"I have gained her! Her Soul's mine!"BROWNING.
"You slouched last night in the ring, Fatalité," Emile said.
Arithelli flung up her head. "I didn't!"
"You looked like a monkey on a stick," proceeded Emile stolidly. "You were all hunched up. I wonder Don Juan didn't put you off his back on to the tan."
"Don Juan knows better! You see animals are usually more kind than people."
She was too proud to admit that the long hours, hard work, and want of proper food and sleep had lately given her furious backaches, which were a thing unknown to her before, and a cause of bitter resentment. She had a healthy distaste for illness either in theory or practice. That night she sat Don Juan erect as a lance, passing Emile in his accustomed place in the lower tier of seats with a shrug and scornful eyebrows.
She had felt more than usually inclined to play the coward during the last few weeks. The heat, worry and over-fatigue had begun, as they must have done eventually, to affect her nerves. When she had felt more than usually depressed and listless Emile had taken her to one of thecafésand given herabsinthewhich had made her feel recklessly well for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day. He had also advised her to smoke, saying that it was good for people who had whims and fancies, but smoking did not appeal to her, and she never envied the Spanish woman her eternal cigarette.
She felt as if she would like to sleep, sleep for an indefinite period. She was wearied to death of The Cause, and the Brotherhood, with their intrigues and plots and interminable cipher messages.
She had been three months in Barcelona, and now fully justified Emile's name for her. Tragic as a veritable mask of Fate, she looked ten years older than the girl he had met on the station platform.
The longer she worked for the Cause the more she realised that Anarchy was no plaything for spare moments, but a juggling with Life and Death.
At first they had given her but little to do—a few documents to copy, some cipher messages to carry. Then the demands upon her leisure had become more frequent. She found she was expected to make no demur at being sent for miles, and once or twice there had been dreadful midnight excursions to a hut up in the mountains.
The realisation of the folly of trying to escape from the burden that had been laid upon her affected her nerve and seat during her performances in the ring.
For the first time she felt her courage failing her when she entered Sobrenski's house in answer to his summons. When he had given her the despatch she made an objection on the grounds that the time taken in conveying it would absorb her few hours of rest.
"It's too far," she protested. "I can't go there to-day."
"Then you can go to-morrow," answered Sobrenski in the accents of finality. He had never cared about the girl's inclusion in their plots, and took his revenge in exacting from her considerably more than his pound of flesh.
Moreover he suspected her of treachery, and disliked her for the quickness of her wit in argument.
Even his unseeing eyes told him she looked both ill and haggard, but if she were there, well, she must work like the rest of them.
Arithelli hesitated for a moment, and when she spoke for all her pluck her voice was a little rough and uneven. "I'm tired of being an errand boy!"
Sobrenski looked at her, drawing his eyebrows together. Everyone of the band had a nickname for her, and his own very unpleasant one was "Deadly Nightshade." Some of the others were "Sapho" and "Becky Sharp," which latter Emile had also adopted as being particularly appropriate.
"Oh, very well," he answered. "Shall it be the messages or a bullet? You can take your choice. Perhaps you would prefer the latter. It makes no difference to me. This comes of employing women. When Poleski brought you here first I was opposed to having you. Women always give trouble."
"Would you have got a man to do half the work I do?" she flashed out with desperate courage.
"Thendoyour work and don't talk about it," retorted Sobrenski sharply. "If you are absolutely ill and in bed, of course we can't expect you to go to various places, but as long as you can ride every night at the Hippodrome, you can certainly carry messages."
He turned his back on her and took up some papers from the table, andArithelli went out, beaten and raging.
Emile found her lying on the bed, her hands clenched by her side, her proud mouth set in bitter lines. As he came in she turned away from him, to face the wall.
"Tiens!" he observed, "you are a lazy little trollop." Emile was proud of his English slang.
Finding there was no answer he changed his tone. "Hysterics, eh? They won't do here. Turn over, I want to talk to you."
The girl moved mechanically, and Emile surveyed her. There were slow tears forcing themselves under her heavy eyelids.
"I wish I were dead!"
"Probably you will be soon. So will the rest of us."
"What brutes you all are!"
"Because we don't care whether we die to-day or to-morrow?Souvent femme varie! Just now you seemed so anxious,—besides, if one belongs to the Cause one knows what to expect." Emile strolled towards the uncomfortable piece of furniture by the window, that purported to be an armchair, and sat down.
"I loathe the Cause! I didn't belong to it from choice. Why did you make me join?"
"Because I thought you would be useful. Youareuseful and probably will be more so."
"Suppose I refuse to do anything more?"
"They will not give you the choice of refusing twice."
"Emile, I believe you are trying to frighten me. Tell me what they would do."
"As I introduced you to the Brotherhood, I should naturally be the one chosen to execute judgment on you.Enfin, my dear Arithelli, I should be called upon to shoot you. We don't forgive traitors. If we let everyone draw back from their work simply because they happened to be afraid, what would become of the Cause? Also let me remind you how you came to me boasting of your love of freedom. 'I'm a red-hot Socialist.' That's what you said, didn't you? Perhaps you have forgotten it. Well, I haven't. Socialism doesn't consist of standing up in a room to sing."
Arithelli made no answer. She lay like a dead thing, and after a pause the slow cynical voice went on.
"There was another woman in our affair about two years ago. Her name was Félise Rivaz. She got engaged to one of the men, and then it suddenly occurred to her that comfortable matrimony and Anarchy didn't seem likely to be enjoyed at one and the same time. So she persuaded the man to turn traitor and run away to England with her, where they proposed to get married.
"Their plans came out,—naturally,—those things generally do. We all spy upon each other. They both felt so secure that they came together to a last meeting—I can show you the house if you like. It's down in the Parelelo, the revolutionary quarter.
"They strangled the woman, and cut off her arm above the elbow—I remember she had a thick gold bracelet round it with a date (agage d'amourfrom her lover I suppose)—and they made him drink the blood. He went mad afterwards. The best thing he could do under the circumstances." Emile shrugged.
"There are plenty more similarhistoires. But perhaps I have told you enough to convince you of the futility of attempting to draw back from what you have undertaken."
Still there was neither movement nor answer. Emile got up, and came to the bed.
"Allons! It's time you were dressing. You'll be late again, and one of these days you'll find yourself dismissed. You must just go on and put up with it all. Life mostly consists of putting up with things."
But even this consoling philosophy failed to have a rousing effect.
For the first time in her life Arithelli had fainted.
* * * * * *
When she came to her senses that evening Emile sent the landlady with a message to the Hippodrome, telling the Manager to substitute another turn, and then made Arithelli get into bed. Her dress and boots came off and reposed upon the floor. The rest of her clothes were left on.
These details did not worry Emile. Then he found a book and sat reading till she had drifted into a heavy sleep, the sleep of exhaustion.
In his own way he was sorry for her, and his feelings were by no means as brutal as his words. At the same time he did not believe in a display of sympathy. According to his ideas it was demoralising, and cured no one of complaints, imaginary or otherwise.
Also it was likely to make people hysterical. Therefore when Arithelli woke at six o'clock in the morning, and sat up panting, with a hand at her left side, he elevated both shoulders and eyebrows.
"Qu'est ce-qu vous avez donc? You're all right now."
He knew perfectly well that there was no pretence of illness. The strained eyes, the blue shadows round the mouth told their own tale.
"Oh, Emile, my heart feels so queer! I'm sure it must be all wrong."
"Ma foi!Ces femmes la!Il y a tou jours quelque chose! First a faint, then a heart! How often am I to tell you, Arithelli, that that part of your—your—how do you say it?—anatomy—is quite without use here? Have you any brandy in the room?"
"There's Eau de Cologne on the washstand."
He mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soon helped her to look less ghastly.
She lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing Emile would see fit to depart, but Count Poleski returned again to the subject of her misbehaviour.
Like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and the night's vigil had not improved his temper.
He sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over grey eyes, hard as flint. "If you are going in for this kind of performance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically.
Perhaps after all Sobrenski had been right in employing no women.
"Even the best machine will get out of order sometimes," the girl replied wearily.
"And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take its place."
"I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn't fair."
There was neither passion nor resentment in the low voice. "What shallI do?" she went on, after waiting for Emile to speak.
"Put up with it, or better still go in for the Cause seriously."
"Don't you call this serious? Blood and brutalities and slave-driving?You talked aboutl'entresol de l'enfer, but I'm beginning to thinkI've stepped over the threshold."
"Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute!"
Arithelli bit her lips. "I don't feel in the mood for arguing now. I wish you would leave me alone."
"On condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, I'll go and settle with the Manager that you don't have to appear to-night. It's lucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. The audience won't miss you. Has Sobrenski given you anything to do to-day?"
"I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I was to go to the Baroni's at two o'clock."
"I'll see to that. A cipher message?"
"Yes. It's fastened under my hair." She dragged herself into a sitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shaking hands. Emile took it.
"Good! I shall be back at five o'clock. You can get up later and come round to my rooms. Do you understand?"
"Yes!"
When he had gone she cowered down into the big bed shivering. Every bone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She had the sensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. Was it all real or not?
Last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. She still heard Emile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovely siren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and the walls closed in upon her.
His words worked in her brain: "Go in for the Cause seriously. Remember it's liberty we are fighting for. A life more or less—what's that? Yours or mine? What does it matter? Do you wonder we don't make love to women? It's a goddess and not a woman before whom we burn incense. Blood and tears, money and life! Is there any sacrifice too great for her altar?"
And she had been both frightened and fascinated.
This was what Anarchism made of men like the cynical Emile. It had never occurred to her before that even Sobrenski, whom she regarded solely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice.
She drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at Emile's room and finding it empty, she "prowled," as she herself would have expressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a very feminine curiosity. Under a pile of loose music she found the portrait of a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robe that could only have been made in Paris or Vienna.
The picture was signedMarie Roumanoff, and on the back was written "Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse!" There were songs too scrawled with love-messages in Emile's handwriting.
She pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with any thought of jealousy. Emile always said that no revolutionist ever wasted time or thought on women.
After all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? She had written to her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with the accounts of her triumph.
Success was a sure road to approbation. If she had failed she would not have written.
The Hippodrome engagement could not last forever. A little carelessness, a loss of nerve, and her career would be at an end.
Sometimes when she had been singing "Le Rêve," she had really meant it all.
"S'il faut, ah, prends ma vie!"
Only a few days ago Emile had stormed at her in his rasping French, because she had, with the vehemence of youth, denounced the Anarchist leader as a relentless brute.
"You think yourself over-worked and ill-used—you!" he said as he strode up and down the room twisting his fiercely pointed moustache. "Look at Sobrenski. He works us all, but does he ever spare himself? Look at Vardri? Rich, well-born, starving at the Hippodrome on a fewpesetasa week. I thought you had better stuff in you. Are you going to turn out English milk-and-water? You'renotEnglish, you say? No, I suppose you're not, or you wouldn't talk about 'dirty Gentiles.' If you think Anarchy is all 'Le Rêve' you'll soon find yourself mistaken. If some of us dream dreams we have also to face actions and realities."
Perhaps the episode of Marie Roumanoff belonged to the days before he joined the Brotherhood and became an exile from his country.
She knew that once upon a time he had owned land and estates in Russia, and Emile the Anarchist of Barcelona had been known as Count Poleski.
She kept her discoveries to herself, and when Emile returned he found her crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered her boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his tuition her passion for music had developed and increased.
"It's so nice to have a change from the heat and dust and those horrible electric lights," she said. "Let's enjoy ourselves and try over all your music. What a lot you have, and it all seems to have been bought in different places. Rome, Paris, Vienna, Dieppe, London! Fancy your having been in London!"
Emile's collection of songs covered a wide field and ranged from the gypsy ballad of "The Lost Horse," to "The Bridge," in the performance of which he revelled.
Arithelli sat in a corner and rocked with inward laughter over his atrocious English, and evident enjoyment of the morbid sentiments. For in spite of her face Arithelli had a fine sense of the ridiculous.
"You don't say the words properly," she said. "You make such mouthfuls out of them!"
"And what of you?" Emile retorted in great wrath. "You with yourFrench all soft, soft like oil!"
"Yes, that's the Irish half of me."
"And your Italian soraûqueso hard—!"
"That's the Jewish half of me. Oh, don't let's quarrel! I do want to learn to sing properly."
"Then don't fold your arms," her instructor said sharply. "I suppose you think it looks dramatic, but how can you learn to sing what you call 'properly,' with your chest all crushed up like that?"
"When I look back on the days long fled,The memory grows still dreamier.Oh! what fantastic lives they led,Far away in Bohemia.
"There were laws that were only made to break,In a world that never seems half awakeTill the lamps were lit—there were souls at stake.Far away in Bohemia."DOLF WYLLARDE.
Barcelona in August was like the Hell to which Emile likened it.
The rich escaped from the heat to their villas up in the mountains, those whom business, or lack of money, kept in the city, existed in a parched and sweltering condition. Arithelli still kept her place among the performers at the Hippodrome, though after the fashion of circus artists her name had been changed.
She was now "Madame Mignonne" from Paris, and wore a golden wig, and came on the stage riding a lion in the character of a heathen goddess in the spectacular display which always ended the performance.
She pined for thehaute écoleand trick riding in which she so excelled, and felt unholy pangs when she saw her beloved white horses being driven in a chariot by a fat, vulgar English woman, arrayed in scanty pink tunic and tights.
She was not afraid of the lion, who was old and toothless enough to be absolutely safe, but her new role was not a great success.
The golden hair did not suit her any better than did the classical draperies, and she grew daily thinner. As a matter of fact she was practically going through the process of slow starvation.
She had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat the abominable Spanish dishes—meat floating in oil, and other things which she classed together under the heading ofcochonneries.
She generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, andabsinthe.
Emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionally essayed his talents as achef, and cooked weird looking things in his rooms over a vilely smelling English oil stove, but the Jewess in Arithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required of the saucepans, and they generally ended these Bohemian repasts with a quarrel.
She went about her work in a half-stupefied state, as one who is perpetually in a trance. She was past fear now. Nothing mattered. Midnight rides on a mule up in the mountains, meetings in the low quarter of the town, the danger of being arrested while carrying a despatch.
"C'est ainsi que la vie!" Emile's motto had become also her own.
She was once more a perfect machine. Even the only thing that Sobrenski could find to say against her was that her appearance was too conspicuous for a conspirator and that her hands and feet would betray her through any disguise.
Emile, though still outwardly as unsympathetic as ever, was not blind to the change in her looks and manner.
Putting the Cause out of the question, he did not wish "Fatalité" to get ill. Her company amused and distracted him.
He liked to hear her views on life, and to colour them with his own cynicism, and he enjoyed teaching her to sing and hearing her argue.
For all her quiet she was curiously magnetic and had a way of making her absence felt. She was never noisy or exacting and had none of the pride or vices of her sex, and though she was often depressed she was never bored, and in consequence bored no one.
They had many traits in common, including fatalism and morbidity, for the Slav temperament is in a hundred ways akin to that of the Celt.
In spite of his jeering remarks Emile thoroughly appreciated the girl's pluck, and knew that if she failed it would be purely from physical reasons.
"Iron in a velvet sheath," he had described her, and iron did not bend—it broke.
After some consideration he approached the very unapproachable Manager. "It's time you gave your leadingequestriennea holiday," he observed. "She's getting ill. If you don't let her have a rest soon she'll be falling off in public, or having some fiasco. She was half dead the other night after the performance."
The Manager made profane remarks in the dialect of Silesia, of which place he was a native. He was fresh from quarrelling for the hundredth time with Estelle, and was in the last frame of mind to desire rest or peace for any inhabitant of the globe.
By himself and everyone else at the Hippodrome, Arithelli was considered the property of the Anarchist, and Emile had taken very good care to disabuse no one of the idea, but had rather been at some pains to create such an impression.
For her it was the best protection, and kept her free from the insults and attentions of other men.
Bouquets and jewellery he was willing that she should receive; they did no harm and the latter could always be sold.
In cold and dispassionate argument he explained to the irate Manager the folly of ruining good material by injudicious use.
"You pay her as little as you can considering she is a draw. She does the work of three people, including keeping the books when you are not in a condition to wrestle with arithmetic. If you had your way she would be cleaning out the stables."
"Bah!" sneered the other. "It would do her good—take the devil out of her—hard work doesn't hurt that type. She's all wire and whipcord, your She-Wolf, Poleski. Has she been snarling at you?"
"You'd better give her a week off," proceeded Emile, unmoved. "The audience will be getting tired of her if you're not careful; she has been on too long without a break. Get a freshartisteand take it out of her salary. I shall give her a week's cruise round the harbour and see what that will do."
"Well, try and put a little flesh on her bones," said the Manager rudely. "I never saw such lean flanks! She's got the expression of a death's head. It's a good thing the Spanish don't care for cheerful grins or she wouldn't be here two days."
And so it came to pass that on the following Sunday Arithelli found herself sitting on the deck of a yacht anchored far out in the harbour, with the shores of Barcelona only a faint outline in the distance.
They had come aboard the previous day.
Emile had made her no explanations beyond saying that he was going to take her for a sea trip, and after her custom she had asked no questions.
The yacht, which was an uncanny looking craft, painted black and called "The Witch," she knew by reputation, and had often seen it slipping into the harbour after dusk. It was the property of two Russian aristocrats, friends of Emile's, who helped the Cause by conveying bombs and infernal machines, and taking off such members of the band as had suddenly found Spain an undesirable residence.
Arithelli was not in the least interested in either of the men, the dark, handsome, saturnine Vladimir, or the fair-haired, pretty, effeminate youth to whom he was comrade and hero.
But she liked their smartness and well-groomed air, and their spotless clothes, after Emile and his dirty nails and slovenly habits, and she appreciated to the full the surrounding refinement and comfort, and enjoyed the daintily served meals, the shining glass and silver and the deft, silent waiting of the sailors.
She had been given a luxurious cabin which seemed a paradise after her dirty, carpetless bedroom, and in it she could laze and lounge in peace without the eternal practising and rehearsals and running errands that her soul loathed.
The hot sun glared down upon her, as she sat watching the racing waves.
She was a fantastic, slim,bizarrefigure with her coppery hair, over which a lace scarf was tied, and high-heeled slippers on her beautiful slender feet.
In her ears dangled huge turquoises, showing vividly against the white skin that was coated thickly with scented powder.
The manager had told her that she must not get tanned or red or it would spoil her type, and she now "made-up" habitually in the daytime.
Her whole array was tawdry and theatrical, and utterly out of keeping with her surroundings.
The two owners of the yacht, who wore immaculate white linen clothes and canvas shoes, expressed to each other their disapproval of her whole get-up, and particularly of her clicking heels. In common with most men, they abominated anoutréstyle of dressing and too much jewellery, and above all such finery at sea.
The girl must be mad! Didn't she know that a schooner was not a circus ring? If she were such a fool Poleski should have taught her better before bringing her on board.
They agreed that he had sense enough in other things, and had certainly trained her not to be a nuisance.
AfterdéjeunerEmile had hunted up the least doubtful of the French novels they possessed and sent her up on deck to get the benefit of the sea air of which she was supposed to stand in need.
"Va t'en, Arithelli," he said. "You don't want to be suffocating yourself down in a stuffy cabin. You're here to get lots of ozone and make yourself look a little less like a corpse. Besides, we want to talk."
She felt very much depressed and neglected as she sat dangling "Les confessions d'une femme mariée," which were virtuous to dulness and interested her not at all, in a listless hand, long and delicate like her feet, and decorated with too many turquoise rings. Below, in the cabin, she could hear the noise of the men as they argued and shouted at each other in a polyglot of three different languages.
Arithelli felt more than a little resentful. Why had they shut her out and prevented her from hearing their discussions?
The men at the other meetings had always wanted her in the room.
She had been entrusted with all their secrets and there was no question of betrayal. She knew too much about the consequences now to try that.
When Emile came up from below she asked him why he had insulted her by turning her out.
Did he not trust her, or did he think she had not enough intelligence.
For answer he laughed cynically, "I'll make use of you and your intelligence fast enough—when I want them. You were cavilling at being overworked the other day."
Of Vladimir and Paul she saw nothing in the daytime, for they both ignored her, but in the evenings they all sat together up on deck, and Paul sang and played the guitar while Arithelli would listen entranced and faint with pleasure.
A love of melody was the birthright of her race, and the boy had a genius for music. He seemed to have but two ideas in life—that, and a devotion which almost amounted to idolatry for the older man.
They would walk up and down for hours, Vladimir with his hand on Paul's shoulder talking, gesticulating and commanding, while the other, his eyes on the ground, listened and assented.
Sometimes Vladimir would speak to him in Russian with an accent that was in itself a caress, and Arithelli, who watched them curiously, noticed and wondered to see the boy flush and colour like a woman.
She always looked forward with the keenest pleasure to those evenings.
The days bored her, inasmuch as she was capable of being bored, and she hated the glare and glitter of the sun and sky.
It was too much like the blue-white lights of the Hippodrome. Withnight came the glamour of Fairyland, that magic country in whichIreland still believes, and which is ever there for those who seek it,"East o' the Sun, and West o' the Moon."
The yacht drifting idly at anchor in smooth water, the stars in their bed of velvet black, the magic of air and space.
The incense-like scent of Turkish cigarettes and black coffee, the little group of men lounging in their deck chairs, the resonant, full notes of the guitar, and Paul's voice rising out of the shadows.
If he had sung standing on the platform of a brightly lit concert hall half the charm would have vanished in that distraction which the personality of a singer creates.
In the illusion of his surroundings the man himself did not exist.
There was only the voice—the singer. Hungarian folk-songs that fired her blood and made her restless with strange longings; "La vie est vaine," eternally sweet and haunting; then some wickedly witty song of thecafés, and melodies of Gounod full of infinite charm. Last of all came always "Le Rêve," in which Emile and Vladimir joined as if it were some National Anthem, and which left her quivering with excitement.
"There would no man do for your sake, I think,What I would have done for the least word said;I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink—Broken it up for your daily bread."SWINBURNE.
When the week of dreams and rest was over she went back to theHippodrome with somewhat of relief in her feelings.
At least the work prevented her from thinking. Though she was physically less languid, the sea air had neither succeeded in putting any more flesh on what the Manager called her "lean flanks," nor had it made her look much more cheerful. He had the sense to let her take her place asequestrienneonce more, and had announced her reappearance in flaming posters.
The stablemen and helpers were all delighted to see her again, and in token of their satisfaction presented her with a hideous and unwieldy bouquet, in which all colours were arranged together so as to give the effect of a kaleidoscope. They liked her for her sweet temper and invariable courtesy, and respected her for her knowledge of horses.
Estelle came and embraced her and was voluble over the failings of her "bon ami," the sardonic manager.
Arithelli received a hearty round of applause as she rode into the ring on her favourite "Don Juan," whose wavy tail and mane were decorated with turquoise ribbons that matched her habit.
At least she was happy on horseback, and she loved the animals and they her.
Even the performing sheep and monkey, and the toothless lion came in for a share in her affections. She had a new and difficult trick to go through that night, but this particular sort of danger only made her feel exhilarated.
Emile's stories of blood and horrors had sickened her, but the chance of breaking her neck over a high jump held no terrors.
She made her exit, gaily waving her silver-handled whip, and Vardri, who was standing at the entrance of the ring, came forward quickly to lift her off her horse before the groom could reach her.
"You're wanted to-night in the Calle de Pescadores," he whispered, as she rested her hand on his shoulder to jump down. "As soon as possible, and go in carefully—there's a scare about spies."
He felt her body stiffen and the little smile that came so rarely died in an instant, leaving her once more "Fatalité."
She nodded by way of assent and bent down to gather up her habit.
The ring-master was only a few feet away, and they could never be certain as to who was to be trusted.
Vardri stood looking after her as she walked away with her head well up and her shoulders thrown back as usual.
The two had become good friends with the comradeship induced by the similarity in their misfortunes.
Both were young, reckless and without money beyond what they earned, though, whereas Arithelli had been more or less tricked into her present position, Vardri had been infatuated with the Cause from the time he was old enough to take an interest in anything. The worship of the goddess Liberty had left with him room also for the adoration of a human being, and in a boyish chivalrous way he had tried to make things easier for Arithelli.
He managed to bring her occasional flowers and music out of his starvation wages, and was always jealously careful of the way in which her horses were groomed and turned out. They had a curious resemblance to each other, and when Arithelli was dressed in boy's clothes for her journeys up in the mountains, they might have been two brothers. One was dark and the other fair, but both had the same haggard, well-modelled faces, the same pale skins, and thin, supple figures.
They were exactly of a height, too, and when Arithelli disguised herself, she pushed her red hair under a sombrero and black wig.
Even Sobrenski's lynx eyes had been at fault in the semi-darkness of the hut, and he had sworn at her in mistake for Vardri. As the dresser took off her habit, she asked the woman whether Monsieur Poleski had been behind the scenes during her turn, and was there a note or message?
It appeared that there had been no sign of Emile, and she hesitated for a moment, hardly knowing what to do.
The order for her presence in the Calle de Pescadores, which of course had been sent by Sobrenski, had told her to come at once.
On the other hand, Emile had always told her to wait for him in her room till he came to fetch her. If she went through the streets alone there would be a row, and if she were late at therendezvousthere would also be a row.
"C'est ainsi que la vie!"
She lifted her thin shoulders after the manner of Emile and decided to start at once. She wiped all the make-up from her face with a damp towel, swaying a little as she stood before the glass.
The excitement of her reception and the ensuing episode had made her heart beat at distressing speed.
"You're not ill," she adjured her pale reflection. "It's all imagination. Emile says all these complaints are. Any way, you're not going to give in to it."
She shut both ears and eyes as she sped through the restless city that even at this hour was astir with life.
She was only glad that there was no moon. Roused for once out of her naturally slow and indolent walk, she was soon in the poor quarter and climbing the stairs to the third floor of a horrible little house, the back of which looked out on the dark slums of the quarter of the Parelelo, the breeding-place of revolutions; the district between the Rambla and the Harbour.
The house was like the one that Emile had described when telling her of the murdered woman, Félise Rivaz.
The very air reeked of intrigue and hidden deeds.
She looked round first of all for Emile, but he was not there, and only half the usual number of conspirators were assembled.
Vardri, who had left the Hippodrome the minute he had delivered his message, was sitting on the end of the table swinging his feet and whistling softly.
He had bribed one of the "strappers" to finish his work, and slipped out, only arriving a few minutes before her.
He had risked dismissal, but that was no great matter.
The Cause came first, and he feared danger for Arithelli, knowing that if there was anything specially risky to be done she would be the one chosen.
Sobrenski was always harder on her than on the others.
He watched her with the hungry, faithful eyes of an animal, and got up from his seat with instinctive courtesy. Like all the rest he wore the Anarchist badge, a red tie, and the hot, vivid colour showed up the lines of ill-health and suffering about his eyes and mouth.
In spite of his disreputable clothes and wild hair, there still remained in him the indefinable signs of breeding, in the thin, shapely hands that rested on his knee, and in the modulations of his boyish and eager voice.
None of the others took the least notice of the girl's entrance.
Nearly all of them were as well-born as the young Austrian, but to them she was simply a comrade, a fellow, worker, not a woman.
She gave him a little friendly gesture and went quietly to a seat against the wall, where she sat in one of her characteristic attitudes, her feet crossed, and showing under her short dark blue skirt.
Emile had made her buy this one plain and unnoticeable garment for use on these occasions.
After she had been in the room a minute, Sobrenski turned from the man to whom he had been talking in a careful under-tone, and bolted the door.
"Listen, all of you," he said. "We have received information that this house will be watched to-night. Whether the spy is one who was formerly one of us, we do not know—yet. It appears that it is Poleski who is the suspect. They have some evidence against him that is dangerous. If he is seen coming in here to-night, they will arrest him. The next time we will change the place, but for the present all that can be done is to warn him against coming here. Fortunately he will be later than usual, because he does not leave the Café Colomb till after midnight. Someone must be sent there to stop him. It will not do for any of us to be seen coming out, so she"—he indicated Arithelli—"must go."
Arithelli wasted no time in response. She was only too eager to get out of the abominable place, and was already half way to the door when Sobrenski stopped her.
"Not that way!" he said. "What are you thinking of? You will walk straight into the arms of the spies who are probably watching the house by this time. No, you must go by the window at the back; the rest of us will stay here all night."
"This house gives on the quay by a lucky chance," remarked one of the older men; "we should be well trapped otherwise. There are several feet between it and the water."
Vardri's eyes had never moved from the girl's face. He knew that her heart was affected, and she had told him once that she would never attempt to go on the tight-rope or trapeze because the mere thought of a height always terrified her.
In answer to Sobrenski's gesture, she moved towards the window, which another of the conspirators was cautiously opening.
Vardri pushed himself forward into the group. "She can't go down there," he said hoarsely, "It's not safe—look at the height!"
"She'll go down well enough if she holds onto the rope."
"The rope may break or fray through on the sill."
"She takes her chance like the rest of us."
"The rest of us—we'remen!"
"There are neither men nor women in the Cause. Do you need to be taught that now? Stand back!"
"I'll go down in her place."
"You will do nothing of the kind. Which of us is the leader here?"
Sobrenski had twisted the girl's arms behind her back, and he was holding her by the wrists. He expected her to scream or struggle, but she remained absolutely passive.
One of the men was making a slip-knot in a coil of rope.
Vardri's blood was hot as he looked on. Blind with helpless rage, he was conscious of nothing but the little set face and defiant head. He had come suddenly into his heritage of manhood at the sight of her alone, defenceless and roughly handled by brute beasts who called themselves men.
He was mad, too, with a man's jealousy. From the earliest moment he had seen Arithelli he had given her homage as a woman. Thegamin, the "Becky Sharp" that Emile and the others knew, he had never seen, and he had always resented her numerous irreverent nicknames.
He could do nothing, nothing!
Get himself shot or strangled, perhaps, and what use would that be to her?
"Come!" said Sobrenski, turning her towards the window.
For the first time since she had entered the room, Arithelli spoke:"Leave me alone for a minute. No, I won't move—parole d'honneur!"
When she was released, she put out her left hand. "Mon ami, what's the use of arguing? I'm the errand boy,vois-tu? My work is to carry messages. If you make a scene it's only the worse for me. It's good of you to want to go instead. I shall not forget."
The voice, subtle and sweet as ever, the intimacy implied by the familiar "thou" acted like a charm to the boy's wild fury. Before her courage and dignity it seemed out of place to make any further protest.
He crushed the long and lovely hand against his lips with mingled passion and reverence.
There was a red streak across the wrist.
"A fine melodrama!" sneered Sobrenski. "Keep all that for the stage, it isn't needed here.Allons! We can't waste any more time, there has been too much wasted already."
Vardri walked to the furthest end of the room, turning his back upon the group at the window, and thrust his fingers into his ears to deaden the sound of the scream for which he waited in tortured anticipation.
Excitable and neurotic, like all consumptives, his imagination made of those waiting moments a veritable hell.
She would never get down in safety—an old and hastily knotted rope, a disregard of all ordinary precautions, and her body in the hands of men who handled human lives more carelessly than most people would handle stones. He bit his lip till the blood ran down to his chin.
Here he stood doing nothing, he who would have been tortured to save her!
The window was shut and one of the men said: "She's down all right after all. I thought by the look of her she would have fainted. She has some pluck, Mademoiselle Fatalité!"
"Yes," answered Sobrenski. "Here's the coward and traitor."
Vardri wheeled round, looking straight into the cold eyes of his leader. He had heard the last words. She was safe, that was all that mattered, and for himself he was reckless.
"Traitor, am I? Yes, if the Cause is to include the ill-treatment of women!"
"Women? Again women? Are our meetings to be used as love trysts. There was a certain episode two years ago—Gaston de Barrés and Félise Rivaz—you remember it? Ah, I thought so! Then let it be a warning—in the future you will be suspected and watched. There is no need for me to dilate upon the punishment for treachery, all that you knew when you joined us. You may consider yourself lucky to have escaped so easily to-night. Through the few minutes' delay you have caused, Poleski may have been arrested."
Vardri shrugged and sat down. Like Arithelli, he recognized the futility of mere words upon certain occasions.
Moreover, now that the flame of his indignation had died down, he had begun to feel wretchedly ill and spiritless with the reaction that comes after any great excitement.
He sat shivering and coughing till the dawn, while the other men talked in low voices or played cards. One or two slept fitfully in uncomfortable attitudes on the floor.
No one grumbled at the discomfort or weariness of the vigil.
They who looked forward to ultimate prison and perhaps death itself were not wont to quarrel with such minor inconveniences as the loss of sleep.
Sobrenski had pulled the solitary candle in the room towards him and sat writing rapidly and frowning to himself.
His fox-like face framed in its red hair and beard looked more relentless and crafty than ever in the revealing light, and the boy shivered anew, but not from physical cold.
He did not fear the leader of the Brotherhood for himself, but for Arithelli—Arithelli, the drudge, the tool, the "errand boy," as she had called herself.
Perhaps in time even she would become a heartless machine.
Human life had seemed so cheap and of so little account to him once, but since he had loved her—
She could never live among such people and in such scenes, and still remain unscarred.
Again the little desperate face rose before him.
If they did not succeed in killing her soon by their brutalities, she would commit suicide to escape from the horrors that surrounded her.
It had never occurred to Vardri to be jealous of Emile.
With the curious insight that love gives he had formed a true idea of the relationship between the oddly-assorted pair. He had never thought of himself as her lover.
To him she was always the Ideal, the divinity enthroned.
He was content to kiss her feet, and to lay before them service and sacrifice.
Yet, though he might build a wall of love around her, he knew it could give her no protection against the realities of her present life.
She had given him dreams, and in them he could forget all other things, the things that the world calls real.
Everything had vanished as a mist—the dirty room, the chill of the dawn, his own physical wretchedness.
He heard only the honey-sweet voice, saw only the outstretched hand of friendship.
"Mon ami," she had called him, he who had never aspired higher than to be known as her servant.
"For all things born one gateOpens, . . . and no man seesBeyond the gods and Fate."SWINBURNE.
WHEN Emile arrived at the Hippodrome, only a few minutes after his usual time, he found no one but the dresser, who was clearing away the litter of clothes, jewellery, powder-puffs and flowers.
Arithelli had vanished.
She had never before failed to wait for him, and he knew she would not have started alone without some very good reason. He questioned the dresser and found she knew nothing beyond that "La Nina," as she called the girl affectionately, had left immediately after her last turn. She had asked if the Señor had been in yet, but hearing he had not, she had dressed and gone at once. She had not even stayed to put on a cloak, and had left her hair still in a plait, and only aveloover it. She had seemed in great haste (but that was always so with the English!) and had looked ill. The Señor must not be alarmed, she added, folding Arithelli's blue habit with wrinkled, careful hands. True, Barcelona was an evil place for one so young as "La Nina," but the blessed saints—
Emile gave her apeseta, and left her to her invocations. In the long passage that led from the dressing-rooms he ran into Estelle, who was just sufficiently drunk to be excitable and quarrelsome. She still had on her dancer's costume of short skirts of poppy-coloured tulle, and scarlet shoes and tights. She was further adorned with long, dangling, coral ear-rings, and a black bruise on the left side of her face under the eye, the outward and visible sign of her last encounter with the Manager.
She saluted Emile with a vindictive glare from her black eyes, and tried to push past him. She hated him in a spiteful feminine way for his complete appropriation of Arithelli, of whom, thanks to him, she now saw very little. She had quarrelled with all the other women employed in the Circus, but Arithelli had always helped her to dress, and given her cigarettes and listened to her woes.
Emile blocked the way, catching the dancer by the wrist as she attempted to slip by, leaving his question unanswered. He repeated it, and after a minute's sullen refusal to speak, Estelle stamped her foot savagely upon the floor, and collapsed into a state of hysterical volubility. No, she had seen nothing, nothing! she protested in French. Scarcely ever did she see her little friend now, and whose fault was that? Would Monsieur Poleski answer her? As Monsieur Poleski did nothing of the kind, she continued to rage. All men were brutes! Yes, all! She had no friends now and if she did console herself—what would he have?
Emile decided that she was speaking the truth, and that there was no use wasting time in making other enquiries.
One thing seemed certain—that Arithelli had left the building. From the Hippodrome he went next to her lodgings, also with no result. He could only now suppose that Sobrenski had sent her off at a moment's notice on some unusual errand. The possibility of her having gone to the house in the Calle de Pescadores did not occur to him. According to the last arrangement they were not expected there till after midnight. It was only eleven now. He would go to the Café Colomb, and spend the hour there. It was no use to search for her further, and as he assured himself there was not the least reason to become alarmed. She was not likely to lose her head, and she knew her way about the place.
The Colomb was more or less a recognised resort of the many revolutionaries with whom the city abounded. The proprietor was known to be in sympathy with their schemes, though he took no active part in them himself. He was considered trustworthy, for notes and messages were often left in his charge, and his private room was at the disposal of those who wished for a few minutes' secret interview. When Emile entered he was greeted by several of the men who sat in groups of two and three at little tables, busy with Monte and other card games.
The smoke of many cigarettes obscured their figures, and clouded the mirrors with which the place was lined from floor to ceiling. Emile sat down alone and ordered anabsinthe.
When called upon to join in the play, he refused with a scowl and a rasping oath in his native tongue, and as the evening grew on towards midnight he was left to himself and his meditations.
His thoughts were still with Arithelli, the weird witch-girl, whose eyes were like those of Swinburne's fair woman,
"Coloured like a water-flower,And deeper than the green sea's glass."
He, who now never opened a book, had once known that most un-English of all poets by heart.
In her many phases Arithelli passed before him, as he stared moodily at the shifting opal-coloured liquid in his glass. He thought of her as he had often seen her, fighting through her work at the Hippodrome, the little weary head always gallantly carried, and then when she had dismounted and was in her dressing-room, the rings round her eyes, her shaking hands and utter weariness. He remembered her consideration for her horses, her loathing of the ill-treatment of all dumb things so common here. Once he had found her in the market-place, remonstrating in her broken Spanish with the country women for the inhuman manner in which they carried away their purchases of live fowl, tied neck to neck, and slung across a mule, to die of slow strangulation under the blazing sun. All the animals at the Hippodrome had been better treated since she had been there. It was characteristic of the man that he laughed at her to her face for her campaign against the national cruelty, and in secret thought of her with admiration.
In many ways sexless, in others purely a woman, to every mood she brought the charm of individuality.
Tiens! He was falling in love, he jeered to himself, cynically. In love with that tall, silent creature, who was never in a hurry and never in a temper, and who walked as if she had been bred in Andalusia.
Absurd! He was only interested. She had brains, and she never bored him.
Besides, she was only twenty-four, and one could hardly allow a girl of that age to be thrown warm and living to the wolves and vampires of Barcelona. Perhaps he had been wrong in letting her do some things—drinkabsinthe, for example. One lost one's sense of mental and moral perspective in a place like this. At least he had guarded her well. If he had not met her that day at the station, she might have fallen into worse hands than his own. Things could not go on indefinitely as they had been going. What was to be the end of it all?
Eventually she would fall in love, and a woman was no more use to the Cause once that happened. No vows would be strong enough to keep her from a man's arms once she cared. She would not love lightly or easily, and where would she find love, here in Barcelona?
Half unconsciously, he found himself comparing Arithelli with the woman who had betrayed him. Emile never lied, even to himself, and he knew now that Marie Roumanoff had almost become a shadow.
A plaything she had been, a child, a doll, a being made for caresses and admiration. To a woman of her type camaraderie would have been impossible. He had not wanted it, and it had not been in her nature to give it.
A man, who had been sitting opposite, got up, gesticulated, put on his hat at a reckless angle, and, with a noisy farewell to his companions, swaggered out.
In the mirror that faced him Emile saw the quick furtive glance bestowed upon him, though he sat apparently unconscious of it.
Something at the back of his brain suggested to him that he knew the man's face, that he had seen him before. A spy probably. It was nothing unusual for any of them to be "shadowed," and for their out-goings and in-comings to be noted.
The highly gilded French clock on the mantel-piece at the far end of the room announced the hour as being a quarter to twelve. Emile stooped down to pick up his sombrero which had tumbled off a chair on to the floor, when he remained with outstretched hand, arrested by the sound of a woman's voice which came through the partly opened door of the proprietor's private room and office. A woman's voice? It was Arithelli's unmistakably.
He recovered himself and the sombrero together, and twisted round in his seat so as to get a view of the door, which was on his left hand, half way down the long room. It had a glass top, across which a dark green curtain was drawn. Emile knew that it was possible to enter this room without passing through thecafé. There was another door which led into a passage through the kitchen and back part of the house, and from thence into a side-street, or rather a small alley.
He had often been that way, and it was generally used by the frequenters of the place when they had reason to guard their movements.
He listened again.
The voice was even more hoarse than usual and more uncertain. Though he could not hear the words, the broken sentences gave an impression of breathlessness. When she stopped speaking he heard the voice of the proprietor raised in an emphatic stage-whisper. Yes, Monsieur Poleski was within. Mademoiselle was fortunately in time to find him. If Mademoiselle would give herself the trouble to wait but for one moment—.
The little man fancied himself an adept at intrigue, and his methods were often a cause of anxiety to those he befriended. His nods and gestures and meaning glances as he emerged would have been enough to arouse suspicion in the most guileless.
He stood blinking his short-sighted eyes through the haze in his effort to attract Emile's attention without being detected. The latter got up and sauntered towards him.
"Bon soir, Monsieur Lefévre," he said carelessly. "We have a little account to settle, you and I, is it not so?"
Fat Monsieur Lefevre rose gallantly to the occasion. He bowed Emile into the room, locked the door by which they had entered, and with another bow and a muttered apology scuttled through the passage into the back regions. Two minutes later he made his reappearance in thecaféby the front way, and went to his place behind the counter with the satisfied face of a successful diplomatist.
His little sanctum was typical in its arrangement of the Parisianbourgeois.
Numerous picture post-cards of a famous chanteuse of the Folies Bergeres proclaimed Monsieur's taste in beauty. For the rest, everything was neat and rather bare of furniture. There were chairs symmetrically arranged like sentinels along the walls, tinted lace curtains, a gilded mirror, and a few doubtful coloured pictures, all of women. An unshaded electric light flared in a corner. Arithelli stood resting one hand on the round polished table in the centre of the apartment. Her dark blue dress was torn in two places, and smeared with patches of dust. Thevelo, or piece of drapery worn on ordinary occasions instead of the mantilla, hung down her back in company with the long plait of hair, which had come untwisted at the ends. Her face was strained and haggard, and the tense attitude spoke of tortured nerves.
She was still struggling for breath, and appeared almost unable to speak, but Emile was not minded to allow her much time for recovery.
Patience was not numbered among such virtues as he possessed.
"Tiens!" he began. "What is it now, Fatalité? You look as if you had been having adventures. Have you been getting into mischief? And where have you been?"
"In the Calle de Pescadores out at Barcelonetta. Sobrenski sent me with a message to you. The place is being watched. If they see you go in you may be arrested. The others got to hear about the spies, and went early. They are going to stay there all night because it isn't safe to leave." Her tone was that of one who repeats a well-learned lesson.
Emile shrugged. "Spies? So that's it! There was a man just now in thecaféwho looked like it. Probably he is waiting to go outside now to 'shadow' me. He may wait till—! And how did you get out?"
"They let me down from a window at the back of the house. I got on to the quay and came here by the long way and through the Rambla." There was a pause, and then she said in the same mechanical voice, "Sobrenski said I was to tell you not to come. It isn't safe."
Emile did not answer. He could see that she was trembling violently and on the verge of an hysterical crisis. He rather hoped she would break down. It would seem more natural. Women were privileged to cry and scream, not that it was possible to imagine her screaming. He dragged forward a chair from the immaculate row against the wall.
As he did so he noticed that she kept her left hand behind her back as if to conceal something.
"Sit down," he ordered. "What's the matter with your hand? Are you hurt?"
The girl retreated before him.
"No!" she answered defiantly.
But Emile's quick eyes had seen a crumpled handkerchief flecked with red stains.
"Don't tell lies, Fatalité!" he said sharply. "Give me your hand at once."
Arithelli obeyed, holding it out palm upwards.
Emile looked, and ripped out a fiery exclamation. The smooth flesh was scarred and torn across in several places, and was still bleeding. The mark of Sobrenski's grip on her wrist had turned from crimson to a dull discoloured hue.
"It doesn't hurt so very much," she said. "Only I can't bear the sight of blood. All Jewish people are like that. I can't help it. It makes me feel queer all over."
She turned her head aside with a shudder. Emile muttered another expletive, adding:
"Then if you feel like that, don't look."
He told her again to sit down, tore her handkerchief into strips, soaked them in water from a carafe, and bandaged up the wounds in a rough but effectual fashion.
She said nothing during the process, but kept her head still turned away so that he could not see her face.
"Voilà!" said Emile. "That will be all right to-morrow. What did they do to you?"
"I cut my fingers on the window sill when they let me down. There was a piece of iron or a nail or something. I don't remember. It didn't hurt at the time."
"H'm!" commented Emile. "But this?" he touched her wrist lightly. "It looks like—"
"That? Oh, Sobrenski did that. He—"
"Well?" said Emile. He waited but there came no answer, so he continued the interrogation. "You didn't make a scene, Fatalité?"
He heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face with her free hand. Her low painful sobbing reminded him of the inarticulate moaning of an animal.
Even in her grief, her abandonment, she was unlike all other women. Emile stood beside her in watchful silence, and neither attempted to interfere nor to console her. He was wise enough to know that to a highly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might be dangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the relief of tears.
At length he said quietly, "I didn't know you could cry, Fatalité. I didn't know you were human enough for that."
She still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of the tornvelobetween her teeth. The naked light shone on her bent head, and on her glittering rope of hair.
A strange impulse suddenly moved Emile to finger a loose strand with a touch that had in it something of a caress.
Gamin she had been,equestrienne, heroine, and now she was only a sorrowful Dolores.
At last words came.
She stood up and faced him, shaking back her hair.
"Emile! Emile! I must give it up. I can't go on!"
"And you can't turn back,mon enfant."
"I'll run away."
"Do you think they wouldn't find you? You know enough about our organisation now. No one who has once joined us is ever allowed to escape. You would be found sooner or later, and then—you remember what I told you once? That I am responsible for you to the Brotherhood?"
He spoke calmly, patiently, as if he were explaining things to a child.
If his associates could have seen the cynical Emile Poleski of ordinary life they would have found reason to marvel!
The gesture of uncontrollable horror told him that she understood only too well. What should the upholders of the Cause care for ties, for friendships, for pity?
If she were recaptured Emile would be her executioner. He might refuse, but that would not save her and he would be shot as well. Why should he suffer because she had lost her courage and turned traitress?
She tried to collect her senses, and to think properly. Everything felt blurred and far off. One thing alone seemed certain—that there was no way out of theimpasse.