Part 18

“There's no time to lose.” he rapped out.

Hindwood eyed him calmly. “If you were sent to execute me, you can do it here as conveniently as anywhere else.”

The sheer amazement which greeted this accusation seemed to disprove its accuracy. The Captain answered scornfully:

“What devil of contrariness has put that thought into your head? If my errand were known, it would be I who would be executed. She's in love with you--that's why I sought you. It's the fact that you're my rival in her affections that makes you the one man in Budapest whom I can trust. There'll be bloodshed----”

“Go slower,” Hindwood interrupted. “Put yourself in my place. You know too much--far more than seems healthy. You know that this morning when I was with the Governor, there was an unseen listener behind the tapestry. You assert, that he was a man whom all the world believes to be dead. If you'll think back to our journey from Calais, you'll remember that the reason for his having been murdered formed your chief topic of conversation. Seeing that you know so much, you're probably aware that my interview with the Governor ended in a threat. To make that threat effective, the cooperation of the woman whom you first supposed to be my wife and afterwards discovered to be my secretary is absolutely necessary. On my return from the Palace she had vanished. Here again, you pretend to know more than I do; at close on midnight you come bursting into my room, demanding that I accompany you to her rescue.”

The Captain stared dully. “Every second counts. What is it that you wish me to tell?”

“Why you've hung on my trail from Calais until now.”

“Eh!” His expression became embarrassed; then he raised his head with a fearless gesture. “I see what you're driving at. I acknowledge that my movements are open to misinterpretation. But I didn't follow you; it was she whom I followed. As I told you in our first conversation, I was returning from England where I'd been sent by my Government to intercept Prince Rogovich with important despatches. The moment I clapped my eyes on your traveling companion, I recognized in her a startling resemblance; it was to a woman I had adored. She was far beyond me--the mistress of archdukes and for a brief while of an emperor. The nearest I ever came to touching her was when I was swept by her train at Court functions.” He paused dramatically. “During the war she was shot by the enemies of my country. Infamous things were said of her. If they were true, they would make no difference to my love. No difference, do you understand?” Again he paused. “What else?”

Hindwood narrowed his eyes. “Each time I've met you, you've harped on the same theme--Prince Rogovich. Up to now I've not thought it necessary to tell you: I knew this Prince Rogovich. Besides myself, there was probably only one other person who spoke with him before his end. What makes you so certain that it was a man, presumed to have been drowned in the English Channel, who spied on me this morning from behind the tapestry?”

“I was beside him. I'm his bodyguard--if you like, his secretary. I've just come from him. Can you have stronger proof than that?” Suddenly the Captain's patience broke down. “How many more questions? God knows what's happening.”

Hindwood had risen. “There are several. Why did he disappear?”

“He has not said.”

“What makes you require my help to rescue her?”

“He may kill me. It's not likely he'll kill both of us.”

“What's his motive?” Hindwood spoke more slowly. All his suspicion was emphasized in his words. “What's his motive for kidnaping this woman who resembles----”

“How can I tell?” The Captain was desperate. “We talk and talk while time passes. I suppose his interest is the same in this woman as in all women. Perhaps he was the discarded lover of that other woman, and, like myself, has noticed the resemblance.”

Hindwood picked up his hat. “I'm coming.”

“Are you armed?”

“Not in your sense. I shall fight with a different sort of weapon.”

II

At the door a closed vehicle was standing. To Hindwood it seemed the one that had flashed by him on the previous evening. He glanced between the wheels; there was no Russian wolf-hound. Even before he was seated, the lash had been laid across the horses' backs. The next moment they were galloping down the gloomy street. Leaning from the window, the Captain was urging the coachman to drive faster.

When the pace had settled to a rapid trot, Hind-wood broke the silence.

“You're an Hungarian officer; Prince Rogovich is a Polish statesman. You tell me you're his secretary. What's a Polish statesman doing in the Royal Palace, directing Hungary's affairs?”

“It isn't Hungary's affairs that he's directing; it's the campaign against Democracy. The present crisis has made Budapest the jumping-off point for the offensive which the Monarchists have been waiting to launch. The Monarchists are men of every country, who have sunk their nationalities and made a common cause.”

“And you--are you a Monarchist?”

His reply came muffled. “I was. To-night I'm a traitor.”

The horses, thrown sharply back on their haunches, swerved toward the pavement; the carriage jerked to a halt. Almost brushing the wheels in the narrow street, a column of soldiers shuffled past. Their rifles were slung at all angles. Their shoulders were bowed beneath their heavy packs. They crawled weakly, more like stragglers retreating than storm-troops advancing. Even in the darkness their bones showed pointed and their faces lean with famine.

“Reservists,” the Captain explained shortly. “Mobilization has begun.”

Hindwood strained through the gloom, touching his arm excitedly. “Starving men being sent to kill men who are more starving. You've spoken of a woman you adored--a woman who was shot for hideous treacheries. Her treacheries were committed to prevent just such crimes as that. Don't interrupt me--not yet. You've expected me to believe an impossible story: that a man can return from the dead. If I were to tell you an equally improbable story, what difference would it make to your love? If I were to tell you that the resemblance was not mistaken and that the woman at the Palace is the same as she who was reported executed in the woods of Vincennes?”

The last of the column had slouched into the blackness. The horses leapt forward impatiently.

The question was repeated. “What difference?”

The Captain's voice burst from him. “God forgive me--none.”

Neither of them dared to trust the other. Their respite was growing shorter. They had crossed the bridge above the Danube. In a moment the ascent to the Palace would commence. It was Hindwood who decided on boldness. If he were walking into an ambush, he could not make matters worse.

He said, “Weapons will be useless. Only to kill the Prince won't save her. If we manage to escape from the Palace, the streets are full of armed men. We should only rescue her to die with her. I have a plan. Do you know the barracks of the Russian refugees? If I were to write a note, would you guarantee to have it delivered?”

By the light of matches held by the Captain, he scrawled rapidly. The last sentence read, “If you have not heard from me again by 2 A. M., consider that the worst has happened and carry out these instructions.” He addressed the note to, “_The Husband of Anna_.”

“Have it entrusted to a man who cannot read English.” The Captain extinguished the final match.

“I shall send it by the driver of this carriage.”

III

They had alighted some distance short of the gateway where the sentries would be on guard. The message for Varensky had been handed over. The horses had been wheeled about; save for their trotting growing fainter down the slope, the night was without a sound. The moon shone fitfully. Stars were obscured. The city out of which they had climbed lay pulseless in an unillumined pit of blackness. The Palace, piled high above them, loomed sepulchral.

The Captain groped his way beneath the wall of the ramparts, searching for something which at last he found. It pushed inwards at his touch. The door closed behind them.

In the intenser darkness Hindwood stretched out his hands. They encountered the rough surface of clammy masonry. He was in some sort of a tunnel. The floor sloped gradually upwards. The atmosphere smelt dank. He spoke. Getting no answer, he held his breath. Going away from him he heard the stealthy hurrying of the Captain's footfall. Rather than be left, perhaps to be forgotten, he started forward at a blundering run. He came to steps. He was prepared to be attacked. It might be here that he would be hurled back. He climbed them almost on all fours, steadying himself with his hands. It seemed to him that he had been ascending for hours, when he heard footsteps returning. A match was struck; he saw the Captain staring down at him.

“We're in time.” The match went out.

“Catch hold of me. Tread softly.”

They passed through another door. The air was growing warmer. It was evident that they were traversing a secret passage which wound within the Palace walls. At a turn they heard a muttering of voices. The Captain whispered, “Do nothing till I give the word.”

They approached more cautiously to where a needle of light stabbed the darkness. Hindwood caught the fragrance of tobacco smoke. As he stooped to the spy-hole, a purring voice commenced speaking almost at his elbow, “My dear lady, you're mine--a fact which you don't seem to realize. I have only to press this button, which summons my attendants; I can snuff out your life with as little effort as I flick this ash.”

He found himself peering into a room, furnished with oriental lavishness. He had a confused glimpse of beaten brass-work, shaded lamps, low tables, cushions piled about in place of chairs. It was a blaze of color. At the far end was a gilded throne and bound to it was Santa. Her hands were tightly corded. Her ankles were lashed so that she could not stir. Her face was pale as ivory. Only her eyes seemed alive; they flashed indomitably. Pacing up and down, never shifting his gaze from hers, was the black-bearded man who had disappeared from the _Ryndam_.

She spoke defiantly. “Summon your attendants. Do you think I fear death?”

“I know you don't, dear lady. That's why I've invented a more subtle revenge. If I were an ordinary man, I should detest the very sight of you; whereas, so magnanimous am I, that your attempt to murder me has added a novel piquancy to your fascination. I have been too much loved--too spontaneously, too adoringly. You afford me a contrast. I intend to keep you caged like a lioness. The hatred in your eyes will spur my affection. Always, even when I caress you, I shall have to be on my guard. Our courtship will be a perpetual adventure. The goal of desire will be forever out of grasp, yet forever within handstretch.”

He stroked his black beard thoughtfully. “With you I shall never know satiety. This continual hoping will keep me young. You, my dear, will be my secret source of romance. Every day I shall take you down, as one takes down a volume, and turn your latest pages which I alone may scan.”

She strained at her bonds. “It will be no romance.”

He smiled with terrifying quietness.

“Your value to me,” he continued in his purring voice, “is that you've cost me so much. Ugh! Every time I look at you I remember how it felt when I sank and sank. When I rose above the waves, I saw your lights, streaking like a golden snake into the blackness. I struck out after you hopelessly. I shouted. Then I found myself alone, with no one to take pity on me and not one chance in a million of being rescued. The millionth chance arrived.” He stooped at her feet, kissing her tortured hands. “And here we are met, under these auspicious circumstances, carrying on this pleasant conversation. What were you doing while I was drowning? Making love beneath the stars to your infatuated American--leaning on his arm, perhaps, warmly wrapped in your sables? And I was so cold! Did you give me a thought, I wonder?”

She stared past him like a woman frozen. “Let me know the worst.”

Tapping her cheek with pretended kindness, he resumed his pacing.

“Why the worst? Is that flattering, when I've spoken of our courtship? We're well matched in wickedness, if in nothing else. You're wanted for the scaffold, whereas I should have been hung long ago if I'd received my deserts. I'd be interested to know what you'd do, if you were in my place. How much mercy would you show me? You must own that merely to kill a person who has tried to drown you is too brief a punishment. The punishment I've planned for you is one that'll make you pray every hour for extinction. For a woman who has dispensed annihilation so lavishly I can think of nothing more just than that, when her own life has become intolerable, she should be refused the boon of death.”

She spoke humbly. “There's nothing too bad that you can do to me. But I'm not the woman who tried to murder you. I'm changed. I've learnt something. I learnt it from a man.”

He bowed towards her mockingly. “Your American?”

“My American, who can never be mine. I've learnt that even when we don't acknowledge Him, there's a God in the world who acts through us. It was He who saved me from the woods of Vincennes. It was He who prevented you from drowning. He had some purpose--a divine moment for which He waited. That purpose has yet to be accomplished. Who are you or I----?”

“I can tell you who you are,” he snapped: “a dancing-woman, with a price upon your head. As for myself,” his pale face flooded with a strangely Satanic beauty, “it would puzzle the wisest man to say who I am. To-night I am Prince Rogovich; tomorrow I may be Emperor. My puppets are mustering. By dawn they'll be marching. They're hungry; victory to them means bread.”

“But if one were to feed them--?”

“Your American again!” He gazed down on her, showing his white teeth and laughing. “What faith you have in the man! If your American is God's unaccomplished purpose, then God and all His angels are thwarted. The messenger I have sent to execute him will not fail; he has good reason to hate him. He's his rival for your affections. You were the bribe I offered him. You may rest assured the Captain's work will be done well. His turn comes next.”

Jerking back her head, he stooped lower, drinking in her despair. “Millionth chances come once, if then. Yours came at Vincennes. Cease hoping. Your American is----”

“It's a lie.”

Hindwood felt himself flung violently back. The wall turned inwards. There was a report--then silence.

IV

The Prince had pitched forward with his head in Santa's lap. His hands were clawing at her gown. As he struggled, he stiffened and slid back, till he lay across her feet, grinning up at her. The Captain, his revolver still smoking in his hand, threw himself to his knees, feeling for his victim's heart. He spoke dully.

“The dream of Monarchy is ended.”

The quietness was broken by a distant clamor. Momentarily it gathered volume and drew nearer.

Throughout the Palace, which had seemed so wrapt in sleep, feet were running. From the Palace-yard rose the clatter of arms and the impatience of orders being shouted. On the door of the chamber an importunate tapping had commenced.

Hindwood looked up in the midst of freeing Santa. “They'll beat in the panels. Find out what they want.”

The Captain dragged himself to the door which he did not dare to open. A rapid exchange of Hungarian followed. As Santa tottered to her feet with the last cord severed, the Captain tiptoed back.

“Escape by the passage. The shot was heard. They insist on seeing Prince Rogovich.”

“To be butchered in the streets! I guess not.” Hindwood shook his head. “Escape does not lie in that direction. They shall see _him_. In ten minutes. At the window. Tell them.”

The Captain stood aghast, pointing down at the glazing eyes of the man he had murdered. “They can't.”

“I say they can.”

The answer was delivered. The tapping ceased abruptly.

“Hang on to your nerves.” Hindwood crouched above the body, dragging it into a sitting posture. “We've exactly ten minutes to make it look like a man who hopes to become an emperor. The peace of the world may depend on it.” He turned to the Captain. “You who were his bodyguard, how would he have dressed if his ambition had been granted?”

Too pale for speech, the Captain moved towards a chest; with trembling hands he drew forth a purple robe, ermine-lined and gold-woven with mythical beasts of heraldry. Dipping deeper, he laid beside it a scepter and an iron crown of twisted laurels.

Hindwood smiled grimly. “So the scene had been rehearsed! How do these things go? You must help me put them on him.”

When the Prince had been arrayed, “Now the throne,” he ordered. “It'll take the three of us to move it.”

The gilded throne had been hauled from its alcove, so as to face the window. The dead man, in the tinsel of his dreams, had been seated on it. He was bound, to prevent him from lolling--bound with the cords with which he himself had secured Santa. His gold-encrusted robe was spread about him. Across his knees, with his right hand resting on it, was the scepter. On his head was the iron crown of laurels.

“The lamps! Place them at his feet. Switch on all the lights, then vanish.”

The curtains were flung back. A dazzling shaft pierced the outer darkness. There was a breathless silence as of worship; a superstitious rustling; a deafening acclamation, which echoed and roared about the Palace-yard.

It continued unabated for a full five minutes. It sagged and sank. Again it mounted. Then it paused expectant. It was for all the world like a triumph at the opera, when a singer only bows and an encore is demanded. It recommenced. This time there was a note of anger.

The dead man grinned down at the applauding mob. He gave no sign to these men, prepared to die for him. Slowly it seemed to dawn on them that he did not care--that he had never cared for their wounds and hunger; that for men of his sort they were only beasts; that it made no difference whether they were conquered or victorious; he would sit there as all the kings and emperors before him, secure and immobile, sneering at their sacrifices and coining their sufferings into profit.

They found contempt in his vacant stare; cruelty in his marble hands that clutched the scepter. Gesticulating and cursing, they hurled reproaches at him. They trampled the officers who tried to quell them. Shots were exchanged. Pandemonium was commencing.

Hindwood consulted his watch. It lacked but a few minutes till two o'clock. If he could hold the garrison in confusion, Varensky would have time to seize his chance.

He turned to the Captain behind the curtain where they watched. “What is it they want?”

“It was some acknowledgment at first; then a speech; now it's bread. Can't you hear them, 'Bread! Bread! Or we do not march.'”

At that moment the hammering on the outer door re-started. Hindwood seized the Captain's arm. “You must speak to them; they wouldn't understand me. You're in uniform. There's Santa. If you don't all is lost.”

“What shall I tell them?”

“Anything. Speak to them as the mouthpiece of Prince Rogovich. Say there's food in the freight-yards--two train-loads of it--and more arriving; that soon the warehouses of Budapest will be bulging.”

The Captain stepped forward, an heroic figure. Just as he appeared in the oblong of the window--whether it was the sight of his uniform that provoked the storm was not certain--a volley of bullets shattered the glass. He clapped his hand to his forehead. There was a second volley. The room was plunged in darkness. Hindwood darted forward. The pounding on the outer-door grew frantic. In the Palace-yard there was the silence of horror.

Released by the knife of flying lead, the body of the Prince had doubled forward, as though to peer down at the man who had betrayed him. The Captain was beyond all help.

As Hindwood leapt back in search of Santa, the door went down with a crash. In a second the darkness was filled to overflowing--halberdiers, Palace servants, wild-eyed officials. In the confusion he caught her hand and escaped unnoticed through the pressing throng. As they hurried through salons hung with priceless treasures, looting had started. The first of the mob were ruthlessly at work. At the foot of the marble staircase he glanced at his watch. “It's exactly two o'clock,” he murmured.

V

They had passed beneath the gateway where sentries should have challenged. Their posts were deserted. As they struck the road, descending beneath the ramparts, Santa questioned, “Why did you say, 'It's exactly two o'clock'?”

“Because of a note I sent Varensky.” He changed the subject. “How were you captured?”

She hesitated. “It was after we'd quarreled. I was afraid I'd lost you. A messenger arrived, saying you were with the Governor and wanted me. It was a lie; the person who wanted me was Prince Rogovich.”

“Then Lajos betrayed you?”

“No. He knew nothing of what happened on the _Ryndam_. He was infatuated with me and must have talked.” She clutched his arm. “You're putting me off. You said so strangely, 'It's exactly two o'clock.' What was in your note to Varensky?” For answer he halted and pointed.

Far below in the gulf of blackness, where a moment ago there had seemed to be nothing, life had begun to quicken. In the flash of multitudinous street-lamps, a city was being born. It kindled in vivid strokes, like veins of fire etched on the pavement of the night. As though an artist were completing his design, ten thousand windows opened their pin-point eyes, filling in blank spaces with rapid specks of gold. Seen from such a height, the effect was in miniature. The very sounds which rose up were little. At first they were no more than a sustained humming, as when a hive is about to swarm. They swelled to a melodious muttering. Then, with a rush of ecstasy, the storm of joy broke; the air pulsated with the maddening clash of chimes.

She was clinging to him. “What is it? Is it the thing for which we've hoped?”

He glanced back across his shoulder at the huge pile, towering on the rock above him. Those madmen up there, destroying and pillaging, had they time to hear it? The Palace was glowing like a furnace. As he watched, a column of flame shot tall towards the sky.

Seizing her hand, he broke into a run, making all the haste he could down the steep decline. Behind them the flames crept like serpents, licking the clouds and mounting higher. The heat was like the breath of a pursuer. Night had become vivid as day. There was no concealment. The crest of the ramparts was a gigantic torch. The Danube far below was stained red as wine. Their very shadows were lurid. And still the bells across the river pealed out their joy.

There was a galloping. Riderless horses, broken loose from the stables, thundered by. Then an automobile, driven by a man with a seared and wounded face. Others followed. The crowd on foot, fleeing from its handiwork, was not far behind. As an empty car, with an officer at the wheel, slowed down at a hairpin bend, Santa and he leapt aboard.

The danger was outdistanced. They had crossed the Danube. They were scarcely likely now to be implicated in what had happened to Prince Rogo-vich. But they were still at the mercy of their reckless driver. In his panic he had not once looked around; he was unaware that he carried passengers. Hindwood knew very clearly where he wanted to go; it was probably the last place to which he would be taken. The streets of Pest near the river were solitary, but somewhere the mob was gathering. It might prove awkward to be found in the company of a uniformed Monarchist who was escaping.