"I suppose you had a jolly time with him in Paris?"
"Oh, my dear Harry, what next? I saw him twice: once in the corridor of the hotel, then in his own rooms."
"In his rooms!"
"Yes; to tell him I never wished to see him again."
"Oh, you brick; that's the best thing I've heard. Of course, I knew you would. There's never been anything said, but you owed that to me—now, didn't you, puss?"
She would not answer him. They passed to the vague intimacies of an incomplete amour, in which their whispers were inaudible and the sound of voices in the cabin a warning discord. Eva still played an intolerable waltz. The harbour waves sported about the dinghy, tethered astern. Gabrielle wondered why it was that she was incapable of resisting all this; that she suffered this quite brainless boy to kiss her at his pleasure—a great bear with fearsome limbs cuddling her. Was it because of her twenty-three years of Suburbia? Because of an inherited instinct for the commonplace of the natural life—such a life as all about her lived, and would live in that little world of Hampstead? Or was it purely the call of sex—more potent than a thousand theories, imperious beyond all the laws of emperors and kings?
The latter thought did not occur to her. She suffered the spell of the scene, the soft airs of night, the shining stars, the harbour lights, the waxing and waning chords of distant music. Harry's passionate whispers were like a message from afar. She submitted to him as though thus was her destiny written.
LOUIS DE PALEOLOGUE
I
Do you know Ragusa—Ragusa, the Pearl of the Adriatic?
It was here that the Imperial yacht carried the Emperor when at last he sailed from Trieste—here that John Faber saw him within three hours of his going ashore.
Here also Faber found the man he had sought so many years. Louis de Paleologue, who had taken his mother to America after his father's death in Paris.
Ragusa—what city is like to this of all that border the incomparable shore? Sebenico, Zara, Spalato—who cares if they perish while Ragusa remains?
Consider how through the centuries this little republic shut the gates of her sanctuary in the face alike of Moslem and of Christian; how she defied now the Turk, now the Servian, even the mighty power of Venice at its zenith. Neither friend nor foe coming to her for shelter was refused. She protected Stephen Nemanja, who fought her allies of the Byzantine Empire; she opened her gates to Queen Margarita, and defended them against the King of Dalmatia. The "winged lion" writes no shame upon her citadel. Shefell at last, not to man, but to the very earth which opened and swallowed her up. There was never a history of Ragusa after that fateful year 1667. The great earthquake ended a story—Napoleon wrote but a sorry epitaph.
What a cosmopolitan company is that which gathers every day within the tremendous walls of this fallen citadel. All the colours of the Balkan peoples are to be seen here—the flag and turban of the Turk; the white breeches of the Albanian—Joseph's coat upon the back of the son of the Black Mountain. Servians are here: Bosnians and men of Herzegovina; Italians who have drifted down from northern towns; Austrians in possession. Crimson clashes with the sky-blue tunics of the Austrian officers—there are deep reds and glowing tints of orange—all moving in kaleidoscopic splendour through streets which the extended arms may measure; by churches and palaces, which are matchless in their art. A city girded by the libidinous foliage of the south; a city of half-lights and shaded cloisters; of a fortress running out into the blue Adriatic, lifting mighty walls to the caress of the kindly seas.
II
Louis de Paleologue had taken up his abode in a veritable hole in the wall near the Dominican monastery. The place was dark and cavernous, and might have been (but for its monstrous stones) a booth in an Eastern bazaar. When he worked it was in the cool of the monastery gardens, the monks stealinglooks over his shoulder at wonderful forms in bewitchingnégligé—or even at terpsichoreal advertisements of pills and powder. For despite his sixty-two years, and the fact that he was a prince in his own country, Louis still earned his living by the advertisers, and was held to be the cleverest draughtsman at the business.
One grievance he had, and one joy—his daughter Maryska, nineteen upon her last birthday, and still a child. Maryska like her father (and another celebrity who has had a statue raised to him) never grew up. She was the youngest woman of nineteen in the whole wide world, and when father and daughter went for "a rag" together, it was wonderful that anything at all was left in the Cantina—as he had named the house.
Such days they passed! Louis, prone in the sun with a cigarette in his mouth; Maryska, flitting about the scene like a schoolgirl at play! They went hand in hand everywhere like sworn friends in an academy for young ladies. What money they earned would be sometimes in his pocket, sometimes in hers. They quarrelled babyishly—the man shedding tears more often than the girl. Yet he would have put his knife into the heart of any who did her injury, with as little thought as he would have killed a stray dog at his door. There had been one such tragedy at Zara—the body was found in the harbour some days afterwards.
Maryska was a cosmopolitan. She had starved in New York, in London, in Paris, in Berlin. Now she starved in Ragusa—except upon those splendid occasions when a cheque came from England. Then theAustrian banker would be fetched out of bed or café to cash it. They were rare days, for Louis would knock down the bottles like ninepins, and never turn a hair whatever their number. Maryska drank just as much as she could, and then fell asleep. He used to shout and swear because she would not wake up to draw another cork for him.
Latterly, it had been the devil to pay at the Cantina. Louis had lived in prospective upon six disorderly nymphs—all décolleté—who were to have proclaimed the merits,urbi et orbi, of a new suspender for ladies of fashion. These drawings were quite wonderful. The prior of the monastery who no doubt, may have imagined that they were part of a scheme for a stained glass window, thought very highly of them. The Austrian officers begged for copies of the paper. The governor laughed and had a fit of coughing. He wanted to know where the models came from. Louis would not tell him that, except to say that they were memories of Paris and New York. He rarely drew the beautiful dark face of Maryska—but there is a portrait of her in the church of St. John the Divine in London, and many would swear it is a madonna of an old master. Louis painted it for the priest, who used to tell him he was a scoundrel. It was so very true.
Well, the pictures were drawn and dispatched to London; and then a dreadful thing happened. The firm, which understood the female mysteries so well, treated the financial verities with a contempt which quickly ended in Carey Street. No cheque came to that hole in the wall at Ragusa. Squat-legged and patient,Louis smoked his cigarette and listened to Maryska's wholly unmelodious music. There was bread in the house, but no wine. Well, wine would come presently.
Wine did not come, but in its place came John Faber. For a moment, Louis thought that a customer had crossed the seas to buy his pictures. Then he said that the firm, which was suspended because of its suspenders, had sent an embassy with the cash. However it might be, he determined to borrow five crowns of the stranger, and saluted him with princely politeness.
Maryska, meanwhile, stood up ready to go to the wine-shop.
III
Faber took off his hat at the entrance to the cavern, and blinked in the darkness. He saw a handsome man squatting on the floor, and behind him a pair of eyes which glowed as a cat's. They belonged to Maryska; but he did not know, indeed, he wondered if there were wild beasts in the place.
"Say, does anyone named Louis de Paleologue live here?"
The accent transplanted father and daughter to New York in an instant. What years they had lived there! How they regretted them!
"He does, sir, and what then?"
"You are Mr. Paleologue?"
"That is so. My daughter—she doesn't bite—at least, only me!"
Maryska's teeth were to be counted on the instant. She laughed as the Italians laugh, without reservations.
"Accidenti!" she cried, and then coming out into the light, "caro mio—he is too tough, poppa, I should spoil my teeth!"
Faber saluted her in a way he intended to be Continental.
"You have been in New York, signorina?"
"Five years, mister. I am all Americano!"
"Then I'll walk right in, if I may."
He did not wait for permission, but entered the cavern. It was evident that he would have liked a chair, but seeing none, he accepted a mat which she offered.
"Poppa burned all the chairs long ago. Can you sit down on nothing, mister?"
He said that he could, looking at Maryska all the while. Louis took a box of Bosnian cigarettes from the floor and passed it over.
"Say, are you thirsty, boss?"
Faber smiled at that.
"Well, this is thirsty ground. As the governor said—but I guess ye don't know what the governor——"
"Bet you!" He said. "'Don't let it be long between the drinks.' There's a wine-shop two blocks away."
Maryska stepped forward, as keen as a hound. She held out her hand for the money without any shame at all—she and her father had been holding it out for years—yet some of Louis' gifts in return had been more precious than gold.
"How much shall I give you?" Faber asked. She replied that a kronen would be ample. He gave it her, and she was away in a flash.
They smoked a space in silence when she was gone. Presently Faber said: "Business good down this way?"
Louis did not like the tone of it, and the quills of his pride stiffened. "What's that to you?"
"Might be a good deal—I'm in dead earnest."
"What's your line—pills or powder?"
"I'm neither. I make guns."
"Want me to fire 'em off—well, I'm ready. What's the size?"
Faber smiled.
"Not quite it," he said; and then wandering right away from the subject, "I wish I'd known you were in New York. You didn't work under your own name there."
"That's so. I used to sign just 'Louis.'"
"Will you draw me a picture of Maryska—for my house? A thousand dollars now and another thousand when it's delivered?"
Louis drew back a little.
"Why the girl?"
"You must know why. There couldn't be a better subject."
"Yes; but if I do not choose to do it, what then?"
"Why, then I'm beaten."
He threw away the stump of his cigarette and took another. Presently Maryska returned with the flask of white wine and the glasses were chinked. The child drank a draught which would have put a vintner to shame. Then she showed her pretty teeth.
"Oh, how good!" she said, and then with a heavenly sigh, "Ecco c'e vuoto."
"Think you could do another?" Faber asked Louis. The reply was quite stately.
"Sir, I am at your disposition."
Maryska went off with five crowns this time. When she was gone, her father thawed a little.
"Have you seen much of this place?"
"Just as much as the harbour showed me."
"Staying here long?"
"Why, as to that—why stay?"
Paleologue knocked the ashes off his cigarette with magnificent dignity.
"You make guns; why not see some of them go off?"
"Do you suggest fighting?"
"That's so. I'm going up to Podgorica in three days' time, afterwards on to the frontier. There'll be riot, rape and pillage. Like to come along?"
Faber was a little nonplussed.
"Do you go alone?" he asked.
"The girl and I, certainly. We can talk business on the road. Why not?"
"Oh, I'll come! Here's the wine, I see. She's a wonder that girl of yours."
Louis assented.
"Her bringing up; she has forgotten how to read and write. It is education which is the matter nowadays. I believe the Greeks knew women. Come here, wild cat, and tell the stranger you can't read or write."
Maryska reddened at this and cried "Beast!" withreal anger. She sulked for quite a long time, hiding in the dark corner where only her glowing eyes could be seen. Louis took no notice of her tantrums; he had begun to be rather interested in the stranger.
"Say, you know the fighting may be a bit lively. I'm bound for Ranovica—want to see it burned. There was a man here yesterday from the London illustrated papers. He's out for fancy pictures and put me on. He's mighty anxious after the rape and pillage. I guess we'll see something of that at Ranovica."
Faber looked at the girl; she did not seem to be listening.
"Aren't you imprudent? Isn't it better to leave your daughter here?" he asked in a low voice.
Louis did not understand him. "Where I go, she goes. Besides, they know me very well, these people. You are not afraid, mister?"
"Afraid! How do we go?"
"Steamer to Antivari."
"I'll take you on my yacht."
Louis expressed no surprise. If his guest had promised a warship with golden plates his sphinx-like attitude would have been unchanged.
"Just as you like," he said. "We take the horses at Scutari anyway."
To which Faber responded with a further offer. "I've a car on my ship; we'll put her ashore and try that road."
Louis shook his head. "No good at all; there isn't any damned road. To-day's Saturday; shall we say to-morrow morning at ten?"
"But it was to be three days' time."
Louis yawned. "Oh, d——n time!" he said. "I never think of it."
"Then we'll start to-morrow at ten."
He drank off his wine and turned to look at Maryska. She had crept nearer while they talked, and her head was bent to the floor that she might not miss a word. When Faber held out his hand to her she leaned upon her elbows and looked at him with strange eyes.
"Good-bye, mister!"
"You are coming on my ship, Maryska."
"Not with that man," and she pointed to her father.
"Pouf!" said Louis. "I will flay you with the whip."
"And I will kill you with my knife," she said quickly, in Italian.
It was the customary exchange of their daily compliments. Louis rather liked it.
"Say," he exclaimed on the threshold, "and who may you be, anyway?"
"I? Why, my name's John Faber."
"Faber—Faber? I used to know a Faber in Paris in the 'seventies."
"His son, sir."
Louis turned his cigarette over in his mouth.
"How did you hear of me?" he asked.
"Oh, I got your name in Paris. TheNew York Mitrepeople gave it to me."
"That's odd; I used to know your mother forty years ago. Well, so long," and he turned on his heel.
THE DAMNABLE MOUNTAINS
This was a bitter winter on the Albanian frontier, and God alone knows how the party got to Ranovica at all.
None but a madman would have attempted the journey at such a moment in the story of the Balkans; but as John Faber remarked, it needed a double-barrelled charge of insanity to venture it in the winter. Yet he had told Maryska that he would go, and go he did.
What a country, and what a people! The Almighty seemed to have blasted the mountains and the mountaineers alike. Such a wilderness of grey rocks, of weirdly scarped precipices, of awful caverns and fearsome valleys is to be imagined by none who have not visited it.
Depict a range of mountains built up of the barren limestone into a myriad fearsome shapes of dome and turret, castle and battlement. In the valleys far below, put the gardens of the world, fertile beyond all dreams; where the grapes grow as long as the fingers on your hand, and every tropical plant luxuriates. Drive humanity from this scene and deliver it up to the world and the bear. Such is the frontier of Albania where it debouches upon Montenegro—such arethe "damnable mountains," as every Christian in their vicinity has learned to call them.
A desert upon an altitude, and yet it is not wholly a desert. Here and there ensconced in nook and cranny you will come upon an oasis where a village harbours wild people and a scanty patch of fertile soil keeps body and soul together. Such a place was Ranovica, to which Louis de Paleologue led his guest on the sixth day afterwards. They came up to it at three o'clock upon that December afternoon when the sun was magnificent over the Western Adriatic, and even these desolate hills had been fired to warmth and colour.
An odd party—three upon cheeky little Hungarian horses; three upon mules. Frank, the American valet, had much to say about the habits and character of the mule, but he reserved it until they should be safely upon the yacht again. The other two servants were Austrians who had been heavily bribed for the venture—even they would have refused had they understood that it was for an expedition to Ranovica. This hole in the hill was full of savage Christians who hated the Montenegrins much, but the Moslem a good deal more. It was bound to be burned sooner or later.
Ranovica has a fine old gate built by Stephen of Bosnia, heaven knows how many years ago. The party rode through this just after three o'clock, and was challenged immediately by half-a-dozen warriors with the most wonderful white breeches the Western world has seen. Already, and when far down the valley, the outposts of the little force defending this wild place had put the travellers through a searchinginquisition; but they had to face another ordeal at the gate, and lucky for them that Louis spoke Servian so fluently. The soldiers listened to him as though a brother was speaking. They looked at Maryska with wide black eyes. Why not?—she was good to look upon, surely, with her high boots and crimson breeches and little Greek cap. Faber himself had looked at her a great many times on the way up, but he was by no means pleased that she should become the cynosure of so many evil eyes.
"Well?" he said to her, while Louis played the millionaire among the wild men, "and what do you think of this, young lady?"
She was still upon her pretty little horse and her eyes were here, there and everywhere; but not with the curiosity an untravelled woman would have displayed. Maryska had seen too much of the world to be troubled by Ranovica. Besides, she was hungry.
"I think my father is a fool to come here, and you also, boss, that is what I think."
"Guess you've hit it first time. Are you hungry, Maryska?"
"Why, yes. Are you, boss?"
She imitated her father perfectly, and Faber laughed. They were in a street so narrow that his horse had a head in the window upon one side of the road and a tail in a window upon the other. A tremendous battlement of rock lifted a sheer precipice far up above this peopled gorge. In the shadows there moved a fierce people, savage, wild, hunted. They gathered round the strangers menacingly, and but for the old white-haired priest, even Louis' gift of tonguesmight not have saved them. The priest, however, liked the jingle of good Austrian crowns. Let the strangers come to his house, he said, the inn was not fit to harbour a dog.
So the party rode on a furlong—the men, the girl, the American valet and the Austrians. At every step the crowd pressed about them, black and scowling. It was good at last to enter an open courtyard and to see that none followed. Dark was coming down then and lights shining from the windows of the miserable houses. Faber remembered that he had communicated with the Turkish authorities before setting out and congratulated himself upon his prudence.
"They'll want my guns, and so they'll want me," he said.
But he was still mightily anxious about Maryska.
II
The priest's house was about as big as a cow-house and as filthy as a Spanish podesta. Of food there was little save coarse bread and villainous-looking brandy. Here the guests came to the rescue, for Louis had carried up victuals at Faber's expense, and now the good things were spread upon old "Pop's" table, to that worthy's exceeding satisfaction. None ate with better appetite than he; none smacked fine lips so loudly over the good white wine, unless it were Maryska.
Louis had christened him "Old Pop" immediately, and he talked to him in voluble Servian during the repast. Occasionally he interpreted at Maryska's request,and fragments of talk were tossed down to her as bones to a dog. They made the girl laugh, but Faber found them grim enough. He was asking "What does he say?" almost at every sentence. Louis picked out the tit-bits and passed them on.
"There were Turks nine miles from here the day before yesterday. They burned Nitzke, and killed the women; some of the Nitzke people are here now; one has lost his nose—yes, they always cut off the noses, and so do our fellows when they catch a Turk. This place would be easy to hold if there were troops, but, of course, Nicholas can't send any until war is declared. Pop hopes that Alussein Pasha won't find us. If he does, there'll be a massacre; yes, it will be in the next two or three days. You're not behind the times, sir; you'll see the fun if there is any."
Faber looked at Maryska, and discovered that she was looking at him. Evidently she shared her father's whim of exaggeration and her curiosity as to "the stranger's" behaviour was now awake. These odd terms: "boss," "stranger," "master," picked up from the backwoods of America twenty years ago, pleased the Southern ear, and were guarded tenaciously. Maryska wished to frighten this American, and would have been delighted had she succeeded.
"What shall you do if they come?" she asked him.
He said, as quickly: "I should go to bed," and at that she laughed again.
"And what will you do?" he asked her. She leered as she put a whole sardine into her capacious mouth.
"I shall see them fight. Men are for fighting—women to see them. In your country, you have nosoldiers. All the Americans talk a heap about it, but none of them have seen anything at all. You will be a great good man after this, boss!"
He opened his eyes.
"Why a great good man?"
"Because you will have seen something that is great and good."
He was very much astonished.
"Do you mean that killing other men is great and good, Maryska?"
Her face wore a pensive attitude, but she still had one eye upon the comestibles.
"I think they are a brave people. I think it is great and good to fight for your country."
"Well, wouldn't the Americans fight for theirs?"
"Perhaps; I don't know. You are all too clever to think about anything but money. He says so."
"Isn't money a very good thing to think about?"
She looked at him with great contempt.
"I was not born a shopkeeper," she said, and then, "Ask poppa and hear what he will say."
He nodded his head.
"Why has poppa come to Ranovica?"
"To draw pictures for the papers, yes."
"Is it for money?"
"If he will receive it, yes; if he does not like the people he will not receive it."
"Then how will you live, Maryska?"
She tossed her head.
"We shall live very well, sir; my father is a noble in his own country. He will not be insulted by such people; he is very proud."
And then she said with a ridiculous want of gravity, "And so am I. Please to give me some of the chocolates, sir. The old Pop will eat them all."
He passed her the chocolates and helped himself to a cigar from one of his own boxes. The room was long and narrow, the walls wainscoted in oak and painted a dirty pink above. An ikon hung in a corner, for "Pop" was of the Greek Orthodox Church, and very devout—when he was not drunk. The latter appeared now to be his condition, and when they rose from the table, he insisted upon taking them out into the village that they might hear him harangue the people. Night had come down at this time, but no one thought of sleep in that oasis of the bleak mountains. Far up on the desolate hills were the sentries who would tell Ranovica of the Turks' approach. In the street itself moved a heterogeneous company of old and young men, and women and laughing girls, everyone carrying a revolver in the girdle and some armed to the very teeth. A babble of excited talk fell upon the night air as a hum of insects. What was in store for the people of this new citadel? Would the Turk come or pass them by? God and the morrow must answer.
III
It was a far cry to the great arsenals at Charleston, but Faber's mind crossed the seas when he walked alone that night in the street before the priest's house. What particular freak of a latent insanity had sent him to this place?
Was it curiosity or the girl? Just the passing fancy for the wildest little woman he had ever met or the desire to see his fellow men butchered? One or the other it must be, and he was too honest to deny it. Either Maryska or the Turkish butcher, scimitar in hand.
If it were the girl, his vain folly had met with a swift rebuke. Looking up to her bedroom window, he remembered her "good-night," and the manner of it. She had told him that he was an "old, old man," and the words struck him as a thunderclap. An "old, old man!" Good God! had so much of his life already run? No one had ever spoken such words before and his vanity bristled. Had the girl been serious, or did she speak in jest?
An "old, old man"—and he was not forty. In America, it is true, they have little use for forty unless forty can command allegiance. He, John Faber, had ruled a city in Charleston. His works employed more than five thousand men; he was the high priest of the temples of labour his own brain had built up. No one remembered his age there. They spoke of him as "the new Krupp," the young genius in steel who could make or mar the fortunes of empires. The women pursued him relentlessly, remembering his eleven millions. He could have led the life of an Oriental debauchee and no one criticise him. To read the papers—many of which he owned—you might have set him down for twenty-five. This chit of a wild girl had burst the bubble with a little pin prick of her candour. An old, old man! The words raked his self-assurance, he could have boxed her ears for them.
If not Maryska, what, then, had brought him to Ranovica?
Was it to see if he could witness something of that wild life of the Balkans which had stirred his imagination in the past? When quite a lad he had read of these villages and of what befell them when the Turk came in. One incident he had never forgotten; it was on the Macedonian frontier where a little town had been sacked, the men butchered or burned by naphtha, the women violated, the old priest flayed alive. He had the account of it in theIllustrated London Newsamong his papers to that very day. Such a village as this might have been the scene of it!
He passed on, musing deeply, and presently met an Albanian posted at the head of the street. The soldier had an American rifle, and he discovered that it had come from his own factory at Charleston. He gave the man a couple of crowns, and the fellow grinned savagely, pointing at the same time up to the silent hills. There were Turks somewhere up there, and he would shoot them. The rifle was about to do that for which it was made. Faber would see the fruit of his own work.
He walked on a little way and met his valet, Frank. The young man spoke German fluently, and had learned a good deal from the Austrian porters. He was much alarmed by his situation, and did not hesitate to say so.
"They tell me an attack is expected, sir. We shall fare badly in this hole if it comes off. I don't think the authorities can do much for us; what's more, there ain't any."
Faber thrust his hands into his pockets—a habit of his—and walked a little way by his servant's side.
"Why," he said half reflectively, "it isn't exactly the Ritz Hotel to be sure. Who's been talking, Frank?"
"All of them, sir, all together. Turks are known to be five miles away and the young lieutenant expects them to ride in before morning. He says passports are a sure road to paradise—you can get to heaven quicker on an ambassador's signature than on any other. I'd do this block next time if I was you, Mr. Faber, to be sure I would. We may all have our throats cut before morning."
Faber chewed his cigar heavily.
"Mr. Paleologue doesn't think it; he's been among them before. He says the Turks like newspaper men; he's one of them. I advised our people in Constantinople I was coming, and I don't suppose they've gone to sleep. Anyway, can you fire a gun, Frank?"
Frank turned a little pale.
"I'd sooner see others fire it, sir."
"True enough, and guns won't be much good if the knives get going. I think we'll move on to-morrow, Frank; we'll learn what happens from the newspapers."
"I wish you'd go to-night, sir."
Faber shook his head.
"There's the young lady to be thought of. I guess she's asleep. It's got to be the morning, anyway."
"At any particular hour, sir?"
"As early as you like, Frank, if mademoiselle is ready."
The young man went off more afraid than he wouldsay, but glad of the crumb of comfort. His master, however, continued to walk up and down the narrow street before the house and to regard the cold mountains wistfully. What an odd scene! What a place for him to be in! The hole was full of the queerest people he had met in all his travels. Every hour added to the multitude of souls, while as for the inn or guest-house, it might have been a barracks. Albanians whose belts were full of knives and revolvers wrangled with refugees from the mountains who had fled before the Turks; there were travellers, police, wild women, soldiers, all boxed up together like sardines in a tin; and to add to the uproar a mechanical organ played the "Merry Widow" waltz without an interval. From time to time shrieks were to be heard and the sound of blows. A man would come reeling out into the street with bloody face or gashed limbs. One of them fell dead almost at the door of the priest's house, but no one took any notice of him. As for Louis de Paleologue and "old Pop" they were far too busy getting drunk together to observe such a trifle.
Faber assured himself that the man was quite dead, and chancing upon two immense Albanians who were coming down the narrow street, he told them as much of the story as gestures would permit. They shrugged their shoulders and entered the guest-house, whence two or three tipsy fellows emerged presently to drag the dead man away as though the body were a sack. Following them to the lower end of the village, Faber perceived them disappear upon a narrow path by the side of the gorge he had climbed that afternoon, and he had no doubt that they would throw the dead maninto the ravine, and leave the wolves to perform the last obsequies. He followed them no further, but stood a little while breathing the cool air and looking over toward Scutari. There lay Antivari and his own yacht. His voyage had been successful enough, and he had found the Emperor complaisant, but this estimate of his success was attended by another thought, and it concerned a woman. Sir Jules Achon would be at Ragusa by this time. Had Sir Jules seen the Emperor, and if so, to what end?
Here was a memory of Gabrielle Silvester speaking to him, and in some way moving him to an exaltation of success, not wholly chivalrous.
Had he not wagered that he would obtain an audience of the Kaiser, while the ridiculous ambassadors of a silly sentimentalism were still dreaming of their projects? And what he had promised, he had performed. The new Faber rifle would go to Germany—manufactured in part by Krupps, in part at Charleston. Meanwhile, universal peace remained a pretty topic for public platforms, and for certain distinguished old gentlemen whose philanthropy all the world admired. He, John Faber, owed something to it for it had introduced him to one of the cleverest women he had met in all his life, and this could be said despite their dramatic farewell. The latter troubled him, to be sure, but he did not despair of her when he remembered that the ugly business in Paris could yet be set straight. Claudine d'Arny must have a husband bought for her as other women have jewels or toy dogs. It should not be beyond his resources to contrive as much.
He lighted a new cigar upon this pleasant realisation of power—a gratification which his busy life made rare—and turning about, he retraced his steps toward Ranovica. The contrast between the lonely mountains which guarded the valley and the hive of armed men within was sharp enough, but it interested him at the moment less than other omens which a quick ear detected. The stillness seemed to him almost unnatural. He could have sworn at one place that a face peered down at him from a cranny of the precipice above, and, upon that, there came from afar the echo of a rifle shot. He was sure of it, faint as was the report and difficult to locate. A rifle shot over there beyond the great mountain which protected Ranovica from the northern winds! Long he listened for any repetition of the firing, but hearing none, returned at last to the priest's house. His nerves were playing tricks with him, he said. It was time to have done with it. There was a light in Maryska's room and a shadow upon the blind said that she was not yet in bed. Faber smiled as he looked up and remembered her words.
"An old, old man."
What had put it into the little cat's head to call him that?
THE BURNING OF RANOVICA
There were two beds in the room, and one was occupied already by Louis de Paleologue, who lay in a heavy stupor, but was not properly asleep. Faber had slept in such rooms before—in the old wild days when he had travelled in Western America to sell revolvers to a Christian people, who were set upon shooting other Christians. This room impressed chiefly by its omnipresent suggestions of profound filthiness. He feared to touch anything in it—the chairs, the walls, the very coverlet on the bed. His own rugs were his armament. He wrapped himself in them from head to foot, and fell asleep at last, still wondering in his dreams why, in God's name, he had come to Ranovica.
When he awoke, it was at a touch of the hand of his valet Frank. He felt heavy and drowsy, and knew that he had missed a good night's rest—indispensable to men whose brains are dominant. It was already light, and the curtains were drawn back from the window. He sat up to listen and became aware of a strange hubbub in the street without.
"Why, what are you saying, Frank; what's that you're telling me?"
The valet was ghastly pale; he walked upon tip-toe as though afraid of being heard; his voice was hardly more than the whisper of polite servitude.
"The soldiers are in, sir—it's all up with Ranovica."
"You don't say so! When did they come in?"
"Five minutes ago, sir. Don't you hear that—my God, don't you hear it, sir?"
There is no mistaking the cry of a man who is being butchered by knives, and Faber could not mistake it then. He sprang out of bed at a bound and ran to the window. The street below was full of Turks—the red fez, the baggy blue breeches were everywhere. Leaning out to get a better view, he saw a huge Albanian held down by four assassins who had the faces of the devils in the pictures. Another, like to them, had a broad butcher's knife in his hand, and was deliberately hacking the prone man's head from his shoulders. It was clumsily done and the wretch shrieked horribly at every cut upon the bare flesh. His blood already ran in the gutters, where it mingled with the blood of fifty others.
A sense of utter helplessness—of a sickness and horror he had not yet experienced, held Faber to the window for some minutes. He could look at nothing else but the outstretched figure and the clumsy knife. When head and body at length were torn apart, and the former held up on the end of a scimitar, a loud shout of fury escaped him, and he ran across the room for his revolver. The uproar had awakened Paleologue, who sat bolt upright watching his friend. When he perceived the revolver in his hand, he sprang out of bed and caught him in powerful arms.
"What are you doing, boss—what d——d nonsense is this?"
"I tell you they're hacking men to pieces in the street out yonder. Let me go—by God, I can't stand it."
"Say, don't be a fool. Do you think you can shoot a regiment? Keep that pistol out of sight, and hold your tongue. We'll have them up here if you butt in like that! Don't you understand it isn't our business? Why, you're more d——d nuisance than any woman—and you talk as much. Now, be quiet, and hear me out. You've got to sit this through and say nothing. I'll do the talking for myself and the girl. You look on and remember why you're here. Haven't you sense enough at your age?"
The irony of it stung Faber, and he put the pistol down. The frightened valet still looked out of the window and howled at intervals, as though he himself were already in the hands of the Turks. They could hear rifle shots, sometimes a volley, then a few straggling reports, which spoke of fugitives, who were making a dash for the mountains. In the street itself, it seemed that men scurried hither and thither as rats from their holes. Shouts of triumph were followed by sharp cries of pain, often by groans and the shrill screams of women. The air came pungent with the odour of gunpowder. In the room itself there was now silence save for the servant's bellowing. Paleologue dressed himself without any fuss whatever, and he did not utter a single word. When he was quite ready, he went out into the street immediately—Faber at his heels. No one had asked for Maryska.
Paleologue was wearing a ridiculous suit of yellowtweed at this time, and a green Homburg hat with a feather in it. He carried no other weapons than a cigarette case and a box of matches. The Turks round about eyed him with amazement not untempered by curiosity; but before any of them could make a movement he shouted out in their own tongue that he was an English newspaper correspondent, and their rifles were lowered. Doffing his cap to a man upon a little grey horse, who appeared to be their officer, the artist crossed the street and offered him a cigarette, speaking rapidly in the careless way he could command, whatever the language. Faber listened open mouthed. He thought that he was as near to death as ever he had been in his nine and thirty years, and he made no poor guess.
"What does he say, Frank?" the question was hurled up at the window where the valet's white face could be seen. He might as well have asked the fellow a question in Chinese.
"I don't know, sir. I think he is mad."
"I guess we were all mad to come here. My God! what a slaughter-house!"
No truer description of the scene could have been uttered by any man. The streets of Ravonica had become a shambles. Turks ran in and out of the distant houses like dogs at a warren. There were twenty headless bodies within ten yards of the captain in command. From the door of the inn or guest-house a broad eddy of blood was oozing away to the gutter; they could hear the troops within looting and ravaging at their pleasure, while the wretched organ still played some trumpery waltz in irony most wonderful.So dreadful it was that Faber, who believed that he knew the whole story of war, staggered back in a revolt of nausea and would have re-entered the priest's house but for Paleologue's imperative summons. The artist had never been more at home. He wore his hat jauntily and smoked with gusto while he talked to the captain.
"Say, boss, come and report yourself. This is Alussein Pasha. He has had word of you from headquarters; just shake and look as pleased as you can."
Faber shook hands with the man, while Louis offered him a cigarette and struck matches for them all. The concomitants of the ghastly scene were wholly out of place and singularly at variance with the truth. These three men might have met by accident in this outlandish village and have been discussing the best road back to civilization. The bloody struggle, still proceeding in the miserable hovels round about, moved Alussein Pasha no more than did the howling of dogs in an Eastern street. And Paleologue was just as indifferent until some of the ruffians fetched out "old Pop" by the hair of his head and held a scimitar at his throat. Then, to be fair to him, he woke up to the truth and began to argue excitedly with the Pasha—at which moment also Maryska appeared at a window above and spoke to her father in Italian. He answered with a wave of his hand, bidding her disappear; but not before a Turkish subaltern had seen her and thrown her a kiss in the Western fashion. This was too much for Louis, who knocked him down out of hand.
Undoubtedly it was a mad act, and went near to costing the lives of the party. Alussein Pasha uttered a roar like a stricken bull when his officer was floored; the Turks about him drew their knives and pressed upon Faber with fierce shouts. He had as good as given it up, and thought that this was the end of the business, when a young man at the Pasha's side said something to his chief in an earnest note and appeared to bring that savage worthy to his senses. He roared an order to the hawking pack, and they fell back from the prey they had marked down. An excited exchange of doubtful compliments between Louis and the grand Turk was followed by a compromise, Alussein stipulating for an immediate return to the shelter of the priest's house until the affair was over. So, in they went, the soldiers half pushing them with the butts of their rifles and barring the door behind them. "Old Pop" was the only prisoner now. They had forgotten him in the excitement of that very critical moment through which they had passed.
"Have a drink?" said Louis, throwing himself into a chair by the window and his hat into another; he seemed quite unconcerned, even unaware that there had been an instant of peril. John Faber, on the other hand, was talking to himself in decided terms. "John, my boy, you're a d——d fool to be here," he was saying—and that was very true. When he had drunk a tumbler of white wine and mineral water he found the sweat running off him like rain.
"Hot weather for the time of year. Where's your girl, Louis?"
"Oh! I guess she's all right—better where she is.Will you pass over that drawing pad? I can see a picture here."
Faber passed him the pad, and he settled deep in the arm-chair and began to make a rapid sketch of the crowded street. At the same moment Maryska entered the room and closed the door firmly behind her.
II
"Where is the priest?" she asked them in a strange tone. The men looked at her together, then at each other.
"Why, isn't he in the house?"
"They are killing him," she said. And then, "What are you doing here?"
Louis put down his pencil, and leaning out of the window, which was on a level with the street, he watched the scene a little while in silence.
"By God!" he cried at last; "they're singeing the old man's beard. Listen to that."
They listened and heard a harrowing sound, neither cry nor scream, but the wail as of a cat mewing. Twenty Turks had "Old Pop" in their midst; they had torn his clothes from his back and cut off his nose. Now some of them brought naphtha and poured it on his head, and instantly he became a vomit of flame.[1]Every feature of the wretched man could be seen with horrid distinctness, clarified by the fire. The flesh withered up before their eyes. He stood for a long minute plucking at his own flesh with handsof which but the bones were left. Then, all his cries ceased, and he fell forward in a ghastly heap, while the Turks howled derisively and thrust scimitars into the fire. They had burned many a priest these latter days, but this fellow was famous, and had fought many a good fight for Ranovica. His death stimulated a frenzy of lust and madness, and they rushed away to enter the houses and drive out the women. All the make-believe of a military occupation had been put aside by this time. Alussein had led them across the mountains to teach these Christians a lesson, and they were good masters.