Part 6

She looked up at him dully. "My father--won't you tell me, please? Where is he? What are you going to do with him?"

Grocz frowned. "Swing the old man to perdition."

The shock paralysed her muscles. She could only look up at him dumbly, trying to pull together her scattered thoughts, to make some coherency of his words.

"So shall suffer all enemies of the Commune," he boasted. "So should you too, my pretty lady, and yet--" he moistened his thick, sensuous lips--"it would be a pity if the world lost such a charming young person. My efforts with the Soviet have served you, sweet Elizabeth, and they have put your life in my hands.

"Fear not, you shall not die, though your father hangs at midnight. I shall myself see that the work is faithfully carried out." He paused, and unconsciously his fingers touched his head, still bruised and tender where Imre's stick had caught it. "Afterwards--" he bowed--"afterwards, pretty lady, you may expect me here. Your life is mine, I shall make good use of it. See, I will leave you this candle till then. It shall not be said that I was unkind to the little lady whose life I have saved." With which he withdrew from the room, his eyes flickering as he shut the door.

_CHAPTER VI_

"Ho, there!"

Two men stood outside the castle gates, cursing beneath their breath.

On the other side a Communist laughed noisily.

"Hullo, comrades! What want you at this time of night?"

"We come with a message to Comrade Grocz from Bela Kun."

The Communist laughed again, and turned to his companion, whose besotted face grinned vacantly. "A good joke, eh, my friend! A message from Bela Kun. What was it good Comrade Grocz told us? 'Open not the gates even to Bela Kun himself.' Ha, ha! You will have to come again to-morrow, friends." He swayed unsteadily on his feet.

"Open! Our message is important." Wenzel's voice hardened. "Unless Bela Kun's orders are obeyed your necks may stretch."

Imre's potent wine had done its work well. "Who cares for Bela Kun? To-morrow I may be the Dictator, or at least a commissary. Or else my friend here. Good night, brothers. Come again to-morrow." Arm in arm the two guards turned their backs and reeled into the interior of the castle, carrying with them the flask of wine.

The darkness, unrelieved by even the light of moon or stars, hid everything within a cloak of invisibility, so that even the castle itself was but a blur, revealed only by flickering gleams of illumination from a few windows. That, and one other thing. On top of the castle itself three men, working by the light of four or five lanterns, moved busily about to the accompaniment of hammering. They were erecting the gallows from which Imre was shortly to hang.

Wenzel cursed at the sudden, unforeseen obstacle in the fulfilment of his plans. "Hell! May the Devil seize him! Do you think Comrade Grocz suspected he was being followed, Arnold?"

"No, I think not," Terhune replied slowly.

"Then why the order not to let in even Bela Kun himself?"

Arnold shrugged his shoulders. "A sense of authority in the first place, but there is a worse aspect. After the hanging Grocz wishes no interruption in his filthy schemes."

Wenzel's muscles tightened. "God grant me the chance to grip his soft throat between my thumbs," he muttered between his teeth. "But now, is there another way in? Let us explore, Arnold."

Stumbling along the uneven rocky surface, Wenzel and his lieutenant proceeded to examine, as far as possible, the geography of the castle. Keeping well beneath the shadow of the outer battlements they knew they were safe from the observation of those within the castle. It would be only Communists or sentries actually above them on the battlements who would be likely to hear or see them--an unlikely contingency.

Presently they came to one corner; here the wall turned off at right angles to make a second side of the square in which the castle was built. Continuing, the two Englishmen turned also. For perhaps two hundred feet they crept along without discovering any sign of another door.

Suddenly Wenzel stopped, restraining Arnold by a touch on his arm, his keen ears having become aware of a strange, sighing echo, a noise hollowly flung at them from out of the darkness. He felt the influence of a cold wind, a sensation of space.

He looked ahead, then beneath him, and gasped slightly. Deep down below, an inestimable distance, were lights eerily waving to and fro. Another few steps and they might have hurtled into the depths before them.

The lights puzzled him; he could make nothing definite of their fantastic action. What, too, was the soughing below? All at once the solution occurred to him. The lights below were reflections of others above.

"The Danube!" he breathed softly.

"Good Lord!" Arnold was horrified. "Another few steps and----"

"Perhaps."

That was all! Coolly indifferent to the possibility of having just escaped death, the White Knight passed again to the front of Arnold and they retraced their steps. They reached the gates again, and with the utmost caution passed by in front of them, then explored the other side of the castle.

There it was just the same. After the turn, a couple of hundred yards' walk, and then the blowing wind, the sensation of space. The castle needed battlements on three sides only, for the fourth was impregnable; Nature in the shape of a precipitous drop to the river provided protection enough.

"Well?"

Arnold detected a grim note of interrogation in Wenzel's voice. "There seems no hope of admittance," he answered.

"There has got to be. Do you think I am content to let the old man hang, and his daughter be violated?"

"What can you do? If Grocz meant all he said at the station buffet, Imre Kiss will hang at twelve."

"He was deadly serious, Arnold, else why the gallows?" He pointed to the castle roof where the men had been working, to notice that there was now no sign of them. The work was finished, the deadly instrument ready for its victim.

"The swine!" In the intensity of his emotion Arnold hissed the word between set teeth. "And yet----?"

There was no need for him to complete his unspoken question. The White Knight answered it after a slight pause. "Arnold, there is one way. I am going to scale the battlements."

"Geoffrey--you can't! They must be twenty feet high or more and probably smooth as glass."

"Yet I am going to try," and there was a finality in his voice which permitted of no opposition. Arnold, knowing that his leader would make the attempt, failed to see any prospect of success. If there had been but a modicum of light, a single gleam of illumination by which to see footholds, find weaknesses in the solid structure of which advantage might be taken, then, however hazardous and foolhardy the task might have seemed, there was at least a possibility of triumph. But in the present circumstances...

The White Knight laughed slightly, and the next moment he was by the wall, his hands and feet feeling for the slightest crack, the smallest protuberance which would afford him a hold.

The moss was thick in parts, and deceiving. It felt firm and secure, yet it needed little pressure to tear its roots from the stonework, and was a hindrance rather than a help, for pieces fell into Wenzel's face, and into his eyes.

At last his groping fingers found a tiny indent where the mortar had crumbled away. Not deep enough for him to insert his finger-tips even as far as the first joint, yet he deemed it sufficient. He took a firm grip, and by sheer force lifted his tall body a few inches and pressed his toes against the wall, until one foot felt resistance beneath it. So he advanced the first step upward.

Carefully he released his left hand. His weight pulled at the fingers of the other, but he tightened his muscles, and somehow he clung, supported by the toes of one foot.

With his free hand he felt for another hold, and presently found one, scarcely better than the first, but good enough. He took hold, swung away, and, as before, pulled himself up till he could use both hands.

He moved upward, inch by inch, somehow finding fingerholds where the fierce weather had, through the centuries, crumbled the stone; but mainly it was sheer strength, fortified by force of will, which helped him up, for he held on tenaciously, even when his position was precarious, when the slightest weakening would have sent him slipping down.

Up and up! Presently, for all he knew, he might have been nearly to the top, or yet not above the height of Terhune's head, for soon he lost count of time and sense of distance.

Presently it became an effort to think; his brain reiterated monotonously: "Hold on, hold on." He must hold on; that much he knew; so he held on, step by step, inch by inch.

Something wet trickled on his face; he thought it was moisture from the squeezed moss, till it rolled upon his dry lips, and tasted warm and salty to his tongue. He knew then that it was blood from his fingers where the skin was wearing through.

Up and up! His muscles were tearing and aching from the strain; his body suffered as if it had been tortured on the rack. He felt that it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the superhuman effort, but he was aware that he must continue, knowing if he fell it would mean death, and though he would have welcomed oblivion, there was work to be done first.

More important than the rescue of Imre Kiss was that of his daughter Elizabeth. A man can die but once, and hanging is short and sweet, but the girl--she would die a thousand deaths if once the foul beast Grocz laid hands upon her, and yet remain alive, and live thereafter suffering the tortures of the damned.

Up and up! Suddenly he laughed aloud. God! he had nearly gone that time. The blood streamed down his arm, spurted over his clothes, even dripped on Terhune who waited below, pressed close against the wall with outstretched arms just in case he could catch the White Knight should he fall. Terhune heard the laughter and, never dreaming that it was an escape of pent-up relief from his leader, trembled for the White Knight, believing he had heard a Communist somewhere on the battlements.

Wenzel wondered at himself. Why had he laughed? For what in Hades was he climbing the wall? Why not drop and go to sleep? Sleep, that was it! He was tired; he could move no more.

Perhaps for thirty seconds he remained still, while his brain, dazed by the tremendous strain his body had suffered, whirled and twisted in mental gymnastics. For a brief period he could not collect his thoughts; then out of the fog of uncertainty something in his heart repeated once again: "Up--up."

Up and up! Somehow he held on, even when it seemed to him that to continue was impossible, until at last the top. One final clamber and he was on the broad, level wall. Weakly he slithered down and lay stretched out, while he gasped loudly for breath.

The strain over, his brain renewed its functions, and he was able to think intelligently, so he allowed himself five minutes for recovery. This period of time he estimated, then he rose to his feet, ready for the next part of the programme.

Somewhere or other he believed there were bound to be stairs leading down into the castle courtyard. These he knew he could only find by feeling for them, so he set out along the wall, step by step.

He was not long in his search. Having traversed some fifteen yards or so he came to a small tower. Suspecting that the stairs might be inside he entered, to find his surmise correct. The tower was a shield for a circular staircase leading from below.

Treading with the utmost caution he ventured down, and at length arrived at the courtyard. Even there not a single man was to be seen, though he could hear them, for inside the castle there was a noise of music and singing. Deprive the Hungarian of his music, and part of his life is erased.

The tune was dimly reminiscent; and a grim smile creased the features of the White Knight. Well might it strike a chord in his memory! It was the _Marseillaise_! Altered and transposed almost out of recognition so that even Rouget de Lisle might not have identified it, the song howled by the drunken villagers was basically the same as that which had fired the blood of other revolutionaries in other times, in another land.

The tune was Hungarianized, the words modernized by a local poet; but the spirit of the singers was not altered one iota. So had the people of France sung their hymn, drinking from their bottles under the frowning fortifications of Paris, and their thoughts had been the same, their aspirations similar. The uprooting of law and order, the disruption of the country--what mattered so long as they had government for the mass by the mass? That the rule of the mass proved even more despotic, still more unjust than before, was a matter of no account at all.

The large iron-bound doors of the castle proper stood wide open, and for this Wenzel breathed a sigh of thankfulness. His entrance should be comparatively easy.

From the shadows outside he looked into the large hall. Not yet had the invaders managed to destroy all semblance of its beauty. The stately walls still rose grandly up to the raftered roof; its upper panels, beyond the reach of the peasants, were still adorned with the trophies of centuries of war and sport.

It was the floor which had suffered most; its polish was irretrievably ruined, damaged by the contact of heavy boots, and the mess and filth which littered it. There, too, sprawled the filthy bodies of the Communists, drunkenly sleeping off the effects of a day's carousal.

Those who were still able to remain awake were piled around a platform which occupied part of the left side of the hall. Here were the musicians, babbling in their cups, and yet still musical.

As Wenzel glanced around he noticed one significant fact. There was not one person looking in the direction of the door. Now was his chance to gain admittance inside without becoming a centre of interest! Once within he believed he might not have to fear discovery; for one thing, they all looked too drunk to notice the presence of a stranger, and, again, even if he were seen, he trusted that the villagers would take him to be one of the Budapest contingent, while the Communists from the city might assume him to belong to the peasants' party.

Pulling his cap well over his head, swathing his chin and neck in his dirty scarf, and slouching his shoulders to lessen his height, Wenzel unsteadily crossed the threshold into the midst of the unpleasant company, and sank into a chair while he looked around. Most of them had not yet troubled to take off hats or coats, so he did not remove his either.

In front of him he saw a magnificent staircase, wide enough to take twelve men abreast, which led to the upper floor. By the platform was another door through which men staggered in, now and again, food or drink in their hands, so Wenzel assumed that it led to the kitchens.

Otherwise, barring the front entrance, through which he himself had entered, he could see no other door. He frowned slightly. He felt that there should be another exit--one by which the servants could make their way into other parts of the house without using either the kitchen or the main staircase.

If there was one he did not see it, so he made up his mind to use the stairs, for even as he looked, a Communist stumbled down, holding on to the carved banisters for support. If one could use them, why not another?

The _Marseillaise_ finished, the _Internationale_ rang out. There was a burst of enthusiasm, and the noise of the chorus boisterously rolled round the hall with a deafening din.

Wenzel rose from his chair, deeming the time a good one to move. He crossed the hall to the staircase. With his foot on the first stair he stopped. Some one was entering the hall by a door just two or three yards to the side of him, a panelled door which swung on its hinges, and had been invisible to him before because it merged into the pattern of the wall.

It was decidedly a less conspicuous entrance to the other part of the house. In case he should be observed he slipped and rolled to the floor. When he arose the door was in front of him, so the next second he was on the other side, and at once was conscious of a welcome silence after the noise of the hall.

The passage ahead of him was lit only in one place, by a faint light escaping from a room on the right; from a slightly discernible flicker and the soft yellowness of its gleam Wenzel guessed it to be that of an oil lamp.

There was, apparently, no one about; Wenzel wondered if it were too much to hope that all the Bolsheviks were congregated together. If so, and if he could but find where Imre and his daughter were, to escape would be a matter of extreme simplicity.

There was no object in moving secretively; he shuffled along the passage until he was level with the lighted room. With a quick sideward glance he looked within, but it was empty.

He moved on, and the passage turned sharply to the left.

Having turned the corner Wenzel found the darkness more accentuated, for there were no other lights to be seen, and the illumination from the lamp in the room he had just passed had no effect.

Feeling his way along by the wall he penetrated further into the heart of the castle. He came to another corner, and as he turned he became conscious of approaching footsteps.

The castle seemed all corners. The next moment a man walked suddenly into view from the left, carrying a candle in his hand. Wenzel darted back into the shelter of the passage from which he had just emerged, a plan of action already forming in his brain.

The other man came nearer. Wenzel crouched for a spring. Then as the Communist turned into his passage Wenzel moved. With his left arm he grasped the man round the body in an unavoidable embrace, while he used his right hand to seize the man's throat, and gently squeeze the windpipe between thumb and first finger.

The candle dropped and sizzled out; the comrade tried convulsively to free himself, but he was helpless. Wenzel increased the pressure of his arms and felt his victim sag limply. Then he released his hold on the man's throat, but quickly transferred his hand to the mouth, pressing it fiercely so that no sound could escape.

"Quick, you dog," he said in a low voice, "tell me, where is Imre Kiss?"

He released his hand from the man's mouth so that the other might speak. The man breathed hoarsely, his body panting as he pulled the air into his lungs with deep gulps.

"Down in the cells," he croaked.

"You know the way?"

The Communist hesitated. Wenzel tightened the arm which encircled the man's waist till the unfortunate prisoner felt the air leaving his body again with a rush.

"Yes, yes," he muttered hoarsely. "I have just come from there."

"For what reason?"

"Comrade Grocz sent me with this message: 'Tell the old man to say his prayers; it is nearly time for him to die.'"

In his fury Wenzel unconsciously increased the pressure of his arm, and the Communist whimpered in agony.

"Mercy, mercy," he gasped, "you are killing me!"

Wenzel grunted, but eased up. The man might yet prove to be of use, otherwise...

"Pick up that candle, light it, and lead me to Imre Kiss. If you fail, or if you raise the slightest alarm--the Devil has a special reception for such as you, my friend, so if you do not want to see him yet awhile----"

Without a word the Communist pulled some matches from his pocket, and, striking one, looked for the dropped candle. This he picked up and relit. Holding it with fingers which shook and trembled in fear he began to retrace his steps.

Presently they came to stairs which led downward; cold, stone stairs which, in the past, many a prisoner had trodden but once--going down. The air was fetid from the moss-covered walls and lack of ventilation, the atmosphere chilly and gruesome.

The Communist pointed to the dark depths: "Imre Kiss is in the second cell on the left."

Wenzel did not waste time in words. He roughly caught the man by his arms, and with a jerk swung him forward, and the unwilling guide crept down.

There was a murmuring cry from one of the cells.

"Hear my prayers, O Lord! Guard Elizabeth from the foul hands of the beast; take my life but save hers. In Thy infinite justice destroy the man who would dare lay hands upon her. In Thy Omnipotency, protect her this night; show mercy to her who hath ever revered Thy Name."

Conscious, suddenly, of intruders, Imre ceased his invocation. He saw the light of the candle, the two Communists--his call had come.

He threw himself on his knees, his arms outstretched toward them. "Save my daughter! for God's sake rescue her from the arms of that brute! You shall be well rewarded. But tell the truth to my friends, and on my sacred oath you will receive a thousand crowns, ten thousand crowns, the whole of my fortune, my castle! I will give you a note of hand; it will be honoured I swear."

His voice broke; he could say no more, and, believing his appeal futile, he collapsed to the floor with a sob.

The door of the cell was locked. Wenzel turned to the guide with a growl. "The key."

"Comrade Grocz has it."

Wenzel swore. The door was an unexpected obstacle. Unsuspecting the cells he had not worried about keys. There was no door made to withstand the force of his shoulders, but the iron-barred gate...

He seized the candle from the hand of the other. If there were one single flaw, a weakness... But he found no sign of such, only that the rust of ages had eaten into the metal. Wenzel passed the candle back to the Communist.

If only his arms had not suffered from the strain of that gruelling climb, if only his hands were not still raw and hard with dried blood; but Wenzel knew he would have to make the attempt even if his back broke. There was still echoing in his memory Imre's prayer....

He stood with his back to the door, which was composed solely of iron bars. His arms hung down by his side, his hands gripping a cross bar. Carefully he placed his feet into position. He was ready.

With a slowly increasing force he pushed, with his feet, his hands, his back, pushed until his limbs were as taut as the iron bars themselves. Nothing happened, so he increased the pressure, and the sweat burst from his forehead and trickled down his face.

A little more and he would be finished, his strength exhausted. Despairingly he thrust again--the rusted iron lock moved, bent beneath the strain, and then burst; the door swung in, and Wenzel, lurching forward with it, tumbled to the floor, while the Communist felt his knees weaken at the joints, wondering whether it were the Devil himself he watched. For twenty seconds no one moved, then Wenzel rose to his feet and turned to Imre Kiss: "Come, there is no time to waste."

Heavily the old man followed Wenzel out, his legs scarcely bearing him. Not yet did Imre realize that he was being rescued. "I am ready," he whispered.

In the meantime Wenzel stood before the trembling Communist, his lips twisted in an ugly grin. "The candle," he ordered, and hypnotized by the fierce eyes the agitator from Budapest passed the guttering tallow over.

There was no mercy in Wenzel's soul then. Somehow he must dispose of the Communist, otherwise there would soon be a warning shout. He could not lock him up. His arm leaped upward as he clenched his fist. There was a dull thud as it came into contact with the man's chin. The Communist's head jerked back, and he slithered to the ground. There would be no fear of disturbance from him.

Imre felt sick. "Why did you do that?" he murmured.

"It was the only way," Wenzel replied harshly. "Otherwise he might have raised an alarm."