
"Are you not--afraid?" There was a catch in her voice.
"Afraid!" repeated Arnold, puzzled about her meaning. Then he realized what she meant. "No, mademoiselle, not of that. Only four people know who the White Knight was--Apor, Francis, you, and I. Besides, the Reds are being imprisoned in their hundreds. Many will hang. The rest are too busy hiding to worry about revenge."
"Then why has he fled from us all?" she demanded.