The Lighted Match
by Charles Neville Buck · English · Gutenberg #18336 · 383,376 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Lighted Match
Author: Charles Neville Buck
Illustrator: R. F. Schabelitz
Release date: May 7, 2006 [eBook #18336]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18336
Credits: Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHTED MATCH ***
Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
THE LIGHTED MATCH
[Illustration: SHE HELD OUT HER HAND TO BENTON AND WATCHED,
TRANCE-LIKE, HIS LOWERED HEAD AS HE BENT HIS LIPS TO HER FINGERS.]
The
LIGHTED MATCH
by
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
_Author of_
The Key to Yesterday
_Illustrations_
by
R. F. Schabelitz
W. J. Watt & Company
Publishers New York
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
_Published May_
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
To K. du P.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED 9
II BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 17
III THE MOON OVERHEARS 28
IV THE DOCTRINE ACCORDING TO JONESY 40
V IT IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE 49
VI IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 56
VII IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 70
VIII THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 82
IX THE TOREADOR APPEARS 92
X OF CERTAIN TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFÉ TABLE 102
XI THE PASSING PRINCESS AND THE MISTAKEN COUNTESS 112
XII BENTON MUST DECIDE 123
XIII CONCERNING FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS 137
XIV COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR JOIN FORCES 144
XV THE TOREADOR BECOMES AMBASSADOR 155
XVI THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 167
XVII BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 178
XVIII IN WHICH THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 190
XIX THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 203
XX THE DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 214
XXI NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY 222
XXII THE SENTRY-BOX ANSWERS THE KING'S QUERY 229
XXIII "SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY" 244
XXIV IN WHICH KINGS AND COMMONERS DISCUSS LOVE 255
XXV ABDUL SAID BEY EFFECTS A RESCUE 265
XXVI IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 276
XXVII BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 288
XXVIII JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT 300
THE LIGHTED MATCH
CHAPTER I
AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED
"When a feller an' a gal washes their hands in the same basin at the
same time, it's a tol'able good sign they won't git married this year."
The oracle spoke through the bearded lips of a farmer perched on the top
step of his cabin porch. The while he construed omens, a setter pup
industriously gnawed at his boot-heels.
The girl was bending forward, her fingers spread in a tin basin, as the
man at her elbow poured water slowly from a gourd-dipper. Heaped, in
disorder against the cabin wall, lay their red hunting-coats, crops, and
riding gauntlets.
The oracle tumbled the puppy down the steps and watched its return to
the attack. Then with something of melancholy retrospect in his pale
eyes he pursued his reflections. "Now there was Sissy Belmire an' Bud
Thomas, been keeping company for two years, then washed hands in common
at the Christian Endeavor picnic an'--" He broke off to shake his head
in sorrowing memory.
The young man, holding his muddied digits over the water, paused to
consider the matter.
Suddenly his hands went down into the basin with a splash.
"It is now the end of October," he enlightened; "next year comes in nine
weeks."
The sun was dipping into a cloud-bank already purpled and gold-rimmed.
Shortly it would drop behind the bristling summit-line of the hills.
The girl looked down at tell-tale streaks of red clay on the skirt of
her riding habit, and shook her head. "'Twill never, never do to go back
like this," she sighed. "They'll know I've come a cropper, and they
fancy I'm as breakable as Sévres. There will be no end of questions."
The young man dropped to his knees and began industriously plying a
brush on the damaged skirt. The farmer took his eyes from the puppy for
an upward glance. His face was solicitous.
"When I saw that horse of yours fall down, it looked to me like he was
trying to jam you through to China. You sure lit hard!"
"It didn't hurt me," she laughed as she thrust her arms into the sleeves
of her pink coat. "You see, we thought we knew the run better than the
whips, and we chose the short cut across your meadow. My horse took off
too wide at that stone fence. That's why he went down, and why we turned
your house into a port of repairs. You have been very kind."
The trio started down the grass-grown pathway to the gate where the
hunters stood hitched. The young man dropped back a few paces to satisfy
himself that she was not concealing some hurt. He knew her
half-masculine contempt for acknowledging the fragility of her sex.
Reassurance came as he watched her walking ahead with the unconscious
grace that belonged to her pliant litheness and expressed itself in her
superb, almost boyish carriage.
When they had mounted and he had reined his bay down to the side of her
roan, he sat studying her through half-closed, satisfied eyes though he
already knew her as the Moslem priest knows the Koran. While they rode
in silence he conned the inventory. Slim uprightness like the strength
of a young poplar; eyes that played the whole color-gamut between violet
and slate-gray, as does the Mediterranean under sun and cloud-bank; lips
that in repose hinted at melancholy and that broke into magic with a
smile. Then there was the suggestion of a thought-furrow between the
brows and a chin delicately chiseled, but resolute and fascinatingly
uptilted.
It was a face that triumphed over mere prettiness with hints of
challenging qualities; with individuality, with possibilities of
purpose, with glints of merry humor and unspoken sadness; with
deep-sleeping potentiality for passion; with a hundred charming
whimsicalities.
The eyes were just now fixed on the burning beauty of the sunset and the
thought-furrow was delicately accentuated. She drew a long, deep breath
and, letting the reins drop, stretched out both arms toward the splendor
of the sky-line.
"It is so beautiful--so beautiful!" she cried, with the rapture of a
child, "and it all spells Freedom. I should like to be the freest thing
that has life under heaven. What is the freest thing in the world?"
She turned her face on him with the question, and her eyes widened after
a way they had until they seemed to be searching far out in the fields
of untalked-of things, and seeing there something that clouded them with
disquietude.
"I should like to be a man," she went on, "a man and a _hobo_." The
furrow vanished and the eyes suddenly went dancing. "That is what I
should like to be--a hobo with a tomato-can and a fire beside the
railroad-track."
The man said nothing, and she looked up to encounter a steady gaze from
eyes somewhat puzzled.
His pupils held a note of pained seriousness, and her voice became
responsively vibrant as she leaned forward with answering gravity in her
own.
"What is it?" she questioned. "You are troubled."
He looked away beyond her to the pine-topped hills, which seemed to be
marching with lances and ragged pennants, against the orange field of
the sky. Then his glance came again to her face.
"They call me the Shadow," he said slowly. "You know whose shadow that
means. These weeks have made us comrades, and I am jealous because you
are the sum of two girls, and I know only one of them. I am jealous of
the other girl at home in Europe. I am jealous that I don't know why
you, who are seemingly subject only to your own fancy, should crave the
freedom of the hobo by the railroad track."
She bent forward to adjust a twisted martingale, and for a moment her
face was averted. In her hidden eyes at that moment, there was deep
suffering, but when she straightened up she was smiling.
"There is nothing that you shall not know. But not yet--not yet! After
all, perhaps it's only that in another incarnation I was a vagrant bee
and I'm homesick for its irresponsibility."
"At all events"--he spoke with an access of boyish enthusiasm--"I 'thank
whatever gods may be' that I have known you as I have. I'm glad that we
have not just been idly rich together. Why, Cara, do you remember the
day we lost our way in the far woods, and I foraged corn, and you
scrambled stolen eggs? We were forest folk that day; primitive as in the
years when things were young and the best families kept house in caves."
The girl nodded. "I approve of my shadow," she affirmed.
The smile of enthusiasm died on his face and something like a scowl came
there.
"The chief trouble," he said, "is that altogether too decent brute,
Pagratide. I don't like double shadows; they usually stand for confused
lights."
"Are you jealous of Pagratide?" she laughed. "He pretends to have a
similar sentiment for you."
"Well," he conceded, laughing in spite of himself, "it does seem that
when a European girl deigns to play a while with her American cousins,
Europe might stay on its own side of the pond. This Pagratide is a
commuter over the Northern Ocean track. He harasses the Atlantic with
his goings and comings."
"The Atlantic?" she echoed mockingly.
"Possibly I was too modest," he amended. "I mean me and the
Atlantic--particularly me."
From around the curve of the road sounded a tempered shout. The girl
laughed.
"You seem to have summoned him out of space," she suggested.
The man growled. "The local from Europe appears to have arrived." He
gathered in his reins with an almost vicious jerk which brought the
bay's head up with a snort of remonstrance.
A horseman appeared at the turn of the road. Waving his hat, he put
spurs to his mount and came forward at a gallop. The newcomer rode with
military uprightness, softened by the informal ease of the polo-player.
Even at the distance, which his horse was lessening under the insistent
pressure of his heels, one could note a boyish charm in the frankness of
his smile and an eagerness in his eyes.
"I have been searching for you for centuries at least," he shouted, with
a pleasantly foreign accent, which was rather a nicety than a fault of
enunciation, "but the quest is amply rewarded!"
He wheeled his horse to the left with a precision that again bespoke the
cavalryman, and bending over the girl's gauntleted hand, kissed her
fingers in a manner that added to something of ceremonious flourish much
more of individual homage. Her smile of greeting was cordial, but a
degree short of enthusiasm.
"I thought--" she hesitated. "I thought you were on the other side."
The newcomer's laugh showed a glistening line of the whitest teeth under
a closely-cropped dark mustache.
"I have run away," he declared. "My honored father is, of course,
furious, but Europe was desolate--and so--" He shrugged his shoulders.
Then, noting Benton's half-amused, half-annoyed smile, he bowed and
saluted. "Ah, Benton," he said. "How are you? I see that your eyes
resent foreign invasion."
Benton raised his brows in simulated astonishment. "Are you still
foreign?" he inquired. "I thought perhaps you had taken out your first
citizenship papers."
"But you?" Pagratide turned to the girl with something of entreaty.
"Will you not give me your welcome?"
In the distance loomed the tile roofs and tall chimneys of "Idle Times."
Between stretched a level sweep of road.
"You didn't ask permission," she replied, with a touch of disquiet in
her pupils. "When a woman is asked to extend a welcome, she must be
given time to prepare it. I ran away from Europe, you know, and after
all you are a part of Europe."
She shook out her reins, bending forward over the roan's neck, and with
a clatter of gravel under their twelve hoofs, the horses burst forward
in a sudden neck and neck dash, toward the patch of red roofs set in a
mosaic of Autumn woods.
CHAPTER II
BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN
In the large living-room, Van Bristow, the master of "Idle Times," had
expressed his tastes. Here in the almost severe wainscoting, in
inglenook and chimney-corner, one found the index to his fancy. It was
his fancy which had dictated that the broad windows, with sills at the
level of the floor, should not command the formal terraces and lawns of
a landscape-gardener's devising, but should give exit instead upon a
strip of rugged nature, where the murmur of the creek came up through
unaltered foliage and underbrush.
Shortening their entrance through one of the windows, the trio found
their host, already in evening dress. Bristow was idling on the hearth
with no more immediate concern than a cigarette and the enjoyment of the
crackling logs, unspoiled by other light.
As the clatter of boots and spurs announced their coming, Van glanced up
and schooled his face into a very fair counterfeit of severity.
"Lucky we don't make our people ring in on the clock," he observed. "You
three would be docked."
The girl stood in the red glow of the hearth, slowly drawing off her
riding-gauntlets.
Pagratide went to the table in search of cigarettes and matches, and as
the light there was dim, the host joined him and laid a hand readily
enough upon the brass case for which the other was fumbling. As he held
a light to his guest's cigarette, he bent over and spoke in a guarded
undertone. Benton noticed in the brief flare that the visitor's face
mirrored sudden surprise.
"Colonel Von Ritz is here," confided Bristow. "Arrived by the next train
after you and was for posting off in search of you instanter. He acted
very much like a summons-server or a bailiff. He's ensconced in rooms
adjoining yours. You might look in on him as you go up to dress. He
seems to be in the very devil of a hurry."
Pagratide's brows went up in evident annoyance and for an instant there
was a defiant stiffening of his jaw, but when he spoke his voice held
neither excitement nor surprise.
"Ah, indeed!" The exclamation was casual. He watched the glowing end of
his cigarette for a moment, then magnanimously added: "However, since he
has followed across three thousand miles, I had better see him."
The host turned to the girl. "I'm borrowing this young man until
dinner," he vouchsafed as he led Pagratide to the door.
Cara stood watching the two as they passed into the hall; then her face
changed suddenly as though she had been leaving a stage and had laid
aside a part--abandoning a semblance which it was no longer necessary to
maintain. A pained droop came to the corners of her lips and she dropped
wearily into the broad oak seat of the inglenook. There she sat, with
her chin propped on her hands, elbows on her knees, and gazed silently
at the logs.
"Why did they have to come just now and spoil my holiday?"
She spoke as though unconscious that her musings were finding voice, and
the half-whispered words were wistful. Benton took a step nearer and
bent impulsively forward.
"What is it?" he anxiously questioned.
She only looked intently into the coals with trouble-clouded eyes and
shook her head. He could not tell whether in response to his words or to
some thought of her own.
Dropping on one knee at her feet, he gently covered her hands with his
own. He could feel the delicate play of her breath on his forehead.
"Cara," he whispered, "what is it, dear?"
She started, and with a spasmodic movement caught one of his hands, for
an instant pressing it in her own, then, rising, she shook her head with
a gesture of the fingers at the temples as though she would brush away
cobwebs that enmeshed and fogged the brain.
"Nothing, boy." Her smile was somewhat wistful. "Nothing but silly
imaginings." She laughed and when she spoke again her voice was as light
as if her world held only triviality and laughter. "Yet there be
important things to decide. What shall I wear for dinner?"
"It's such a hard question," he demurred. "I like you best in so many
things, but the queen can do no wrong--make no mistake."
A sudden shadow of pain crossed her eyes, and she caught her lower lip
sharply between her teeth.
"Was it something I said?" he demanded.
"Nothing," she answered slowly. "Only don't say that again, ever--'the
queen can do no wrong.' Now, I must go."
She rose and turned toward the door, then suddenly carrying one hand to
her eyes, she took a single unsteady step and swayed as though she would
fall. Instantly his arms were around her and for a moment he could feel,
in its wild fluttering, her heart against the red breast of his
hunting-coat.
Her laugh was a little shaken as she drew away from him and stood,
still a trifle unsteady. Her voice was surcharged with self-contempt.
"Sir Gray Eyes, I--I ask you to believe that I don't habitually fall
about into people's arms. I'm developing nerves--there is a white
feather in my moral and mental plumage."
He looked at her with grave eyes, from which he sternly banished all
questioning--and remained silent.
They passed out into the hall and, at the foot of the stairs where their
ways diverged, she paused to look back at him with an unclouded smile.
"You have not told me what to wear."
His eyes were as steady as her own. "You will please wear the black gown
with the shimmery things all over it. I can't describe it, but I can
remember it. And a single red rose," he judiciously added.
"'Tis October and the florists are fifty miles away," she demurred. "It
would take a magician's wand to produce the red rose."
"I noticed a funny looking thing among my golf sticks," he remembered.
"It is a little bit like a niblick, but it may be a magic wand in
disguise. You wear the black gown and trust to providence for the red
rose."
She threw back a laugh and was gone.
When she disappeared at the turning, he wheeled and went to the
"bachelors' barracks," as the master of "Idle Times" dubbed the wing
where the unmarried men were quartered.
Two suites next adjoining the room allotted to Benton had been
unoccupied when he had gone out that forenoon. Between his quarters and
these erstwhile vacant ones lay a room forming a sort of buffer space.
Here a sideboard, a card-table, and desk made the "neutral zone," as Van
called it, available for his guests as a territory either separating or
connecting their individual chambers.
Now a blaze of transoms and a sound of voices proclaimed that the
apartments were tenanted. Benton entered his own unlighted room, and
then with his hand at the electric switch halted in embarrassment.
The folding-doors between his apartment and the "neutral territory"
stood wide, and the attitudes and voices of the two men he saw there
indicated their interview to be one in which outsiders should have no
concern. To switch on the light would be to declare himself a witness to
a part at least; to remain would be to become unwilling auditor to more;
to open the door he had just closed behind him would also be to attract
attention to himself. He paused in momentary uncertainty.
One of the men was Pagratide, transformed by anger; seemingly taller,
darker, lither. The second man stood calm, immobile, with his arms
crossed on his breast, bending an impassive glance on the other from
singularly steady eyes. His six feet of well-proportioned stature just
missed an exaggeration of soldierly bearing.
The unwavering mouth-line; level, dark brows almost meeting over
unflinching gray eyes; the uncurved nose and commanding forehead were in
concert with the clean, almost lean sweep of the jaw, in spelling force
for field or council.
"Am I a brigand, Von Ritz, to be harassed by police? Answer me--am I?"
Pagratide spoke in a tempest of anger. He halted before the other man,
his hands twitching in fury.
Von Ritz remained as motionless, apparently as mildly interested, as
though he were listening to the screaming of a parrot.
"My orders were explicit." His words fell icily. "They were the orders
of His Majesty's government. I shall obey them. I beg pardon, I shall
attempt to obey them; and thus far my attempts to serve His Majesty have
not encountered failure. I should prefer not having to call on the
ambassador--or the American secret service."
"By God! If I had a sword--" breathed Pagratide. His fury had gone
through heat to cold, and his attitude was that of a man denied the
opportunity of resenting a mortal affront.
Von Ritz coolly inclined his head, indicating the heaped-up luggage on
the table between them. Otherwise he did not move.
"The stick there, on the table, is a sword-cane," he commented.
Pagratide stood unmoving.
The other waited a moment, almost deferentially, then went on with calm
deliberation.
"You left your regiment without leave, captain. One might almost call
that--" Then Benton remembered an auxiliary door at the back of his
apartment and made his escape unnoticed.
A half hour later, changed from boots and breeches into evening dress,
Benton was opening a long package which bore the name of his florist in
town. In another moment he had spread a profusion of roses on his table
and stood bending over them with the critically selective gaze of a
Paris.
When he had made the choice of one, he carefully pared every thorn from
its long stem. Then he went out through the rear of the hall to a
stairway at the back.
He knew of a window-seat above, where he could wait in concealment
behind a screening mass of potted palms to rise out of his ambush and
intercept Cara as she came into the hall. It pleased him to regard
himself as a genie, materializing out of emptiness to present the rose
which she had chosen to declare unobtainable.
In the shadowed recess he ensconced himself with his knees drawn up and
the flower twirling idly between his fingers.
For a while he measured his vigil only by the ticking of a clock
somewhere out of sight, then he heard a quiet footfall on the hardwood,
and through the fronds of the plants he saw a man's figure pace slowly
by. The broad shoulders and the lancelike carriage proclaimed Von Ritz
even before the downcast face was raised. At Cara's door the European
wheeled uncertainly and paused. Because something vague and subconscious
in Benton's mind had catalogued this man as a harbinger of trouble and
branded him with distrust, his own eyes contracted and the rose ceased
twirling.
Just then the door of Cara's room opened and closed, and the slender
figure of the girl stood out in the silhouette of her black evening gown
against the white woodwork. Her eyes widened and she paled perceptibly.
For an instant, she caught her lower lip between her teeth; but she did
not, by start or other overt manifestation, give sign of surprise. She
only inclined her head in greeting, and waited for Von Ritz to speak.
He bowed low, and his manner was ceremonious.
"You do not like me--" He smiled, pausing as though in doubt as to what
form of address he should employ; then he asked: "What shall I call
you?"
"Miss Carstow," she prompted, in a voice that seemed to raise a
quarantine flag above him.
"Certainly, Miss Carstow," he continued gravely. "Time has elapsed since
the days of your pinafores and braids, when I was honored with the
sobriquet of 'Soldier-man' and you were the 'Little Empress.'"
His voice was one that would have lent itself to eloquence. Now its even
modulation carried a sort of cold charm.
"You do not like me," he repeated.
"I don't know," she answered simply. "I hadn't thought about it. I was
surprised."
"Naturally." He contemplated her with grave eyes that seemed to admit no
play of expression. "I came only to ask an interview later. At any time
that may be most agreeable--Pardon me," he interrupted himself with a
certain cynical humor in his voice, "at any time, I should say, that may
be least disagreeable to you."
"I will tell you later," she said. He bowed himself backward, then
turning on his heel went silently down the stairs.
She stood hesitant for a moment, with both hands pressed against the
door at her back, and her brow drawn in a deep furrow, then she threw
her chin upward and shook her head with that resolute gesture which
meant, with her, shaking off at least the outward seeming of annoyance.
Benton came out from his hiding-place behind the palms, and she looked
up at him with a momentary clearing of her brow.
"Where were you?" she asked.
"I unintentionally played eavesdropper," he said humbly, handing her the
rose. "I was lying in wait to decorate you."
"It is wonderful," she exclaimed. "I think it is the wonderfulest rose
that any little girl ever had for a magic gift." She held it for a
moment, softly against her cheek.
He bent forward. "Cara!" he whispered. No answer. "Cara!" he repeated.
"Yeth, thir," she lisped in a whimsical little-girl voice, looking up
with a smile stolen from a fairy-tale.
"I am just lending you that rose. I had meant to give it to you, but
_now_ I want it back--when you are through with it. May I have it?"
She held it out teasingly. "Do you want it now--Indian-giver?" she
demanded.
"You know I don't," in an injured tone.
"I'm glad, because you couldn't have it--yet." And she was gone, leaving
him to make his appearance from the direction of his own apartments.
CHAPTER III
THE MOON OVERHEARS
At dinner the talk ran for a course or two with the hounds, then strayed
aimlessly into a dozen discursive channels.
"My boy," whispered Mrs. Van from her end of the table, to Pagratide on
her right, "I relinquish you to the girl on your other side. You have
made a very brave effort to talk to me. Ah, I know--" raising a slender
hand to still his polite remonstrance--"there is no Cara but Cara, and
Pagratide is--" She let her mischief-laden smile finish the comment.
"Her satellite," he confessed.
"One of them," she wickedly corrected him.
The foreigner turned his head and nodded gravely. Cara was listening to
something that Benton was saying in undertone, her lips parted in an
amused smile.
Through a momentary lull as the coffee came, rose the voice of
O'Barreton, the bore, near the head of the table; O'Barreton, who must
be tolerated because as a master of hounds he had no superior and a bare
quorum of equals.
"For my part," he was saying, "I confess an augmented admiration for
Van because he's distantly related to near-royalty. If that be snobbish,
make the most of it."
Van laughed. "Related to royalty?" he scornfully repeated. "Am I not
myself a sovereign with the right on election day to stand in line
behind my chauffeur and stable-boys at the voting-place?"
"How did it happen, Van? How did you acquire your gorgeous relatives?"
persisted O'Barreton.
"Some day I'll tell you all about it. Do you think the Elkridge hounds
will run--"
"I addressed a question to you. That question is still before the
house," interrupted O'Barreton, with dignity. "How did you acquire 'em?"
"Inherited 'em!" snapped Van, but O'Barreton was not to be turned aside.
"Quite true and quite epigrammatic," he persisted sweetly. "But how?"
Van turned to the rest of the table. "You don't have to listen to this,"
he said in despair. "I have to go through it with O'Barreton every time
he comes here. It's a sort of ritual." Then, turning to the tormenting
guest, he explained carefully: "Once upon a time the Earl of Dundredge
had three daughters. The eldest--my mother--married an American husband.
The second married an Englishman--she is the mother of my fair cousin,
Cara, there; the third and youngest married the third son of the Grand
Duke of Maritzburg, at that time a quiet gentleman who loved the Champs
Elysées and landscape-painting in Southern Spain."
Van traced a family-tree on the tablecloth with a salt-spoon, for his
guest's better information.
"That doesn't enlighten me on the semi-royal status of your Aunt
Maritzburg," objected O'Barreton. "How did she grow so great?"
"Vicissitudes, Barry," explained the host patiently. "Just vicissitudes.
The father and the two elder brothers died off and left the third son to
assume the government of a grand duchy, which he did not want, and
compelled him to relinquish the mahl-stick and brushes which he loved.
My aunt was his grand-duchess-consort, and until her death occupied with
him the ducal throne. If you'd look these things up for yourself, my
son, in some European 'Who's Who,' you'd remember 'em--and save me much
trouble."
After dinner Cara disappeared, and Benton wandered from room to room
with a seemingly purposeless eye, keenly alert for a black gown, a red
rose, and a girl whom he could not find. Von Ritz also was missing, and
this fact added to his anxiety.
In the conservatory he came upon Pagratide, likewise stalking about with
restlessly roving eyes, like a hunter searching a jungle. The foreigner
paused with one foot tapping the marble rim of a small fountain, and
Benton passed with a nod.
The evening went by without her reappearance, and finally the house
darkened, and settled into quiet. Benton sought the open, driven by a
restlessness that obsessed and troubled him. A fitful breeze brought
down the dead leaves in swirling eddies. The moon was under a cloud-bank
when, a quarter of a mile from the house, he left the smooth lawns and
plunged among the vine-clad trees and thickets that rimmed the creek. In
the darkness, he could hear the low, wild plaint with which the stream
tossed itself over the rocks that cumbered its bed.
Beyond the thicket he came again to a more open space among the trees,
free from underbrush, but strewn at intervals with great bowlders. He
picked his way cautiously, mindful of crevices where a broken leg or
worse might be the penalty of a misstep in the darkness. The humor
seized him to sit on a great rock which dropped down twenty feet to the
creek bed, and listen to the quieting music of its night song. His eyes,
grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness, had been blinded again by the
match he had just struck to light a cigarette, and he walked, as it
behooved him, carefully and gropingly.
"Please, sir, don't step on me."
Benton halted with a start and stared confusedly about him. A ripple of
low laughter came to his ears as he widened his pupils in the effort to
accommodate his eyes to the murk. Then the moon broke out once more and
the place became one of silver light and dark, soft shadow-blots. She
was sitting with her back against a tree, her knees gathered between her
arms, fingers interlocked. She had thrown a long, rough cape about her,
but it had fallen open, leaving visible the black gown and a spot he
knew to be a red rose on her breast.
He stood looking down, and she smiled up.
"Cara!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here--alone?"
"Seeking freedom," she responded calmly. "It's not so good as the hobo's
fire beside the track, but it's better than four walls. The moon has
been wonderful, Sir Gray Eyes--as bright and dark as life; radiant a
little while and hidden behind clouds a great deal. And the wind has
been whispering like a troubadour to the tree-tops."
"And you," he interrupted severely, dropping on the earth at her feet
and propping himself on one elbow, "have been sitting in the chilling
air, with your throat uncovered and probably catching cold."
"What a matter-of-fact person it is!" she laughed. "I didn't appoint you
my physician, you know."
[Illustration: "PLEASE, SIR, DON'T STEP ON ME."]
"But your coming alone out here in these woods, and so late!" he
expostulated.
"Why not?" She looked frankly up at him. "I am not afraid."
"I am afraid for you." He spoke seriously.
"Why?" she inquired again.
He knelt beside her, looking directly into her eyes. "For many reasons,"
he said. "But above all else, because I love you."
The fingers of her clasped hands tightened until they strained, and she
looked straight away across the clearing. The moon was bright now, and
the thought-furrow showed deep between her brows, but she said nothing.
The tree-tops whispered, and the girl shivered slightly. He bent forward
and folded the cape across her throat. Still she did not move.
"Cara, I love you," he repeated insistently.
"Don't--I can't listen." Her voice was one of forced calm. Then, turning
suddenly, she laid her hand on his arm. It trembled violently under her
touch. "And, oh, boy," she broke out, with a voice of pent-up vibrance,
"don't you see how I want to listen to you?"
He bent forward until he was very close, and his tone was almost fierce
in its tense eagerness.
"You want to! Why?"
Again a tremor seized her, then with the sudden abandon of one who
surrenders to an impulse stronger than one's self, she leaned forward
and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, clutching him almost wildly.
Her eyes glowed close to his own.
"Because I love you, too," she said. Then, with a break in her voice:
"Oh, you knew that! Why did you make me say it?"
While the stars seemed to break out in a chorus above him, he found his
arms about her, and was vaguely conscious that his lips were smothering
some words her lips were trying to shape. Words seemed to him just then
so superfluous.
There was a tumult of pounding pulses in his veins, responsive to the
fluttering heart which beat back of a crushed rose in the lithe being he
held in his arms. Then he obeyed the pressure of the hands on his
shoulders and released her.
"Why should you find it so hard to say?" He asked.
She sat for a moment with her hands covering her face.
"You must never do that again," she said faintly. "You have not the
right. I have not the right."
"I have the only right," he announced triumphantly.
She shook her head. "Not when the girl is engaged."
She looked at him with a sad droop at the corners of her lips. He sat
silent--waiting.
"Listen!" She spoke wearily, rising and leaning against the rough bole
of the tree at her back, with both hands tightly clasped behind her.
"Listen and don't interrupt, because it's hard, and I want to finish
it." Her words came slowly with labored calm, almost as if she were
reciting memorized lines. "It sounds simple from your point of view. It
is simple from mine, but desperately hard. Love is not the only thing.
To some of us there is something else that must come first. I am
engaged, and I shall marry the man to whom I am engaged. Not because I
want to, but because--" her chin went up with the determination that was
in her--"because I must."
"What kind of man will ask you to keep a promise that your heart
repudiates?" he hotly demanded.
"He knew that I loved you before you knew it," she answered; "that I
would always love you--that I would never love him. Besides, he must do
it. After all, it's fortunate that he wants to." She tried to laugh.
"Is his name Pagratide?" The man mechanically drew his handkerchief from
his cuff, and wiped beads of cold moisture from his forehead.
The girl shook her head. "No, his name is not Pagratide."
He took a step nearer, but she raised a hand to wave him back, and he
bowed his submission.
"You love me--you are certain of that?" he whispered.
"Do you doubt it?"
"No," he said, "I don't doubt it."
Again he pressed the handkerchief to his forehead, and in the silvering
radiance of the moonlight she could see the outstanding tracery of the
arteries on his temples.
Instantly she flung both arms about his neck.
"Don't!" she cried passionately. "Don't look like that! You will kill
me!"
He smiled. "Under such treatment, I shall look precisely as you say," he
acquiesced.
"Listen, dear." She was talking rapidly, wildly, her arms still about
his neck. "There are two miserable little kingdoms over there....
Horrible little two-by-four principalities, that fit into the map of
Europe like little, ragged chips in a mosaic.... Cousin Van lied in
there to protect my disguise.... It is my father who is the Grand Duke
of Maritzburg, and it is ordained that I shall marry Prince Karyl of
Galavia.... It was Von Ritz's mission to remind me of my slavery." Her
voice rose in sudden protest. "Every peasant girl in the vineyards may
select her own lover, but I must be awarded by the crowned heads of the
real kingdoms--like a prize in a lottery. Do you wonder that I have run
away and masqueraded for a taste of freedom before the end? Do you
wonder"--the head came down on his shoulder--"that I want to be a hobo
with a tomato-can and a fire of deadwood?"
He kissed her hair. "Are you crying, Cara, dear?" he asked softly.
Her head came up. "I never cry," she answered. "Do you believe there are
more lives--other incarnations--that I may yet live to be a
butterfly--or a vagrant bee?"
"I believe"--his voice was firm--"I believe you are not Queen of Galavia
yet by a good bit. There's a fairly husky American anarchist in this
game, dearest, who has designs on that dynasty."
"Don't!" she begged. "Don't you see that I wouldn't let them force me?
It is that I see the inexorable call of it, as my father saw it when he
left his studio in Paris for a throne that meant only unhappiness--as
you would see it, if your country called for volunteers."
He bowed his head. For a moment neither spoke. Then she took the rose
from her breast and kissed it.
"Sir Knight of the Red Rose," she said, with a pitifully forced smile.
"I don't want to give it back--ever. I want to keep it always."
He took her in his arms, and she offered no protest.
"To-morrow is to-morrow," he said. "To-day you are mine. I love you."
She took his head between her palms and drew his face down. "I shall
never do this with anyone else," she said slowly, kissing his forehead.
"I love you."
Slowly they turned together toward the house.
"I like your cavalryman, Pagratide," he said thoughtfully. His mind had
suddenly recurred to the scene in the foreigner's room, and he thought
he began to understand. "He is a man. He dares to challenge royal wrath
by venturing his love in the lists against his prince."
"I wish he had not come," she said slowly.
"But you don't love him?" he demanded with sudden unreasoning jealousy.
"I love--just, only, solely, you, Mr. Monopoly," she replied.
At the door they paused. There was complete silence save for a clock
striking two and the distant crowing of a cock. The pause belonged to
them--their moment of reprieve.
At last she said quietly: "But you are stupid not to guess it."
"Guess what?" he inquired.
"There is no Pagratide. Pagratide's real name is Karyl of Galavia."
CHAPTER IV
THE DOCTRINE ACCORDING TO JONESY
If the living-room at "Idle Times" bore the impress of Van Bristow's
individuality and taste, his den was the tangible setting of his
personality.
His marriage had, only eighteen months before, cut his life sharply with
the boundary of an epoch. The den bore something of the atmosphere of a
museum dedicated to past eras. It was crowded with useless junk that
stood for divers memories and much wandering. Many of the pictures that
cumbered the walls were redolent of the atmosphere of overseas.
There were photographs wherein the master of "Idle Times" and Mr. George
Benton appeared together, ranging from ancient football days to
snapshots of a mountain-climbing expedition in the Andes, dated only two
years back.
It was into this sanctum that Benton clanked, booted and spurred, early
the following morning.
Ostensibly Van was looking over business letters, but there was a trace
of wander-lust in the eyes that strayed off with dreamy truancy beyond
the tree-tops.
Benton planted himself before his host with folded arms, and stood
looking down almost accusingly into the face of his old friend.
"Whenever I have anything particularly unpleasant to do," began the
guest, "I do it quick. That's why I'm here now."
Van Bristow looked up, mildly astonished.
During a decade of intimacy these two men had joyously, affectionately
and consistently insulted each other on all possible occasions. Now,
however, there was a certain purposeful ring in Benton's voice which
told the other this was quite different from the time-honored
affectation of slander. Consequently his demand for further
enlightenment came with terse directness.
Benton nodded and a defiant glint came to his pupils.
"I come to serve notice," he announced briefly, "of something I mean to
do."
Van took the pipe from his mouth and regarded it with concentrated
attention, while his friend went on in carefully gauged voice.
"I am here," he explained, "as a guest in your house. I mean to make war
on certain plans and arrangements which presumably have your sympathy
and support--and I mean to make the hardest war I know." He paused, but
as Van gave no indication of cutting in, he went on in aggressive
announcement. "What I mean to do is my business--mine and a girl's--but
since she is your kinswoman and this is your place, it wouldn't be quite
fair to begin without warning."
For a time Bristow's attitude remained that of deep and silent
reflection. Finally he knocked the ashes from his pipe and came over
until he stood directly confronting Benton.
"So she has told you?" was his brief question at last.
The other nodded.
The master of "Idle Times" paced thoughtfully up and down the room. When
at length he stopped it was to clap his hand on his class-mate's
shoulder.
"George," he said, with a voice hardened to edit down the note of
sympathy that threatened it, "you seem to start out with the assumption
that I am against you. Get that out of your head. Cara has hungered for
freedom. We've felt that she had the right to, at least, her little
intervals of recess. It happened that she could have them here. Here she
could be Miss Carstow--and cease to be Cara of Maritzburg. I am sorry if
you--and she--must pay for these vacations with your happiness. I see
now that people who are sentenced to imprisonment, should not play with
liberty."
"She is not going to play with liberty," declared Benton categorically.
"She is going to have it. She is going to have for the rest of her life
just what she wants." He lifted his hand in protest against anticipated
interruption. "I know that you have got to line up with your royal
relatives. I know the utter impossibility of what I want--but I'm going
to win. If you regard me as a burglar, you may turn me out, but you
can't stop me."
"I sha'n't turn you out," mused Van quietly. "I wish you could win. But
you are not merely fighting people. You are fighting an idea. It is only
for an idea that men and women martyr themselves. With Cara this idea
has become morbid--an obsession. She has inherited it together with an
abnormally developed courage, and her conception of courage is to face
what she most hates and fears."
"But if I can show her that it is a mistaken courage--that instead of
loyalty it is desertion?" The man spoke with quick eagerness.
Van shook his head, and his eyes clouded with the gravity of sympathy
for a futile resolve.
"That you can't do. I am an American myself. I'm not policing thrones.
To me it seems a monstrous thing that a girl superbly American in
everything but the accident of birth should have no chance--no
opportunity to escape life-imprisonment. It doesn't altogether
compensate that the prison happens to be a palace."
For a time neither spoke, then Bristow went on.
"At the age of five, Cara stood before a mirror and critically surveyed
herself. At the end of the scrutiny she turned away with a satisfied
sigh. 'I finks I'm lovely,' she announced. At five one is frank. Her
verdict has since then been duly and reliably confirmed by everyone who
has known her--yet she might as well have been born into unbeautiful,
hopeless slavery."
Benton went to the window and stood moodily looking out. Finally he
wheeled to demand: "How did the crown of Maritzburg come to your uncle?"
"When he married my aunt," said Bristow, "he fancied himself
safe-guarded from the ducal throne by two older brothers. That's why he
was able to choose his own wife. He was dedicated with passionate
loyalty to his brushes and paint tubes. He saw before him achievement of
that sort. Assassination claimed his father and brothers, and, facing
the same peril, he took up the distasteful duties of government. My
aunt's life was intolerably shadowed by the terror of violence for him.
She died at Cara's birth and the child inherited all the protest and
acceptance so paradoxically bequeathed by her heart-broken mother."
"Realizing that Cara could not hope to escape a royal marriage, her
father looked toward Galavia. There at least the strain was clean ...
untouched by degeneracy and untainted with libertinism. Karyl is as
decent a chap as yourself. He loves her, and though he knows she accepts
him only from compulsion, he believes he can eventually win her love as
well as her mere acquiescence. It's all as final as the laws of the
Medes and Persians."
Again there was a long silence. Bristow began to wonder if it was, with
his friend, the silence of despair and surrender. At last Benton lifted
his face and his jaw was set unyieldingly.
"Personally," he commented quietly, "I have decided otherwise."
* * * * *
Despite the raw edge on the air, the hardier guests at "Idle Times"
still clung to those outdoor sports which properly belonged to the
summer. That afternoon a canoeing expedition was made up river to
explore a cave which tradition had endowed with some legendary tale of
pioneer days and Indian warfare.
Pagratide, having organized the expedition with that object in view, had
made use of his prior knowledge to enlist Cara for the crew of his
canoe, but Benton, covering a point that Pagratide had overlooked,
pointed out that an engagement to go up the river in a canoe is entirely
distinct from an engagement to come down the river in a canoe. He cited
so many excellent authorities in support of his contention that the
matter was decided in his favor for the return trip, and Mrs.
Porter-Woodleigh, all unconscious that her escort was a Crown Prince,
found in him an introspective and altogether uninteresting young man.
Benton and the girl in one canoe, were soon a quarter of a mile in
advance of the others, and lifting their paddles from the water they
floated with the slow current. The singing voices of the party behind
them came softly adrift along the water. All of the singers were young
and the songs had to do with sentiment.
The girl buttoned her sweater closer about her throat. The man stuffed
tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and bent low to kindle it into a
cheerful spot of light.
A belated lemon afterglow lingered at the edge of the sky ahead. Against
it the gaunt branches of a tall tree traced themselves starkly. Below
was the silent blackness of the woods.
Suddenly Benton raised his head.
"I have a present for you," he announced.
"A present?" echoed the girl. "Be careful, Sir Gray Eyes. You played the
magician once and gave me a rose. It was such a wonderful rose"--she
spoke almost tenderly,--"that it has spoiled me. No commonplace gift
will be tolerated after that."
"This is a different sort of present," he assured her. "This is a god."
"A what!" Cara was at the stern with the guiding paddle. The man leaned
back, steadying the canoe with a hand on each gunwale, and smiled into
her face.
"Yes," he said, "he is a god made out of clay with a countenance that is
most unlovely and a complexion like an earthenware jar. I acquired him
in the Andes for a few _centavos_. Since then we have been companions.
In his day he had his place in a splendid temple of the Sun Worshipers.
When I rescued him he was squatting cross-legged on a counter among
silver and copper trinkets belonging to a civilization younger than his
own. When you've been a god and come to be a souvenir of ruins and dead
things--" the man paused for a moment, then with the ghost of a laugh
went on, "--it makes you see things differently. In the twisted squint
of his small clay face one reads slight regard for mere systems and
codes."
He paused so long that she prompted him in a voice that threatened to
become unsteady. "Tell me more about him. What is his godship's name?"
"He looked so protestingly wise," Benton went on, "that I named him
Jonesy. I liked that name because it fitted him so badly. Jonesy is not
conventional in his ideas, but his morals are sound. He has seen
religions and civilizations and dynasties flourish and decay, and it has
all given him a certain perspective on life. He has occasionally given
me good council."
He paused again, but, noting that the singing voices were drawing
nearer, he continued more rapidly.
"In Alaska I used to lie flat on my cot before a great open fire and his
god-ship would perch cross-legged on my chest. When I breathed, he
seemed to shake his fat sides and laugh. When a pagan god from Peru
laughs at you in a Yukon cabin, the situation calls for attention. I
gave attention.
"Jonesy said that the major human motives sweep in deep channels,
full-tide ahead. He said you might in some degree regulate their floods
by rearing abutments, but that when you try to build a dam to stop the
Amazon you are dealing with folly. He argued that when one sets out to
dam up the tides set flowing back in the tributaries of the heart it is
written that one must fail. That is the gospel according to Jonesy."
He turned his face to the front and shot the canoe forward. There was
silence except for the quiet dipping of their paddles, the dripping of
the water from the lifted blades, and the song drifting down river.
Finally Benton added:
"I don't know what he will say to you, but perhaps he will give you good
advice--on those matters which the centuries can't change."
Cara's voice came soft, with a hint of repressed tears. "He has already
given me good advice, dear--" she said, "good advice that I can't
follow."
CHAPTER V
IT IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE
The first day of quail-shooting found Van Bristow's guests afield.
Separated from the others, Benton and Cara came upon a small grove, like
an oasis in the stretching acres of stubble. Under a scarlet maple that
reared itself skyward all aflame, and shielded by a festooning profusion
of wild-grape, a fallen beech-trunk offered an inviting seat. The girl
halted and grounded arms.
The man seated himself at her feet and looked up. He framed a question,
then hesitated, fearing the answer. Finally he spoke, controlling his
voice with an effort.
"Cara," he questioned, "how long have I?"
Her eyes widened as if with terror. "A very--very little time, dear,"
she said. "It frightens me to think how little. Then--then--nothing but
memory. Do you realize what it all means?" She leaned forward and laid a
hand on each of his shoulders. "Just one week more, and after that I
shall look out to sea when the sun sinks, red and sullen, into leaden
waters and think of--of Arcady--and you."
"Don't, Cara!" He seized her hands and went on talking fast and
vehemently. "Listen! I love you--that is not a unique thing. You love
me--that is the miracle. And because of a distorted idea of duty, our
lives must go to wreck. Don't you see the situation is
ludicrous--intolerable? You are trying to live a medieval life in a day
of wireless telegraph and air ships."
She nodded. "But what are we going to do about it?" she questioned
simply.
"Cara, dear--if I could find a way!" he pleaded eagerly. "Suppose I
could play the magician!"
He rose and stood back of the log.
She leaned back so that she might look into his eyes. "I wish you
could," she mused with infinite weariness.
He stooped suddenly and kissed the drooping lips with a resentful sense
of the monstrous injustice of a scheme of things wherein such lips could
droop.
"No, no, no!" she cried. "You must not! I've got to be Queen of
Galavia--I've got to be his wife." Then, in a quick, half-frightened
tone: "Yet when you are with me I can't help it. It's wicked to love
you--and I do."
He smiled through the misery of his own frown. "Am I so bad as that?" he
questioned.
"You are so bad"--she suddenly caught his hands in hers and slowly
shook her head--"that I don't trust myself on the same side of the road
with you. You must go across and sit on that opposite side." She lightly
kissed his forehead. "That's a kiss before exile--now go."
He measured the distance with disapproving eyes. "That must be fifteen
feet away," he protested, "and my arms are not a yard long." He
stretched them out, viewing them ruefully.
"Go!" she repeated with sternness.
He obeyed slowly, his face growing sullen.
"If I am to stay here until I recant what I said about your odious
kingdom and your miserable throne, I'll--I'll--" He cast about for a
sufficiently rebellious sentiment, then resolutely asserted: "I'll stay
here until I rot in my chains." He raised his hands and shook imaginary
manacles. "Clink! Clink! Clink!" he added dramatically.
"You are being punished for being too fascinating to a poor little fool
princess who has played truant and who doesn't want to go back to
school." She talked on with forced levity. "As for the kingdom,"--once
more her eyes became wistful--"you may say what you like about it. You
can't possibly hate it as much as I. There is no anarchist screaming his
adherence to the red flag or inventing infernal machines, who hates all
thrones as much as the one small girl who must needs be Queen of
Galavia. No, _lèse-majesté_ is not the fault for which you are being
punished."
For a while he was silent, then his voice was raised in exile, almost
cheerfully.
"Destiny is stronger than the paretic councils of little inbred kings.
Why, Cara, I can get one good, husky Methodist preacher who can do in
five minutes what I hardly think your royalties can undo--ever."
"Oh, don't!" she stopped him with plaintive appeal. "I know all that. I
know it. Don't you realize that the longer the flight into the open blue
of the skies, the harder the return to a gilt cage? But, dearest--there
is such a thing as keeping one's parole. I must go back, unless I am
held by a force stronger than I. I must go back. I have been here almost
too long."
"Cara," he said slowly, "I, too, have a sense of duty. It is to you. The
open blue of the skies is yours by right--divine right. You have nothing
to do with cages, gilt or otherwise. My duty is to free you. I mean to
do it. I haven't finished thinking it out yet, but I am going to find
the way."
Her answering voice was deeply grave.
"If you just devise a situation where I shall have to fight it all out
again, you will only make it harder for me. I must do what I must do. I
could only be rescued by some power stronger than myself. Come, let's
go back."
At dinner that same evening Mrs. Van announced to her guests that "by
request of one who should be nameless," punctuating her pledge of
secrecy with a pronounced glance at Benton, there would be a masquerade
affair on the evening before Cara's departure for New York. She said
this was to be an informal sort of frolic in fancy dress, and the only
requirement would be that every grown-up should for an evening return to
childhood.
On the next morning ensued a hegira from the place, the object whereof
was guarded with the most diplomatic deception and secrecy.
"Why this unanimous desertion?" demanded Van indignantly from the head
of the table when it began to develop that an exodus impended. "Do your
appetites crave the stimulus of city cooking? Are you leaving my simple
roof for the lobster palaces?"
Benton shook his head. "Singular," he commented, studying his
grape-fruit with the air of an oracle gazing into crystal. "There, for
example, is Colonel Centress who will probably tell you that he has had
an imperative summons to confer with his brokers and--"
He paused, while the ancient beau across the table quickly nodded
affirmation.
"Quite so. How did you guess it?" he inquired.
"Never talk business at table, of course, but this is a mysterious
flurry in stocks--quite a mysterious flurry."
"Quite so," echoed Benton. "Nevertheless, if you were to shadow the
gallant Colonel in Manhattan to-day he would probably lead you to a
costuming tailor, where you would discover him in the act of being
fitted with a Roman toga or a crusader's mail."
Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh shot a malicious glance at the tall foreigner
whose emotionless face proved a constant irritation to her exuberant
vivacity. "I understand, Colonel Von Ritz," she innocently suggested,
"that you are to impersonate a polar bear."
The Galavian smiled deep in his eyes only; his lips remained sober. One
would have said that he had not recognized the thrust. "I shall only
remain myself," he replied. "I am allowed to be a looker-on in Venice."
Under her breath the widow confided to her next neighbor: "Ah! then it
is true."
"What are _you_ going to town for?" demanded Mrs. Van, looking
accusingly at Benton, as that gentleman arose from the table.
"I should say," he laughingly responded, "that I am going to complete
final arrangements for getting the Isis into commission, but nobody
would believe me. You are all becoming so diplomatic of late!"
Von Ritz glanced up casually. "There is one very dangerous
diplomacy--one very difficult to become accustomed to," he commented.
"I allude to the American diplomacy of frankness."
"The _Isis_? To think I have never seen your yacht!" mused Cara. "And
yet you are allowing me to cross on a steamer."
"If she could be put in shape so soon," declared Benton regretfully,
glancing from Von Ritz to Pagratide, "I should shanghai Mrs. Van for a
chaperon and give a party to Europe. Unfortunately I can't get her in
readiness promptly enough; unless," he added hopefully, "Miss Carstow
can postpone her sailing-day?"
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO
When Benton had straightened out his car for the run to the city, and
the road had begun to slip away under the tires, he turned to McGuire,
his chauffeur.
"McGuire," he inquired, "where is the runabout?"
"At 'Idle Times,' sir. You loaned it to Mr. Bristow to fill up the
garage."
"I remember. Now, listen!" And as Benton talked a slow grin of
contentment spread across the visage of Mr. McGuire, hinting of some
enterprise that appealed to his venturesome soul with a lure beyond the
ordinary.
In the city, Benton was a busy man, though his visit to the costumer's
was brief. Coming out of the place, he fancied he caught a glimpse of
Von Ritz, but the view was fleeting and he decided that his eyes must
have deceived him. He had himself patronized a rather obscure shop,
recommended by Mr. McGuire. Von Ritz would presumably have selected some
more fashionable purveyor of disguises even had his assertion that he
would not masquerade been made only to deceive. Perhaps, thought the
American, Colonel Von Ritz was becoming an obsession with him, merely
because he stood for Galavia and the threat of royalty's mandate. He was
convinced of this later in the day, when he once more fancied that a
disappearing pair of broad shoulders belonged to the European. This time
he laughed at the idea. The surroundings made the supposition ludicrous.
It was among the tawdry shops of ship chandlers in the East Side, where
he himself had gone in search of certain able seamen in the company of
the sailing-master of the _Isis_. Von Ritz would hardly be consorting
with the fo'castle men who frequent the water front below Brooklyn
Bridge.
The few days of the last week raced by, with all the charm of sky and
field that the magic of Indian summer can lavish, and for Benton and
Cara, they raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and
relentlessly marching doom. Outwardly Cara set a pace for vivacious and
care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh, the
"semi-professional light-hearted lady," as O'Barreton named her, "to
trail along in the ruck." Alone with Benton, there was always the furrow
between the brows and the distressed gaze upon the mystery beyond the
sky-line, but Pagratide and Von Ritz were vigilant, to the end that
their tête-à-têtes were few.
Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man's overbold assertion that
he would find a way. It was a futile thing said in eagerness. The day of
the dance, the last day they could hope for together, came unprefaced by
development. To-morrow she must take up her journey and her duty: her
holiday would be at its end. It was all the greater reason why this
evening should be memorable. He should think of her afterward as he saw
her to-night, and it pleased her that in the irresponsibility of the
maskers she should appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since
in fact freedom was impossible to her.
As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and shifted its pattern of
color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with
watchful eyes.
One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown
fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck,
and huge rings in nose and ears.
The second man was a Bedouin: a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert. From
the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his
shoulders. He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped
domino-like to his ankles. Shaggy brows ran in an unbroken line from
temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard
obliterated the contour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and forehead
showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly
raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.
The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. Save for the decoration
of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his
shirt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat,
there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes.
Von Ritz had told the truth. He was not disguised. He stood, his arms
folded on his breast, towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a
quarter of an inch taller than the Bedouin. A half-amused smile lurked
in his steady eyes--the smile of unwavering brows and dispassionately
steady mouth-line.
The cannibal chief waved his hand. "Bright the lamps shone o'er fair
women and brave men!" he declaimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled
about him villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of Lord
Byron is incompatible with the qualities of a man-eating savage.
The Bedouin gravely inclined his head. "_Allahu Akbar!_" he responded,
in a soft voice.
Suddenly the caravan driver commenced a hurried and zigzag course across
the crowded floor. The eyes of Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed.
Through a low-silled window a girl had just entered, carrying herself
with the untrammeled freedom of some wild thing, erect, poised from the
waist, rhythmic in motion. Her walk was like the scansion of good verse.
The Bedouin caught the grace before the ensemble of costume met his eye.
It was in harmony.
She wore a silk skirt to the ankles, and about her waist and hips was
bound the yellow and red sash of the Spanish gipsy, tightly knotted, and
falling at its tasseled ends. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and gay
with bracelets; her hair fell from her forehead and temples, dropping
over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk,
whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee,
and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept
her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the
floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he
was drifting away with her in the tide of the dancers.
"Allah is good to me--Flamencine," whispered the camel-driver as he drew
her close to avoid a careless dancer.
"Why, Flamencine?" demanded a carefully altered voice, from which,
however, the music had not been eliminated.
"Don't you remember?" The Arab stole a covert, identifying glance down
at the tip of one ear which showed under its masking of brown hair--an
ear that looked as though it were chiseled from the pink coral of
Capri. He quoted:
"'There was a gipsy maiden within the forest green,
There was a gipsy maiden who shook a tambourine.
The stars of night had not the face,
The woodland wind had not the grace,
Of Flamencine.'"
Then the music stopped, and with its silencing came the monk, the clown,
the grandee, and others.
In the insistent demand of the many the Arab had too few dances with the
Spanish girl. There were Comanches, Samurai, policemen, Zulus and
courtiers, who, seeing her dance, discovered that their immediate
avocation was dancing with her.
Yet it wanted an hour of unmasking time when a Bedouin led a gipsy
maiden from Andalusia into the deserted library, where the darkness was
broken only by blazing logs on an open hearth.
When they were alone he turned to her anxiously. His voice was freighted
with appeal. Her face, now unmasked, wore an expression of stunned
misery.
"Dear," he asked, "how are you?"
She gazed at the flickering logs. "I should think you would know," she
answered wearily. Then, with a mirthless laugh, she spread both hands
toward the blaze. "I'm looking ahead--I can see it all there in the
fire." Her fingers convulsively clenched themselves until blue marks
showed against the pink palms.
He pushed a chair forward for her, but with a shake of her head she
declined it.
"Whoever heard of a gipsy girl sitting in a leather chair?" she
demanded. "It's more like--like some effete princess."
She dropped to the Persian rug and, gathering her knees between her
clasped hands, sat looking into the dying blaze. "For a few brief
minutes I am the gipsy girl," she added.
"And," he said, dropping cross-legged to the rug at her side, "when the
caravan halts at evening, and prayers have been said facing Mecca, and
the grunting camels kneel, to be unloaded, neither do we, the gipsies of
the desert, sit in chairs." He swayed slightly toward her, lowering his
voice to a whisper. As the soft touch of her shoulder brushed him and
electrified him, his cashmere-draped arms closed around her and held her
hungrily to him. The vagrant maiden of Andalusia and the caravan-driver
of Africa sat gazing together at the glowing pictures in the logs as
they turned slowly to ashes.
"Cara," he went on in a voice of pent-up earnestness, "we be nomads--we
two. 'The scarlet of the maples can shake us like the cry of bugles
going by.' Come away with me while there is time. Let us follow out our
destinies where gipsy blood calls us; in the desert, the jungle,
wherever you say. Let your fancy be our guide--your heart our compass.
Suppose"--he paused and, with one outstretched arm, pointed to the
fire--"suppose that to be a camp-fire--what do you see in the coals?"
"I have already told you," she said wearily. "I see a throne, a life
with all the confining littleness of a prison, with none of the breadth
of an empire. I see the sacrifice of all I love. I see year upon year of
purple desolation.... Purple is the color of mourning and royalty."
She fell silent, and he spoke slowly.
"I see the desert, many-hued, like an opal with the setting of the sun.
I see the flickering of camp-fires and the palm-fringe of an oasis. I
see the tapering minarets of a mosque, and the long booths of the
bazaars. I smell the scent of the perfume-seller's stall, the heavy
sweetness of attar of roses.... I hear the tinkle of camel bells....
There comes a change.... I see a mountain-pass and a mule-train crawling
through the dust, I see the paths that go around the world. Which of our
pictures do you prefer?"
She gave a pained, low cry, and buried her face passionately on his
shoulder. "Oh, you know, you know!" she cried, in a piteous voice. "And
you love me, yet you tempt me to break my parole. If I could do it and
be freed of the responsibility! If a miracle could work itself!"
"Cara," he whispered, resolutely steadying himself, "don't forget the
gospel according to Jonesy. You can't dam up the tributaries of the
heart. Some day you must come to me. That much is immutably written. For
God's sake come now while the road is still clear. Otherwise we shall
grope our ways to each other, even if it be through tragedy--through
hell itself."
For a moment she gazed at him with wide eyes.
"I know it--" she whispered in a frightened voice. "I know it--and yet I
must go ahead."
He rose and lifted her; then as she stood clinging to him he said: "I
ask your forgiveness if I've made it harder--and one boon. Slip away
with me and give me an hour with you."
"They will find me. Pagratide and Von Ritz will find me," she objected
helplessly. "They won't let us be alone for long."
"Listen," he replied. "It is not too cold and the moon is brilliant. It
is the last real moon for me. Come with me in my car for a while."
"You must not make love to me," she stipulated. "I am going to try to
get my face properly composed--and if you make love to me, I can't.
Besides, when you make love I'm rather afraid of you. So you mustn't."
Then, with a wild spasmodic gesture, she caught the edges of his
cashmere cloak and gripped them tightly in both hands as she looked up
into his eyes and impetuously contradicted herself.
"Yes, please do," she appealed.
He laughed. "Destiny says I must make love to you," he asserted, "and
who am I to disobey Destiny?"
Outside, she insisted upon waiting by the bridge while he went for his
car. So he turned and started alone to the point on the driveway just
around the angle of the house, where McGuire, pursuant to previous
orders, was to be waiting with the machine. It had been only an hour
since Benton had slipped away from the dancers and consulted with
McGuire in the shadow of the wall, instructing him explicitly in his
duties. McGuire was to wait with the machine ready upon call. The lamps
were not to be lighted. When Benton came, the chauffeur was to run the
car to the point where a lady should enter it. He was at that point to
leave, without words. It had been impressed on McGuire that utter
silence was imperative. The chauffeur was then to follow in the
runabout, acting as a reserve in the event of need. Both cars were to
take a certain circuitous route to a point on the shore thirty miles
distant, the runabout keeping just close enough to hold the first car
in sight. McGuire had listened and understood. Yet now McGuire was
missing, together with one very necessary motor-car.
As Benton stood, boiling with wrath at the miscarriage of his plans, he
fancied he heard the soft muffled song of his motor just beyond the turn
where the road circled the house. He bent and held a lighted match close
to the gravel. On a muddied spot he found the easily recognizable tread
of his tires. The car had been there. For the sake of speed he ran to
the garage near by and took a swift look at the runabout. It was
waiting, and, thanks to the God of Machines, would start on compression.
He flung himself to the driver's seat and gave it the spark. Far
away--about as far as the bridge, he calculated--he heard one short,
cautious blast of an automobile horn.
Just before the last turn brought him to the bridge, where he should
meet Cara, he noticed a man hurrying toward him, on foot, and recognized
McGuire. Totally mystified, he slowed down the machine.
"Get in, you infernal blockhead," he called. "Tell me about it as we go.
I'm in a hurry."
But McGuire performed strangely. He clapped one hand to his forehead and
looked at his employer out of large, wild eyes. "Am I dippy? My God! Am
I dippy?" he exclaimed, repeating the question over and over in a low,
trembling voice.
"Apparently you are. Get in, damn you!" Benton ordered.
"It's weird," declared McGuire. "It's damned weird."
"Why, sir," he ran on, talking fast, now that the first shock was over
and his tongue again loosened. "Either I've made a fool mistake, or else
I'm crazier than hell. I waited at the place you said. You--or your
ghost--came and took his seat, and waved his hand. I started the car for
the bridge. He didn't say a word. At the bridge I jumped out. He was
you--and yet you are here--same size--same costume--same beard--even the
same beads around the neck."
They had almost reached the bridge and were slowing down when Benton,
scanning the road, empty in the moonlight, grasped for the first time a
definite suspicion of what had happened.
"Cara!" he shouted. "Good God, where is she?"
The chauffeur leaned over and shouted into his ear. "I'm telling you,
sir. The lady's in that other car--with that other edition of you. And,
sir--beggin' your pardon--they're beatin' it like hell!"
Benton's only answer was to feed gas to the spark so frantically that
the car seemed to rise from the ground and shiver before it settled
again. Then it shot forward and reeled crazily into a speed never
intended for a curving road at night.
The moonlight fell on a gray streak of a car, driven by a maniac with a
scarf blowing back from a turban over two wildly gleaming eyes.
Back at "Idle Times" a Capuchin monk, wandering apart from the dancers
in consonance with the austere proclaiming of his garb, was studying the
frivolous gamboling of a school of fountain gold-fish in the
conservatory. He looked up, scowling, to take a note from a servant.
"Colonel Von Ritz said to hand this to the gentleman masquerading as a
monk," explained the man.
"Von Ritz," growled the monk. "He annoys me."
He impatiently tore open the letter and scanned it. His brows contracted
in astonished mystification, then slowly his eyes narrowed and kindled.
The scrawl ran:
"Your Highness: If you see neither Mr. Benton, masquerading as an Arab,
her Highness, the Princess, nor myself in ten minutes from the time of
receiving this, take the car which you will find ready in the garage. My
orderly will be there to act as your chauffeur. Follow the main road to
the second village. Turn there to the right, and drive to the small
bay, where you will find me or an explanation. I have been conducting
certain investigations. The affair is urgent and touches matters of
great import to Europe as well us to Your Highness."
CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO
When Cara, waiting at the bridge, had seen the car flash up, a bearded
Bedouin at the wheel, she had leaped lightly to the seat beside him,
without waiting for the machine to come to a full stop; then she had
thrown herself back luxuriously on the cushions with a sigh of
satisfaction, and had only said: "Drive me fast."
For a long time she lay back, drinking, in long draughts, the spiced
night air, frosted only enough to give it flavor. There was no necessity
for speech, and above, the stars glittered lavishly, despite the white
light of the moon.
At last she murmured half-aloud and almost contentedly: "'Who knows but
the world may end to-night?'"
Above the throbbing purr of the engine which had already done ten miles,
the man beside her caught the voice, but missed the words. He bent
forward.
"I beg your pardon?" he politely inquired.
At the question she started violently, and both hands came to her heart
with a spasmodic movement. Von Ritz carried the car around an ugly rut.
"Don't be alarmed, Your Highness," he said, in a cold, evenly modulated
voice which, though pitched low, carried clearly above the noise of the
cylinders. "I may call you 'Your Highness' now, may I not? We are quite
alone. Or do you still prefer that I respect your incognita?"
The girl's eyes blazed upon him until he could feel their intense
focusing, though he kept his own fixed unbendingly on the road ahead.
Finally she mastered her anger enough to speak.
"Colonel Von Ritz," she commanded, "you will take me back at once!" She
drew herself as far away from him as the space on the seat permitted.
"Your Highness's commands are supreme." The man spoke in the same even
voice. "I intend taking Your Highness back--when it is safer for Your
Highness to go back."
He turned the car suddenly to the right and sped along the narrower road
that led away from the main thoroughfare.
"You will take me back, now. I had not supposed that to a gentleman--"
Her voice choked into silence and her eyes filled with angry tears.
"Your Highness misunderstands," he said coldly. "I obey the throne. If I
live long enough to serve it in another reign, Your Highness will be
Your Majesty. Yet even then will your commands be no more supreme to
me--no more sacred--than now. But even then, Your Highness--"
"Call me Miss Carstow," she interrupted in impassioned anger. "I will
have my freedom for to-night at least."
"Yet even then, Miss Carstow," he calmly resumed, "when danger threatens
you or your throne, I shall take such means as I can to avert that
danger, as I am doing now. Even though"--for a moment the cold, metallic
evenness left his voice and a human note stole into his words--"even
though the reward be contempt."
She did not answer.
"Your High--Miss Carstow,"--Von Ritz spoke with a deferential
finality--"believe me, some things are inevitable."
Suddenly the car stopped.
The girl made a movement as though she would rise, but the man's arm
quietly stretched itself across before her, not touching her, but
forming an effective barrier.
She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly. For the first time
he was able to return her gaze directly, and as she looked into the
unflinching gray pupils, under the level brows, there was a momentary
combat, then her own dropped. He sat for a space with his arm
outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.
"Your Highness"--he spoke as impersonally as a judge ruling from the
bench--"I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in
order that someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need not now
say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him. It is hardly
necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not
easy, but it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself with his
movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even
counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car. There are bigger things
at stake than individual wishes. I stand for the throne. Mr. Benton has
played a daring game--and lost."
He paused, and she found herself watching with a strange fascination the
face almost marble-like in its steadiness.
"Some day--perhaps soon," he went on, the arm unmoved, "you will be
Queen of Galavia." She shuddered. "You can then strip away my epaulets
if you choose. For the moment, however, I must regard you as a prisoner
of war and ask your parole, as a gentleman and an officer, not to leave
the car while I investigate the trouble with the motor. Otherwise--" he
added composedly, "we shall have to remain as we are."
She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blazing; then, with a
glance at the unmoving arm, she bowed reluctant assent.
"All I promise is to remain in the car," she said. "May I go back into
the tonneau?"
Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily dead, he responded,
with a half-smile, "That promise I think is sufficient."
He bent to his task of diagnosis. After much futile spinning of the
crank, he rose and contemplated the stalled engine.
"Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, and I have no matches
in this garb, I must go to that farmhouse up the hillside--where the
light shines through the trees--. Will Your Highness regard your parole
as effective until my return, not to leave the car? Yes? I thank Your
Highness; I shall not be long."
The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud blasts, and he
stopped with a murmured apology to silence it by tearing off the bulb
and throwing it to one side.
The Colonel turned and took his way through the woods, statuesquely
upright and spectral in his long Arab cloak.
Benton and McGuire had just passed the crossing where Von Ritz had left
the main road, when McGuire's quick ear caught the familiar tooting of
the other horn and brought his hand to his employer's arm. The car was
stopped, and McGuire, by match-light, examined the road with its frosty
mud unmarked by fresh automobile tracks, save those running back from
their own tires.
The runabout turned and slipped along cautiously to the rear, watchful
for byways. At the cross-road McGuire was out again. His match, held
close to the mud and gravel, revealed the tread of familiar tires.
"All right, sir," he briefly reported. "The other edition went this
track."
With a twist of the wheel Benton was again on the trail. Back in the
side lane stood a car in which a girl sat alone, solemnly indignant.
"Cara!" Benton was standing on the step. His voice was tremulous with
solicitude and perplexed anxiety. "Cara!" he repeated. "What does it
mean?"
"I don't know," she responded coolly. "Something seems to be broken."
"I don't mean that." McGuire was already investigating. "What does it
mean?"
She sighed wearily.
"When I foolishly agreed to play Juliet to your Romeo," she informed
him, and her tones were frigid, "I didn't know that your Romeo was
really only a Dromio. The other edition of you"--he flinched at the
words, and McGuire choked violently--"is back there, I believe, hunting
for matches."
"She's all right, sir," interrupted McGuire in triumph. "She'll travel
now. It's only disconnected spark plugs and a short circuiting."
"Travel, then!" snapped Benton. "Leave the runabout here. The other
gentleman may prefer not to walk home."
As he swung himself into the tonneau, the chauffeur had already seized
the wheel and the car was backing for the turn. Far back up the hillside
there was a crashing of underbrush. A spectral figure, struggling with
the unaccustomed drapery of a Bedouin robe, emerged from the woods into
the open, and halted in momentary astonishment.
"I believe I am under parole--to the other Dromio--not to run away," she
suggested wearily.
"Oh, that's all right; I'm doing this and I have no treaty with
Galavia," replied the gentleman pleasantly. "Hit her up a bit, McGuire."
He took one of the hands that lay wearily in Cara's lap and she did not
withdraw it. She only lay back in the leather upholstery and said
nothing. Finally he bent nearer.
"Dearest," he said. There was no answer.
"Dearest," he whispered again.
She only turned her head and smiled forgiveness.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm so tired--so tired of all of it," she sighed. "Don't you see?
I wish someone bigger than I am would take me away to a place where they
had never heard of a throne--somewhere beyond the Milky Way."
He took her in his arms, and the spangle-crowned gipsy head fell heavily
on his shoulder. She stretched up both arms towards the stars, and the
moonlight glinted from her gilt bracelets.
"Somewhere beyond the Milky Way," she murmured, then collapsed like a
tired child and lay still.
"Dearest," he whispered, "I'll tell you a secret." He paused and
listened to the rhythmic cylinders throbbing a racing pulse; he looked
back at the white band of road that was being flung out behind them like
thread from a falling spool. He held her fiercely to him and kissed her.
"I'll tell you a secret. You are being stolen. The _Isis_ is waiting in
a little cove, and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on
board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and cross-bones at her
masthead. Do you hear?" Then, with a less piratical voice: "Dearest, I
love you."
She looked up drowsily into his eyes. "You don't have to be such a
boa-constrictor," she suggested. "You are not a cave-man, after all, you
know, if you _are_ taking a lady without asking her." Then she
contentedly whispered: "I'm going to sleep." And she did.
As the car at last swept around a curve and took the shore road, Benton
caught, far away as yet, the red and green glint of tiny port and
starboard lights on the bridge of the _Isis_, and the long ruby and
emerald shafts quivering beneath in the calm waters of the bay. In the
light of a low moon, swinging down the midnight sky, the trim silhouette
of the yacht stood out boldly.
Cara, after sleeping through the rowboat stage of the journey, awoke on
the deck of the _Isis_ and gazed wonderingly about. In her ears was the
sound of anchor chains upon the capstan.
"Is it a dream?" she asked.
"It is a dream to me, but I am going to make it real," he responded.
She went to the rail. He followed her.
"I shouldn't have let you, but I was so tired," she said, "I hardly knew
where the dream began and the reality ended. Ah, I wish the dream could
come true."
"This one is to come true, Cara," he whispered.
She shook her head. "Stand still!" she commanded.
He was bending forward with his elbows on the rail. Suddenly, with
something like a stifled sob, she caught his head in both arms and held
him close, so close that he heard her heart pounding and her breath
coming with spasmodic gasps. He put out his arms, but she held him off.
"No, no; don't touch me now--only listen!"
He waited a moment before she spoke again.
"You said I was your prisoner." Her voice dropped in a tremor as though
the tears would prevail, but she steadied it and went on. "I wish I
were. Always I am your prisoner, but I must go back. It is because it is
written."
He straightened up and took her in his arms. "I know how you have
settled it," he said, "but I have stolen you. The anchor is coming up.
You love me--I have claimed what is mine. It is now beyond your power,
your responsibility."
"No, it is not," she softly denied. "I will not marry you--but I love
you--I love you!"
"You mean that if I hold you my prisoner you will still not be my wife?"
he incredulously demanded.
Slowly she nodded her head.
The man gazed off with the eyes of one stunned and slowly fought himself
back into control before he trusted his voice. After a while, he raised
his face and spoke in fragmentary sentences, his voice pitched low, his
words broken.
"But you said--just now--back there on the road--you wished someone
stronger than yourself--would take you away somewhere--beyond the Milky
Way."
His tones strengthened and suddenly he almost sang out with recovered
resolution, speaking buoyantly and triumphantly.
"Dearest, I am stronger than you, and I'm going to take you away--I'm
going to take you beyond the Milky Way, to the uttermost stars of Love.
How can it matter to me how far, if you are there?"
Again she shook her head.
"No, dear," she whispered, "you are not so strong as I, in this, because
I am strong enough to say No when my heart says only Yes--and because
Fate is stronger than any of us."
"Boat ahoy!" came a voice from the crow's nest.
"They have come for you," he said, speaking as through a fog. "Show them
here," he shouted to an officer who was hurrying to the gangway.
Two figures came over the side, and slowly followed the first officer
forward. One was a Capuchin monk, bearing himself rigidly; at his side
strode a Bedouin, bedraggled, but erect and military of bearing. The
original Arab turned with a sudden sag of the shoulders and looked
helplessly out at the path of silver that stretched across the water
below, to the moon, now sunk close to the horizon. He waved one hand in
a gesture of submission and despair, and stood silent.
The gipsy girl, standing near, took a sudden step forward and stood
close to him us the others approached.
"They may take me back if they wish to, now," she said, with a suddenly
upflaring defiance. "But they shall find me like this!" And she flung
her arms about his neck and kissed him.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY
The coldness of the moonlight killed the pallor of Karyl's face, but
added a note of stark accentuation to his set chin and labored
self-containment. Von Ritz, despite his bedraggled masquerade was as
composed and expressionless as though he had seen nothing beyond the
expected. With Von Ritz nothing was beyond the expected.
He had to-night counterfeited Benton's disguise; stolen Benton's car;
substituted himself for the American and made a decisive effort to
interrupt the kidnaping of a Queen.
Finding himself checkmated, he had joined forces with the Prince and
brought the pursuit to a successful termination. His manner now was
precisely what it had been last night, when his only excitement had been
a game of billiards. Men who knew him would have told you that his
manner had been the same on a certain red and smoky day when the order
of Takavo had been pinned on his breast, in the reek and noise of a
battlefield.
After a moment of tense silence, Benton took a step forward.
"At any suitable time," he said, in a voice too low for Cara to catch,
"I shall, of course, be entirely at your service."
Pagratide drew a labored breath, but when he raised his head it was to
lift his brows inquiringly.
"For what?" he asked in an equally low tone. "Have I asked any
questions?" In a matter-of-fact voice he added: "It is growing late. If
Miss Carstow has finished the inspection of your yacht, I suggest a
return."
Benton recognized the other's refusal to read his motive. After all that
was the best course; the only course. Pagratide stepped forward.
"Mr. Benton had the pleasure of driving you down--" he suggested, "may I
have the same honor, returning?"
The girl met the eyes of the Prince, with defiance in her own.
"I am not a child!" she vehemently declared. "We may as well be honest
with each other. If he had chosen to have it so, you could not have come
aboard. I must obey the decrees of State!" She paused, then impulsively
swept on: "I can force myself to do what I must do, but I cannot compel
my heart--that is his, utterly his." She raised both hands. "Now you
know," she said. "You may decide."
Karyl inclined his head.
"I have questioned nothing," he repeated. "Will you honor me by
returning in my car?"
Cara tilted her chin rebelliously.
"No," she said, "I don't think I shall. My vacation ends to-morrow if
you still wish it, but to-night it has not ended. I return with Mr.
Benton."
Pagratide stiffened painfully, but with supreme self-mastery he forced a
smile as though he had asked nothing more than a dance--and had found it
engaged.
"I must submit," he replied in a steady voice. "I even understand. But
you will agree with me that they"--with a gesture toward the direction
from which they had come--"had best know nothing."
Benton and Von Ritz went to the gangway, where the yachtsman bent
forward to give some direction to the boat crew below.
"Karyl!" The girl moved impulsively toward the man she must marry, and
laid a hand on his arm. "Karyl," she said plaintively, "if you only
wanted to marry me for State reasons--it would be different. It wouldn't
hurt me then to hurt you. You mean so much as a friend, but I can never
be in love with you. You are being unfair with yourself--if you go on. I
must be honest with you."
Pagratide spoke slowly, and his voice carried the tremor of feeling.
"You have always been honest with me, and I will make you love me. Until
you marry me I have no privilege to question you. When you do, I shall
not have to question you." He leaned forward and spoke confidently. "I
would marry you if you hated me--and then I would win your love!"
An hour later the Spanish gipsy girl, having shown herself in the
emptying ball-room with ingenious excuses for her long absence, took
refuge in her own apartments.
On sailing day, Benton, at the pier, watched the steamer stand out into
the river between the coming and going of ferry-boats and tugs. About
him stamped the usual farewell throng with hats raised and handkerchiefs
a-flutter. The music of the ship's band grew faint as a wider and wider
gap of water opened between the wharf and the liner's gray hull.
Gradually the crowd scattered back through the great barn-like spaces of
the pier-house to be re-absorbed by cabs, motors and surface-cars into
the main arteries of the city's life. It was over. _Bon voyage_ had been
said. One more ship had put out to sea.
Benton stood looking after a slim figure in a blue traveling gown and
dark furs, pressed against the after-rail, her handkerchief waving in
the raw wind. Most of the sea-going ones had retreated into the shelter
of the saloon or cabin, but she remained.
Van Bristow, shivering at his friend's elbow, did not suggest turning
back.
Cara stood, still looking shoreward, a furrow between her brows, her
checks pale, her fingers tightly gripping the rail. She was holding with
that grip to all her shaken self-command.
She saw the fang-edged skyline of lower Manhattan lifting its gray
shafts through wet streamers of fog; she saw flotillas of squat
ferry-boats shouldering their ways against the sullen heave of the
river's tide-water; she heard the discordant shriek of their steam
throats; she saw the tilting swoop of a hundred gulls, buffeting the
wind; but she was conscious only of the vista of oily water widening
between herself and him.
Von Ritz had long since drifted into the smoking-room where the men were
christening the voyage with brandy-and-soda and dropping into tentative
groups, regardful of future poker games.
Pagratide, at Cara's elbow, was silent, respecting her silence.
When at last the two had the deck to themselves and Manhattan had become
a shadowy and ragged monotone, she turned and smiled. It was a smile of
accepting the inevitable. He went with her to the forward deck where
her staterooms were situated, and left her there in silence.
Von Ritz, standing apart near the threshold of the smokeroom, heard his
name paged almost before the speaker had entered the door, and turned to
take from the hand of the bearer a Marconigram just relayed from shore.
He read it and for an instant a look of pain crossed the features that
rarely yielded to expression. Then he sought out Karyl's stateroom.
Karyl turned wearily from the wintry picture of a sullenly heaving sea,
to answer the rap on the door. His face did not brighten as he
recognized Von Ritz.
The Colonel was that type of being upon whom men may depend or whom they
must fear. Whenever there was need, Karyl had come to know that there
would be Von Ritz, but also there went with him an austerity and an
impersonality that robbed him of the gratitude and love he might have
claimed.
Now there was a note almost surly in the expression with which the
Prince looked up to greet his father's confidential representative.
"Well?" he demanded.
For answer the officer held out the message.
Karyl puckered his brows over the intricacies of the code and handed it
back.
"Be good enough to construe it," he commanded.
"The King," said Von Ritz, "is ill. His Majesty wishes to instruct you
in certain matters before--" He broke off with something like a catch in
his voice, then continued calmly. "Recovery is despaired of, though
death may not be immediate."
Karyl turned away, not wishing the soldier to see the tears he felt in
his eyes, and Von Ritz discreetly withdrew as far as the door. There he
paused, and after a moment's hesitation inquired:
"Her Highness goes to Maritzburg--to her father's Court--I presume?"
With his back still turned, the Prince nodded. "Why?" he demanded.
"Because--the message holds no hope--" Von Ritz paused, then added
quietly "--and if Your Highness is called upon to mount the throne, it
is advisable to hasten the marriage."
He backed out, closing the door behind him.
In her own cabin the girl had bolted the door. At the small desk of her
_suite-de-luxe_ she sat with her head on her crossed arms. For a
half-hour she remained motionless.
Finally she rose and, with uncertain hands, opened a suitcase, drawing
from its place among filmy fabrics and feminine essentials a small,
squat figure of time-corroded clay. The little Inca _huaca_ had perhaps
looked with that same unseeing squint upon Princesses of other
dynasties so long dead that their heartbreaks and ecstasies were now the
same--nothing.
She placed the image before her and rested her chin on one hand, gazing
at its grotesque and ancient visage.
Her eyes slowly filled with tears. Again she dropped her face on her
arms and the tears overflowed.
* * * * *
Benton and Bristow had been sitting without speech as their motor
threaded its way through the traffic along Fourteenth Street, and it was
not until the chauffeur had turned north on Fifth Avenue that either
spoke. Then Benton roused himself out of seeming lethargy to inquire
with suddenness: "Do you remember the bull-fight we saw in Seville?"
His companion looked up, suppressing his surprise at a question so
irrelevant.
"You mean the Easter Sunday performance," he asked, "when that negligent
_banderillero_ was gored?"
"Just so," assented Benton. "Do you remember the chap we met afterwards
at one of the cafés? He was being fêted and flattered for the brilliancy
of his work in the ring. His name was Blanco."
"Sure I remember him." Van talked glibly, pleased that the conversation
had turned into channels so impersonal. "He was a fine-looking chap with
the grace of a Velasquez dancing-girl and the nerve of a bull-terrier.
I remember he was more like a grandee than a _toreador_. We had him dine
with us--hard bread--black olives--fish--bad wine--all sorts of native
truck. For the rest of our stay in Seville he was our inseparable
companion. Do you remember how the street gamins pointed us out? Why, it
was like walking down Broadway with your arm linked in that of Jim
Jeffries!"
He paused, somewhat disconcerted by his companion's steady gaze; then,
taking a fresh start, he went on, talking fast.
"Besides sticking bulls, he could discuss several topics in several
languages. I recall that he had been educated for the Church. If he
hadn't felt the lure of the strenuous life, he might have been
celebrating Mass instead of playing guide for us. In the end he'd have
won a cardinal's hat."
The fixity of the other's stare at last chilled and quelled his chatter
to an embarrassed silence. He realized that the object of his mild
subterfuge was transparent.
"I'm after his address--not his biography," suggested Benton coolly.
"His name was Manuel Blanco, wasn't it?"
"Why, yes, I believe it was. What do you want with him?"
"Never mind that," returned his friend. "Do you happen to know where he
lived? I seem to recall that you promised to write him frequent
letters."
"By Jove, so I did," acknowledged Van with humility. "I must get busy.
He is a good sort. His address--" He paused to search through his
pocket-book for a small tablet dedicated to names and numbers, then
added: "His address is _Numero 18, Calle Isaac Peral_, Cadiz."
Benton was scribbling the direction on the back of an envelope.
"You needn't grow penitent and start a belated correspondence," he
suggested. "I am going to write him myself--and I'm going to visit
him."
CHAPTER IX
THE TOREADOR APPEARS
Slowly, with a gesture almost subconscious, Benton slipped an unopened
envelope from his breast pocket; turned it over; looked at it and
slipped it back, still unopened. Then, leaning heavily on his elbow, he
gazed off, frowning, over the rail of the yacht's forward deck.
The waters that lap the quays and wharves of Old Cadiz, green as jade
and quiet as farm-yard pools, were darkening into inkiness toward shore.
White walls that had been like ivory were turning into ashy gray behind
the _Bateria San Carlos_ and the pillars of the _Entrada_. The molten
sun was sinking into a rich orange sky beyond the Moorish dome and
Christian towers of the cathedral.
Shafts of red and green wavered and quaked in the black dock waters.
Between the hulks of cork- and salt-freighters, the steam yacht _Isis_
slipped with as graceful a motion as that of the gulls. Then when the
anchor chains ran gratingly out, Benton turned on his heel and went to
his cabin.
Behind a bolted door he dropped into a chair and sat motionless. Finally
the right hand wandered mechanically to his breast pocket and brought
out the envelope. He read for the thousandth time the endorsement in the
corner.
"Not to be opened until the evening of March 5th," and under that, "I
love you."
There was another envelope; an outer one much rubbed from the pocket. It
was directed in her hand and the blurred postmark bore a date in
February. He could have described every mark upon the enclosing cover
with the precision of a careful detective. When his impatient fingers
had first torn off the end, only to be confronted by the order: "Not to
be opened until the evening of March 5th," he had fallen back on
studying outward marks and indications. In the first place, it had been
posted from Puntal, and instead of the familiar violet stamp of
Maritzburg, with which her other letters had been franked during the two
months past, this stamp was pink, and its medallion bore the profile of
Karyl.
That she had left Maritzburg, and that she had written him a message to
be sealed for a month, meant that the date of March 5th had
significance. That she was in Galavia meant that the significance
was--he winced.
On the calendar of a bronze desk-set, the first four days of March were
already cancelled. Now, taking up a blue pencil, he crossed off the
number five. After that he looked at his watch. It wanted one minute of
six. He held the timepiece before him while the second-hand ticked its
way once around its circle, then with feverish impatience he tore the
end from the envelope.
Benton's face paled a little as he drew out the many pages covered with
a woman's handwriting, but there was no one to see that or to notice the
tremor of his fingers.
For a moment he held the pages off, seeing only the "Dearest" at the
top, and the wild way the pen had raced, forming almost shapeless
characters.
"Dearest," she said in part, "I write now because I must turn to
someone--because my heart must speak or break. All day I must smile as
befits royalty, and act as befits one whose part is written for her.
Unless there be an outlet, there must be madness. I have enclosed this
envelope in another and enjoined you not to read it until March 5th.
Then it will be too late for you to come to me. If you came to-night,
you would find me hurrying out to meet you and to surrender. Duty would
so gladly lay down its arms to Love, dear, and desert the fight.
"To-night I have slipped away from the uniforms, the tawdry mockery of a
puppet court, to find the pitiful comfort of rehearsing my heart-ache
to you, who own my heart. In my life here every hour is mapped, and I
seem to move from cell to cell. So many obsequious jailers who call
themselves courtiers stand about and seem to watch me, that I feel as if
I had to ask permission to draw my breath. Out in the narrow streets of
this little picture town, I see dark-skinned, bare-footed girls. Some of
them carry skins of wine on their heads. All of them are poor. They also
are gloriously free. As they pass the palace, they look up enviously,
and I, from the inside, look out enviously. I know how Richard of the
Lion Heart felt when he was a prisoner in France, only I have not the
comfort of a Lion Heart, and it is not written in the book of things
that you shall pass outside and hear my harp--and rescue me.... One
little taste of liberty I give myself. It caused a terrible battle at
first, but I was stubborn and told them that if I was going to be Queen
I was going to do just what I wanted, and that if they didn't like it,
they could get some other girl to be Queen, so of course they let me....
There is an old half-forgotten roadway walled in on both sides that runs
through the town from this horrible palace to the woods upon the
mountain. There is some sort of foolish legend that in the old days the
Kings used to go by this protected road to a high point called Look-out
Rock, and stand there where they could see pretty much all of this
miserable little Kingdom and a great deal of the Mediterranean besides.
No one uses it now except me; but I do as often as I can steal away. I
dress in old clothes and take the little Inca god with me and no one
knows us. We slip off among the bowlders and pine trees where the view
is wonderful, and as his godship presides on a moss-covered rock and I
sit on the carpet of pine needles, he gives me advice. Somewhere in
these woods crowds of children live. They are very shy, and for a long
time looked at me wonderingly from big liquid eyes, but now I have made
friends with them and they come and sit around me in a circle and make
me tell them fairy stories....
"Once, dear, I was strong enough to say 'no' to you. Twice I could not
be."
The reader paused and scowled at the wall with set jaws.
"But when you read this, almost three thousand miles away, there will be
only a few days between me and (it is hard to say it) the marriage and
the coronation. He is to be crowned on the same day that we are married.
Then I suppose I can't even write what is in my heart."
Benton rose and paced the narrow confines of the cabin. Suddenly he
halted. "Even under sealed orders," he mused slowly, "one may dispose of
three thousand miles. They, at least, are behind." A countenance
somewhat drawn schooled its features into normal expressionlessness, as
a few moments afterward he rose to open the door in response to a
rapping outside.
As the door swung in a smile came to Benton's face: the first it had
worn since that night when he had taken leave of Hope.
"You, Blanco!" he exclaimed. "Why, _hombre_, the anchor is scarce down.
You are prompt!"
The physically superb man who stood at the threshold smiled. The gleam
of perfect teeth accentuated the swarthy olive of his face and the crisp
jet of his hair. His brown eyes twinkled good-humoredly. Jaw, neck and
broad shoulders declared strength, while the slenderness of waist and
thigh hinted of grace--a hint that every movement vindicated. It was the
grace of the bull-fighter, to whom awkwardness would mean death.
"I had your letter. It was correctly directed--Manuel Blanco, _Calle
Isaac Peral_." The Spaniard smiled delightedly. "When one is once more
to see an old friend, one does not delay. How am I? Ah, it is good of
the _Señor_ to ask. I do well. I have retired from the _Plaza de Toros_.
I busy myself with guiding parties of _touristos_ here and abroad--and
in the collection and sale of antiques. But this time, what is your
enterprise or pleasure, _Señor_? What do you in Spain?"
"My business in Spain," replied Benton slowly, "is to get out of Spain.
After that I don't know. Will you go and take chances of anything that
might befall? I sent for you to ask you whether you have leisure to
accompany me on an enterprise which may involve danger. It's only fair
to warn you."
Blanco laughed. "Who reads _mañana_?" he demanded, seating himself on
the edge of the table, and busying his fingers with the deft rolling of
a cigarette. "The _toreador_ does not question the Prophets. I am at
your disposition. But the streets of Cadiz await us. Let us talk of it
all over the _table d'hôte_."
An hour later found the two in the _Calle Duke de Tetuan_, blazing with
lights like a jeweler's show-case.
The narrow fissure between its walls was aflow with the evening current
of promenaders, crowding its scant breadth, and sending up a medley of
laughter and musical sibilants. Grandees strolled stiffly erect with
long capes thrown back across their left shoulders to show the brave
color of velvet linings. Young dandies of army and navy, conscious of
their multi-colored uniforms, sifted along through the press, toying
with rigidly-waxed mustaches and regarding the warm beauty of their
countrywomen through keen, appreciative eyes, not untinged with
sensuousness. Here and there a common _hombre_ in short jacket, wide,
low-crowned _sombrero_ and red sash, zig-zagged through the
pleasure-seekers to cut into a darker side street whence drifted pungent
whiffs of garlic, black olives and peppers from the stalls of the street
salad-venders. Occasionally a Moor in fez and wide-bagging trousers,
passed silently through the volatile chatter, looking on with jet eyes
and lips drawn down in an impervious dignity.
They found a table in one of the more prominent cafés from which they
could view through the plate-glass front the parade in the street, as
well as the groups of coffee-sippers within.
"Yonder," prompted Blanco, indicating with his eyes a near-by group, "he
with the green-lined cape, is the Duke de Tavira, one of the richest men
in Spain--it is on his estate that they breed the bulls for the rings of
Cadiz and Seville. Yonder, quarreling over politics, are newspaper men
and Republicans. Yonder, artists." He catalogued and assorted for the
American the personalities about the place, presuming the curiosity
which should be the tourist's attribute-in-chief.
"And at the large table--yonder under the potted palms, and
half-screened by the plants--who are they?" questioned Benton
perfunctorily. "They appear singularly engrossed in their talk."
"Assume to look the other way, _Señor_, so they will not suspect that
we speak of them," cautioned the Andalusian. "I dare say that if one
could overhear what they say, he could sell his news at his own price.
Who knows but they may plan new colors for the map of Southern Europe?"
Benton's gaze wandered over to the table in question, then came
uninquisitively back to Blanco's impassive face. It took more than
European politics to distract him.
"International intrigue?" he inquired.
The eyes of the other were idly contemplating the street windows, and as
he talked he did not turn them toward the men whom he described.
Occasionally he looked at Benton and then vacantly back to the street
parade, or the red end of his own cigarette.
"There is a small, and, in itself, an unimportant Kingdom with
Mediterranean sea-front, called Galavia," said Blanco. Benton's start
was slight, and his features if they gave a telltale wince at the word
became instantly casual again in expression. But his interest was no
longer forced by courtesy. It hung from that moment fixed on the
narrative.
"Ah, I see the _Señor_ knows of it," interpolated Blanco. "The tall man
with the extremely pale face and the singularly piercing eye who sits
facing us,"--Blanco paused,--"is the Duke Louis Delgado. He is the
nephew of the late King of Galavia, and if--" the Spaniard gave an
expressive shrug, and watched the smoke ring he had blown widen as it
floated up toward the ceiling--"if by any chance, or mischance, Prince
Karyl, who is to be crowned at Puntal three days hence, should be called
to his reward in heaven, the gentleman who sits there would be crowned
King of Galavia in his stead."
CHAPTER X
OF CERTAIN TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFÉ TABLE
Benton's eyes seemed hypnotically drawn to the table pointed out, but he
kept them tensely riveted on his coffee cup.
"Yes?" he impatiently prompted.
"Of course," continued Blanco absently, "no one could regret more
profoundly than the Grand Duke any accident or fatality which might
befall his royal kinsman, yet even the holy saints cannot prevent evil
chances!" He paused to sip his coffee. "At the right of 'Louis, the
Dreamer,' as he is called, sits the Count Borttorff, who is not greatly
in favor with Prince Karyl. He, too, is a Galavian of noble birth, but
Paris knows him better than Puntal. He on the left, the man with the
puffed eyes and the dissipated mouth--you will notice also a scar over
the left temple--" Blanco was regarding his cigarette tip as he flecked
an ash to the floor--"is Monsieur Jusseret supposed to be high in the
affairs of the French _Cabinet Noir_."
"There is one more--and a vacant chair," suggested Benton.
The _toreador_ nodded. "True, I had not forgotten the other. Tall,
black-haired, not unlike yourself in appearance, _Señor_, save for a
heavier jaw and the mustache which points upward. He is an Englishman by
birth, a native of the world by adoption. Once he bore a British army
commission. Now he is seen in distinguished society"--Blanco
laughed--"when distinguished society wants something done which clean
men will not do. His name, just now, is Martin. In many quarters he is
better known as the English Jackal. Where one sees him one may scent
conspiracy."
In all the life and color compassed between the four walls of Moorish
tiles and arches, Benton felt the magnet of the group irresistibly
drawing his eyes to itself.
"And this gathering about a table for a cup of coffee, in Cadiz--what of
it?" argued Benton. He tried to speak as if his curiosity were dilute
and his thoughts west of the Atlantic. "Are they not all known here?"
Again Blanco gave the expressive Spanish shrug.
"Few people here know any of them. I only said, _Señor_, that if any
chance should cause Galavia to mourn her new King that same chance would
elevate the tall, pale gentleman from a café table to a throne. I did
not say that the chance would occur."
"And yet?" urged Benton, his eyes narrowing, "your words seem to hint
more than they express. What is it, Manuel?"
The Spaniard took a handful of matches from a porcelain receptacle on
the table. He laid one down.
"Let that match," he smilingly suggested, "stand for the circumstance of
the Grand Duke leaving Paris for Cadiz which is--well, nearer to
Puntal--and less observant than Paris." He laid another on the marble
table-top with its sulphur head close to the first, so that the two
radiated from a common center like spokes from a hub. "Regard that as a
coincidence of the arrival of the Count Borttorff from the other
direction, but at the same time, and at the precise season of the
coronation and marriage of the King." He looked at the two matches, then
successively laid down others, all with the heads at the common center.
"That," he said, "is the joining of the group by the distinguished
Frenchman--that the presence of the English Jackal--that is the chance
that runs against any King or Queen of meeting death. That--" he struck
another match and held it a moment burning in his fingers "--regard
that, _Señor_, as the flaring up of ambitions that are thwarted by a
life or two."
He touched the burning match to the grouped tips of sulphur and his
teeth gleamed white as he contemplated the little spurt of hissing
flame. Then he dropped his flattened hand upon the tiny eruption and
extinguished it, as his sudden grin died away to a bored smile.
[Illustration: HIS TEETH GLEAMED WHITE AS HE CONTEMPLATED THE LITTLE
SPURT OF HISSING FLAME.]
"There, it is over," he yawned, "and of course it may not happen. _Quien
sabe?_"
"And if they should flare up--" Benton spoke slowly, carefully, "others
might suffer than the King?"
"How should one say? The King alone would suffice, but Kings are rarely
found in solitude," reasoned the Andalusian. "For a brief moment Europe
looks with eyes of interest on the feasting little capital. The King
will not be alone. No, it must be--so one would surmise--at the
coronation."
"Good God!" Benton gaspingly breathed the exclamation. "But, man, think
of it--the women--the children--the utterly innocent people--the Queen!"
The Spaniard leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, his hands
spread on the table. "_Si, Señor_, it is regrettable. Yet nothing on
earth appears so easy to supply as Kings--except Queens. And after all,
what is it to us--an American millionaire--a Cadiz _toreador_?"
For a moment Benton was silent. When he spoke it was in quick,
clear-clipped interrogation.
"You know Puntal and Galavia?"
"As I know Spain."
"Manuel, suppose the quaking of a throne _does_ interest me, you will
go there with me--even though I may lead you where its fall may crush us
both?"
The Spaniard grinned with a dazzling show of white teeth. His shoulders
rose and fell in a shrug. "As well a tumbling castle wall as a charging
bull."
"Good. The first thing is to learn all we can of Louis and his party."
"There is," observed Blanco calmly, "a table on this side also shielded
by plants. From its angle we can observe,--and be ourselves protected
from their view. However, we will first go for a stroll in the _calle_
and return. The change of position will then be less noticeable. Also,
the _Señor's_ forehead is beaded with moisture. The air of the street
will be grateful."
As Benton rose he noticed that the Grand Duke was leaning confidentially
toward the member of the French _Cabinet Noir_.
Fifteen minutes later the two men were ensconced in their more sheltered
coign, with wine glasses before them, and all the seeming of idle hours
to kill.
"Is Louis ostensibly a friend of the throne?" demanded the American.
"Professedly, he is, _Señor_. He will write his felicitations when the
marriage and the crowning occur--he will even send suitable gifts, but
he will remain at his café here with his absinthe, or in Paris near the
fair Comptessa Astaride, whom he adores, unless, of course, he goes to
touch the match."
"Does he never return to Puntal?"
"Once in five years he has been there. Then he went quietly to his
hunting lodge which is ten miles, as the crow flies from the capital,
yet barred off by the mountain ridge. It is two days' journey by sea
from Puntal, and save by the sea one comes only through the mountain
pass, which is always guarded. Yet on that occasion heliographs reported
his movements; the King's escort was doubled and the King went little
abroad."
"Who stands at Louis' back? Revolutionists?"
"_Dios!_ No, _Señor_. The Galavians are cattle. Karyl or Louis, it is
one to them. Galavia is a key. The key cares not at what porter's belt
it jingles. Europe cares who opens and closes the lock. _Comprende?_
Spain cares, France cares, Italy cares, even the Northern nations care.
The movement of pawns affects castles and kings."
Manuel suddenly halted in his flow of talk. "Blessed Saints!" he
breathed softly. "When he comes nearer you will see him--the palms
obscure him now. It is Colonel Von Ritz. He has just entered. He stands
near Karyl and the throne. He is a great man wasted in a toy kingdom.
All Europe envies the services which Von Ritz squanders on Galavia."
Benton looked up with a rush of memories, and was glad that the Galavian
could not see him.
Like all the men concerned, Von Ritz was inconspicuously a civilian in
dress, but as he came down the center of the room he was, as always, the
commanding figure, challenging attention. His steady eyes swept the
place with dispassionate scrutiny. His straight mouth-line betrayed no
expression. He came slowly, idly, as though looking for someone. When
still some distance from the table where sat the Duke Louis, he halted
and their eyes met. Those of the Duke, as he inclined his head slightly,
stiffly, wore a glint of veiled hostility. Those of Von Ritz, as he
returned the salute, no whit more cordially, were blank, except that for
the moment, as he stood regarding the party, his non-committal pupils
seemed to bore into each face about the table and to catalogue them all
in an insolent inventory.
Each man in the group uneasily shifted his eyes. Then Karyl's officer
turned on his heel and left the place. Louis watched him, scowling, and
as the Colonel passed into the street turned suddenly and spoke in a
vehement whisper. Jusseret's sardonic lips twisted into a wry smile as
though in recognition of an adversary's clever check.
The café was now filled. Few tables remained unoccupied, and of these,
several were near that of the Ducal party.
Blanco rose. "Wait for me, _Señor_," he whispered, then went to the
front of the café where Benton lost him in a crowd at the door. A moment
later he came lurching back. His lower lip was stupidly pendent, his
eyes heavy and dull, and as he floundered about he dropped with the
aimless air of one heavily intoxicated into a chair by a vacant table
not more than ten feet distant from that of Louis, the Dreamer.
There he remained huddled in apparent torpor and for some moments
unobserved, until the Duke signaled to a passing waiter and indicated
the _toreador_ with a glance. The waiter came over to Blanco. "The
_Señor_ will find another table," he said with the ingratiating courtesy
of one paying a compliment. "It is regrettable, but this one is
reserved." Blanco appeared too stupid to understand, and when finally he
did grasp the meaning he rose with profuse and clumsy apologies and
staggered vacantly about in the immediate neighborhood of the conspiring
coterie. Finally, after receiving further attention and guidance from
the waiter, he returned to Benton, and dropping into his chair leaned
over, his white teeth flashing a satisfied smile. "The matches may not
flare, _Señor_," he said, "but it would appear it was planned. Now
Martin and Borttorff cannot go to Puntal. Since the brief visit of Von
Ritz they are branded men. The others are already known to Karyl's
government."
Benton sat with his brows knitted intently listening.
"Now," went on Blanco, "there is one thing more. They await the man for
whom they hold the empty chair."
There was a brief silence, then the Spaniard uttered a low exclamation
of satisfaction. Benton glanced up to see a young man of frank face,
blond mustache and Paris clothes drop into the vacant place with evident
apologies for his tardiness.
"Ah," breathed Blanco again, "I feared it would be someone I did not
know. He is the _Teniente_ Lapas, of Karyl's Palace guard. The
_pobrecito_! I wonder what post he hopes to adorn at the Court of the
Pretender."
For a moment the Spaniard looked on with an expression of melancholy
reflection. "That boy," he said "at last, has the trust and friendship
of the King. Before him lies every prospect of advancement, yet he has
been beguiled by the Countess Astaride, and throws himself into a plot
against Karyl. It is pitiable when one is perfidious so young--and with
such small cause."
"Who is the Countess Astaride?" inquired the American.
"One of the most beautiful women in Europe, to whom these children are
playthings. For her there is only Louis Delgado. It is her firing of his
dreams which makes him aspire to a throne. It is she who has the
determination. He can see visions of power only in the colors of his
absinthe glass. She uses men to her ends. Lapas is the latest--unless--"
Blanco paused--"unless he is playing two parts, and really serves Karyl.
Come, _Señor_, there is nothing further to interest us here."
CHAPTER XI
THE PASSING PRINCESS AND THE MISTAKEN COUNTESS
With the sapphire bay of Puntal at his back, his knees clasped between
interlacing fingers, Benton sat on the stone sea-wall and affected to
whistle up a lightness of heart. Near at hand sprawled a picturesque
city, its houses tinted in pea-greens, pinks and soft blues, or as white
and decorative as though fashioned in icing on a cake.
Clinging steeply to higher levels and leaning on buttressing walls, lay
outspread vineyards and cane fields and gardens. Splotching the whole
with imperial and gorgeous purple, hung masses of bougonvillea between
trellis and masonry. At a more lofty line, where the sub-tropical
profusion halted in the warning breath of a keener atmosphere, came the
scrub growth and beyond that, in succeeding altitudes, the pine belt,
the snow line and the film of trailing cloud on the white peaks.
Out of the center of the color-splashed town rose the square tower of
the ancient cathedral, white in a coat of plaster for two-thirds of its
height, but gray at its top in the nakedness of mossy stone.
To its dilapidated clock Benton's eyes traveled repeatedly and anxiously
while he waited.
From the clock they wandered in turn to the road circling the bay, and
the cliff at his left, where the jail-like walls of the King's Palace
rose sheer from the rock, fifty feet above him.
From the direction of the Cathedral drifted fragments of band music, and
the bugle calls of marching platoons. Everywhere festivity reigned,
working great profits to the keepers of the wine-shops.
Manuel Blanco turned the corner and Benton slipped quickly down from his
perch on the wall and fell into step as the other passed.
"It is difficult to learn anything, _Señor_." The Spaniard spoke low as
he led the way outward from the city.
"Puntal is usually a quiet place and the festivities have made it like a
child at a _fiesta_. One hears only 'Long live the King--the Queen!'
There are to be illuminations to-night, and music, and the limit will be
taken off the roulette wheels at the Strangers' Club. Bah! One could
have read it in the papers without leaving Cadiz."
"Then you have learned nothing?"
"One thing, yes. An old friend of mine has come for the festivities from
the Duke's estate. He says the pass is picketed and a guard is posted
at the Look-out Rock."
"The Look-out Rock?" Benton repeated the words with an inflection of
inquiry.
"Yes--look above you at the hill whose summit is less high than the
ridge peaks--there below the snow." Blanco suddenly raised his voice
from confidential undertone to the sing-song of the professional guide.
"Yonder," he said, scarcely changing the direction of his pointed
finger, "is the unfinished sanatorium for consumptives which the Germans
undertook and left unfinished." Two soldiers were sauntering by, smart
in newly issued uniforms of tall red caps, dark tunics, sky-blue
breeches, and polished boots. "That point," went on Blanco, dropping his
voice again, as they passed out of earshot, "is three thousand, five
hundred feet above the sea. From the rock by the pines--if you had a
strong glass, you could see the Galavian flag which flies there--the eye
sweeps the sea for many empty leagues. One's gaze can also follow the
gorge where runs the pass through the mountains. Also, to the other
side, one has an eagle's glimpse of the Grand Duke's hunting lodge.
There is an observatory just back of the rock and flag. The speck of
light which you can see, like a splinter of crystal, is its dome, but
only military astronomers now look through its telescope. There one can
read the tale of open shutters or barred windows in the house of Louis,
the Dreamer. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Now, do you see the thread of broken masonry zig-zagging upward from
the Palace? That is a walled drive which runs part of the way up to the
rock. In other days the Kings of Galavia went thus from their castle to
the point whence they could see the peninsula spread out below like a
map on the page of a school-book."
"Yes? What else?"
"This. The lodge of the Duke as seen by the telescope sleeps
shuttered--an expanse of blank walls. Yet the Duke is there!"
"Louis--in Galavia?"
"Wait." Blanco laid his hand on the other's arm and smiled.
"My friend is superstitious--and ignorant. He tells how the Duke has a
ship's mast with wires on a tower fronting the far side. He says Louis
talks with the open sea."
"A Marconi mast?"
Manuel nodded.
Benton's eyes narrowed under drawn brows. When he spoke his voice was
tense.
"In God's name, Manuel," he whispered, "what is the answer?"
The Spaniard met the gaze gravely. "I fancy, _Señor_," he said slowly,
"the matches will burn."
"When? Where?"
"_Quien sabe?_" Blanco paused to light a cigarette. Two priests, their
black robes relieved by crimson sashes and stockings, approached, and
until they were at a safe distance he talked on once more at random with
the sing-song patter of the guide. "That dungeon-like building is the
old Fortress _do Freres_. It has clung to that gut of rock out there in
the bay since the days when the Moors held the Mediterranean. It is said
that the new King will convert it from a fortress into a prison. It is
now employed as an arsenal."
Slowly the two men moved back to the busier part of the city. They
walked in silence until they were swallowed in the crowds drifting near
the Central Avenue. Finally Blanco leaned forward, moved by the anxious
face of his companion. "_Mañana, Señor_," he suggested reassuringly.
"Perhaps we may learn to-morrow."
"And to-morrow may be too late," replied Benton.
"Hardly, _Señor_. The marriage and coronation are the day following. It
should be one of those occasions." Benton only shuddered.
They swung into the _Ruo Centrale_, between lining sycamores, olive
trees and acacias, to be engulfed in a jostling press of feast-day
humanity. Suddenly Benton felt his coat-sleeve tugged.
"Let us stop," Manuel shouted into his ear above the roar of the
carnival clamor. "The Royal carriage comes."
Between a garden and the pavement ran a stone coping, topped by a tall
iron grill, and laden with screening vines. The two men mounted this
masonry and clung to the iron bars, as the crowd was driven back from
the street by the outriders. Before Benton's eyes the whole mass of
humanity swam in a blur of confusion and vertigo. The passing files of
blue and red soldiery seemed wavering figures mounted on reeling horses.
The King's carriage swung into view and a crescendo of cheering went up
from the crowd.
Benton saw blurred circles of color whirling dizzily about a steady
center, and the center was the slender woman at Karyl's side, who was
the day after to-morrow to become his Queen. He saw the fixed smile with
which she tried to acknowledge the salutations as the crowd eddied about
her carriage. Her wide, stricken eyes were shimmery with imprisoned
tears. To drive through the streets of Puntal with that half-stunned
misery written clear in lips and eyes, she must, he knew, have reached
the outmost border of endurance. Karyl bent solicitously forward and
spoke, and she nodded as if answering in a dream, smiling wanly. It was
all as some young Queen might have gone to the guillotine rather than to
her coronation. As she looked bewilderedly from side to side her glance
fell upon the clustering flowers of the vine. Benton gripped the iron
bars and groaned, and then her eyes met his. For a moment her pupils
dilated and one gloved hand convulsively tightened on the paneling of
the carriage door. The man dropped into the crowd and was swallowed up,
and he knew by her familiar gesture of brushing something away from her
temples, that she believed she had seen an image projected from a
troubled brain.
"Come," he said brokenly to his companion, "for God's sake get me out of
this crowd."
* * * * *
The Strangers' Club of Puntal sits high on a solid wall of rock and
overlooks the sea. Its beauty is too full of wizardry to seem real, and
what nature had done in view and sub-tropical luxuriance the syndicate
which operates the ball rooms, tea gardens, and roulette wheels has
striven to abet. To-night a moon two-thirds full immersed the grounds in
a bath of blue and silver, and far off below the cliff wall the
Mediterranean was phosphorescent. In the room where the _croupiers_ spun
the wheels, the color scheme was profligate.
Benton idled at one of the tables, his eyes searching the crowd in the
faint hope of discovering some thread which he might follow up to
definite conclusion. Beyond the wheel, just at the _croupier's_ elbow,
stood a woman, audaciously yet charmingly gowned in red, with a
scale-like shimmer of passementerie. A red rose in her black hair threw
into conspicuous effect its intense luster.
She might have been the genius of _Rouge et Noir_. Her litheness had the
panther's sinuous strength. The vivid contrast of olive cheeks, carmine
lips and dark eyes, gave stress to her slender sensuousness.
Hers was the allurement of poppy and passion-flower. In her movements
was suggestion of vital feminine force.
Perhaps the incurious glance of the American made itself felt, for as
she threw down a fresh _louis d'or_, she looked up and their eyes met.
For an instant her expression was almost that of one who stifles an
impulse to recognize another. Possibly, thought Benton, she had mistaken
him for someone else.
"_Mon dieu_," whispered a voice in French, "the Comptessa d'Astaride is
charming this evening."
"Ah, such wit! Such charm!" enthused another voice at Benton's back.
"She is most perfect in those gowns of unbroken lines, with a single
rose." Evidently the men left the tables at once, for Benton heard no
more. He also turned away a moment later to make way for an Italian in
whose feverish eyes burned the roulette-lust. He went to the farthest
end of the gardens, where there was deep shadow, and a seaward outlook
over the cliff wall. There the glare of electric bulbs and blazing
doorways was softened, and the orchestra's music was modulated.
Presently he was startled by a ripple of laughter at his shoulder, low
and rich in musical vibrance.
"Ah, it is not like this in your gray, fog-wrapped country."
Benton wheeled in astonishment to encounter the dazzling smile of the
Countess Astaride. She was standing slender as a young girl, all agleam
in the half-light as though she wore an armor of glowing copper and
garnets.
"I beg your pardon," stammered the American, but she laid a hand lightly
on his arm and smilingly shook her head.
"I know, Monsieur Martin, we have not met, but you were with the Duke at
Cadiz. You have come in his interest. In his cause, I acknowledge no
conventions." In her voice was the fusing of condescension and regal
graciousness. "It was wise," she thoughtfully added, "to shave your
mustache, but even so Von Ritz will know you. You cannot be too
guarded."
For an instant Benton stood with his hands braced on the coping
regarding her curiously. Evidently he stood on the verge of some
revelation, but the rôle in which her palpable mistake cast him was one
he must play all in the dark.
"You can trust me," she said with an impassioned note but without
elevating her voice. "I am the Countess--"
"Astaride," finished Benton.
Then he cautiously added the inquiry: "Have you heard the plans that
were discussed by the Duke, and Jusseret and Borttorff?"
"And yourself and Lieutenant Lapas," she augmented.
"And Lapas and myself," admitted Benton, lying fluently.
"I know only that Louis is to wait at his lodge to hear by wireless
whether France and Italy will recognize his government," she hastily
recited; "and that on that signal you and Lapas wait to strike the
blow."
"Do you know when?" inquired the American, fencing warily in the effort
to lead her into betrayal of more definite information.
"It must be soon--or never! But tell me, has Louis come? Has he reached
his hunting lodge? Does he know that guards are at the rock? Do you, or
Lapas, wait to flash the signal from the look-out? Ah, how my gaze shall
be bent toward the flag-staff." Then, as her eyes wandered out to sea,
her voice became soft with dreams. She laughed low and shook her head.
"Louis, Louis!" she murmured. "When you are King! But tell me--" again
she was anxious, executive, imperious--"tell me everything!"
Obviously he was mistaken for the English Jackal!
Benton countered anxiously. "Yet, Your Majesty,"--he bent low as he
anticipated her ambition in bestowing the title--"Your Majesty asks so
many questions all at once, and we may be interrupted."
Once more she was in a realm of air castles as she leaned on the stone
coping and gazed off into the moonlight. "It is but the touching of a
button," she murmured, "and _allons_! In the space of an explosion,
dynasties change places." Suddenly she stood up. "You are right. We
cannot talk here. I shall be missed. Take this"--she slipped a seal ring
from her finger. "Come to me to-morrow morning. I am at the Hôtel de
France. I shall be ostensibly out, but show the ring and you will be
admitted. When I am Queen, you shall not go undecorated." She gave his
hand a warm momentary pressure and was gone.
CHAPTER XII
BENTON MUST DECIDE
On the next afternoon at the base of the flag-staff above Look-out Rock,
Lieutenant Lapas nervously swept the leagues of sea and land, spreading
under him, with strong glasses. Though the air was somewhat rarer and
cooler here than below, beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and
the cigarettes which he incessantly smoked followed each other with a
furious haste which denoted mental unrest.
At a sound of foliage rustled aside and a displaced rock bumping down
the slope, the watcher took the glasses from his eyes with a nervous
start.
Up the hill from the left climbed an unknown man. His features were
those of a Spaniard. As the officer's eyes challenged him he halted,
panting, to mop his brow with the air of one who takes a breathing space
after violent exertion. The newcomer smiled pleasantly as he leaned
against a bowlder and genially volunteered: "It is a long journey from
the shore." Then after a moment he added in a tone of respectful
inquiry: "You are Lieutenant Lapas?"
The officer had regained his composure. He regarded the other with a
mild scrutiny touched with superciliousness as he nodded acquiescence
and in return demanded: "Who are you?"
"Do you see that speck of white down yonder by the sea?" Blanco drew
close and his outstretched finger pointed a line to the Duke's lodge. "I
come from there," he explained with concise directness.
The officer bit his lip.
"Why did you come?" The Spaniard paused to roll a cigarette before he
answered:
"I come from the Duke, of course. Why else should I climb this accursed
ladder of hills?"
"What Duke?" The interrogation tumbled too eagerly from the soldier's
lips to be consonant with his wary assumption of innocence. "There are
so many Dukes. Myself, I serve only the King."
The Spaniard's teeth gleamed, and there was a strangely disarming
quality in the smile that broke in sudden illumination over his dark
face.
"I have been here only a few days," explained Blanco. Then, lying with
apt fluency, he continued: "I have arrived from Cadiz in the service of
the Grand Duke Louis Delgado, who will soon be His Majesty, Louis of
Galavia, and I am sent to you as the bearer of his message." He ignored
the other's protestations of loyalty to the throne as completely as he
ignored the frightened face of the man who made them.
Lapas had whitened to the lips and now stood hesitant. "I don't
understand," he stammered.
The Spaniard's expression changed swiftly from good humor to the
sternness of a taskmaster.
"The Duke is impatient," he asserted, "of delays and misunderstandings
on the part of his servants. His Grace believed that your memory had
been well schooled. Louis, the King, may prove forgetful of those who
are forgetful of Louis, the Duke."
Lapas still stood silent, pitiably unnerved. If the man was Karyl's spy
an incautious reply might cost him his life. If he was genuinely a
messenger from the Pretender any hesitation might prove equally fatal.
Time was important. Blanco drew from his pocket a gold seal ring which
until last night had adorned the finger of the Countess Astaride. Upon
its shield was the crest of the House of Delgado. At the sight of the
familiar quarterings, the officer's face became contrite, apologetic,
but above all immeasurably relieved.
"Caution is so necessary," he explained. "One cannot be too careful. It
is not for myself alone, but for the Duke also that I must have a care."
Blanco accepted the explanation with a bow, then he spoke energetically
and rapidly, pressing his advantage before the other's weakness should
lead him into fresh vacillation.
"The Duke feared that there might be some misunderstanding as to the
signal and the programme. He wished me to make it clear to you."
Lapas nodded and, turning, led the way through the pine trees to a small
kiosk that was something between a sentinel box and a signal station
built against the walls of the old observatory.
"I think I understand," said Lapas, "but I shall be glad to have you
repeat the Duke's commands and inform me if any changes have been made."
"No, the arrangements stand unaltered," replied the Spaniard. "My
directions were that you should repeat to me the order of your
instructions and that I should judge for His Grace whether or not your
memory is retentive. There must be no hitch."
"I don't know you," demurred Lapas.
"His Grace knows me--and trusts me. That should be sufficient," retorted
Blanco. "I bring you credentials which you will refuse to recognize at
your own risk. Unless I were in the confidence of the Duke, I could
scarcely be here with a knowledge of your plans."
Blanco's eyes blazed in sudden and well simulated wrath. "I have no time
to waste in argument. Choose quickly. Shall I return to Louis and inform
him that you refuse to trust those he selects to bear his orders?"
For an instant the Spaniard stood contemptuously regarding the other's
terror, then with a disgusted exclamation he turned on his heel and
started to the door of the kiosk. But Lapas was in a moment catching at
his elbow and protesting himself convinced. He led Blanco back to a
seat.
"Listen." The Lieutenant sat at the crude table in the center of the
small room and talked rapidly, as one rehearsing a well-learned lesson.
"The Fortress _do Freres_ is stocked with explosives. Karyl goes there
with Von Ritz and others of his suite to inspect the place with the view
of turning it into a prison. The Grand Duke, waiting at his hunting
lodge, is to receive by wireless the message from Jusseret and
Borttorff, who convey the verdict of Europe, as to whether or not it is
decided to recognize his Government. If their message be favorable, he
will raise the Galavian flag on the west tower of the hunting lodge, and
I shall relay the message here with the flag at Look-out Point. This
flag-pole will be the signal to those in the city whose fingers are on
the key, and whose key will explode the powder in _do Freres_. If the
flag which now flies from the flag-staff here is still flying when the
King enters the fortress, the cap will explode. If the flag-staff is
empty, the King's visit will be uneventful. It will require fifteen
minutes for the King to go from the Palace to the Fortress. I must not
remain here--I must be where I can see."
Lapas rose and consulted his watch with nervous haste. "You will excuse
me?" he added. "I must be at my post. Are you satisfied?"
Blanco also rose, bowing as he drew back the heavy chair he had
occupied. "I am quite satisfied," he approved. His hands were gripping
the chairback and when Lapas had taken two paces to the front, and
Blanco had appraised the distance between, the chair left the floor.
With the same lightning swiftness of motion that had brought salvos of
applause from the bull-rings of Cadiz and Seville, he swung it above his
head and brought down its cumbersome weight in an arc.
Lapas, his eyes fixed on the door, had no hint. A picture of serene sky
and steady mountains was blotted from his brain. There was blackness
instead--and unconsciousness.
A bleeding scalp told the _toreador_ that the blow had only cut and
stunned.
Rapidly he bound and gagged his captive. Dragging him back through the
narrow room he made certainty doubly sure by tying him to the base of
the neglected telescope in the abandoned observatory.
A hundred yards below the rock, tucked out of sight of the man at the
flag-pole, stretched a ledge-like strip of level ground, backed by the
thick tangle of growth which masked the slope. Beyond its edge of
roughly blocked and crevassed stone, the gorge fell away a dizzy
thousand feet. Out of the pines struggled the half-overgrown path where
once a road had led from the castle. This way the earlier Lords of
Galavia had come to look across the backbone of the peninsula, to the
east.
As Benton paced the ledge impatiently, awaiting the outcome of Blanco's
reconnoiter, he noticed with a nauseating sense of onrushing peril how
the purpled shadows of the mountains were lengthening across the valley
and beginning to creep up the other side.
Each time his pacing brought him to the edge of the clearing he paused
to look down at the sullen walls of Karyl's castle.
A woman, flushed and breathless from the climb, pushed through the scrub
pines at the path's end and stopped suddenly at the marge of the
clearing. Her slender girlish figure, clad in corduroy skirt and blue
jersey, was poised with lance-like straightness, and a grace as free as
a boy's. Her hands, cased in battered gauntlets, went suddenly to her
breast, as though she would muffle the palpitant heart beneath the
jersey. She stood for a moment looking at the man and the ultramarine of
her eyes clouded slowly into gray. The pink flush of exercise died
instantly to pallor in her cheeks.
Then the lips overcame an impulse to quiver and spoke slowly in an
undertone and with marked effort. "This is twice that I have seen you,"
she whispered, "although you are three thousand miles away."
The man wheeled, not suddenly, but heavily and slowly. "I am real," he
answered simply.
Cara put out one hand like a sleep-walker, and came forward, still
incredulous.
"Cara, dearest one!" he said impetuously. "You must have known that I
would be near you--that I would be standing by, even though I couldn't
help!"
She shook her head. "I have been having these hallucinations, you know,
of late." She explained as though to herself. "I guess it's--it's just
missing people so that does it."
She was close to him now, close, too, to the sheer drop of the cliff,
walking forward with eyes wide and fixed on his face. He took a quick
step forward and swept her to him, crushing her against his breast.
She gave a glad exclamation of realization, and her own arms closed
impulsively around his neck.
"You are real! You are real!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, her
gauntleted hands holding his face between them.
"Cara," he begged, "listen to me. It's my last plea. You said in the
letter I have in my pocket--there where your heart is beating--that you
could not refuse me if I came again. Dear, this is 'again.' The _Isis_
is a speck out there at sea awaiting a signal. Will you go? I have no
throne to offer, but--"
"Don't," she cried, holding a hand over his lips. "For a minute--just
for a little golden minute--let us forget thrones." Then as the furrow
came back between her brows: "Oh, boy, it's my destiny to be always
strong enough to resist happiness when I might have it by being less
strong, and always too weak to bear bravely what must be borne--when it
can't be helped."
He stood silent.
After a moment she went on. "And I love you. Ah, you know that well
enough, but up there beyond your head which I love, I see the green and
white and blue flag of Galavia which I hate, and destiny commands me to
be disloyal to you for loyalty to it. On the eve of life imprisonment,"
she went on, clinging to him, "I have stolen away to play truant perhaps
for the last time--still craving freedom, longing for you; and now I
find freedom, and you, just to lose you again! I can't--I can't--yes--I
can--I will!"
Suddenly he held her off at arms' length and looked at her with a
strange wide-eyed expression of discovery.
"But," he cried with the vehemence of a sudden thought, "you are up
here--safe! Safe, whatever happens down there! Nothing that occurs there
can affect you!"
"Safe, of course," she spoke wonderingly. "What danger is there?"
The man turned. "For God's sake--let me think a moment!" He dropped on
the pine needles and sat with his hands covering his face and his
fingers pressed into his temples. She came over.
"Does that prevent your thinking?" she softly asked, dropping on her
knees at his side and letting one hand rest on his shoulder.
For moments, lengthening into minutes, he sat immovable, fighting back
the agonized and torrential flood of thought which burst upon him with
unwarned temptation. The danger was not after all a danger to the woman
he loved, but a menace to his enemy. She was safe three thousand feet
above the threatening city. He had only to hold his hand, perhaps, for a
half-hour; had only to keep her here and let matters follow their
course.
He was not entertaining the thought, except to assure himself that he
could not entertain it, but it was racking him with its suddenness. The
King was there--in peril. She was here--safe. Insistently these two
facts assaulted his brain.
"Pardon, _Señor_." Blanco broke noisily down through the pines and
halted where the path emerged. For an instant he stood in bewildered
surprise.
"Pardon, Your Highness--" he exclaimed, bending low; then, quenching the
recognition in his eyes and assuming mistake, he laughed. "Ah, I ask
forgiveness, _Señorita_. I mistook you for the Princess. The resemblance
is strong. I see my error."
"Manuel!" Benton rose unsteadily and stared at the _toreador_ with a
face pallid as chalk. He spoke wildly, "Quick, Manuel--have you learned
anything?"
The Spaniard glanced inquiringly at the girl, and as Benton nodded
reassurance went on in a lowered voice. Only fragments of his speech
reached Cara's ears. Her own thoughts left her too apathetic to listen.
"The plan is this. It is to happen at the Fortress _do Freres_ this
afternoon while the King inspects the arsenal. Now, in fifteen minutes!"
He pointed down toward the city. "See, the cortége leaves the Palace!
Lapas was to be here at the rock--the blessed Saints help him! He is
hobbled to his telescope." Swiftly he rehearsed the story as it had come
from the lips of Lapas.
Benton was studying the Duke's lodge with his glasses. "There is a flag
flying on the west tower," he muttered.
He turned slowly toward the Princess. Outstanding veins were tracing
cordlike lines on his temples. His fingers trembled as he focused the
glasses.
Blanco looked slowly from one to the other. Suddenly he threw back both
shoulders and his eyes grew bright in full comprehension of the
situation he had discovered.
"_Señor!_" he whispered.
"Yes?" echoed the American in a dull voice.
"_Señor_--suppose--suppose I have confused the signals?" The tone was
insinuating.
Benton's mind flashed back to a Sunday School class of his childhood and
his infantile horror for the tale of a tempter on a high mountain
offering the possession of all the world if only--if only--
He took a step forward. Speech seemed to choke him.
"In God's name!" he cried, "you have not forgotten?"
The Spaniard slowly shook his head and smiled. The expression gave to
his face a touch of the sinister. "No--but it is yet possible to forget,
_Señor_. I serve no King, I serve you. Sometimes a mistake is the truest
accuracy. _Quien sabe?_"
The Andalusian looked at the girl who stood puzzled and waiting.
"Sometimes in the _Plaza de Toros, Señor_," he went on, speaking rapidly
and tensely, "the throngs cry, '_Bravo, matador_!' and toss coins into
the ring. Yet in a moment the same throngs may shout until their
throats are hoarse: '_Bravo, toro_!' A King is like a bull in the ring,
_Señor_--he has a fickle fate. To me he is nothing--if it pleases
them--it is their King--let them do as they wish." He shrugged his
shoulders.
Benton straightened. "Manuel," he said with a strained tone, "the flag
comes down."
The Andalusian smiled regretfully, and once more shrugged his shoulders.
"As you say, _Señor_, but are you sure you wish it so?"
"Manuel, I mean that!" said the American with a steadied voice. "And for
God's sake, Manuel," he added wildly, "throw the rope over the gorge
when you have done it!"
For a moment Benton stood rigid, his hands clenched together at his back
as he watched the quick step of the Andalusian climbing to the
flag-staff. At last he turned dully and looked down where he could see
the royal cortége, not yet half-way along the road to the fortress, then
he went over to the girl's side.
"Cara," he said, "I have earned the right to kiss you good-by."
"It's yours without the earning, but good-by--!" She shuddered. "What
does it all mean?" she asked in bewilderment. "What was it you
discussed?"
"Listen," he commanded. "Tell Von Ritz or Karyl that Lapas is a traitor
and a prisoner in the observatory; that Louis is at his lodge and that
the Countess Astaride is a conspirator in a plot to assassinate the
King. Tell them that a percussion cap and key connect the magazines of
_do Freres_ with the city."
The Princess looked at him with eyes that slowly widened in amazed
comprehension. "I understand," she whispered. "And the flag--see, it is
coming down--that means?"
He dropped on one knee and lifted her fingers to his lips. "It means
that you are to be crowned Queen in Galavia to-morrow," he answered with
a groan. "Long live the Queen!"
CHAPTER XIII
CONCERNING FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS
"To-morrow!" repeated the girl with a shudder.
Both stood silent under such a strain as cannot be long sustained. At
the crunch of branch underfoot and the returning Blanco's, "_Señor!
Señor!_" both started violently.
"Look, _Señor_," exclaimed the Spaniard. "The King has entered the
fortress." Then, seeing that the eyes of both man and girl turned at his
words from an intent gaze, not on the town but the opposite hills, he
added, half-apologetic: "I shall go, _Señor_, and look to my prisoner.
If you need me, I shall be there."
With the same stricken misery in her eyes that they had worn as she
passed in her carriage, Cara remained motionless and silent.
The bottom of the valley grew cloudy with shadow. The sun was kissing
into rosy pink the snow caps of the western ridge. A cavalcade of
horsemen emerged at last from _do Freres_ and started at a smart trot
for the Palace. Cara pointed downward with one tremulous finger. Benton
nodded.
"Safe," he said, but without enthusiasm.
"I must go." Cara started down the path and the man walked beside her as
far as the battered gate which hung awry from its broken columns. Over
it now clambered masses of vine richly purple with bougonvillea. She
broke off a branch and handed it to him. "Purple," she said again, "is
the color of mourning and royalty."
Blanco noted the coming of evening and realized that it would be well to
reach the level of the city before dark. He knew that if Lapas was to be
turned over to Karyl's authorities, steps to that end should be taken
before he was discovered and released by those of his own faction. He
accordingly made his way back to the gate.
Benton was still standing, looking down the alley-way which ran between
the half ruined lines of masonry. His shoulders unconsciously sagged.
The Spaniard approached quietly and stood for a moment unwilling to
interrupt, then in a low voice touched with that affectionate note which
men are not ashamed to show even to other men in the Latin countries, he
said: "_Señor_ Benton!"
The American turned and put out his hand, grasping that of the
_toreador_. His grip said what his lips left unworded.
"_Dios mio!_" exclaimed Blanco with a black scowl. "We saved the King,
but we bought his life and his throne too high! He cost too dear!"
"Blanco," Benton spoke with difficulty, "I have brought you with me and
you have asked no questions. The story is not mine to tell."
The Andalusian raised a hand in protestation.
"It is not necessary that you tell me anything, _Señor_. I have seen
enough. And I know the King was not worth the price."
Benton shook his head. "Are you going on with me, now that you know what
you know?"
"_Señor_, it grieves me that you should ask. I told you I was at your
disposition." The Spaniard went on talking rapidly, talking with lips
and eyes and gesture. "When you came to Cadiz and took me with you on
the small steamer, I did not ask why. I thought it was as Americans are
interested in all things--or perhaps because the many million _pesetas_
of the _Señor's_ fortune might be affected by changing the map of
Europe. No matter. You were interested. It was enough."
He swept both hands apart.
"But had I known then what to-day has taught me, I should have held my
tongue that evening when the Pretender plotted in the café."
"To-morrow," said Benton slowly, "there will be festivity. I can't be
here then. I must leave to-night--but you, _amigo mio_, you must stay
and watch. If Lapas is taken prisoner and silenced there will be no one
in Puntal who will suspect you. No one knew me and if I leave at once,
the Countess will hardly learn who was the mysterious man to whom she
gave a ring."
"But, _Señor_,"--Blanco was dubious--"would it not be better that I
should be with you?"
"You can serve me better by remaining here. I would rather have you near
Her."
The man from Cadiz nodded and crossed himself.
"I am pledged, _Señor_," he asserted.
"Then," continued the American, "for a time we must separate. The _Isis_
will sail to-night."
The men walked together to the terminal station of the small ratchet
railway. When they parted the Spaniard and the yachtsman had arranged a
telegraph code which might be used by the small but complete wireless
equipment of the _Isis_. An hour later the launch from the yacht took
him aboard at the ancient stone jetty, where the fruit-venders and
wine-sellers shouted their jargon, and the seaweed clung to the landing
stage.
* * * * *
When Karyl had returned to the Palace after the inspection of the
Fortress _do Freres_, he had sent word at once to that part of the
Palace where Cara had her suite. She was accompanied by her aunt, the
Duchess of Apsberg, and her English cousin, Lilian Carrowes, who also
knew something of the life in America with the Bristows.
The King craved an interview. He had not seen her since morning and his
request conveyed the desolation occasioned by the long interval of empty
time.
The girl, who in the more informal phases had consistently defied the
Court etiquette, sent an affirmative reply, and Karyl, still in uniform
and dust-stained, came at once to the rooms where she was to receive
him.
There was much to talk of, and the King came forward eagerly, but the
girl halted his protestations and rapidly sketched for him the summary
of all she had learned that afternoon.
With growing astonishment Karyl listened, then slowly his brows came
together in a frown.
It was distasteful to him beyond expression to feel that he owed his
life and throne to Benton, but of that he said nothing. Lapas had been,
in the days of his childhood, his playmate. He had been the recipient of
every possible favor, and Karyl, himself ingenuous and loyal to his
friends, felt with double bitterness that not only had his enemy saved
him, but, too, his friend had betrayed him.
Then came a hurried message from Von Ritz, who begged to see the King at
once. The soldier must have been only a step behind his messenger, for
hardly had his admittance been ordered when he appeared.
The officer looked from the King to the Princess, and his eyes
telegraphed a request for a moment of private audience.
"You may as well speak here," said Karyl dryly. "Her Highness knows what
you are about to say."
"Lieutenant Lapas," began Von Ritz imperturbably, "has not been seen at
the Palace to-day. His duties required his presence this evening. He was
to be near Your Majesty at the coronation to-morrow."
"Where is he?" demanded the King.
"That is what I should like to know," replied Von Ritz. "I learn that
last night the Count Borttorff was in Puntal and that Lapas was with
him. To-day the Countess Astaride left Puntal, greatly agitated. I am
informed that from her window she watched _do Freres_ with glasses
during Your Majesty's visit there, and that when you left she swooned.
Within ten minutes she was on her way to the quay and boarded the
out-going steamer for Villefranche. These things may spell grave
danger."
So rarely had Karyl been able to anticipate Von Ritz in even the
smallest matter that now, despite his own chagrin, he could not repress
a cynical smile as he inquired: "What do you make of it?"
Von Ritz shook his head. "I shall report to Your Majesty within an
hour," he responded.
"That is not necessary," Karyl spoke coolly. "You will, I am informed,
find Lieutenant Lapas bound to a telescope at the Rock. You will find
the explosives at _do Freres_ connected with a percussion cap which was
to have been touched while we were there this afternoon. The Countess
was disappointed because the percussion cap was not exploded. Sometimes,
when ladies are bitterly grieved, they swoon."
For a moment the older man studied the younger with an expression of
surprise, then the sphinx-like gravity returned to his face.
"Your Majesty, may I inquire why the cap failed to explode?" he asked,
with pardonable curiosity.
"Because"--Karyl's cheeks flushed hotly--"an American gentleman, who had
been here a few hours, intercepted the signal--and reversed it."
For an instant Von Ritz looked fixedly into the face of the King, then
he bowed.
"In that case," he commented, "there are various things to be done."
CHAPTER XIV
COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR JOIN FORCES
When Monsieur François Jusseret, the cleverest unattached ambassador of
France's _Cabinet Noir_, had first met the Countess Astaride, his
sardonic eyes had twinkled dry appreciation.
This meeting had seemed to be the result of a chance introduction. It
had in reality been carefully designed by the French manipulator of
underground wires. Louis Delgado he already knew, and held in contempt,
yet Louis was the only possible instrument for use in converting certain
vague possibilities into definite realities. Changing the nebulous into
the concrete; shifting the dotted line of a frontier from here to there
on a map; changing the likeness that adorned a coin or postage-stamp:
these were things to which Monsieur Jusseret lent himself with the same
zest that actuates the hunting dog and makes his work also his passion.
If the vacillation of Louis Delgado could be complemented by the strong
ambition of a woman, perhaps he might be almost as serviceable as though
the strength were inherent. And Paris knew that Louis worshiped at the
shrine of the Countess Astaride. The Countess was therefore worth
inspecting.
The presentation occurred in Paris, when the Duke took his acquaintance
to the charming apartments overlooking the Arc de Triomphe, where the
lady poured tea for a small _salon_ enlisted from that colony of
ambitious and broken-hearted men and women who hold fanatically to the
faith that some throne, occupied by another, should be their own. Here
with ceremony and stately etiquette foregathered Carlists and
Bonapartists and exiled Dictators from South America. Here one heard the
gossip of large conspiracies that come to nothing; of revolutions that
go no farther than talk.
In Paris the Duke Louis Delgado was nursing, with lukewarm indignation,
wrath against his royal uncle of Galavia who had fixed upon him a sort
of modified exile.
Louis had only a languid interest in the feud between his arm of the
family and the reigning branch. He would willingly enough have taken a
scepter from the hand of any King-maker who proffered it, but he would
certainly never, of his own incentive, have struck a blow for a throne.
Sometimes, indeed, as he sat at a café table on the _Champs Elysées_
when awakening dreams of Spring were in the air and a military band was
playing in the distance, dormant ambitions awoke. Sometimes when he
watched the opalescent gleam in his glass as the garçon carefully
dripped water over absinthe, he would picture himself wresting from the
incumbent, the Crown of Galavia, and would hear throngs shouting "Long
live King Louis!" At such moments his stimulated spirit would indulge in
large visions, and his half-degenerate face would smile through its
gentle but dissipated languor.
Louis Delgado was a man of inaction. He had that quality of personal
daring which is not akin to moral resoluteness. He was ready enough at a
fancied insult to exchange cards and meet his adversary on the field,
but a throne against which he plotted was as safe, unless threatened by
outside influences, as a throne may ever be.
When Louis presented Jusseret to the Countess Astaride there flashed
between the woman of audacious imagination and the master of intrigue a
message of kinship. The Frenchman bent low over her hand.
"That hand, Madame," he had whispered, "was made to wield a scepter."
The Countess had laughed with the melodious zylophone note that caressed
the ear, and had flashed on Jusseret her smile which was a magic thing
of ivory and flesh and sudden sunshine. She had held up the slender
fingers of the hand he had flattered, possibly a trace pleased with the
effect of the Duke's latest gift, a huge emerald set about with small
but remarkably pure brilliants. She had contemplated it, critically, and
after a brief silence had let her eyes wander from its jewels to the
Frenchman's face.
"Wielding a scepter, Monsieur," she had suggested smilingly, "is less
difficult than seizing a scepter. I fear I should need a stronger hand."
"Ah, but Madame," the Frenchman had hastened to protest, "these are the
days of the deft finger and the deft brain. Even crowns to-day are not
won in tug-of-war."
The woman had looked at him half-seriously, half-challengingly.
"I am told, Monsieur Jusseret," she said, "that no government in Europe
has a secret which you do not know. I am told that you have changed a
crown or two from head to head in your career. Let me see _your_ hand."
Instantly he had held it out. The fastidiously manicured fingers were as
tapering and white as her own.
"Madame," he observed gravely, "you flatter me. My hand has done
nothing. But I do not attribute its failure to its lack of brawn."
"Some day," murmured Delgado, from his inert posture in the deep
cushions of a divan, "when the time is ripe, I shall strike a decisive
blow for the Throne of Galavia."
Jusseret's lip had half-curled, then swiftly he had turned and flashed a
look of inquiry upon the woman. Her eyes had been on Louis and she had
not caught the quick glint that came into the Frenchman's pupils, or the
thoughtful regard with which he studied her and the Duke across the edge
of his teacup. Later, when he rose to make his adieux, she noted the
thoughtful expression on his face.
"Sometimes," he had said enigmatically, and had paused to allow his
meaning to sink in, "sometimes a scepter stays where it is, not because
the hand that holds it is strong, but because the outstretched hand is
weak or inept. Your hand is suited."
She had searched his eyes with her own just long enough to make him feel
that in the give-and-take of glances hers did not drop or evade, and he,
trained in the niceties of diplomatic warfare, had caught the message.
So the Countess had been fired with ardent dreams and later, when the
time seemed ripe, it was to her that Jusseret went, and with her that he
made his secret alliance.
The ambitions cherished by Marie Astaride to become Louis' queen were
secondary to a sincere devotion for Louis himself.
When at the last he had weakened and threatened to crumple, it was she
who goaded him back to resolution. When the Duke had gone half-heartedly
to his lodge to await the decision of the European Powers, it was she
who went to Puntal to direct the conspirators and watch, from the
windows of her hotel suite, the fortress on the jetty.
Her one deplorable error had been in mistaking Benton for Martin. This
had been natural enough. Though she had never met the "English Jackal,"
she had once or twice seen him at a distance, and she had been misled by
a strong resemblance and an excessive eagerness.
The afternoon she had spent on the balcony of her suite, her eyes fixed
on the Fortress _do Freres_.
At last, with a wildly beating heart she had seen the King, Von Ritz and
the escort ride up to the entrance and disappear. She had
waited--waited--waited, her nerves set for the climax, until the
continued silence seemed an unendurable shock.
Then the King and escort emerged. She, sitting pale and rigid, saw them
mount and turn back unharmed toward the city. Her ears, eagerly set for
the detonation which should shake the town and reverberate along the
mountain sides, ached with the emptiness of silence.
Across the street a soldier, off duty and in civilian clothes, sat on
the sea-wall and whittled. Incidentally he noticed that Madame the
Countess was interested beyond the usual in some matter. He was there to
notice Madame the Countess. His instructions from Von Ritz had been to
keep a record of her goings and comings, and who came to see her or went
away.
Therefore, when the King and his small retinue had trotted past the
window and when Madame the Countess rose to go in, and when just as she
crossed the low sill of the window she suddenly caught up both hands to
her throat and fell heavily to the floor, the soldier, whittling a small
crucifix, made a record of that also. When a moment later a gentleman
whom he had not seen in Puntal for months, but whom he knew as the Count
Borttorff, because that gentleman had formerly been Major of his
battalion, hurriedly left a closed carriage and entered the place, the
incident was noted. When still later both Borttorff and the Countess
emerged and reëntered the conveyance, driving rapidly away, he likewise
noted these things. Going from the pier whither he had followed the
closed carriage, he reported his observations with soldierly dispatch to
Colonel Von Ritz.
The Grand Duke Louis meanwhile, waiting in great anxiety, had received
the message which had come by the wireless mast. The words were in code,
and being translated they read: "France, Italy, Spain, Portugal will
recognize. Strike." The signature was "Jt.," which Delgado knew for
Jusseret. The Duke had been greatly excited. He paced the room in a
nervous tremor. It was arranged that a small steamer, which had stood a
short distance offshore since yesterday to relay the wireless message
and make it doubly sure, should pick the Duke up as soon as Lapas
signaled by a triple dip of the flag that the fortress had been
destroyed. The steamer was then to rush the Grand Duke around the cape
to Puntal, bringing him in as though he had come from Spain. Those
conspirators who were in the capital, strengthened by those who would
declare for Louis, with Karyl dead and no other heir existent, would
proclaim him King. Lapas would see that the royal salute was fired as
the steamer entered the harbor, and the Countess would either meet him
and explain all the details or would speak with him by Marconi if she
had left the town.
Louis spent the forenoon in an agony of anxiety and impatience. All
afternoon he watched through binoculars the white and blue and green
flag on the rock above him. He was waiting for the triple dip that
should tell him the fortress had been scattered in débris and with it
the government. Evidently the King was late going to the arsenal.
He had imagined it would be earlier. The hours dragged interminably.
Louis walked the stone buttress where the flag which he had raised in
signal to Lapas flapped and whipped against its staff. At last his
binoculars, fixed on the rock, caught the dip of the colors there. With
a great sigh of relief the Duke watched to see them rise and dip, rise
and dip again. The flag came down the length of the pole--and did not go
up.
Panic seized the Pretender. There was no way of talking with the ridge
three thousand feet above. It was a climb of an hour and a half by the
pass. Evidently there had been a miscarriage. In the prearranged code of
flag signals the only provision for the drooping of the colors on the
hill was in the event that it should be wished to stop the explosion.
That would be only in the event of refusal by the governments to
recognize; the governments had not refused! Possibly Lapas had turned
traitor!
There had also been some unexplained delay seaward. The little steamer,
which should have remained near by, was a speck on the horizon, and
without her there was no possibility of escape. Wildly Louis, the
Dreamer, hurried to his improvised Marconi station and called the ship.
Finally toward evening came a response and with it a message from
somewhere out at sea, relayed from ship to ship around the peninsula.
The message said simply in code: "Failure. Make your escape." It was
signed "M. A."--Marie Astaride.
Louis rushed, panic-stricken, down to the shore. He and the few men with
him paced the beach in the settling twilight with desperate anxiety. The
steamer seemed to creep in, snail-like, over the smooth water. Meanwhile
binoculars fixed on the pass showed a number of small specks sifting
like ants through the lofty opening. Troops were advancing. It was now
the life-and-death question of which would arrive first, the boats from
the ship that had stood off at sea a bit too long, or the soldiers
coming across the broken backbone of the mountains.
At last the ship had drawn near, and circled under full steam far enough
out to get away to a flying start as soon as the Ducal party had been
taken on board. Small boats were rushed toward the beach and Louis, the
Dreamer, with his party waded knee-deep into the water to meet the
rescuers.
At the same moment a bugle call announced the coming of Karyl's
soldiery.
As Louis Delgado went over the side, he turned quickly back and, leaning
over the rail, gazed through the settling darkness toward shore.
"Do we make for Puntal, Your Majesty?" inquired the captain, saluting.
Louis turned coldly. "No."
The officer looked at the Duke for a moment and read defeat in his eyes.
"Where then--Your Grace?" he inquired.
Louis winced under the quick amendment of title. "Anywhere," he said
shortly; "anywhere--except Puntal."
CHAPTER XV
THE TOREADOR BECOMES AMBASSADOR
Manuel Blanco was ubiquitous during the first days following the
coronation. He listened to the fragments of talk that drifted along the
streets. He frequented the band concerts in the Public Gardens and drank
native vintages in the wine-shops. He elbowed his way naïvely into
chattering groups with his ears primed for a careless word. Nowhere did
he catch a note hinting of intrigue or danger. It seemed a sound
conclusion that if the plotters had not entirely surrendered their
project for switching Kings in Galavia, their conspiracies were being
once more fomented on foreign soil, just as the first plan had been
incubated in Cadiz.
One evening shortly after the dual celebration, a steamer laden with
tourists lay at anchor in the bay, outlined in points of light like a
set-piece of fireworks. Hundreds of new sight-seeing faces swarmed along
the narrow, cobbled streets. This would be a great night in the
Strangers' Club and Blanco decided to spend an hour there.
In evening dress he moved through the gardens and pavilions of the
casino on the rock, where with the coming of darkness the gayety of the
town began to focus and sparkle.
The coronation of Karyl had brought to an end official mourning for the
late King, and the crêpe which had palled the national insignia on all
public buildings had been cleared away. With this restoration of public
gayety came a liberal sprinkling of uniforms to the throngs that crowded
the ball-rooms, tea-gardens and gambling halls.
Blanco was standing apart, looking on, when he felt a light touch on his
shoulder and turned to find a young officer at his back who smilingly
begged him for a moment in the gardens. The Spaniard noticed that the
man who addressed him wore the epaulettes of a Captain of Infantry and
the added stripe and crown of gold lace at the cuff which designated
service in the household of the reigning family.
He turned and accompanied the officer through the wide door into the
lantern-hung grounds, passing between the groups which clustered
everywhere about small wicker tea-tables. There were no quiet or
secluded spots in the gardens of the Strangers' Club to-night, but after
a brief glance right and left the Captain led the way to a table in a
shadowed niche between two doors. The light there was more shadowed and
the tides of promenaders did not crowd so close upon it as elsewhere. As
the two came up a third man rose from this table and Manuel found
himself looking into the flinty eyes of Colonel Von Ritz.
Von Ritz spoke briefly. If _Señor_ Blanco could spare the time, His
Majesty wished to speak with him.
The younger officer turned back into the casino and Von Ritz led the
_toreador_ through the front gardens, where the tennis courts lay bare
between the palms. The acacias and sycamores were soft, dark spots
against the far-flung procession of the stars.
The street outside was crowded with fiacres and cabs. Von Ritz signaled
to a footman and in a moment more Blanco and his escort had stepped into
a closed carriage and were being driven toward the Palace. They entered
by a side passage and the Colonel conducted him through several halls
and chambers filled with uniformed officers, and finally into a more
remote part of the building where they met only an occasional servant.
At last they came into a great room entirely empty but for themselves.
About the walls hung ripened portraits. The decorations were of
Arabesque mosaics with fantastic panels of Moorish tiling. It might have
been a grandee's house in Seville, patterned on the Alcazar. Evidently
this was part of a private suite. Heavy portières were only partly drawn
across a wide window with the sill at the floor level, and through them
Blanco dimly saw a balcony giving out over a small garden, and
commanding more distantly the harbor and town lights below. From
somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small fountain.
Here Von Ritz left his charge to himself, silently departing with a bow.
For a while the Spaniard remained alone. The room was not so brightly
illuminated as many through which he had come on his way across the
Palace. Light filtered through swinging lamps of wrought metal encrusted
with prisms of green and amber and garnet. The Moorish scheme depends in
part upon its shadows. Finally a gentleman entered from a balcony. He
was neither in uniform nor in evening dress. His face was smooth-shaven
and pleasing.
Blanco fancied this was a secretary or attendant of some sort, and was
conscious of slight surprise that as he entered the place he smoked a
cigarette with a freedom scarcely fitting the King's personal chambers.
At the window the gentleman halted and looked Blanco over with a frank
but not offensive curiosity. Manuel returned the gaze, wondering where
he had seen the face before, yet unable to identify it. Then the
newcomer crossed and proffered the Spaniard a cigarette from a gold
case, which the _toreador_ declined with a shake of his head.
"_Gracias, Señor_," he said, "but I am waiting for the King."
The other smiled, and the visitor noticed that even in smiling his lips
fell into lines of sadness.
"None the less," he said pleasantly, "a man may as well have the solace
of tobacco while he waits--even though he awaits a King."
The Andalusian once more shook his head, and the other continued to
study him with that undisguised interest which his eyes had worn from
the first.
"So you are one of the two men," he said, "who learned what all the
secret agents of the Throne failed to unearth. Incidentally it is to you
that the present King owes not only his Crown, but his life as well." He
paused.
"After all," he went on, "it is neither your fault nor Mr. Benton's that
the King could have done very well without either the Crown or his life.
You restored something which perhaps he held worthless.... But that is
his own misfortune."
Blanco's expressive face mirrored a shade of resentment. He had come on
summons from the King and found himself listening to the familiar, even
disrespectful, chatter of some underling who laughed at his Monarch and
lightly appraised the value of his life while he smoked cigarettes in
the Royal apartments. The Spaniard bowed stiffly.
"I observe you are in the confidence of the King," he said, in a tone
not untouched with disapproval.
The other man's lips curled in amusement. After a moment he replied with
simple gravity.
"I am the King."
Blanco stood gazing in astonishment. "You--the King!" Then, recognizing
that the shaving of a mustache and the change into civilian clothes had
made the difference in a face and figure he had seen only on the streets
and through shifting crowds, he bowed with belated deference.
Karyl once more held out his case. "Now perhaps you will have a
cigarette?"
The _toreador_ took one and lighted it slowly. The King went on.
"My sole pleasure is pretending that I am not a Monarch. Between
ourselves, I should prefer other employment. You, for example, I am told
have won fame in the bull ring--and it was fame you earned for
yourself."
Blanco flushed, then, bethinking himself of the fact that he had been
brought here presumably with a purpose, he ventured to suggest: "Your
Majesty wished to see me about some matter?"
The other shook his head.
"No," he said slowly, "it was not really I who sent for you. It was Her
Majesty, the Queen."
Before he had time for response the _toreador_ caught the sound of a
shaken curtain behind him, but since he stood facing the King he did not
turn.
Karyl, however, looked up, and then swiftly crossed the room. As he
passed, Blanco wheeled to face him and was in time to see him holding
back the portières of a door for the Queen to enter.
She was gowned in black with the sparkle of passementerie and jet, and
at her breast she wore a single red rose. As she stood for a moment on
the threshold, despite the majesty of her slender poise it appeared to
Blanco that her grace was rather that of something wild and free and
that the Palace seemed to cage her. But that may have been because, as
she paused, her hands went to her breast and a furrow came between her
brows, while the corners of her lips drooped wistfully like a child's.
The King stooped to kiss her hand, and she turned toward him with a
smile which was pallid and which did not dissipate the unhappiness of
her face. Then Karyl straightened and said to Blanco, who felt himself
suddenly grow awkward as a muleteer: "The Queen."
Manuel dropped on one knee. At a gesture from Cara he rose and waited
for her to speak. Karyl himself halted at the door for a moment, then
came slowly back into the room. He picked up from a tabouret a
decoration of the Star of Galavia, and, crossing over, pinned it to the
Spaniard's lapel.
"There!" he said, with a good-humored laugh. "You made me a somewhat
valueless present a few days back. You will find that equally useless,
Sir Manuel. You may tell Mr. Benton that I envy him such an ally."
With a bow to the Queen, the King left the apartment.
For a moment the girl stood at the door, with the same expression and
the same silence, unbroken by her since her entrance, then she turned to
the Spaniard and spoke directly. Her voice held a tremor.
"How is he?"
"I have not seen him since the day on the mountain," returned Manuel.
"He has, in you, a very true friend."
"Your Majesty, I am his servant," deprecated the toreador.
"If I had friends like you," she smiled, "it would matter little what
they called themselves. And yet, if there is but one like you, I had
rather that that one be with him. I want you to go to him now and remain
with him."
"Your Majesty, _Señor_ Benton left me here to watch for recurring
dangers. I am now satisfied that nothing threatens, at least for the
present. I might, as Your Majesty suggests, better be with him."
"Yes--yes--with him!" she eagerly agreed; then her voice took on the
timbre of anxiety. "I am afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is
not a coward, but there are times when we all become weak. I appoint
you, Sir Manuel--" the girl smiled wanly--"I appoint you my Ambassador
to be with him and watch after him--and, Sir Manuel--" her voice shook a
little with very deep feeling--"I am giving you the office I had rather
have than all the thrones in Christendom! Will you accept it?"
She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in his own, the
Andalusian bowed low over it. He did not kneel, for now he was the
Ambassador in the presence of his Sovereign. "With all the Saints for my
witnesses," he declared fervently, "I swear it to Your Majesty."
There was gratitude in her eyes as they met the whole-heartedness of the
pledge in his. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, though there was
no dimness of tear-mist in her pupils. She stood very upright and
silent, and her breathing was deep. Then slowly her hands came up and
loosened the flower at her breast.
"The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel," she said. "I don't think Mr.
Benton would care for knighthood--and I could not confer it--but
sometime--not now--some day after you have both departed from Galavia,
give him this. Tell him it may have a message which I may not put in
words. If he can read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he can
find it there."
When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of his embassy in paper and
deposited it in his breast pocket, she gave him her hand again, and,
turning, went out through the same door that she had entered.
Back in the town, Blanco had certain investigations to make. He knew Von
Ritz's men had been too late to capture the Duke, and that the Countess
Astaride had sailed by the steamer leaving for French and Italian ports.
Wherever these two conspirators should meet would become the next point
to watch.
Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop back into the
routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked with pessimistic memories
of how a crown had slipped through his fingers. It would take driving to
prevent him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding. On the
other hand, he knew that the Countess Astaride, having gone so far,
would never again relinquish her ambitions. He knew the temper of the
Countess's mind from various bits of gossip he had heard and now also
from what he had seen. He knew that, while she was entirely willing to
participate in a murder plot to further her designs, she was not fired
solely by a lust for power. More deeply she was actuated by her wish to
make Louis Delgado a man of potentiality because she loved Louis
Delgado.
That love might evidence itself in savagery toward men who obstructed
the road which her lover must travel to a crown, but it was a ferocity
born of love for the Pretender.
Since this was true it was not probable that she would allow the matter
to end where it stood. Even if she were willing, it was more than
certain that Jusseret had not entered into the undertaking without some
sufficient end in view. Having entered it, he would not relinquish it
because the first attempt had been bungled.
That same night Manuel sent a message to the _Isis_, saying that he was
sailing the following morning by the Genoa steamer and asking that the
yacht meet the ship and take him on board. Having done that much, he
went to the hotel where the Countess had stopped and told the clerk that
he had news of importance to communicate to Madame the Countess, and
that he wished to learn her present address. The clerk, like all Puntal,
was ignorant of what important matters had just missed happening, but he
had instructions from this lady to assume ignorance as to her
destination. Blanco, however, showed the seal ring which she had said
would prove a passport to her presence and which Benton had left with
him. He was promptly informed that she had taken passage for
Villefranche, and had ordered her mail forwarded there in care of the
steamship agency.
CHAPTER XVI
THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL
More suggestive of a stowaway than a millionaire, thought Blanco the
following afternoon, when he had come over the side of the _Isis_ and
sought out the owner of the yacht. Benton had turned hermit and
withdrawn to the most isolated space the vessel provided. It was really
not a deck at all--only a space between engine-room grating and
tarpaulined lifeboats on what was properly the cabin roof. Here, removed
from the burnished and ship-shape perfection of the yacht's appointment,
he lay carelessly shaven and more carelessly dressed.
The lazily undulating Mediterranean stretched unbroken save for the
yacht's stack, funnels and stanchions, in a sight-wide radius of blue.
Overhead the sky was serene. Here and there, in fitful humors, the sea
flowed in rifts of a different hue.
The sun was mellow and the breeze which purred softly in the cables
overhead came with the caressing breath that blows off the orange groves
of Southern Spain. Ahead lay all the invitation of the south of France;
of the Riviera's white cities and vivid countryside; of Monte Carlo's
casinos and Italy's villas. Beyond further horizons, waited the charm of
Greece, but the man lay on an old army blanket, clad in bagging flannels
and a blue army shirt open at the throat. His arms were crossed above
his eyes, and he was motionless, except that the fingers which gripped
his elbows sometimes clenched themselves and the bare throat above the
open collar occasionally worked spasmodically.
Blanco had come quietly, and his canvas shoes had made no sound. For a
time he did not announce himself. He was not sure that Benton was awake,
so he dropped noiselessly to the deck and sat with his hands clasped
about his knees, his eyes moodily measuring the rise and fall of the
glaringly white stanchions above and below the sky-line. At frequent
intervals they swept back to the other man, who still lay motionless. It
was late afternoon and the smoke-stack shadows pointed off in attenuated
lines to the bow while the sky, off behind the wake, brightened into the
colors of sunset. Finally Benton rose. The unexpected sight of Blanco
brought a start and an immediate masking of his face, but in the first
momentary glimpse the Andalusian caught a haggard distress which
frightened him.
"I didn't know you had come," said Benton quietly. "How long have you
been here?"
"I should say a half-hour, _Señor_," replied Manuel, casually rolling a
cigarette.
"Why didn't you rouse me? I'm not very amusing, but even I could have
relieved the dullness of sitting there like a marooned man on a
derelict."
"Dullness?" inquired the _toreador_ with a lazy lift of the brows. "It
is ease, _Señor_, and ease is desirable--at sea."
The American sat cross-legged on the deck and held out his hand for a
cigarette. When he asked a question he spoke in matter-of-fact tones. He
even laughed, and the Andalusian chatted on in kind, but secretly and
narrowly he was watching the other, and when he had finished his
scrutiny he told himself that Benton had been indulging in the dangerous
pastime of brooding.
"Tell me--everything," urged the yacht-owner. "What are the
revolutionists doing and how is--how are things?" Carefully he avoided
directing any question to the point on which his eagerness for news was
poignant hunger.
When Blanco told how Louis had left Galavia just before the soldiers
reached the lodge, Benton's face darkened. "That was fatal blundering,"
he complained. "So long as Delgado is at large the Palace is menaced.
If they had taken him, and held him under surveillance, the _Cabinet
Noir_ would be disarmed. Now they will try again."
Blanco nodded.
"There is no charge they can make against him," he mused. "They cannot
bring him back because the government cannot admit its peril. Outwardly
his bill of health is clean. Assuredly when they let him slip, _Señor_,
they committed a grave error."
Benton rose and paced the deck in deep reflection. At last he halted and
spread his hands in a gesture half-despairing.
"My God!" he said in a low voice. "The anxiety will drive me mad! You
saw their methods. An entire cortége was to be blown into the air--just
to kill Karyl. Next time, what will they attempt?" He broke off with a
shudder.
"I have seen the Queen," said Blanco slowly.
Benton wheeled. For an instant his face lighted, then he leaned forward.
He said nothing, but his whole attitude was a question.
"You behold in me, Sir Manuel Blanco," began the Andalusian grandly.
Then, slipping his arm through that of the other man, he began leading
him around the deck. When he had finished his narrative, he said: "I
begin my office as Ambassador by delivering this packet." From his
pocket he produced the paper-wrapped rose. "I was instructed to give it
to you at some future time. Possibly, _Señor_, I am over-prompt. Lawyers
and diplomats should be deliberate."
The Mediterranean day had died slowly from east to west while the men
had talked, and the last shred of glowing sky was darkening into the sea
at the edge of the world astern, when Benton greedily thrust out his
hand for the packet.
"_Gracias_," he said bluntly, and turning away went precipitously to his
cabin.
After dinner, when the Captain had betaken himself to the bridge and the
smoke from the Spaniard's cigarettes and Benton's pipe had begun to
wreathe clouds against the ceiling-beams, Blanco broached his diplomacy.
In the dulled expressionlessness of the face opposite him and the stoop
of the shoulders, Manuel read a need for an active antidote against the
corrosive poison of despair.
"Where are we going now, _Señor_?"
Benton shrugged his shoulders.
"'_Quien sabe!_' as you say in Spain. We are simply cruising, drifting,
keeping out of sight of land."
"And drifting is the precise thing, _Señor_, which we must not do. I
have hitherto done without question what you have said. Now I hold a
new dignity." There was a momentary flash of teeth as he smiled. "As
Ambassador, I make a request. May I be permitted to take entire control
of affairs for a brief time? Also, will you for a few days obey _my_
instructions, without question?"
Benton looked across the table at the dark face half-obscured behind a
blue fog of cigarette smoke. After a moment he smiled.
"Admiral," he said, "issue your orders."
"You will instruct the Captain," said Manuel promptly, "to head at once
for Villefranche. There you, _Señor_, will leave the yacht, and I will
go with it to Monte Carlo. I wish to be as soon as possible in the
casino where the drone of the _croupier_ and the clink of outflowing
_louis d'or_ constitute the national refrain."
Benton's eyes narrowed in perplexity. On his face was written curiosity,
but he had agreed to ask no questions. He unhesitatingly put his finger
on the electric bell.
"Ask the Captain to come here as soon as he is at leisure," he directed
when the steward had responded to the call.
"Good," commended Blanco. Then with a sorrowful shake of his head he
commiserated: "I am sorry that you are to be denied the excitement of
the _rouge et noir_ and the _trente et quarente_ of the gold table,
_Señor_, but if the Countess Astaride and Louis should meet there, the
lady would know you. I fancy that she will not again mistake you for
someone else. As for myself, neither of them yet knows me."
"Are they at Monte Carlo?" Benton sat suddenly upright, and Blanco had
the first reward of his diplomacy, as he noted the quickening interest
in the questioning eyes.
"I am only guessing, _Señor_. If the guess is good, I may learn
something. What is in my mind, may fail. If you are willing to trust me
I would rather not reveal it now."
"And I?" questioned Benton. "Have I any part to play in this, or do you
go it alone?"
Blanco leaned forward.
"It may be necessary to have someone near enough to the Palace in Puntal
to insure immediate action--action to be taken on the instant.... You
must return to the city, _Señor_.... It will be for only a few days. The
Grand Palace Hotel is above the town in large gardens.... If you choose
you can remain there with your presence absolutely unknown, so far as
the city proper is concerned. Also, the Marconi office has a station in
the hotel grounds. With a code which we have yet to arrange, I can keep
in touch with you...."
The next day Benton was a passenger by steamer from Villefranche to
Puntal.
The Grand Palace Hotel, dominating its own acres of subtropical gardens,
looks down on the city as one seated on an eminence commands the common
things at his feet. Between its grounds and the scalloped bay, run the
huddled habitations of the town's water-front, with its delicately
tinted walls and riotously colored gardens invading every crevice.
Following the semicircle of the bay, the eye commands that other
eminence where the King's Palace shuts itself in austerely at the very
center of the arc. Through the clustered, tea-sipping loungers on the
galleries and terraces Benton made his way several days later, wearing
the studiously affected unconcern of the tourist; an unconcern which he
found it desperately difficult to assume in Puntal.
Driven by a growing and intense desire to put distance between himself
and all alien humanity, he turned into a narrow, steeply climbing street
which ran twisting between toy-houses and vine-cumbered garden-walls,
until at last it lost its right to be called a street and became merely
a narrow, trail-like path up the mountain-side. The wanderer climbed
interminably. He took no thought of destination and satisfied himself
with the physical exertion of the laborious going.
His heart pounded faster as he attained the altitude of the pine woods
where he seemed to have left humanity behind him. Once or twice he saw a
shy, half-wild child who fled from its task of gathering fagots at his
approach, to gaze at him out of startled eyes from a safe distance.
Occasionally he would stop to look down, from some coign of vantage, at
cascading threads of water tumbling into the gorge below, or at a
châlet-like house perched far beneath in its trim patch of agriculture.
Finally he stretched himself indolently on a carpet of pine needles at
the brink of a drop to the valley. Then, with a sense of recognition, he
saw the tumbled-down gate of the King's driveway below him to the left,
and his face became set and miserable as memory began its work of
tearing open wounds not yet old.
Suddenly there drifted up a chorus of children's laughter. He sat up
suddenly and looked about, but no one was in sight. Again he heard an
unmistakable peal of shrill, childish merriment, seemingly close at
hand. He lay flat and looked over the ledge, holding on to a root of a
gnarled pine that grew far out at the marge.
Under him, not more than twenty yard
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