IV
AN OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
The bathroom door opened slowly, with the slightest perceptible knock.
"May I come in?" was the low and meek inquiry.
"You may, and then you may go out as soon as possible," was the resolute response.
Warren's countenance was smiling again, and the smile was infectious. So curious had been this burglarizing method of escape, so unusual the imperturbable girl who had assisted him against all conventional expectations, that the horror of the last half-hour was partially dissipated. When a man meets a great crisis of his life and overcomes it, there is a queer relaxation of strained nerves,—with a woman the result would be hysteria; with a man of Warren Jarvis' type it was a self-surprising amiability and calmness.
"Would you mind bolting the door again? He might return. And thank you very much for delaying the death sentence—now I can explain."
The girl glided to the door and tested the lock. It was secure, and she turned about to return that infectious smile of the eyes, albeit grudgingly.
Warren, finally realizing that he was weak from strain, and aching in every muscle from the ordeal of the past twenty-four hours, looked appealing at the comfortable armchair.
"May I sit down for just a minute?" he pleaded. "I have not slept since the night before last. I have not rested for a fortnight."
The girl nodded. He relaxed, and dropped into a blessed position of comfort. He buried his face in his hands—how many times had he struck this same attitude since the bitter days at Meadow Green, without realizing the repetition!
For two minutes or an hour he sat there—he knew not which. His companion, with sudden renewal of consciousness of thedéshabilleof her dressing-gown, retreated to the corner of the brass bed. She sat down, to scrutinize the better this strange intruder. The moonlight which fell in pale green bars across the Bokhara beneath her slippered feet; the melodramatic situation which had brought them together; the unmistakable gentility of this compelling intruder of her maidenly domain; the curious collapse of his aggressiveness—all these things united to cast a sympathetic spell over her. She was foolish—to the extreme of placing herself in a ridiculous situation! She was culpable—in protecting a self-confessed butcher! She was weak—in yielding to girlish sentiment by permitting this man to shatter the conventionalities,—she who had been accustomed, throughout her twenty years of adulation and awe-inspiring respect, to a servile respect from every man, woman, and child! And, worst of all to an essentially feminine mind, she had allowed this presumptuous, calculating stranger to override her better judgment, to subjugate her resistance, without a visible tribute to the charms which had stirred the masculine souls of a continent!
And yet, in spite of—perhaps,because of—all these illogical, provoking, equilibrium-shattering irritants—she sat there, patiently, eagerly awaiting an explanation. Consistency, thy name is not Maidenhood!
Suddenly he looked at her.
"Do you know what a feud is?" was the curious prologue.
Her answer was apt and surprising.
"Feud? Spain is the garden of feuds."
"So is Kentucky. That's where I'm from. You're Spanish, then?"
"Yes!"
"Then you'll understand and sympathize.... Those shots you heard ended a feud which has lived through three or four generations. They brought me back to earth, to life, to a realization of things about me, after the most horrible nightmare through which I've ever passed. I know my own name now,—and I had almost forgotten it since I went back home—so short a time, so many centuries ago!"
Then Warren Jarvis told her the story; his eyes were half closed, and with his fingers clasped and intertwined beneath his square-chiseled chin he recounted the steps of the recent event with the monotone of one who chants a mechanically memorized tale. She understood at last.
"But what did he do when you went to his room in the hotel?"
"Just what I expected—in fact, what I prayed for! As the door opened he fired his revolver—and I carry the witness inside this crimson handkerchief. I had my own weapon in my coat pocket ... it's a trick I learned in Central American revolutions. I fired from my waist, burned a hole in my overcoat—and burned a hole in the heart of that murderous hound."
Suddenly he sprang to his feet and walked to the window, just as he had done back in Meadow Green so short a time before.
"Dad, dear old dad! I know you're satisfied. I let him take the first chance, and it was his last."
He was silent. The girl twisted the dressing-gown in her slender, nervous fingers. She waited for him to speak. He turned about, and dropped his hands, palm outward, as he quietly ended it all with the question: "Now, can you understand why the law would not give me justice?"
"Is he dead—are you sure?"
"I didn't wait—I came ... to ... visit you. Now are you going to drive me out?... You don't know what it is to fight single-handed against fearful odds. That's how I planned to spend my summer. To fight the endless fight alone...."
She leaned forward eagerly as she answered: "Oh, yes, I do! I know what it means.... I, too, have been fighting against fearful odds!"
Jarvis looked at her sharply.
"There is no man to fight for you?"
"No man who dares."
"Oh, God! If there had only been a woman left for me to fight for!... But with my mother gone it was simply a hopeless, desperate determination to square the score at any cost, and then cry 'Quits!' and care nothing."
She drew back, studying the outline of his agile body, as he stood silhouetted against the moonlight.
"And are you alone?"
"Alone."
"And if you're caught," there was a curious eagerness in her low voice, "it means payment with your life?"
"Yes!"
"Suppose that I decided to help you—to do more than I have done?"
Jarvis discarded his fatalism, as he caught at this loophole.
"What do you mean?"
"You have no fear of death? You are not afraid of ghosts?"
"Ghosts? Don't joke with me. I am an American."
"Yes—ghosts—they are not confined to America, or China, or Africa. I mean Spanish ghosts."
Jarvis' laugh was almost bitter, as he responded with a tense earnestness:
"After to-night I am not afraid of the living or the dead. What are you thinking about?"
After a hesitation, poignant in its baffling anxiety, she rose and walked toward him, absolutely forgetful of their curious meeting and their lack of a common ground of interest.
"If you escape from here, it will be because I helped you. We might say, I saved your life,—if what you tell me is true and if I do it from a selfish motive entirely, I am justified. I have work for you ... hard, dangerous work, and as I am frank, it may mean your life in the end. It's a chance, and you have nothing to lose."
"And if I agree?"
"You will begin by taking the ancient feudal oath of my country."
"Isn't my word enough? I'm a Kentuckian, you know."
"But I insist."
Jarvis smiled indulgently.
"Very well—I'll swear the blackest oath you can utter." His eyes twinkled. "Let's hear it all now."
The girl drew back her shoulders haughtily. It was apparent that she took this curious idea more seriously than the prelude would suggest.
"What is your name?"
"Jarvis."
"All of it?"
"Warren Jarvis."
She raised her hands, to the Kentuckian's surprise.
"Kneel then, Warren of Jarvis!... No, not that way,—on one knee only!"
"I beg your pardon." Jarvis began to feel ridiculous, in spite of himself. But there were reasons for humoring this curious beauty. The footsteps were still audible in the hall.
"Now repeat this oath: I, Warren of Jarvis" (he followed word for word), "Señor of all the domains, fiefs, keeps, and marches of Warren of Kentucky..."
"Whew!" and he stifled a laugh as he echoed the words.
The girl continued: "Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions..."
"Sounds like I were marrying her—I beg your pardon. 'Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions!'"
The shade of a smile played over his features.
The girl caught his hand in hers, placed her left in both of his, and then continued: "And receive them back as vassal and retainer and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause, according to the feudal laws of Castile and Aragon!"
>—"and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause"
—"and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause"
As he finished the repetition, she added: "Arise, vassal!"
With the spirit of the ceremony, he jestingly caught her hand and kissed it, as he arose. She drew back sharply.
"That is part of the ceremony, but I meant to omit it."
Warren Jarvis laughed provokingly.
"That seemed to me the only sensible part of it—again I beg your pardon. But who on earth is this Maria Theresa of Aragon person whose hired man I have become?"
The girl drew herself up with a hauteur which could never have been imitated upon the stage. Her dark eyes glinted coldly as she replied: "I—I am her Serene Highness—Maria Theresa—Princess of Aragon!"
Jarvis looked at her, waiting for the cue to the joke. She was serious. It was all so unreal, so ridiculous—and yet back there on the floor of the room down the corridor lay Jim Marcum. This mad, sad, heart-rending, adventure must have driven him to insanity. He rubbed his brow, looked out of the window, heard the unromantic honk-honk of a piratical night-owl taxicab on the street so far below. He steadied his mental equilibrium, and looked again at the self-possessed young woman, whose regal manner was as convincing as all the other details were unconvincing. On the table lay a fortune in jewels and rings and a necklace. He had not noticed them before. He remembered the Spanish conversation which he had heard through the bathroom door. He realized from the size and elegance of the rooms that this must indeed be a regal suite in the great hotel.
And the girl's steady look never wavered.
American humor, in the presence of royalty, came to his aid in this staggering blow to his credence.
"Good-night! You a Princess ... and I've been ordering you around with a gun! Great Scott ... whatnext?"
V
EXIT JARVIS, LAUGHING
The Princess turned toward the door, for a step could be heard in the corridor.
"Before that official returns we must have a plan. I thought it out while you were behind the door. But, perhaps, it will be too hard a task for you."
"I'll try it. Anything to get out of here! And I would like to know what it is you want me to do for you—what about the ghost?"
"I will tell you in good time. Just now for your escape. It is getting late, and the hours are speeding past. You are in a hopeless trap here. Now, my trunk..."
"What about it?"
"I am sending it on board theMauretaniaat six o'clock, and no one could possibly suspect."
Jarvis turned to study this curious vehicle of transportation. It was a strong, well-built piece of baggage, indeed; but to be cooped up in it, at the mercy of baggageman and truckman, hoisters and stewards—the thought was staggering.
"You're joking," he began, but she resolutely shook her wealth of hair.
"It's the only chance, and a daring one at that. I am jeopardizing my own safety by assisting you. Surely, if life is so uncertain for you at best, you cannot lose by a trial."
Jarvis stooped over it, and began lifting out the trays, to study the questionable roominess of the interior.
"What about these?" he asked, and as he spoke a locket dropped to the floor. The girl darted forward to pick it up, and Jarvis observed it for the first time. Her solicitude seemed unusual to the Kentuckian.
"Did I break something?"
"No. It's nothing. I mean, it's all right. It's just a locket. I broke it myself yesterday, on purpose. It means a great deal to me, and perhaps to you. Some day you may know the reason why ... Shall we send the trays to the steamer by messenger?"
Jarvis thought for an instant. Here was such an utterly improbable method of escape, such a strange new twirl in his whirlpool of adventure, that he had to find his bearings.
"I have it now," he explained. "You had better telephone—we must have someone we can trust implicitly."
The Princess crossed toward the desk telephone on the small table by her bed, and looked at him inquiringly.
"Ask the operator to connect you with the Hotel Belmont. That's just across the street. My room is 417. Rusty, my servant, is there. He is waiting for some word from me, as he knew the possibilities when I met Jim Marcum. He can be counted on till Judgment Day and then a few hours afterwards! Tell him to come here at once—mention my first name only, with no other explanation—that will bring him and give no other clew to an outsider. You never can tell about a telephone. But fortunately, I registered there under a different name. Try it now."
The girl had the receiver off the hook. After a short delay she was talking directly with the faithful servitor, whose trembling voice betokened his anxiety. But Rusty was too sage to ask too many questions—he had served in affairs of delicacy before this.
"Hello—is this Mr. Rusty?... Yes? Well, listen carefully. You are to come right over to the Manhattan Hotel across the street and a bellboy will be waiting for you at the desk. He is to bring you up to room 1121."
Jarvis interrupted: "Tell him to keep his mouth shut!"
The Princess balked at the colloquialism.
"And—and—don't talk to anyone ... What's that?... Oh, yes. 'Warren.'... There, he'll be coming over immediately."
Jarvis, the executive, was now in action.
He had emptied the trunk as she was talking, tossing out fascinating feminine mysteries of lace and silks, with a nonchalance which brought a twinkle into the dark eyes. He turned again.
"Hurry, now—call up the clerk downstairs. Tell them to look out for Rusty and send him up here."
More delicate symphonies of Parisian architecture were thrown on the floor, and Warren had taken out his pocket-knife.
"Hello, hello," called the Princess. "I'm expecting a man."
"A colored man," was Warren's parenthesis.
"Yes,... a colored man ... to get some bundles. He will come right to the desk ... please send him up at once ... It is very important."
The Princess observed Jarvis' attempt to bore a hole in the side of the trunk. He was laboring diligently, until the blade snapped.
"Confound it!"
"Why are you doing that?"
"I must breathe, you know ... Now, how can I cut a hole in the blessed thing?" He scratched his forehead in a quandary.
The Princess brought him her shears from the dresser. In a few minutes he had made two openings which seemed to satisfy him, but it had been no easy task.
"What time does the boat sail?"
"Nine o'clock."
"Good. That will give Rusty time to get aboard with these trays and my baggage. Let me see, it is a quarter of six now—how quickly the dawn has slipped in!"
There was a knock on the outer door, and Jarvis again disappeared behind the bathroom portal, with instinctive caution.
At a call from the Princess, the door opened after she had slid back the upper bolt. The girl stepped back abashed at the appearance of the excited negro. Rusty rolled his eyes, suspiciously taking in the contents of the room.
"Whar's Marse Warren?" and his voice was hoarse. Jarvis stepped into view. "Lawd bless you, Marse Warren. I done thought dat Marcum got you dis time."
"Never mind what you thought. Help me wrap up these trays. We sail for Europe in two hours."
Rusty gasped, shot another big-eyed look at the beautiful girl and then at his master.
"Two hours—good Lawd!—you meanWE?"
The Princess was holding out a steamer rug in silence.
"Yes, Rusty, you and I. Here, give me a hand with this rug," and with the aid of his servant he made a quick job of the bundling. "Now, take these—with our baggage from the Belmont—to the steamshipMauretaniaof the Cunard line. Buy accommodations.... Mind, you won't see me until after we get out to sea. You stay in your stateroom and sit tight until you hear from me."
He took out his wallet.
"You understand now? Cunard line. You can find it some way—just take a taxi, and get there as fast as you can. The clerk at the hotel will get the tickets over the telephone, and you can pay him when you settle for the whole bill, with that other money I gave you. Now, get hold of this money, and keep hold of it. No gin now, Rusty!"
He turned around, and observed the amused surprise on the face of his fair companion.
"I beg your pardon.... This is Rusty;—Rusty, this is the Princess of Aragon...."
Rusty bowed.
"Howdy do, Mrs. Princess!"
"There, that will do. Is it all clear for you now?"
"Yassir. I takes everything to the steamboat—gets accommo—accommo—wall, I knows what you means, Marse Warren, if I cain't spell it. I gets them things for us and Mrs. Princess."
The girl reddened under the beaming smile, but Jarvis quickly interceded.
"Not for the Princess; just for us two. What's the name of the boat?"
"TheMary Tania!"
"That'll do. Now be off, and don't get left behind."
As Rusty made his exit with the bulky bundle, the Princess smiled: "Good-by, Rusty," and he bobbed his head with a broader grin than ever as he disappeared down the corridor toward the elevator.
"Time nearly up," muttered Warren, as he took off his coat. "Pardon the disrobing—but I'll be more at ease in my shirt-sleeves. It's a stingy little room to spend three hours in. I'll lie this way, with my head toward this corner. Remember, this trunk must not go into the hold of the ship—have it marked 'Wanted' and 'This End Up.' I'll take the shears along and cut another hole from the inside if it gets too suffocating."
The girl walked to the table and picked up the revolver, which she held out.
"You'd better take this, too."
"How do you know you can trust me now?"
There was a veiled irony in her retort, although it was accompanied by a smile: "I don't. I have to take that chance. I have no other choice at this late hour."
"You must have a pretty good reason for it in the back of your head. But what about this ghost? I may never hear the sequel. At least give me some food for thought during my travels in the dark."
"Are you afraid?"
"Lord, no! I merely wanted to know. Well, I'll wait. But, now, honest Injun, as we say down in Kentucky, are you a really, sure-enough princess?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Somehow you are not quite like what I thought a princess would be.... I mean, you're different from the popular conception of a royal person. Your English is so perfect."
"I learned it in an English boarding-school."
"Your informality—for it has been put to a severe test these last few hours,—your adaptability,—you have more understanding, more sympathy, more heart."
She turned away and tilted a haughty chin.
"In that last respect, sir, you will find me quite like the popular conception."
A knocking on the door interrupted further interchanges on the peculiarities of royalty. Jarvis clambered inside the vehicle of his escape, and drew down the lid, with a farewell smile.
"Trunks, lady, for the steamer!" came the voice of the porter, as he resumed his thumping on the door panel.
"Just a minute." The Princess hurriedly bundled up the scattered garments, jumbling them upon the bed. She turned the key in the trunk and, with a quick feminine survey of the field for damaging, overlooked evidence, called to her maid.
"Nita, admit the porter."
The servant appeared with surprising promptness. The man pushed in his truck, with the obsequious manner which is a prelude to the smirking appreciation of a handsome gratuity.
"Have the other trunks gone, my good man?" queried her Serene Highness.
"Yes'm. Last night, mum."
"This trunk goes on a special wagon."
"Yes'm."
At this juncture the house detective appeared at the doorway. He stopped and looked questioningly at the broken lock. He was alert as a weasel despite his ponderous physique: he fingered it, and studied the evidence of fresh splinters. The Princess continued calmly.
"Have it marked 'Wanted'" (and as she indicated with a jeweled finger), "'This End up with Care.'"
The porter nodded.
"I'll put special stickers on it, mum. You'll find it in your stateroom when you get to the steamer. Is that all, mum?"
"Handle it gently, porter."
"Shure, lady and I never smashed one in me life! I'll handle it as rivirintly as if it held the relics of a saint, mum. I'm that careful in me worruk. So don't worry one little bit, mum."
As he started out with the heavy piece of luggage on his truck, the detective stopped him sternly.
"Just a minute. How did that lock get broken?"
"Just a minute. How did that lock get broken?"
"Just a minute. How did that lock get broken?"
The Princess felt herself changing color, yet she shrugged her shoulders as she turned away.
Nita suddenly chattered in Spanish to her, and the detective shot a sharp glance at the girl.
"What does she say?" he cried. "She knows something about it."
"She says the other porter banged the door before we came in, for it was that way when she entered to arrange my clothes. I have had my sleep interrupted all night long, and I do not care for any insolence now."
The detective looked a bit sheepish, but stuck to his inquest.
"When did you come?"
"Yesterday."
"And when do you go away?"
"We sail this morning for Europe."
"Huh," and there was a suggestion of doubt in his grunt. "The police are making an investigation in the hotel. They would like to have a look at these rooms. Do you mind?"
"Not at all. My maid will show them around."
"What time do you sail? Does this trunk go on board?"
"Yes,—I want it sent on a special wagon, for I fear we will be late. The steamer sails at nine o'clock."
The detective nodded to the porter, who brushed close by the Princess with his cargo.
"Bon voyage!" she said with a smile.
"What's that?" asked the detective.
"I merely called my maid. You're an unusually impertinent and inquisitive man. In my country gentlewomen are shown some degree of courtesy, even by hotel servants," she remarked icily.
The detective's ruddy face grew redder.
"Well, I dunno about your country, whatever that is. But in this country, and in this hotel there don't nothin' get by me. That's all. Come on in, boys."
Two bluecoats entered the room, gazed awkwardly about, and walked to the window to peer down at the street. Then they passed out, not without, it must be admitted, an envious glance at the collection of jewels on the table.
As the door closed behind them, her Serene Highness turned toward Nita, as she relaxed in the chair by the dressing-table.
"You may dress my hair, child. I wonder how the door was broken?"
"Ah, madame," was the guileless response. "Quién sabe?"
VI
OVER THE SEA AND FAR AWAY
That journey to theMauretaniawas never to be forgotten by Warren Jarvis; and yet so weird, bruising, jumbling, and altogether horrible was it, that he could never distinctly remember its details.
With hands stretched tensely against the corners of the trunk, he warded off as best he could the shocks of the skilled baggage-breakers along the route. Again and again, an unexpected twist would bang his throbbing head against the adamantine sides, and with a wince, a sharp, in-drawn breath, he would hold himself "together" for one more bump!
The air was stifling; yet the foresight of cutting the holes gave him enough oxygen to maintain his senses. At last, after æons of suffering which reminded him of nothing so much as his initiation into the college fraternity, he felt himself being dragged up the side of the great ocean greyhound.
More jolts, more rolls and bangs, and at last, with muscles wrenched, a swollen forehead and nerves aquiver, there was rest.
"I'm in her cabin at last—and now for a graceful exit!" he told himself, with an enforced jocularity. But this was no easy task. He spent a full half-hour, working and prying with the shears against the lock which imprisoned him with indomitable force from the outside of the iron-and-leathern prison.
Upon the outer deck of the great turbiner, the Princess nervously fought her way through the great throng of voyagers and their friends. Nita was close by her side. It seemed impossible to capture a steward who was not busy with the bearing of bouquets and wine baskets. In other circumstances this young personage would have been furious at the lack of respect which she had been educated to expect from the throngs of her own country.
But to-day her only anxiety was to find her elusive quarters for the strange cruise, to learn whether or not her new knight-errant were alive or dead from the rigors of his escape.
At last, with the aid of an extravagantlargesse, she was conducted to her staterooms.
As she entered the parlor of her luxurious suite, the first sight which caught her eye was the trunk, inverted! The printed sign of direction, "This End up with Care," were upside down!
She gasped, and looked nervously about to note the expression upon the face of Nita. That young woman was busy studying the handsome features of the ingratiating bedroom-steward. So engrossed was she that she stumbled over the elevated sill of the door from the promenade deck.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, miss!" apologized the steward. "Did you hurt yourself? These doors are always troublesome until you get used to them. But they are necessary to keep out the water in rough weather."
The Princess was thinking only of the opportunity to open the fateful trunk.
"You don't anticipate a bad passage, steward?"
"Rather uncertain, ma'am, at this time of the year," and he busied himself adjusting the hand luggage and arranging the chairs. "But your location is good. You'll find theMauretaniaas steady as a parish church. Here is the clothes press, ma'am, and the other rooms are off there. It's quite the finest suite on the boat, ma'am."
The steward looked about ingratiatingly, then he turned toward the door.
"If you want anything, ma'am—there is the telephone.... I'll place your trunk, if you please, ma'am!"
He started to drag the trunk to the side of the cabin, but the Princess intervened.
"That's all right; you may place it later. But youmightfix it right side up!"
The steward turned it, as the girl breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am. I hope the contents are not upset."
"I hope not."
"Anything else, ma'am?"
"No, not now, steward? How soon do we sail?"
"Very soon," and as he spoke there came the stentorian warning: "All ashore that's going ashore!" The call was repeated four times, and the voice died away in the distance of the long promenade deck.
With a bow, and a significant glance at the attractive maid, the steward finally dragged himself out of the attractive cabin. The Princess sank nervously into a chair.
"That is all, now, Nita. I have the key to the trunk. I will call you when I need you."
"Yes, your Highness. But, will your Highness excuse me if I am mistaken in thinking that I recognized his Excellency the Duke, your exalted cousin, among the passengers as we came up the gangplank...?"
Her Highness was distinctly startled, but she showed no trace of her emotion to the servant.
"My cousin—it is impossible. He is at Madrid, where his Majesty the King is holding Court."
"Yes, your Highness," and she went, but her inflection showed that she knew herself to be in the right. Nita was too good a servant to argue with her betters.
"Carlos here? How could he be, I wonder?" and the Princess fumbled with her keys, until she found the right one. She opened the trunk with a trembling hand, and began to raise the cover, a quiver in her voice.
"Are you all right ... Mr. Jarvis?"
It was the voice of a nervous, frightened girl—not of a royal personage—this time.
Just then she heard a knock on the cabin door. There was no time for a response. "Quiet! Be careful!" she cautioned,sotto voce.
As she hurried to the door, she pulled her taut nerves together. There on the threshold was her kinsman: Nita had been right as usual, in her sharp way.
Carlos, Duke of Alva, with smiling lips and sinister eyes, greeted her with the suave courtesy which is so characteristic of his race and class. He typified the worst of the Spanish folk, even as the young girl did the best. To a keen student of physiognomy the mental attitude of the Duke of Alva would have been an open book. To Maria Theresa, loyal to family and countrymen, he was the symbol of her own strata in Spain—yet, beneath her gracious forgiveness of and enforced indifference to many things, there lurked a latent mistrust, which she had never yet defined in practical, applicable terms.
With white teeth, crisp-curling black hair, and eyes of sparkling coal-shade, the Duke of Alva bowed with that polished grace which had broken many a heart and carried him over many a stretch of thin ice, in the courtly adventuring on the Continent.
"Carlos!" exclaimed the Princess.
"Fair cousin—if I but knew you were as pleased, as you are surprised, at seeing me!" With the words he advanced and kissed her cold finger-tips with Old-World punctiliousness.
"What are you doing on theMauretania? Why did you leave Spain, Carlos?"
As he shut the door he smiled, and now her intuition warned her of the cunning which lurked behind those pleasantly curving lips.
"First tell me that you are glad to see me! I have come many leagues to hear those words, Maria!"
"Why.... Why,... of course, I am always glad to see you, cousin."
He simulated a pathetic irony. "You say you are always glad to see me—and yet, I fear it is notalwayssince my unfortunate quarrel with your brother. Alas, and that has hardened your heart against me."
The Duke was a suitor of the romantic school: each phrase was studied, each attitude as obviously planned as a military campaign. It was a method which had invariably succeeded, until his efforts with the Princess of Aragon. Yet, he was too satisfied with bygone results to abandon the time-tried artistries of former victories.
The Princess dropped her eyes before the undeniable questioning of his burning glances. As she looked away, he assured himself that he had scored.
"My brother ... what do you know of him, Carlos? When did you see him last? Have you been in Seguro?"
Two long whistles, and the vibration of the great steamship evidenced the beginning of the long voyage. The answer to the questions was still more pathetic in cadence.
"Ah, how I dread telling you!... I was there a few days before leaving for America. I learned, unfortunately, that despite my very friendly advice, he had been prowling about that ridiculous old castle again, in search of the mythical treasure your grandfather is supposed to have secreted there."
He laughed, and the girl instinctively shuddered with a newborn distrust. There was no mirth in the sound.
"You heard nothing more? Was he well and safe when you left the town?"
"He was as well and safe as I would consider any man who was prowling about that castle in a foolhardy way."
She wished to get rid of him: that ominous trunk might contain a dead man, for all she knew.
"How did you find me? Why did you come to America?"
"What could have brought me here but love and anxiety for you?"
She turned away impatiently and walked toward the cabin porthole.
"Oh, come, Carlos. The ship is almost in mid-stream. Let us go out on deck, for one last look at America."
"Thank you; I can do very well without it!" he retorted, as he sat down upon the trunk. "My dear Maria, why do you not desist from this silly pursuit of an imaginary treasure? What is the value of money—we are Spaniards, not shirt-sleeved, mercenary pigs of Americans! We strive for it, only to obtain the happiness and luxury which it brings. Can it bring any greater happiness than that which I have so many times laid at your feet—the love and honored name of a man who would protect and worship you? You have wonderful beauty and family rank. I have power, influence at Court, and an unconquerable ambition. Mine is the intellect to conceive, the heart to dare, and the will to complete! Think what our alliance would mean to us both.... My dear girl—there is nothing which could halt me, nothing which I could not crush!"
Had many a man made this speech he would have punctuated its termination with a clenched fist. But the scion of an intriguing aristocracy bared his teeth in a wolf-like smile as he unsheathed his sword-cane an inch or two, to snap it back into place, with a snarling smile in his drooping eyes.
However, the speech and the theatrical delivery of the gifted courtier were wasted effort. Maria Theresa of Spain was impervious to the surface sheen: she had seen true metal within the past twenty-four hours!
"Oh, Carlos—you should have been a novelist or a dramatist! I much prefer the romantic sky-line of New York harbor to your reminiscence of Don Quixote!"
The great roar of the turbine vibrated through the ship. She advanced to the cabin door, and imperiously called to him to follow.
"I insist. I need fresh air....We'll be gone ten minutes!"
And grudgingly the Duke of Alva followed her, with a vicious swish of his cane at the unoffending trunk.
As the door slammed, the top of the trunk was slowly lifted, and the battered, bleeding face of Warren Jarvis might have been visible above the iron ridge of its lock bar.
Stiffly he drew himself out of the trunk, to blink in the unaccustomed light.
"O,... O.... O.... Oh! Lord!... If I only had that last baggageman by the neck!"
He bent forward and back to limber an apparently paralyzed spinal column.
"Well, I'm all here!"
He stumbled across the cabin, where he helped himself to a welcome drink of water. He tenderly caressed the bruised elbows, and breathed hard.
"I'mmostall here!"
He looked down at his twisted, cracked patent-leather shoes.
"My feet are bent—they'll never get well!"
He sat limply down on the top of the trunk, and fumbling in his hip pocket drew forth a bent and battered cigarette case. As he struck a light to inhale a few welcome, cheering puffs, he looked about his strange surroundings with the old, unconquerable Jarvis spirit.
"A Princess—a Duke—a castle—a treasure! Well, well! But the problem is:Where the devil do I fit in?"
VII
THE ROMANCE OF THE CASTLE
Warren hobbled painfully to the telephone on the wall. This connected with a central switchboard from which he knew he could reach his own stateroom—provided Rusty had not failed in his trust.
"Great Scott! Suppose it is impossible to get accommodations! I'll have to ride as a stowaway in the hold, after all!" he thought.
At any rate he knew that the ten minutes were rapidly dissipating, and from what he had learned by eavesdropping through the trunk, the Duke was not the kindliest person in the world for a man in such a predicament.
"Hello!" he called. "Hello, there.... Yes. I want the stateroom of Mr. Jarvis.... Yes, Warren Jarvis.... No, I don't know the number of the room.... All right."
There was a pause, and he improved the opportunity to unlimber his arms and legs, while waiting by the instrument. At last came the welcome voice with the African accents: "Yassir, hello. Who do you want?"
"Hello, Rusty!... Good boy.... Listen, come up to this stateroom, and bring me an overcoat and a scarf. Yes, and bring me a damp towel with some soap on it. Yes, and stick a comb into the coat pocket."
"Law, boss, I dunno whar you-all is?"
"That's right. Wait a minute." He opened the door to the cabin passageway, and squinted at the number plate. Back again to the telephone he continued: "Stateroom A, Promenade deck.... And bring up that big bundle in the steamer rug. Quick now."
Jarvis hung up the receiver and walked stiffly to the window, peering out at the disappearing shores.
"Well, good-by, Uncle Sam. I don't know when I'll see you again. And as for you, Miss Liberty—I don't believe there will be any of your sisters or cousins around this precious castle where Fate is taking me. I don't know which of us two is the craziest—this Duke or myself." Then, after a pause, he added, "Well, his taste is not to be sneered at; that's certain."
There was a knock at the door. Warren was uncertain as to the wisest thing to do. He called: "Go away—we're all very ill!" Then he darted for one of the side staterooms.
But the door opened slowly, and the plump physiognomy of Rusty Snow appeared. Rusty stumbled awkwardly over the elevated threshold, dropping the large bundle, landing prone on the deck.
"Wha'f-f-foh they want to build a dern fool door like that?" complained Rusty, scrambling up with a bruised shin, the tenderest spot of a negro.
His master worked feverishly, untying the trays and fitting them into the trunk from which he had tardily removed his dress coat, and the revolver. Then he smiled at Rusty.
"How in de name of Moses did you-all git on de steamboat, Marse Warren?" was his servant's next remark, as he helped on with the coat over the painful shoulders.
"I came in the trunk—and it was almost as good traveling as some of those mountain railroads back in Kentucky. Quick, hand me that towel—my face is bleeding."
A few quick movements, the use of the comb, and he looked more presentable, resembling Jarvis the clubman once again.
"Did you see any signs of the police, Rusty?"
"No, sir. Nary a sign."
"Are you sure?"
"Dead sartin, Marse Warren."
"Did you look?"
"No, sir. I cain't say as I did. I wasn't anxious to look."
The door opened, with a suddenness which caused both men to jump. It was the Princess. She smiled with relief as she saw the rehabilitation.
"How de do, Mrs. Princess?" was Rusty's polite greeting, with a bow. His formality was growing more impressive, as the acquaintance extended. Here was "quality" indeed—Rusty was a judge of "breed"!
"How do you do, Rusty?" and she laughed girlishly.
Then she turned toward her vassal. He wore a quizzical, friendly, and amusingly pathetic look. The bruises of his trip were evident upon the clear-cut features.
"I am so glad that you made it all right. But how they must have bumped and banged and wabbled and whirled you!"
"I believe I could go over Niagara Falls in a barrel now, without turning a hair."
She saw the hand—with its red wound. She winced, and reached for the hand, womanlike.
"Oh, that's dreadful. You must have it attended at once. Let me get something."
Warren stoically drew it away from the gentle touch of the white fingers.
"Oh, it's all right. The ship's surgeon will welcome a little professional exercise. I'll be the first patient, as we're not out far enough for the seasickness practice yet."
He turned toward Rusty, who was making a mental comparison of the room with the steamboat cabins back on the Ohio River. Rusty decided that even the oldGallia Queen, in her palmiest days, could not have been much more resplendent than this "foreign" boat!
"You can go back and rest yourself, Rusty," suggested Jarvis. "And, listen—what's the number of the stateroom?"
"Seven-twenty-nine, sir."
"How did you get the tickets, in my name? I was registered differently at the other hotel."
"Oh, I jest told 'em dey was for Mr. R. Snow, a rich Southern gentleman. When I gits down here, I tells Mr. Snow has decided to send his repersentative! Den I had de name changed—dat's all, Marse Warren."
Maria Theresa smiled again, and Rusty accepted it as a supreme compliment.
"You are a diplomat, Rusty," she said.
"No, lady—I mean, Mrs. Princess.... I'm a Republican," and Rusty started for the door.
"Go lock yourself in there, and don't talk to anyone. Remember you are deaf and dumb. Understand, deaf and dumb!"
"Yassir—dumb's de word!"
As the door closed behind him, the girl turned toward Jarvis, a troubled cloud overshadowing her pleasant features.
"There is something I must tell you ... my cousin, the Duke of Alva, is on board of theMauretania."
He smiled whimsically as he replied, "Yes, and he professes to love you devotedly."
She flushed furiously, and looked at the pattern of the rug.
"You overheard?"
"I underheard. The trunk was not my idea but yours, you know.... You're afraid of that man, too. What's the trouble? He's very sure of himself, isn't he?"
The girl hesitated, and then replied almost timidly:
"Carlos is very powerful.... I may be driven into his hands."
"You mean he may make you marry him?"
"Yes ... if you fail," and she cast an apprehensive glance toward the door to the promenade deck.
"If I fail," and Warren was dumbfounded, even after the unreal scenes which had prologued this situation. "IfIfail. What do you mean? Wait a minute—let me get my bearings: things are coming too fast and furious for my poor intelligence.... I—you—the Duke—how do I fit in?"
The girl tried to regain her composure.
"You mustn't ask now: take things for granted until we can explain them together, alone. He may come in any minute. I can tell you before we get to the castle."
Warren lost his patience.
"I think I should know about this castle nonsense now. I admit you saved me from the police last night—although undoubtedly they may be on board the ship now, for we have not passed the three-mile limit yet. Can't you be frank with me, in spite of that ridiculous oath of allegiance which I took?"
"It was not ridiculous, Mr. Jarvis. It was in life-and-death earnestness. I would not have felt that I could truly trust you unless you had gone through that. Remember, I am a product of a different civilization from your own: I am still superstitious, if you please to term it so, in the Old-World sense. I speak your language, and indeed think in it with you. But back in the inner shrine of my being I am a Spanish woman, true to my heredity. You are essentially an American—droll, well-balanced, cynical—and oblivious to any other national psychology than your own."
The girl's earnestness was droll.
"I am a bit hard and unsympathetic," agreed Warren softly. "I did not mean to be so. You and I came into each other's lives in a wild unreal way which an outsider would hardly believe possible. The truest thing in real life is its melodramatic, unbelievable unrealism. That's where the novelists, the poets, and the play-makers have a terrific handicap against them. Things which happen every day would be ridiculed in print. The great rule of actual existence is: 'Itcan'tbe possible, but itis!' But, while we have time, tell me my cues, for I share your opinion of the Duke of Alva. I would never nominate him for President!"
The girl wrung her hands nervously—the first signs he had seen of a spiritual weakening.
"I am completely in the dark," added Jarvis; "I'm just a plain man, not a mindreader. Let's get down to brass tacks!"
She did not understand the local idiom. But she realized that at last she had found a sympathetic confessor.
"I hardly know where to begin. It seems absurd—in this pleasant day-lit stateroom—to talk of ghosts. But the fact is that my family castle is haunted."
Jarvis was lighting another cigarette from the battered silver case; he burned his fingers, as he studied her, in surprise. Then he laughed provokingly. "So I gathered from your amiable cousin. What kind of specters? Of the Hamlet variety or the old maid brand?"
She answered very seriously.
"Call it anything you like. But my castle is haunted, just the same. This is absolutely a case of facts, which mean so much to me that I would not exaggeratenow! My grandfather was one of the wealthiest nobles in Spain. When he died my father went to take possession of the family estates in Seguro. The little town—as you count populations in America—was buzzing with weird stories of uncanny things and supernatural happenings in the old castle on the hill. It was deserted, after centuries of loyal occupancy. All the retainers had deserted their posts and fled. All told of a weird, horrible thing in armor which stalked the ancestral halls at night—of agonized groans, clanking chains, infernal fumes of sulphur—you know how ghost stories run?"
"I know the ghost stories, and most of the people who tell them run because of their own yellow streaks!" retorted Warren. "But, go on, your Highness. It's fascinating—I haven't heard a good 'hant' yarn since old Mammy Chloe died, back at Meadow Green."
She pouted, for his cynicism struck home. Yet was she earnest, and again she endeavored to impress him.
"Laugh, sir, as much as you please. My father laughed the same way. He called them silly, ignorant peasant tales. He said he would show them that it was now the twentieth century, and teach them how foolish were their fears."
She hesitated. Her dark eyes burned as she continued slowly: "He went there, Mr. Jarvis. He went there! He was never seen again!"
The Kentuckian leaned forward, engrossed.
"What happened?"
"No one knows. He disappeared—vanished utterly, without the slightest clew. Grandfather's treasure was never found!"
"Oh, what treasure?" Jarvis was almost rude in his impatient interest.
"The fortune he left. You know, grandfather converted all his wealth into Spanish gold to finance a Spanish colonization scheme in the West Indies. It amounted to about a million dollars in your American money."
Warren whistled, and twisted his intertwined fingers about an elevated knee—whose ache had been forgotten.
"That's a ripping good yarn. When did all this happen?"
"Fifteen years ago. Since then, two other men disappeared in the same horrible manner as my father did. Not a trace of their leaving: it is so horrible that it makes my heart creep to tell it. And yet you scoff!"
"I'm sorry," he said penitently. "But what's the latest news from the trenches?"
"Now the Duke tells me that my brother has entered the fatal castle ... you see that daring runs in the blood! Up to a week ago he had sent me a cable every day. Everything was well until Sunday. Then his messages stopped. All this week there has not been a word, not even answering my cables!"
Warren digested this in silence for a moment.
"Why did your Highness leave Spain, knowing all this?"
"Well, Mr. Jarvis, a part of the legend tells that my grandfather had drawn a secret map showing exactly where his treasure was located. It was not safe to let the public know where wealth was located, fifteen years ago, in Spain."
"From the extremely businesslike devotion of that ghost, it doesn't seem that conditions have improved in the district of your exalted estates!"
"Oh, Mr. Jarvis, can't you be serious? I learned from an old letter to my grandmother, from her husband the Prince, that this plan had been hidden in the back-clasp of a locket containing her miniature. Without letting my brother know of the secret, for fear that he would foolishly tell it, I engaged a secret-service man from Paris to look the matter up. When my grandparents died, much of the estate was sold—for the Spanish-American War had wrought havoc with the family income. That locket had been sold to an American collector, and I came to America just in time to save it from being sold to some museum. I pawned my mother's jewels to buy it. That was the locket which dropped from the trunk, in my bedroom last night."
"And you have the locket?"
"Yes—but not my brother!"
"Ah, then, my particular chore as vassal to this haunted family is to find your brother and solve the mystery? In other words, you want me to put this infernal, tin-plated, panhandling ghost out of his misery?"
"Yes ... Mr. Jarvis!" and the Princess was more humble than he had noticed her during the hours of their acquaintance. "Are you frightened by the ghost?"
"You asked that question before. Where I came from only negroes and poor whites fear the departed spirits. Perhaps this spirit is not as departed as circumstances would indicate. But, how about the Duke? What is his interest in the ghost?"
"He fears it, too. He has begged me to stay away from the wretched castle altogether. If it were not for my brother's future, and the fortune of the family—his family, and perhaps ... my family ... some day ... I would shun the place. We are not completely destitute, you know!"
Jarvis studied the luxurious furnishings of the cabin, the jewels and aristocratic modishness of the girl's attire, and nodded.
"I imagine you're not! But this high, exalted, and altogether superior cousin of yours is far from being a fool. He will want to know how, where, why you met me. And what he doesn't know, contrary to the usual theory, is apt to interfere with his sleep. Beware, your Highness, of men who cannot sleep o'night—they think altogether too shrewdly!"
The girl was worried.
"He will ask dreadful questions. I know him, Mr. Jarvis!"
"So do I. Will you tell him you have made of me a ... perfectly good vassal?"
"I think not—just yet," and there was a shyness in her manner.
Jarvis looked adown his nose, and there was a smile on the firm lips below it!
"By the way, Mrs. Princess—as Rusty so beautifully phrases it—just how should a vassal, a fine A-number-One vassal, address his liege-lady and the owner of his soul? What is theau faitprocedure in this case? You know I am only an ignorant pig of an American!"
She hesitated, embarrassed, and then answered: "Highness—is correct!"
"Highness! I had imagined so—incidentally we were introduced by Fate on the eleventh floor, as I recollect. Tell me, Highness: a vassal doesn't amount to much, does he? I always considered him a piker!"
She was mystified. These phrases had not been in the curriculum of the exclusively proper English boarding-school.
"A piker—a soldier who carries a pike?"
"No, just a pawn in this human game of chess—along with the queens, and kings, and castles—and knights!... But I have known of a pawn saving a game, in the hands of an expert. By the way, and apropos of nothing-whatever-at-all, could a good, hard-working, reliable, moral, union-labeled vassal work his way up to a good job—such as a Duke or a Lord, or something like that?"
She caught the drift of his quizzical humor, and retorted in kind.
"You're an ambitious vassal. Such men have occasionally lost their heads—literally speaking. I'm afraid you wouldn't be content with anything less than a kingship."
The Kentuckian spoke with meaning behind his jest.
"A king—a prince—or a bandit!"
"A bandit—why a bandit? That is essentially Spanish!"
Jarvis lit another cigarette.
"A king could command—a prince might request—a bandit generally seizes!"
"What?" and the woman emerged from the hauteur of the royal personality.
"That which a vassal can only admire!"