He looked reflectively at his polished boots. Sophy sat in thoughtful silence. A jingle of swords and the clatter of hoofs roused them. A troop of soldiers rode by. Their uniform was the same smart tunic of light blue, with black facings, as adorned Captain Markart's shapely person.
"Ah, here's the Prince!" said Markart, rising briskly to his feet. Sophy followed his example, though more in curiosity than respect.
The young man at the head of the troop returned Markart's salute, but was apparently unconscious of the individual from whom it proceeded. He rode by without turning his head or giving a glance in the direction of thecaféterrace. Sophy saw a refined profile, with a straight nose, rather short, and a pale cheek: there was little trace of the Bourbon side of the pedigree.
"He's on his promotion, too," continued the loquacious and irreverent Captain, as he resumed his seat. "They want a big fish for him—something German, with a resounding name. Poor fellow!"
"Well, it's his duty," said Sophy.
"Somebody who'll keep the Countess in order, eh?" smiled Markart, twirling his mustache. "That's about the size of it, I expect, though naturally the General doesn't show me his hand. I only tell you common gossip."
"I think you hardly do yourself justice. You've been very interesting, Captain Markart."
"I tell you what," he said, with an engaging candor, "I believe that somehow the General makes me chatter just to the extent he wants me to, and then stops me. I don't know how he does it; it's quite unconscious on my part. I seem to say just what I like!"
They laughed together over this puzzle. "You mean General Stenovics?" asked Sophy.
"Yes, General Stenovics. Ah, here he is!" He sprang up again and made a low bow to Sophy. "Au revoir, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks!"
He saluted her and hurried to the side of the pavement. General Stenovics rode up, with two orderlies behind him. Saluting again, Markart mounted his horse. The General brought his to a stand and waited the necessary moment or two with a good-humored smile. His eye wandered from the young officer to the presumable cause of his lack of vigilance. Sophy felt the glance rest on her face. In her turn she saw a stout, stumpy figure, clad in a rather ugly dark-green uniform, and a heavy, olive-tinted face adorned with a black mustache and a stubbly gray beard. General Stenovics, President of the Council of Ministers, was not an imposing personage to the outward view. But Sophy returned the regard of his prominent pale-blue eyes (which sorted oddly with the complexion of his face) with vivid attention. The General rode on, Markart following, but turning in his saddle to salute once more and to wave his hand in friendly farewell.
For the first time since her arrival in Slavna, Sophy was conscious of a stir of excitement. Life had been dull and heavy; the mind had enjoyed little food save the diet of sad memories. To-day she seemed to be brought into sight of living interests again. They were far off, but they were there; Markart's talk had made a link between them and her. She sat on for a long while, watching the junction of the streams and the broad current which flowed onward past the Palace, on its long journey to the sea. Then she rose with a sigh; the time drew near for a French lesson. Marie Zerkovitch had already got her two pupils.
When General Stenovics had ridden three or four hundred yards, he beckoned his aide-de-camp and secretary—for Markart's functions were both military and civil—to his side.
"We're last of all, I suppose?" he asked.
"Pretty nearly, sir."
"That must be his Royal Highness just crossing the bridge?"
"Yes, sir, that's his escort."
"Ah, well, we shall just do it! And who, pray"—the General turned round to his companion—"is that remarkable-looking young woman you've managed to pick up?"
Markart told what he knew of Mademoiselle de Gruche; it was not much.
"A friend of the Zerkovitches? That's good. A nice fellow, Zerkovitch—and his wife's quite charming. And your friend—?"
"I can hardly call her that, General."
"Tut, tut! You're irresistible, I know. Your friend—what did you tell her?"
"Nothing, on my honor." The young man colored and looked a trifle alarmed. But Stenovics's manner was one of friendly amusement.
"For an example of your 'nothing,'" he went on, "you told her that the King was an amiable man?"
"Oh, possibly, General."
"That the Countess was a little—just a little—too scrupulous?"
"It was nothing, surely, to say that?"
"That we all wanted the Prince to marry?"
"I made only the most general reference to that, sir."
"That—" he looked harder at his young friend—"the Prince is not popular with the army?"
"On my honor, no!"
"Think, think, Markart."
Markart searched his memory; under interrogation it accused him; his face grew rueful.
"I did wish he was more like his Majesty. I—I did say he was a Tartar."
Stenovics chuckled in apparent satisfaction at his own perspicacity. But his only comment was: "Then your remarkably handsome young friend knows something about us already. You're an admirable cicerone to a stranger, Markart."
"I hope you're not annoyed, sir. I—I didn't tell any secrets?"
"Certainly not, Markart. Three bits of gossip and one lie don't make up a secret between them. Come, we must get along."
Markart's face cleared; but he observed that the General did not tell him which was the lie.
This day Sophy began the diary; the first entry is dated that afternoon. Her prescience—or presentiment—was not at fault. From to-day events moved fast, and she was strangely caught up in the revolutions of the wheel.
It was the evening of the King's name-day. There was a banquet at the Palace, and the lights in its windows twinkled in sympathetic response to the illuminations which blazed on the public buildings and principal residences of Slavna. Everywhere feasting and revelry filled the night. The restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris was crowded, every seat on its terrace occupied; the old Inn of the Golden Lion, opposite the barracks in the Square of St. Michael, a favorite resort of the officers of the garrison, did a trade no less good; humbler hostelries were full of private soldiers, and the streets themselves of revellers male and female, military and civil, honest and dishonest, drunk and sober. Slavna had given itself up to a frolic; for, first, afêteis afête, no matter what its origin; secondly, King Alexis was the most popular man in his dominions, though he never did a decent day's work for them; lastly, there is often no better way to show how much you hate one man than by making a disproportionate fuss about another. It was well understood that by thus honoring King Alexis, its Monarch, by thus vociferously and untiringly wishing him the longest of reigns, Slavna was giving a stinging back-hander to Prince Sergius, its titular Prince and Commandant. You would see the difference when the Prince's day came round! When General Stenovics pointed to the lights gleaming across the Krath from the Palace windows and congratulated his Royal Highness on the splendid popularity of the reigning House, the Prince's smile may well have been ironical.
"I shall go and see all this merriment for myself at close quarters presently, General," said he. "I think the Commandant had best return to the city to-night as early as the King will allow."
"An admirable devotion to duty, sir," answered the General gravely, and without any effort to dissuade the zealous Prince.
But even in this gay city there was one spot of gloom, one place where sullen rancor had not been ousted by malicious merriment. The first company of his Majesty's Guards was confined to its barracks in the Square of St. Michael by order of the Commandant of Slavna; this by reason of high military misdemeanors—slackness when on duty, rioting and drunkenness when on leave; nor were the officers any better than the men. "You are men of war in the streets, men of peace in the ranks," said the Commandant to them that morning in issuing his decree. "You shall have a quiet evening to think over your short-comings." The order was reported to the King; he sighed, smiled, shook his head, said that, after all, discipline must be vindicated, and looked at his son with mingled admiration and pity. Such a faculty for making himself, other people, and things in general uncomfortable! But, of course, discipline! The Commandant looked stern, and his father ventured on no opposition or appeal. General Stenovics offered no remonstrance either, although he had good friends in the offending company. "He must do as he likes—so long as he's Commandant," he said to Markart.
"May I go and see them and cheer them up a bit, sir, instead of coming with you to the Palace?" asked that good-natured young man.
"If his Royal Highness gives you leave, certainly," agreed the General.
The Commandant liked Markart. "Yes—and tell them what fools they are," he said, with a smile.
Markart found the imprisoned officers at wine after their dinner; the men had resigned themselves to fate and gone to bed. Markart delivered his message with his usual urbane simplicity. Lieutenant Rastatz giggled uneasily—he had a high falsetto laugh. Lieutenant Sterkoff frowned peevishly. Captain Mistitch rapped out a vicious oath and brought his great fist down on the table. "The evening isn't finished yet," he said. "But for this cursed fellow I should have been dining with Vera at the Hôtel de Paris to-night!"
Whereupon proper condolences were offered to their Captain by his subalterns, who, in fact, held him in no small degree of fear. He was a huge fellow, six feet three and broad as a door; a great bruiser and a duellist of fame; his nickname was Hercules. His florid face was flushed now with hot anger, and he drank his wine in big gulps.
"How long are we to stand it?" he growled. "Are we school-girls?"
"Come, come, it's only for one evening," pleaded Markart. "One quiet evening won't hurt even Captain Hercules!"
The subalterns backed him with a laugh, but Mistitch would have none of it. He sat glowering and drinking still, not to be soothed and decidedly dangerous. From across the square came the sound of music and singing from the Golden Lion. Again Mistitch banged the table.
"Listen there!" he said. "That's pleasant hearing while we're shut up like rats in a trap—and all Slavna laughing at us!"
Markart shrugged his shoulders and smoked in silence; to argue with the man was to court a quarrel; he began to repent of his well-meant visit. Mistitch drained his glass.
"But some of us have a bit of spirit left, and so Master Sergius shall see," he went on. He put out a great hand on either side and caught Sterkoff and Rastatz by their wrists. "We're the fellows to show him!" he cried.
Sterkoff seemed no bad choice for such an enterprise—a wiry, active fellow, with a determined, if disagreeable, face, and a nasty squint in his right eye. But Rastatz, with his slim figure, weak mouth, and high laugh, promised no great help; yet in him fear of Mistitch might overcome all other fear.
"Yes, we three'll show him! And now"—he rose to his feet, dragging the pair up with him—"for a song and a bottle at the Golden Lion!"
Rastatz gasped, even Sterkoff started. Markart laughed: it could be nothing more than a mad joke. Cashiering was the least punishment which would await the act.
"Yes, we three together!" He released them for a moment and caught up his sword and cap. Then he seized Rastatz's wrist again and squeezed it savagely. "Come out of your trap with me, you rat!" he growled, in savage amusement at the young man's frightened face.
Sterkoff gained courage. "I'm with you, Hercules!" he cried. "I'm for to-night—the devil take to-morrow morning!"
"You're all drunk," said Markart, in despairing resignation.
"We'll be drunker before the night's out," snarled Mistitch. "And if I meet that fellow when I'm drunk, God help him!" He laughed loudly. "Then there might be a chance for young Alexis, after all!"
The words alarmed Markart. Young Count Alexis was the King's son by Countess Ellenburg. A chance for young Alexis!
"For Heaven's sake, go to bed!" he implored.
Mistitch turned on him. "I don't want to quarrel with anybody in Slavna to-night, unless I meet one man. But you can't stop me, Markart, and you'll only do mischief by trying. Now, my boys!"
They were with him—Sterkoff with a gleam in his squinting eye, Rastatz with a forced, uneasy giggle and shaking knees. Mistitch clapped them on the back.
"Another bottle apiece and we'll all be heroes!" he cried. "Markart, you go home to your mamma!"
Though given in no friendly way, this advice was wise beneath its metaphor. But Markart did not at once obey it. He had no more authority than power to interfere; Mistitch was his senior officer, and he had no special orders to act. But he followed the three in a fascinated interest, and with the hope that a very brief proof of his freedom would content the Captain. Out from the barracks the three marched. The sentry at the gate presented arms, but tried to bar their progress. With a guffaw and a mighty push Mistitch sent him sprawling. "The Commandant wants us, you fool!" he cried—and the three were in the square.
"What the devil will come of this business?" thought Markart, as he followed them over the little bridge which spanned the canal, and thence to the door of the Golden Lion. Behind them still he passed the seats on the pavement and entered the great saloon. As Mistitch and his companions came in, three-fourths of the company sprang to their feet and returned the salute of the new-comers; so strongly military in composition was the company—officers on one side of a six-feet-high glass screen which cut the room in two, sergeants and their inferiors on the other. A moment's silence succeeded the salute. Then a young officer cried: "The King has interfered?" It did not occur to anybody that the Commandant might have changed his mind and reversed his decree; for good or evil, they knew him too well to think of that.
"The King interfered?" Mistitch echoed, in his sonorous, rolling, thick voice. "No; we've interfered ourselves, and walked out! Does any one object?"
He glared a challenge round. There were officers present of superior rank—they drank their beer or wine discreetly. The juniors broke into a ringing cheer; it was taken up and echoed back from behind the glass screen, to which a hundred faces were in an instant glued, over which, here and there, the head of some soldier more than common tall suddenly projected.
"A table here!" cried Mistitch. "And champagne! Quick! Sit down, my boys!"
A strange silence followed the impulsive cheers. Men were thinking. Cheers first, thoughts afterwards, was the order in Slavna as in many other cities. Now they recognized the nature of this thing, the fateful change from sullen obedience to open defiance. Was it only a drunken frolic—or, besides that, was it a summons to each man to choose his side? Choosing his side might well mean staking his life.
A girl in a low-necked dress and short petticoats began a song from a raised platform at the end of the room. She was popular, and the song a favorite. Nobody seemed to listen; when she ended, nobody applauded. Mistitch had been whispering with Sterkoff, Rastatz sitting silent, tugging his slender, fair mustache. But none of the three had omitted to pay their duty to the bottle; even Rastatz's chalky face bore a patch of red on either cheek. Mistitch rose from his chair, glass in hand.
"Long life to the King!" he shouted. "That's loyal, isn't it? Ay, immortal life!"
The cheers broke out again, mingled with laughter. A voice cried: "Hard on his heir, Captain Hercules!"
"Ay!" Mistitch roared back. "Hard as he is on us, my friend!"
Another burst of cheering—and again that conscience-smitten silence.
Markart had found a seat, near the door and a good way from the redoubtable Mistitch and his companions. He looked at his watch—it was nearly ten; in half an hour General Stenovics would be leaving the Palace, and it was meet that he should know of all this as soon as possible. Markart made up his mind that he would slip away soon; but still the interest of the scene, the fascination of this prelude—such it seemed to him—held his steps bound.
Suddenly a young man of aristocratic appearance rose from a table at the end of the room, where he had been seated in company with a pretty and smartly dressed girl. A graceful gesture excused him to his fair companion, and he threaded his way deftly between the jostling tables to where Mistitch sat. He wore Court dress and a decoration. Markart recognized in the young man Baron von Hollbrandt, junior Secretary of the German Legation in Slavna.
Hollbrandt bowed to Mistitch, with whom he was acquainted, then bent over the giant's burly back and whispered in his ear.
"Take a friend's advice, Captain," he said. "I've been at the Palace, and I know the Prince had permission to withdraw at half-past nine. He was to return to Slavna then—to duty. Come, go back. You've had your spree."
"By the Lord, I'm obliged to you!" cried Mistitch. "Lads, we're obliged to Baron von Hollbrandt! Could you tell me the street he means to come by? Because"—he rose to his feet again—"we'll go and meet him!"
Half the hall heard him, and the speech was soon passed on to any out of hearing. A sparse cheer sputtered here and there, but most were silent. Rastatz gasped again, while Sterkoff frowned and squinted villanously. Hollbrandt whispered once more, then stood erect, shrugged his shoulders, bowed, and walked back to his pretty friend. He sat down and squeezed her hand in apology; the pair broke into laughter a moment later. Baron von Hollbrandt felt that he at least had done his duty.
The three had drunk and drunk; Rastatz was silly, Sterkoff vicious, the giant Mistitch jovially and cruelly reckless, exalted not only by liquor but with the sense of the part he played. Suddenly from behind the glass screen rose a mighty roar:
"Long live Mistitch! Down with tyrants! Long live Captain Hercules!"
It was fuel to the flames. Mistitch drained his glass and hurled it on the floor.
"Well, who follows me?" he cried.
Half the men started to their feet; the other half pulled them down. Contending currents of feeling ran through the crowd; a man was reckless this moment, timid the next; to one his neighbor gave warning, to another instigation. They seemed poised on the point of a great decision. Yet what was it they were deciding? They could not tell.
Markart suddenly forgot his caution. He rushed to Mistitch, with his hands out and "For God's sake!" loud on his lips.
"You!" cried Mistitch. "By Heaven! what else does your General want? What else does Matthias Stenovics want? Tell me that!"
A silence followed—of dread suspense. Men looked at one another in fear and doubt. Was that true which Mistitch said? They felt as ordinary men feel when the edge of the curtain is lifted from before high schemes or on intrigues of the great.
"If I should meet the Prince to-night, wouldn't there be news for Stenovics?" cried Mistitch, with a roar of laughter.
If he should meet the Prince! The men at the tables could not make up their minds to that. Mistitch they admired and feared, but they feared the proud Prince, too; they had many of them felt the weight of his anger. Those who had stood up sank back in their places. One pot-bellied fellow raised a shout of hysterical laughter round him by rubbing his fat face with a napkin and calling out: "I should like just one minute to think about that meeting, Captain Hercules!"
Markart had shrunk back, but Mistitch hurled a taunt at him and at all the throng.
"You're curs, one and all! But I'll put a heart in you yet! And now"—he burst into a new guffaw—"my young friends and I are going for a walk. What, aren't the streets of Slavna free to gentlemen? My friends and I are going for a walk. If we meet anybody on the pavement—well, he must take to the road. We're going for a walk."
Amid a dead silence he went out, his two henchmen after him. He and Sterkoff walked firm and true—Rastatz lurched in his gait. A thousand eyes followed their exit, and from five hundred throats went up a long sigh of relief that they were gone. But what had they gone to do? The company decided that it was just as well for them, whether collectively or as individuals, not to know too much about that. Let it be hoped that the cool air outside would have a sobering effect and send them home to bed! Yet from behind the glass screen there soon arose again a busy murmur of voices, like the hum of a beehive threatened with danger.
"A diplomatic career is really full of interest, ma chère," observed Baron von Hollbrandt to his fair companion. "It would be difficult to see anything so dramatic in Berlin!"
His friend's pretty blue eyes lit up with an eager intensity as she took the cigarette from between her lips. Her voice was full of joyful excitement:
"Yes, it's to death between that big Mistitch and the Prince—the blood of one or both of them, you'll see!"
"You are too deliciously Kravonian," said Hollbrandt, with a laugh.
Outside, big Mistitch had crossed the canal and come to the corner where the Street of the Fountain opens on to St. Michael's Square. "What say you to a call at the Hôtel de Paris, lads?" he said.
"Hist!" Sterkoff whispered. "Do you hear that step—coming up the street there?"
The illuminations burned still in the Square and sent a path of light down the narrow street. The three stopped and turned their heads. Sterkoff pointed. Mistitch looked—and smacked his ponderous thigh.
Whatever Marie Zerkovitch's feelings might be, Fate had its hand on her and turned her to its uses. It was she who had directed Sophy's steps to the old house ten doors down the Street of the Fountain from St. Michael's Square. It was no more than half a mile from her own villa on the south boulevard (from which the Street ran to the Square), and she had long known the decent old couple—German Jews—who lived and carried on their trade in the house over whose front hung the sign of the Silver Cock. The face of the building was covered with carved timbers of great age; the door of the shop stood far back within a black and ancient porch. Behind the shop were a couple of rooms where Meyerstein and his wife lived; above it one large room, with a window which jutted far out over the narrow street. In this room, which was reached by a separate door in the left side of the porch and a crazy flight of a dozen winding stairs, lived Sophy, and thence she sallied out daily to give her lessons to her two pupils.
By the window she sat on the night of the King's name-day, on a low chair. The heavy figure of a girl carrying a lamp—a specimen of her landlord's superfluous stock—stood unemployed on the window-sill. The room was dark, for the path of light from the illuminations, which made the roadway below white, threw hardly a gleam on to its sombre walls; but Sophy had no need of a lamp and every need to save her money. She sat in the gloom, busy in thought, the fresh evening air breathing soft and cool on her brow from the open window.
Swift to build on slenderest foundations, avid to pile imagination on imagination till the unsubstantial structure reached the skies, her mind was at work to-night. The life and stir, the heat and tumult, of the city, were fuel to her dreams. Chances and happenings were all about her; they seemed to lie, like the water for Tantalus, just beyond the reach of her finger-tips; her eyes pierced to the vision of them through the dusky blackness of the ancient room. In response to the confused yet clamorous cry of the life around her, her spirit awoke. Dead were the dear dead; but Sophy was alive. But to be a starving French mistress at Slavna—was that a chance? Yes, a better than being cook-maid at Morpingham; and even in the kitchen at Morpingham Fortune had found her and played with her awhile. For such frolics and such favor, however fickle, however hazardous, Sophy Grouch of Morpingham was ever ready. Dunstanbury had come to Morpingham—and Lady Meg. Paris had brought the sweet hours and the gracious memory of Casimir de Savres. Should Slavna lag behind? Who would come now? Ever the highest for Sophy Grouch! The vision of the royal escort and its pale young leader flashed in the darkness before her eagerly attendant eyes.
Suddenly she raised her head. There was a wild, quick volley of cheering; it came from the Golden Lion, whose lights across the Square a sideways craning of her neck enabled her to see. Then there was silence for minutes. Again the sound broke forth, and with it confused shoutings of a name she could not make out. Yes—what was it? Mistitch—Mistitch! That was her first hearing of the name.
Silence fell again, and she sank back into her chair. The lights, the stir, the revelry were not for her, nor the cheers nor the shouts. A moment of reaction and lassitude came on her, a moment when the present, the actual, lapped her round with its dim, muddy flood of vulgar necessity and sordid needs. With a sob she bowed her head to meet her hands—a sob that moaned a famine of life, of light, of love. "Go back to your scullery, Sophy Grouch!" What voice had said that? She sprang to her feet with fists clinched, and whispered to the darkness: "No!"
In the street below, Mistitch slapped his thigh.
Sophy pushed her hair back from her heated forehead and looked out of the window. To the right, some twenty yards away and just at the end of the street, she saw the figures of three men. In the middle was one who bulked like a young Falstaff—Falstaff with his paunch not grown; he was flanked by two lean fellows who looked small beside him. She could not see the faces plainly, since the light from the Square was behind them. They seemed to be standing there and looking past the sign of the Silver Cock along the street.
A measured, military footfall sounded on her left. Turning her head, she saw a young man walking with head bent down and arms behind him. The line of light struck full on him, he was plain to see as by broadest day. He wore a costume strange to her eyes—a black sheepskin cap, a sheepskin tunic, leather breeches, and high, unpolished boots—a rough, plain dress; yet a broad, red ribbon crossed it, and a star glittered on the breast; the only weapon was a short, curved scimitar. It was the ancient costume of the Bailiff of Volseni, the head of that clan of shepherds who pastured their flocks on the uplands. The Prince of Slavna held the venerable office, and had been to Court in the dress appropriate to it. He had refused to use his carriage, sending his aides-de-camp home in it, and walked now through the streets of the city which he had in charge. It was constantly his habit thus to walk; his friends praised his vigilance; his foes reviled his prowling, spying tricks; of neither blame nor praise did he take heed.
Sophy did not know the dress, but the face she knew; it had been but lately before her dreaming eyes; she had seen it in the flesh that morning from the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris.
The three came on from her right, one of the lean men hanging back, lurking a little behind. They were under her window now. The Prince was but a few yards away. Suddenly he looked up with a start—he had become aware of their approach. But before he saw them the three had melted to one. With a shrill cry of consternation—of uneasy courage oozing out—Rastatz turned and fled back to the Square, heading at his top speed for the Golden Lion. In the end he was unequal to the encounter. Sterkoff, too, disappeared; but Sophy knew the meaning of that; he had slipped into the shelter of the porch. Her faculties were alert now; she would not forget where Sterkoff was! Mistitch stood alone in the centre of the narrow street, his huge frame barely leaving room for a man to pass on either side.
For a moment the Prince stood still, looking at the giant. Incredulity had seemed to show first in his eyes; it changed now to a cold anger as he recognized the Captain. He stepped briskly forward, and Sophy heard his clear, incisive tones cut the air:
"What extraordinary emergency has compelled you to disobey my orders, Captain Mistitch?"
"I wanted a breath of fresh air," Mistitch answered, in an easy, insolent tone.
The Prince looked again; he seemed even more disgusted than angry now. He thought Mistitch drunk—more drunk than in truth he was.
"Return to barracks at once and report yourself under stringent arrest. I will deal with you to-morrow."
"And not to-night, Sergius Stefanovitch?" At least he was being as good as his word, he was acting up to the vaunts he had thrown out so boldly in the great hall of the Golden Lion.
"To-morrow we shall both be cooler." He was almost up to Mistitch now. "Stand out of my way, sir."
Mistitch did not budge. "There's room for you to pass by," he said. "I won't hurt you. But the middle of the road belongs to me to-night."
His voice seemed to grow clearer with every word; the critical encounter was sobering him. Yet with sobriety came no diminution of defiance. Doubtless he saw that he was in for the worst now, that forward was the word, and retreat impossible. Probably from this moment he did not intend the Prince to pass alive. Well, what he intended was the wish of many; he would not lack shelter, friends, or partisans if he dared the desperate venture. Be it said for him that there were few things he did not dare. He dared now, growing sober, to stand by what the fumes of wine had fired his tongue to.
For a moment after the big man's taunt the Prince stood motionless. Then he drew his scimitar. It looked a poor, weak weapon against the sword which sprang in answer from Mistitch's scabbard.
"A duel between gentlemen!" the Captain cried.
The Prince gave a short laugh. "You shall have no such plea at the court-martial," he said. "Gentlemen don't waylay one another in the streets. Stand aside!"
Mistitch laughed, and in an instant the Prince sprang at him. Sophy heard the blades meet. Strong as death was the fascination for her eyes—ay, for her ears, too, for she heard the quick-moving feet and the quicker breathing of a mortal combat. But she would not look—she tried not even to listen. Her eyes were for a man she could not see, her ears for a man she could not hear. She remembered the lean fellow hidden in the porch, straight under her window. She dared not call to warn the Prince of him; a turn of the head, a moment of inattention, would cost either combatant his life. She took the man in the porch for her own adversary, his undoing for her share in the fight.
Very cautiously, making no sound, she took the heavy lamp—the massive bronze figure of the girl—raised it painfully in both her hands, and poised it half-way over the window-sill. Then she turned her eyes down again to watch the mouth of the porch. Her rat was in that hole! Yet suddenly the Prince came into her view; he circled half-way round Mistitch, then sank on one knee; she heard him guard the Captain's lunges with lightning-quick movements of his nimble scimitar. He was trying the old trick they had practised for hundreds of years at Volseni—to follow his parry with an upward-ripping stroke under the adversary's sword, to strike the inner side of his forearm and cut the tendons of the wrist. This trick big Captain Mistitch, a man of the plains, did not know.
A jangle—a slither—a bellow of pain, of rage! The Prince had made his stroke, the hill-men of Volseni were justified of their pupil. Mistitch's big sword clattered on the flags. Facing his enemy, with his back to the porch, the Prince crouched motionless on his knee; but it was death to Mistitch to try to reach the sword with his unmaimed hand.
It was Sophy's minute; the message that it had come ran fierce through all her veins. Straining to the weight, she raised the figure in her hands and leaned out of the window. Yes, a lean hand with a long knife, a narrow head, a spare, long back, crept out of the darkness of the porch—crept silently. The body drew itself together for a fatal spring on the unconscious Prince, for a fatal thrust. It would be death—and to Mistitch salvation torn from the jaws of ruin.
"Surrender yourself, Captain Mistitch," said the Prince.
Mistitch's eyes went by his conqueror and saw a shadow on the path beside the porch.
"I surrender, sir," he said.
"Then walk before me to the barracks." Mistitch did not turn. "At once, sir!"
"Now!" Mistitch roared.
The crouching figure sprang—and with a hideous cry fell stricken on the flags. Just below the neck, full on the spine, had crashed the Virgin with the lamp. Sterkoff lay very still, save that his fingers scratched the flags. Turning, the Prince saw a bronze figure at his feet, a bronze figure holding a broken lamp. Looking up, he saw dimly a woman's white face at a window.
Then the street was on a sudden full of men. Rastatz had burst into the Golden Lion, all undone—nerves, courage, almost senses gone. He could stammer no more than: "They'll fight!" and could not say who. But he had gone out with Mistitch—and whom had they gone to meet?
A dozen officers were round him in an instant, crying: "Where? Where?" He broke into frightened sobs, hiding his face in his hands. It was Max von Hollbrandt who made him speak. Forgetting his pretty friend, he sprang in among the officers, caught Rastatz by the throat, and put a revolver to his head. "Where? In ten seconds—where?" Terror beat terror. "The Street of the Fountain—by the Silver Cock!" the cur stammered, and fell to his blubbering again.
The dozen officers, and more, were across the Square almost before he had finished; Max von Hollbrandt, with half the now lessened company in the inn, was hot on their heels.
For that night all was at an end. Sterkoff was picked up, unconscious now. Sullen, but never cringing, Mistitch was marched off to the guard-room and the surgeon's ministrations. Every soldier was ordered to his quarters, the townsfolk slunk off to their homes. The street grew empty, the glare of the illuminations was quenched. But of all this Sophy saw nothing. She had sunk down in her chair by the window, and lay there, save for her tumultuous breathing, still as death.
The Commandant had no fear, and would have his way. He stood alone now in the street, looking from the dark splash of Mistitch's blood to the Virgin with her broken lamp, and up to the window of the Silver Cock, whence had come salvation.
The last of the transparencies died out; the dim and infrequent oil-lamps alone lit up the Street of the Fountain and St. Michael's Square. They revelled still down at the Hôtel de Paris, whither Max von Hollbrandt and a dozen others had hurried with the news of the evening's great event. But here, on the borders of the old north quarter, all grew still—the Golden Lion empty, the townsmen to their beds, the soldiers to barracks, full of talk and fears and threats. Yet a light burned still in the round room in the keep of Suleiman's Tower, and the Commandant's servant still expected his royal master. Peter Vassip, a sturdy son of Volseni, had no apprehensions—but he was very sleepy, and he and the sentries were the only men awake. "One might as well be a soldier at once!" he grumbled—for the men of the hills did not esteem the Regular Army so high as it rated itself.
The Commandant lingered in the Street of the Fountain. Sergius Stefanovitch was half a Bourbon, but it was the intellectual half. He had the strong, concentrated, rather narrow mind of a Bourbon of before the family decadence; on it his training at Vienna had grafted a military precision, perhaps a pedantry, and no little added scorn of what men called liberty and citizens called civil rights. What rights had a man against his country? His country was in his King—and to the King the Army was his supreme instrument. So ran his public creed, his statesman's instinct. But beside the Bourbon mother was the Kravonian father, and behind him the long line of mingled and vacillating fortunes which drew descent from Stefan, Lord of Praslok, and famous reiver of lowland herds. In that stock the temperament was different: indolent to excess sometimes, ardent to madness at others, moderate seldom. When the blood ran hot, it ran a veritable fire in the veins.
And for any young man the fight in the fantastically illuminated night, the Virgin with the broken lamp, a near touch of the scythe of death, and a girl's white face at the window? Behind the Commandant's stern wrath—nay, beside—and soon before it—for the moment dazzling his angry eyes—came the bright gleams of romance.
He knew who lodged at the sign of the Silver Cock. Marie Zerkovitch was his friend, Zerkovitch his zealous follower. The journalist was back now from the battle-fields of France and was writing articles forThe Patriot, a leading paper of Slavna. He was deep in the Prince's confidence, and his little house on the south boulevard often received this distinguished guest. The Prince had been keen to hear from Zerkovitch of the battles, from Marie of the life in Paris; with Marie's tale came the name, and what she knew of the story, of Sophie de Gruche. Yet always, in spite of her praises of her friend, Marie had avoided any opportunity of presenting her to the Prince. Excuse on excuse she made, for his curiosity ranged round Casimir de Savres's bereaved lover. "Oh, I shall meet her some day all the same," he had said, laughing; and Marie doubted whether her reluctance—a reluctance to herself strange—had not missed its mark, inflaming an interest which it had meant to balk. Why this strange reluctance? So far it was proved baseless. His first encounter with the Lady of the Red Star—Casimir's poetical sobriquet had passed Marie's lips—had been supremely fortunate.
From the splash of blood to the broken Virgin, from the broken Virgin to the open window and the dark room behind, his restless glances sped. Then came swift, impulsive decision. He caught up the bronze figure and entered the porch. He knew Meyerstein's shop, and that from it no staircase led to the upper floor. The other door was his mark, and he knocked on it, raising first with a cautious touch, then more resolutely, the old brass hand with hospitably beckoning finger which served for knocker. Then he listened for a footstep on the stairs. If she came not, the venturesome night went ungraced by its crowning adventure. He must kiss the hand that saved him before he slept.
The door opened softly. In the deep shadow of the porch, on the winding, windowless staircase of the old house, it was pitch dark. He felt a hand put in his and heard a low voice saying: "Come, Monseigneur." From first to last, both in speech and in writing, she called him by that title and by none other. Without a word he followed her, picking his steps, till they reached her room. She led him to the chair by the window; the darkness was somewhat less dense there. He stood by the chair.
"The lamp's broken—and there's only one match in the box!" said Sophy, with a low laugh. "Shall we use it now—or when you go, Monseigneur?"
"Light it now. My memory, rather than my imagination!"
She struck the match; her face came upon him white in the darkness, with the mark on her cheek a dull red; but her eyes glittered. The match flared and died down.
"It is enough. I shall remember."
"Did I kill him?"
"I don't know whether he's killed—he's badly hurt. This lady here is pretty heavy."
"Give her to me. I'll put her in her place." She took the figure and set it again on the window-sill. "And the big man who attacked you?"
"Mistitch? He'll be shot."
"Yes," she agreed with calm, unquestioning emphasis.
"You know what you did to-night?"
"I had the sense to think of the man in the porch."
"You saved my life."
Sophy gave a laugh of triumph. "What will Marie Zerkovitch say to that?"
"She's my friend, too, and she's told me all about you. But she didn't want us to meet."
"She thinks I bring bad luck."
"She'll have to renounce that heresy now." He felt for the chair and sat down, Sophy leaning against the window-sill.
"Why did they attack you?"
He told her of the special grudge which Mistitch and his company had against him, and added: "But they all hate me, except my own fellows from Volseni. I have a hundred of them in Suleiman's Tower, and they're stanch enough."
"Why do they hate you?"
"Oh, I'm their school-master—and a very strict one, I suppose. Or, if you like, the pruning-knife—and that's not popular with the rotten twigs."
"There are many rotten twigs?"
She heard his hands fall on the wooden arms of the chair and pictured his look of despair. "All—almost all. It's not their fault. What can you expect? They're encouraged to laziness and to riot. They have no good rifles. The city is left defenceless. I have no big guns." He broke suddenly into a low laugh. "There—that's what Zerkovitch calls my fixed idea; he declares it's written on my heart—big guns!"
"If you had them, you'd be—master?"
"I could make some attempt at a defence anyhow; at least we could cover a retreat to the hills, if war came." He paused. "And in peace—yes, I should be master of Slavna. I'd bring men from Volseni to serve the guns." His voice had grown vindictive. "Stenovics knows that, I think." He roused himself again and spoke to her earnestly. "Listen. This fellow Mistitch is a great hero with the soldiers and the mob. When I have him shot, as I shall—not on my own account, I could have killed him to-night, but for the sake of discipline—there will very likely be a disturbance. What you did to-night will be all over the city by to-morrow morning. If you see any signs of disturbance, if any people gather round here, go to Zerkovitch's at once—or, if that's not possible or safe, come to me in Suleiman's Tower, and I'll send for Marie Zerkovitch too. Will you promise? You must run no risk."
"I'll come if I'm afraid."
"Or if you ought to be?" he insisted, laughing again.
"Well, then—or if I ought to be," she promised, joining in his laugh. "But the King—isn't he with you?"
"My father likes me; we're good friends. But 'like father, unlike son' they say of the Stefanovitches. I'm a martinet, they tell me; well, he—isn't. Nero fiddled—you remember? The King goes fishing. He's remarkably fond of fishing, and his advisers don't discourage him. I tell you all this because you're committed to our side now."
"Yes, I'm committed to your side. Who else is with you?"
"In Slavna? Nobody! Well, the Zerkovitches, and my hundred in Suleiman's Tower. And perhaps some old men who have seen war. But at Volseni and among the hills they're with me." Again he seemed to muse as he reviewed his scanty forces.
"I wish we had another match. I want to see your face close," said Sophy. He rose with a laugh and leaned his head forward to the window. "Oh no; you're nothing but a blur still!" she exclaimed impatiently.
Yet, though Sophy sighed for light, the darkness had its glamour. To each the other's presence, seeming in some sense impalpable, seemed also diffused through the room and all around; the world besides was non-existent since unseen; they two alone lived and moved and spoke in the dead silence and the blackness. An agitation stirred Sophy's heart—forerunner of the coming storm. That night she had given him life; he seemed to be giving back life to her life that night. How should the hour not seem pregnant with destiny, a herald of the march of Fate?
But suddenly the Prince awoke from his reverie—perhaps from a dream. To Sophy he gave the impression—as he was to give it more than once again—of a man pulling himself up, tightening the rein, drawing back into himself. He stood erect, his words became more formal, and his voice restrained.
"I linger too long," he said. "My duty lies at the Tower yonder. I've thanked you badly; but what thanks can a man give for his life? We shall meet again—I'll arrange that with Marie Zerkovitch. You'll remember what I've told you to do in case of danger? You'll act on it?"
"Yes, Monseigneur."
He sought her hand, kissed it, and then groped his way to the stairs. Sophy followed and went with him down to the porch.
"Be careful to lock your door," he enjoined her, "and don't go out to-morrow unless the streets are quite quiet."
"Oh, but I've a French lesson to give at ten o'clock," she remonstrated with a smile.
"You have to do that?"
"I have to make my living, Monseigneur."
"Ah, yes," he said, meditatively. "Well, slip out quietly—and wear a veil."
"Nobody knows my face."
"Wear a veil. People notice a face like yours. Again thanks, and good-night."
Sophy peeped out from the porch and watched his quick, soldierly march up the street to St. Michael's Square. The night had lightened a little, and she could make out his figure, although dimly, until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. She lingered for a moment before turning to go back to her room—lingered musing on the evening's history.
Down the street, from the Square, there came a woman—young or old, pretty or ugly, fine dame or drudge, it was too dark to tell. But it was a woman, and she wept as though her heart were broken. For whom and for what did she weep like that? Was she mother, or wife, or sweetheart? Perhaps she wept for Sterkoff, who lay in peril of death. Perhaps she loved big Mistitch, over whom hovered the shadow of swift and relentless doom. Or maybe her sorrow was remote from all that touched them or touched the girl who listened to her sobs—the bitter sobs which she did not seek to check, which filled the night with a dirge of immeasurable sadness. In the darkness, and to Sophy's ignorance of anything individual about her, the woman was like a picture or a sculpture—some type or monument of human woe—a figure of embodied sorrow, crying that all joy ends in tears—in tears—in tears.
She went by, not seeing her watcher. The sound of her sobbing softened with distance, till it died down to a faint, far-off moan. Sophy herself gave one choked sob. Then fell the silence of the night again. Was that its last message—the last comment on what had passed? Tears—and then silence? Was that the end?
Sophy never learned aught of the woman—who she was or why she wept. But her memory retained the vision. It had come as the last impression of a night no moment of which could ever be forgotten. What had it to say of all the rest of the night's happenings? Sophy's exaltation fell from her; but her courage stood—against darkness, solitude, and the unutterable sadness of that forlorn wailing. Dauntlessly she looked forward and upward still, yet with a new insight for the cost.
So for Sophy passed the name-day of King Alexis.
King Alexis was minded that all proper recognition should be made of Sophy's service to his family. It had been her fortune to protect a life very precious in his eyes. Alien from his son in temperament and pursuits, he had, none the less, considerable affection for him. But there was more than this. With the Prince was bound up the one strong feeling of a nature otherwise easy and careless. The King might go fishing on most lawful days, but it was always a Stefanovitch who fished—a prince who had married a princess of a great house, and had felt able to offer Countess Ellenburg no more than a morganatic union. The work his marriage had begun his son's was to complete. The royal house of Kravonia was still on its promotion; it lay with the Prince to make its rank acknowledged and secure.
Thus Sophy's action loomed large in the King's eyes, and he was indolently indifferent to the view taken of it in the barrack-rooms and the drinking-shops of Slavna. Two days after Mistitch's attempt, he received Sophy at the Palace with every circumstance of compliment. The Prince was not present—he made military duty an excuse—but Countess Ellenburg and her little son were in the room, and General Stenovics, with Markart in attendance, stood beside the King's chair.
Sophy saw a tall, handsome, elderly man with thick, iron-gray hair, most artfully arranged. (The care of it was no small part of the duty of Lepage, the King's French body-servant.) His Majesty's manners were dignified, but not formal. The warmth of greeting which he had prepared for Sophy was evidently increased by the impression her appearance made on him. He thanked her in terms of almost overwhelming gratitude.
"You have preserved the future of my family and of our dynasty," he said.
Countess Ellenburg closed her long, narrow eyes. Everything about her was long and narrow, from her eyes to her views, taking in, on the way, her nose and her chin. Stenovics glanced at her with a smile of uneasy propitiation. It was so particularly important to be gracious just now—gracious both over the preservation of the dynasty and over its preserver.
"No gratitude can be too great for such a service, and no mark of gratitude too high." He glanced round to Markart, and called good-humoredly, "You, Markart there, a chair for this lady!"
Markart got a chair. Stenovics took it from him and himself prepared to offer it to Sophy. But the King rose, took it, and with a low bow presented it to the favored object of his gratitude. Sophy courtesied low, the King waited till she sat. Countess Ellenburg bestowed on her a smile of wintry congratulation.
"But for you, these fellows might—or rather would, I think—have killed my son in their blind drunkenness; it detracts in no way from your service that they did not know whom they were attacking."
There was a moment's silence. Sophy was still nervous in such company; she was also uneasily conscious of a most intense gaze directed at her by General Stenovics. But she spoke out.
"They knew perfectly well, sir," she said.
"They knew the Prince?" he asked sharply. "Why do you say that? It was dark."
"Not in the street, sir. The illuminations lit it up."
"But they were very drunk."
"They may have been drunk, but they knew the Prince. Captain Mistitch called him by his name."
"Stenovics!" The King's voice was full of surprise and question as he turned to his Minister. The General was surprised, too, but very suave.
"I can only say that I hear Mademoiselle de Gruche's words with astonishment. Our accounts are not consistent with what she says. We don't, of course, lay too much stress on the protestations of the two prisoners, but Lieutenant Rastatz is clear that the street was decidedly dark, and that they all three believed the man they encountered to be Colonel Stafnitz of the Hussars. That officer much resembles his Royal Highness in height and figure. In the dark the difference of uniform would not be noticed—especially by men in their condition." He addressed Sophy: "Mistitch had an old quarrel with Stafnitz; that's the true origin of the affair." He turned to the King again. "That is Rastatz's story, sir, as well as Mistitch's own—though Mistitch is, of course, quite aware that his most unseemly, and indeed criminal, talk at the Golden Lion seriously prejudices his case. But we have no reason to distrust Rastatz."
"Lieutenant Rastatz ran away only because he was afraid," Sophy remarked.
"He ran to bring help, mademoiselle," Stenovics corrected her, with a look of gentle reproach. "You were naturally excited," he went on. "Isn't it possible that your memory has played you a trick? Think carefully. Two men's lives may depend on it."
"I heard Captain Mistitch call the Prince 'Sergius Stefanovitch,'" said Sophy.
"This lady will be a most important witness," observed the King.
"Very, sir," Stenovics assented dryly.
Sophy had grown eager. "Doesn't the Prince say they knew him?"
"His Royal Highness hasn't been asked for any account at present," Stenovics answered.
"If they knew who it was, they must die," said the King in evident concern and excitement.
Stenovics contented himself with a bow of obedience. The King rose and gave Sophy his hand.
"We shall hope to see you again soon," he said, very graciously. "Meanwhile, General Stenovics has something to say to you in my name which will, I trust, prove agreeable to you." His eyes dwelt on her face for a moment as she took her leave.
Stenovics made his communication later in the day, paying Sophy the high compliment of a personal call at the sign of the Silver Cock for that purpose. His manner was most cordial. Sophy was to receive an honorary appointment in the Royal Household at an annual salary of ten thousand paras, or some four hundred pounds.
"It isn't riches—we aren't very rich in Kravonia—but it will, I hope, make you comfortable and relieve you from the tiresome lessons which Markart tells me you're now burdened with."
Sophy was duly grateful, and asked what her appointment was.
"It's purely honorary," he smiled. "You are to be Keeper of the Tapestries."
"I know nothing about tapestries," said Sophy, "but I dare say I can learn; it'll be very interesting."
Stenovics leaned back in his chair with an amused smile.
"There aren't any tapestries," he said. "They were sold a good many years ago."
"Then why do you keep a—"
"When you're older in the royal service, you'll see that it's convenient to have a few sinecures," he told her, with a good-humored laugh. "See how handy this one is now!"
"But I shall feel rather an impostor."
"Merely the novelty of it," he assured her consolingly.
Sophy began to laugh, and the General joined in heartily. "Well, that's settled," said he. "You make three or four appearances at Court, and nothing more will be necessary. I hope you like your appointment?"
Sophy laughed delightedly. "It's charming—and very amusing," she said. "I'm getting very much interested in your country, General."
"My country is returning your kind compliment, I can assure you," he replied. His tone had grown dry, and he seemed to be watching her now. She waved her hands towards the Virgin with the lamp: the massive figure stood in its old place by the window.
"What a lot I owe to her!" she cried.
"We all owe much," said Stenovics.
"The Prince thought some people might be angry with me—because Captain Mistitch is a favorite."
"Very possible, I'm afraid, very possible. But in this world we must do our duty, and—"
"Risk the consequences? Yes!"
"If we can't control them, Mademoiselle de Gruche." He paused a moment, and then went on: "The court-martial on Mistitch is convened for Saturday. Sterkoff won't be well enough to be tried for another two or three weeks."
"I'm glad he's not dead, though if he recovers only to be shot—! Still, I'm glad I didn't kill him."
"Not by your hand," said Stenovics.
"But you mean in effect? Well, I'm not ashamed. Surely they deserve death."
"Undoubtedly—if Rastatz is wrong—and your memory right."
"The Prince's own story?"
"He isn't committed to any story yet."
Sophy rested her chin on her hand, and regarded her companion closely. He did not avoid her glance.
"You're wondering what I mean?—what I'm after?" he asked her, smiling quietly. "Oh yes, I see you are. Go on wondering, thinking, watching things about you for a day or two—there are three days between now and Saturday. You'll see me again before Saturday—and I've no doubt you'll see the Prince."
"If Rastatz were right—and my memory wrong—?"
He smiled still. "The offence against discipline would be so much less serious. The Prince is a disciplinarian. To speak with all respect, he forgets sometimes that discipline is, in the last analysis, only a part of policy—a means, not an end. The end is always the safety and tranquillity of the State." He spoke with weighty emphasis.
"The offence against discipline! An attempt to assassinate—!"
"I see you cling to your own memory—you won't have anything to say to Rastatz!" He rose and bowed over her hand. "Much may happen between now and Saturday. Look about you, watch, and think!"
The General's final injunction, at least, Sophy lost no time in obeying; and on the slightest thought three things were obvious: the King was very grateful to her; Stenovics wished at any rate to appear very grateful to her; and, for some reason or another, Stenovics wished her memory to be wrong, to the end that the life of Mistitch and his companion (the greater included the less) might be spared. Why did he wish that?
Presumably—his words about the relation of discipline to policy supported the conclusion—to avoid that disturbance which the Prince had forecasted as the result of Mistitch's being put to death. But the Prince was not afraid of the disturbance—why should Stenovics be? The Commandant was all confidence—was the Minister afraid? In some sense he was afraid. That she accepted. But she hesitated to believe that he was afraid in the common sense that he was either lacking in nerve or overburdened with humanity, that he either feared fighting or would shrink from a salutary severity in repressing tumult. If he feared, he feared neither for his own skin nor for the skin of others; he feared for his policy or his ambition.
These things were nothing to her; she was for the Prince, for his policy and his ambition. Were they the same as Stenovics's? Even a novice at the game could see that this by no means followed of necessity. The King was elderly, and went a-fishing. The Prince was young, and a martinet. In age, Stenovics was between the two—nearly twenty years younger than the King, a dozen or so older than the Prince. Under the present régime he had matters almost entirely his own way. At first sight there was, of a certainty, no reason why his ambitions should coincide precisely with those of the Prince. Fifty-nine, forty-one, twenty-eight—the ages of the three men in themselves illuminated the situation—that is, if forty-one could manage fifty-nine, but had no such power over twenty-eight.
New to such meditations, yet with a native pleasure in them, taking to the troubled waters as though born a swimmer, Sophy thought, and watched, and looked about. As to her own part she was clear. Whether Rastatz was right—whether that most vivid and indelible memory of hers was wrong—were questions which awaited the sole determination of the Prince of Slavna.
Her attitude would have been unchanged, but her knowledge much increased, could she have been present at a certain meeting on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris that same evening. Markart was there—and little Rastatz, whose timely flight and accommodating memory rendered him to-day not only a free man but a personage of value. But neither did more than wait on the words of the third member of the party—that Colonel Stafnitz of the Hussars who had an old feud with Mistitch, for whom Mistitch had mistaken the Prince of Slavna. A most magnanimous, forgiving gentleman, apparently, this spare, slim-built man with thoughtful eyes; his whole concern was to get Mistitch out of the mess! The feud he seemed to remember not at all; it was a feud of convenience, a feud to swear to at the court-martial. He was as ready to accommodate Stenovics with the use of his name as Rastatz was to offer the requisite modifications of his memory. But there—with that supply of a convenient fiction—his pliability stopped. He spoke to Markart, using him as a conduit-pipe—the words would flow through to General Stenovics.
"If the General doesn't want to see me now—and I can understand that he mustn't be caught confabbing with any supposed parties to the affair—you must make it plain to him how matters stand. Somehow and by some means our dear Hercules must be saved. Hercules is an ass; but so are most of the men—and all the rowdies of Slavna. They love their Hercules, and they won't let him die without a fight—and a very big fight. In that fight what might happen to his Royal Highness the Commandant? And if anything did happen to him, what might happen to General Stenovics? I don't know that either, but it seems to me that he'd be in an awkward place. The King wouldn't be pleased with him; and we here in Slavna—are we going to trouble ourselves about the man who couldn't save our Hercules?"
Round-faced Markart nodded in a perplexed fashion. Stafnitz clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.
"For Heaven's sake don't think about it or you'll get it all mixed! Just try to remember it. Your only business is to report what I say to the General."
Rastatz sniggered shrilly. When the wine was not in him, he was a cunning little rogue—a useful tool in any matter which did not ask for courage.
"If I'd been here, Mistitch wouldn't have done the thing at all—or done it better. But what's done is done. And we expect the General to stand by us. If he won't, we must act for ourselves—for there'll be no bearing our dear Commandant if we sit down under the death of Mistitch. In short, the men won't stand it." He tapped Markart's arm. "The General must release unto us Barabbas!"
The man's easy self-confidence, his air of authority, surprised neither of his companions. If there were a good soldier besides the Commandant in Slavna, Stafnitz was the man; if there were a head in Kravonia cooler than Stenovics's, it was on the shoulders of Stafnitz. He was the brain to Mistitch's body—the mind behind Captain Hercules's loud voice and brawny fist.
"Tell him not to play his big stake on a bad hand. Mind you tell him that."
"His big stake, Colonel?" asked Markart. "What do I understand by that?"
"Nothing; and you weren't meant to. But tell Stenovics—he'll understand."
Rastatz laughed his rickety giggle again.
"Rastatz does that to make you think he understands better than you do. Be comforted—he doesn't." Rastatz's laugh broke out again, but now forced and uneasy. "And the girl who knocked Sterkoff out of time—I wish she'd killed the stupid brute—what about her, Markart?"
"She's—er—a very remarkable person, Colonel."
"Er—is she? I must make her acquaintance. Good-bye, Markart."
Markart had meant to stay for half an hour, but he went.
"Good-bye, Rastatz."
Rastatz had just ordered anotherliqueur; but, without waiting to drink it, he too went. Stafnitz sat on alone, smoking his cigar. There were no signs of care on his face. Though not gay, it was calm and smooth; no wrinkles witnessed to worry, nor marred the comely remains of youth which had survived his five and thirty years.
He finished his cigar, drank his coffee, and rose to go. Then he looked carefully round the terrace, distinguished the prettiest woman with a momentarily lingering look, made his salute to a brother officer, and strolled away along the boulevard.
Before he reached the barracks in St. Michael's Square he met a woman whose figure pleased him; she was tall and lithe, moving with a free grace. But over her face she wore a thick veil. The veil no doubt annoyed him; but he was to have other opportunities of seeing Sophy's face.