“When you leave Trieste this afternoon, watch out for me. I shall be fooling around at the depot with a camera, and I don’t want to have you seem to know me. Get into talk with me the way you would with a stranger, for I must speak to you.—Hicks.”
“When you leave Trieste this afternoon, watch out for me. I shall be fooling around at the depot with a camera, and I don’t want to have you seem to know me. Get into talk with me the way you would with a stranger, for I must speak to you.—Hicks.”
“This gentleman is some English peer of your acquaintance?” said Helene, looking respectfully at the signature.
Usk smothered a laugh. “Not exactly,” he said. “He’s the American newspaper man you’ve heard so much about, and a real good fellow. If you’ll excuse me, Nell, I’ll light a cigar.”
“A long way round!” said Helene, as he twisted the paper into a roll, and striking a match, set light to it, instead of lighting the cigar with the match.
“If you mean a roundabout way, my child, why not say so? Don’t you see that Hicks evidently expects us to be watched? I daren’t leave that paper lying about, or even tear it up. Now will you keep your eyes open this afternoon, and express innocent wonder if you see a long scraggy fellow, with a thin grey beard, taking snap-shots? That’ll give us an opportunity to get into conversation.”
Helene promised to be on the watch, and very soon after they reached the station she pulled Usk’s sleeve. “Do look at that gentleman taking photographs,” she said, with admirable innocence. “It must be so interesting to be able to do it! All these quaint costumes——”
“They’re nothing to what you’ll see in the Balkans,” said Usk. “What a pity we didn’t think of bringing a kodak. But we might send for one, of course. Would you mind allowing my wife to see how your camera works?” he asked of the photographer, who had been listening with a twinkle in his eye while pretending to focus an Albanian group on the opposite platform.
“Why, certainly,” was the hearty response. “You hold it this way, and you put your eye here—— But if we move away a step or so, we won’t be so crowded. I have a whole-souled admiration for your manner of meeting me, sir,” added Mr Hicks, in a lower tone, as he exhibited the camera and appeared to be describing its mechanism. “And this is the little Princess?”
“No,” said Helene. “It is Lady Usk.”
“Is that so?” asked Mr Hicks slowly, manipulating a screw. “Well, I incline to think Lord Usk has struck ile.”
“I don’t know English quite well yet,” said Helene apologetically.
“I guess your husband has found the pay-streak, then.”
“I’m afraid there must be a great many words I don’t know. I must look them out.”
“Mr Hicks wants me to understand that I’ve married a treasure, Lenchen. Does that satisfy you? Well, Hicks, what’s the plan of campaign?”
“Why, just this, sir. There are the Queen and your father turning the Illyrian Provinces upside down, and a whole army of detectives figuring around. But those that took on this big risk mean to see it through, and they will pour out the dollars like water to keep truth at the bottom of her well. They know just who’s on their trail, and they have covered their tracks. I have concluded to work back of them, instead of in front, which is high-toned, but renders a man more liable to sudden death than appeals to me. I am working up the Illyrian Provinces with typewriter and camera,sabe? on behalf of a monster tourist agency in the States that’s set on exploiting them, and you may bet your last red cent my eyes will be open for any suspicious circumstances. I’d like to fix up a code for communicating with you——”
“Oh, please,” said Helene, “pardon my interrupting you, but I have just seen my cousin, the Princess of Dardania, getting out of the train at the end of the platform, and I thought from what Usk said——”
With great dexterity Mr Hicks withdrew himself behind a pile of luggage. “You’re real smart, Lady Usk. If her Royal Highness had seen us together, it would have been just about the meanest trick fate could have played us. Coming off the cars from Illyria, was she? Now what’s she been doing way down there? She was at Nice yet when we quit it before the wedding. You don’t think she saw us, do you?”
“No, I’m sure she didn’t, but she is coming this way.”
“Helene, you’ll have to face her,” said Usk. “I must arrange things with Hicks. If I establish you on this seat, with a bodyguard of servants in the background, while I go and see about the luggage, you won’t move away till I come back, will you? and you’ll try to keep her in talk?”
“But there is no need to see about the luggage,” Helene called after him, as he hurried away; “the railway officials look after that, or you can send one of the servants.” But he was already out of earshot, and Helene rose to meet the Princess, who swept towards her with outstretched hands, making her feel incredibly young and small.
“Why, my little Lenchen!” cried Princess Ottilie; “do I find you alone? What has happened to the Fairy Prince—fairy peer I should say, should I not?”
“Usk is gone to look after the luggage,” said Helene.
“The ruling passion of the Englishman on his travels! And are you tired of one another yet, my romantic Lenchen?”
“I am certainly not tired of him, Cousin Ottilie.”
“What freezing coldness, little one! But I forgot that you had married into a romantic family. The Mortimers and their wives are always absurdly attached to one another. It is quitebürgerlich—middle-class, I suppose your new relations would call it.”
“If it is middle-class to be fond of one’s husband, then I am middle-class,” said Helene.
“You—the descendant of Charlemagne! And you are allowing your husband to drag you into exile already? Where are you going with this wonderful luggage which needs so much looking after?”
“Can you ask, Cousin Ottilie? Of course we are going to Novigrad, to help look for the dear Count.”
“To help look for——? Oh, Count Mortimer!” the Princess broke into a soft peal of laughter. “My darling Lenchen, you must forgive me. It really did not occur to me whom you meant. Has it never struck any of you that Count Mortimer might prefer not to be looked for?”
“How could it? What can you mean?”
The Princess drew a letter from her pocket. “Of course Lord Usk won’t believe me,” she said, “but I should really like to save you two from taking a journey into the wilds for no reason at all.”
“Cousin Ottilie! why shouldn’t Usk believe you?” cried Helene, aghast.
“My dear child, he is prejudiced, of course,” but the Princess seemed a little confused, and unfolded the letter quickly, as though to forestall further questioning. “This is from my husband’s cousin, Valerian Pelenko. I have just been paying a flying visit to Dardania—to see the new baby, not to stay; Emilia and I agree better apart—and I wrote to ask whether I might spend a night at his house near Klotsch on the journey. Here is what he says: ‘Pray consider my house as your own, as often and as long as you like. I am sorry to be away. By the bye, I had a curiousrencontrejust as I was leaving home. Do you remember the man Mortimer, who made rather a laughing-stock of himself at Ludwigsbad two or three years ago by aspiring to your particular favour? Naturally you will remember him; he found your cousin Ernestine of Thracia less hard-hearted than yourself, I recollect. Well, as I was driving towards Klotsch, before we turned into the Novigrad road, we met another carriage, and in it I saw Count Mortimer and a lady, with whom he seemed to be on excellent terms——’”
“Oh, it must be a mistake!” cried Helene. “Why, Aunt Ernestine was at Molzau, at Michael’s wedding.”
“My dear Lenchen, let me entreat you not to make that remark to your husband when you tell him this, or he will set you down for ever as a fool. Valerian goes on: ‘There were servants and luggage, and all the necessaries for a long journey, apparently. Doubtless your friend was bound, by way of Dardania, for the Ionian Isles, or some similar region of delight, where a spot or two may yet be found destitute of the moral code, as I once heard an Englishman say of the East generally. Happy he! What are your plans for the autumn? I am too late for Ludwigsbad this year, alas!’ That is all that concerns the Count,” said the Princess, folding the letter, as Helene sat dumb. “And here is your husband, come to sweep you into the train with the rest of the luggage, I suppose. How do you do, Lord Usk? So delightful to get this short glimpse of little Lenchen! She really looks younger than ever since you married her.”
Helene was still speechless as the Princess bade her an affectionate farewell, and gave her hand to Usk that he might lead her to her carriage. When he returned to warn Helene that their train was coming in, she turned an ashy face to him.
“Oh, Nym, I must tell you. She says such things——”
“Wait until we’re in the train,” said Usk; and it was only when they were moving out of the station that he turned to her with, “Well, what is it, Nell?”
“She says that the dear Count went away of his own accord, with—with a lady, and that he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Not content with kidnapping him, they try to take away his character, do they?” said Usk savagely. “She wants to hurt Aunt Ernestine, do you see, Nell? We won’t tell her if we can help it. Of course you don’t believe the story?”
“Of course not. But it is so dreadful that people should say such things about him, when we know how good he is, how——” Helene’s voice failed.
“Well, we know that no one will believe it who knows anything of him. She must have thought you very young, and ready to believe anything, mustn’t she? Poor little Nell!” He put his arm round her, and drew her close to him, regardless of the fact that the guard might appear at any moment.
“But how terrible that she should say such things, when she knows they are not true! Our own cousin, Nym!”
“Oh, well, you see, she has a grudge against him.”
“But why? What has he done?”
“Well, she wishes it to be understood that he proposed to her at Ludwigsbad a year or two back, and she refused him. That sort of thing generally makes a woman pursue a man with implacable hatred, doesn’t it? What do you say?”
“Why, I should have thought just the opposite—that she would be as kind to him as possible, and fearfully sorry that he should love her in vain.”
“So should I. And we think, all of us—mind, he has never said a word on the subject—that she—well, that it was the other way about.”
“That she proposed to him, and he refused her? Oh, Nym!”
“And he married Aunt Ernestine. That’s where the sting comes in, you see. Why, what’s the matter, Nell?” for Helene was crying.
“I never thought people could be so wicked,” she murmured at last.
“Ah, you’ll find worse things done than that,” said Usk sagely. “Now do you see why Hicks thinks the Princess is mixed up in whatever has happened?”
“But what could she have done?”
“He’s quite certain there has been foul play, and he thinks the most likely thing is that they have hired a band of brigands to carry him off into the hills. You see, the district is a sort of No Man’s Land, and the brigands may have come from any part of the Balkans. They may even have taken him down into the Roumi territory to the south, where an army couldn’t find him. But Hicks doesn’t believe it’s as bad as that,” quickly. “He thinks it’s much more likely they have got him somewhere in the Dardanian mountains.”
“And does he hope to find him?”
“He’s going to try. By the bye, he is to get a camera for us, and send us hints on photography from time to time, and we have arranged a code with the technical words. So cheer up, Nell. We’ll outwit them yet.”
Itwas on a day of appalling dust and heat that Usk and his wife arrived at the Illyrian town of Novigrad. The place stood among hills which had been left stony and treeless by several centuries of Roumi domination, but up which patches of woodland were beginning to creep under the fostering care of the Pannonian officials in charge of the province. There was a sparkling river which flowed in a rocky channel through the town, and many of the houses on the outskirts were embowered in greenery, but the general impression was of glaring white walls, dazzling roofs and blinding dust, and an atmosphere of heat from which no refuge could be found. Helene was nearly fainting when Usk helped her out of the carriage at the door of the solitary hotel, and her plight moved an elderly man of Jewish appearance, who was sitting in a dejected attitude on the terrace in front, to catch up a glass of sherbet, and hasten to her assistance with a murmur of sympathy.
“Place de younk lady in dis chair off mine, sir,” he said. “Heat such as dis iss killink for dose not accustomed to it. Your business must be fery pressink, iss it not? But why! it iss my frient Lord Usk and his most gracious lady! Ah, den I need not ask your reasson for comink here. What a loss iss dis we hef all sustained!”
“I never thought of finding you here, Chevalier,” said Usk, administering a few drops of the sherbet at a time to Helene, “and yet of course it’s the natural thing. Helene, this is the Chevalier Goldberg, my uncle’s great friend——”
“Alas, no!” cried the Chevalier, raising his hands deprecatingly—“not his frient, his enemy. It is my embition, my esspirations, det hef led to all dis! De Queen says it; she will not receife me. I may not help efen to search for him, but I remain here, in case I may yet be permitted to do somethink.”
“But you didn’t help to lead him into danger?” asked Helene anxiously.
“I kennot tell. De Queen says it. It seems he hed receifed warninks; I wass not told. Rader would I hef postponed efen de triumph off my nation den risk his life, his freedom.”
“Then where is the Queen?” asked Usk.
“She is spendink de day at Klotsch, and your fader also. So it iss efery day. Dey go dere to exemine all de neighbourhood demselfs, and come beck at night to receife de reports off deir achents. But her Machesty will not see me, nor allow me to take any part in de search.”
“We will speak to her, and ask her to let you help,” said Helene. “It must be so sad for you not to be allowed to do anything.”
The Chevalier pursued her with his fervent thanks as Usk supported her into the hotel, but the task she had undertaken proved more difficult than she expected. When Queen Ernestine returned, she refused to have anything to do with the Chevalier Goldberg. He had sacrificed her husband to his plots, she declared, with a violence of unreason which reminded Lord Caerleon of those early days when she had done her best to make Cyril’s life a burden to him. The stately gentleness which had characterised her of late years seemed to have disappeared, and she was simply a woman fighting wildly for her husband’s life. The fearful anxiety of the last few days had driven her almost mad, as she joined feverishly in the searches made in the district round Klotsch, or sat waiting for messages, not knowing whether to look forward to their arrival with fear or with hope. But so far no news whatever had been received.
“It’s quite natural she should feel prejudiced against the Chevalier,” said Lord Caerleon to his son, as they walked up and down the terrace, while Helene sat with the Queen, and tried in vain to cheer her, “but it’s very unfortunate. These Jews have a natural instinct for ferreting out mysteries, and Goldberg can set in motion a whole army of helpers all over Europe. But I can’t urge her against her will. I wish your mother was here.”
“What is the mater doing, by the way?” asked Usk. “We quite thought we should find her here.”
“Pauline Vassilievna is dying. We were just starting for Geneva to be with her, when your aunt’s telegram came, so your mother went alone to Switzerland, and I came on here.”
“And King Michael—what about him? What an ungrateful beast he must be!”
“Oh, he is away on his honeymoon, in the Bluebird, and your aunt wouldn’t allow him to be told. He was only to be troubled with absolutely necessary State business, and she doesn’t particularly want him here. He could do no good.”
“Usk,” said Queen Ernestine from the window, and Usk noticed the new tone of sharpness in her voice, “you and Helene are not to stay here more than one night. Helene looks ill already, and Mirkovics tells me she was nearly dead when she arrived. You must take her up into the hills, to Drinitza, in the morning.”
“Oh, please not,” Helene’s voice interposed, from the sofa. “Dear Aunt Ernestine, we have come here to help. You will break our hearts if you send us away, and won’t let us do anything.”
“Hush, Lenchen!” said the Queen harshly. “I will not have more trouble brought upon the innocent by their connection with me. How could I ever forgive myself if you fell ill?”
“Besides,” said Lord Caerleon, in his calm tones, “you can be very useful at Drinitza. It is not so far off, just above the underground cavern out of which this river here flows, and you will be able to explore that part of the country as we have been doing the other side. It seems quite certain that your uncle has not been taken across the Dardanian frontier, and therefore he must still be on this side of it. That will be your work, to search the Drinitza district.”
“But Helene is not to be sacrificed. I will not have her sacrificed,” repeated the Queen feverishly. “If there is a curse, it shall rest on me alone.”
“No, no; who is talking of sacrificing Helene?” asked Lord Caerleon. “She is going to spend these hot weeks at a pleasant little place in the hills, and take plenty of walks and drives with Usk. That will suit you, little girl, won’t it?”
“Oh yes; if we can really help in that way,” said Helene eagerly.
“I am having the buggy sent out which I had built for you,” Lord Caerleon went on. “It is intended for rough roads, and I have my eye on a pair of fair enough horses which one of the officers in the town, who is ordered back to Vindobona, wants to sell. Usk will give you driving-lessons, and take you with him on all his expeditions wherever the buggy can go. When he can’t be with you he’ll leave you in charge of his man William, who is the nephew of our coachman at Llandiarmid, and knows all there is to know about horses.”
“Oh, thank you. You have arranged everything so nicely,” said Helene.
“We will take a carriage and go over to Drinitza in the morning to see about rooms,” said Usk. “Will that suit you, Aunt Ernestine? You evidently share Phil’s opinion that I don’t take proper care of my wife.”
“It is not that. I have brought trouble on so many——” began the Queen.
“By the way, Ernestine,” said Lord Caerleon, with some impatience, “are you still thinking of a personal appeal to the Emperor of Scythia? If so, we shall want to leave some one in charge of things here. Are Usk and Helene to come back from Drinitza?”
“Ah, you are trying to persuade me to accept the help of the Chevalier Goldberg!” said the Queen. “Well, I cannot say yet. I must wait until all the detectives have reported to me. Then, if there is still no news,” she shuddered, “we must think what is to be done.”
Early the next morning, while the air was still comparatively cool, Usk and Helene hired a carriage and drove out to Drinitza. Their road zigzagged up and down the hill-sides, and crossed several bridges, all over the same river. The hamlet for which they were bound stood near the crest of a hill, looking as if it might at any moment slip from its little terrace of rock over the stupendous cliff below. Behind the hotel the wooded summit rose sheer; in front there was the pretence of a garden, with arbours (a little the worse for dust), and a fountain or two, and a piazza which commanded a pleasant view. At the foot of the cliff, in a cool glen cheerful with singing-birds, and bright with crimson-flowered bushes and masses of white-blossomed creeper, was the mysterious cavern from which the river burst forth full-grown. The landlord of the little inn, an old Pannonian soldier, was eloquent in his description of the wonders of the cavern, the blueness of the water inside it, and the strange shapes of the rocks, but it seemed that he had only explored it to a point from which the entrance could still be seen. He was too wise, however, to dash the hopes of prospective guests, and promised to provide a boat and plenty of torches, and do his best to find two boatmen, if the “gracious English nobilities” wished to make a more thorough search at any time. The place was beginning to become known, but the old man’s principal customers were still the officers and townspeople who drove out from Novigrad on Sundays and holidays, and he was delighted to let his best rooms to such distinguished persons as Lord and Lady Usk. In his abounding satisfaction he escorted them up the wood-paths to the top of the hill, and pointed out in the valley far below on the other side a white thread, which he told them was the road into Dardania.
“Then where does Prince Pelenko live?” asked Usk, while Helene gave a gasp. They might even now be looking at the scene of the final act of the tragedy which was baffling them all.
“Yonder is his Highness’s house,” answered the old man, pointing to a large white building dimly seen among the trees, “but his property extends for miles, as far as the Dardanian frontier.”
“Then we shan’t be able to walk through those lovely forests, as he is away from home, and can’t give us leave,” said Helene.
“Ah, the gracious lady need not grieve herself,” said the old man, with a knowing look. “The Prince started, certainly, but he is back at home now, sure enough, though it is not every one that knows it, and it will be easy to obtain his leave for the noble lady and gentleman to go where they like on his land.”
“At home? Oh, Usk, we must go and see him, and find out whether he really——” but Usk pressed her arm.
“Is it true that the river flows underground before it reaches the cave, and that there is a place where it disappears into the earth?” he asked the landlord. Volubly the old man assured him that it was perfectly true,—that close to the Mœsian frontier, on the north-east, there was a spot called Bagnanera, where the river disappeared suddenly into a cave of awful blackness, and that objects thrown into the water there had in due time been found in the river below the hotel.
“How dreadful!” said Helene, shuddering. “Why,” her tone changed, “there is a European coming up the hill—not an officer. Have you any other visitors?”
“It is the great Scythian nobleman who has been visiting the Pelenko mansion. Will the nobilities excuse me?” asked the old man hurriedly. “I must see that his horses are ready.”
“How awfully unfortunate!” said Usk quickly, as the landlord hastened back to his house. “It’s Prince Soudaroff, of all people! and there’s no hope that he hasn’t seen us. Well, we had better face it out, Nell, and just admire the view till he gets up here.”
The recognition seemed to be mutual, for the gentleman who was mounting the steep path stopped and hesitated perceptibly when he saw the two figures on the hill-top, but coming, apparently, to the same decision as Usk, he resumed his climb, and advanced towards them with beaming countenance and uplifted hat.
“I assist at an idyll!” he said in French as he met them. “Youth, beauty, and nature—I enjoy them all at one glance. Let me congratulate you, Lord Usk, on the spot you have chosen for your sojourn. It is evident that you are of the few who have discovered the charms of this corner of Europe, you and—may I say Madame la Vicomtesse?”
“Oh yes, please,” said Helene, flushing with pleasure. Here at last was some one who understood her wish without being told.
“It isn’t the scenery that has brought us here,” said Usk bluntly.
“Ah no, I understand. A family bereavement, is it not? and one of a particularly distressing character. You have no good news yet, I fear?”
“Fear? you mean hope!” was Usk’s unuttered comment. Aloud he said, “None.”
“But we hope to learn something soon,” said Helene eagerly. “We were so glad to hear that Prince Pelenko has returned home, because he seems to have seen Count Mortimer later than any one else on the evening that he disappeared, and we want to ask him so many things.”
Again a look of uncertainty flitted across the Scythian statesman’s face. “Ah, I see!” he exclaimed. “I fear you will be disappointed, madame. It is not Prince Valerian, the head of the family, who is at the Pelenko mansion, but his younger brother, Prince Shishman Pelenko, who holds a commission in my imperial master’s bodyguard, and it is on his account I am here. Ten days ago this young man was engaged in a duel, and had the misfortune to kill his opponent. The sad event preyed so much upon his mind that he wrote a hasty resignation of his commission, and retired to the family estate, to bury himself among these hills. My august master received his decision with much regret, and graciously entrusted me with a mission to the unfortunate young man, and it is from the discharge of this mission I am returning—unsuccessful, alas! Ah, madame, how can I hope to explain to one so youthful and innocent as yourself the depth of grief, of remorse, in which this unhappy Prince Shishman is plunged? He confines himself to the enclosed grounds immediately surrounding the paternal abode, and in these narrow limits he paces up and down like a caged tiger. Until the unfortunate dispute which separated them, he and his rival had been the closest of friends, and now no assurances that his conduct throughout was that of a man of the nicest honour will comfort him. He cannot forgive himself,” and Prince Soudaroff, deeply affected either by his own eloquence or by the moving picture he had conjured up, brushed away a tear.
“I am so glad you have told us this,” said Helene, in conscience-stricken tones. “We were going to ask leave to walk through the woods on the estate.”
“But why not, madame? In this I can serve you, I am happy to say. At the inn I will write a note to Prince Pelenko’s steward, and he will send you the necessary permission without troubling the unhappy Prince Shishman. Of course I will assure him that you will confine your walks to the unenclosed woods, and not threaten the privacy of the mourner.”
“Surely that assurance is scarcely necessary, Prince?” said Usk haughtily.
“You must pardon me, my dear Lord Usk. I was only considering how, as a friend of the family, I could best ensure the goodwill of an old family servant. You intend to spend some time here? I myself am leaving at once, summoned to the sick-bed of my sister-in-law, Pauline Vassilievna, or I should have been delighted to do anything in my power to show you the neighbourhood.”
“We stay here,” returned Usk, with unconscious grimness, “until we have cleared up the mystery of my uncle’s fate.”
“Indeed?” Prince Soudaroff raised his eyebrows. “It is a delicate suggestion to make, but are you sure you are quite wise? Is it kind to condemn madame to a possibly lifelong sojourn among these hills? When one wishes to disappear, one is generally able to baffle pursuit.”
“Count Mortimer didn’t wish to disappear!” cried Helene indignantly. “It is his enemies who have got him imprisoned somewhere.”
“Ah? ‘The Prince of the Captivity,’ indeed!” said Prince Soudaroff pleasantly. “I would not for the world destroy your faith, madame. But I must reluctantly depart. I trust we may often meet again. Farewell, madame! farewell, Lord Usk—surely all the world must be jealous of your happiness?” and kissing Helene’s hand gallantly, the diplomatist departed.
“Usk,” breathed Helene, clutching her husband’s arm, “that man knows!”
“Knows what?”
“Where the dear Count is. I saw it in his eye.”
“Oh, nonsense, Nell! He’s much too wily for that.”
“I don’t care. I don’t know how it is, but I know that he knows.”
“If it was certain, it would be maddening,” cried Usk; “for you might as well tell me that the General of the Jesuits knows. We are just as likely to get it out of him. But we’ll tell Aunt Ernestine what you think when we get back to Novigrad. It may help to decide her plans.”
“Prince Pelenko is not at home, after all,” said Helene to the old landlord when they returned to the hotel. “It is his brother, Prince Shishman.”
“So the noble Scythian gentleman told me, gracious one. I did not see the Prince come home; I only saw smoke coming from the chimneys, and the Dardanian servants hanging about, and I knew that one of the family must be at the house. I guessed that there were creditors waiting to make themselves troublesome as soon as his Highness arrived in Europe, as has happened before, and that he had therefore returned.”
As Usk had anticipated, the chance meeting with Prince Soudaroff decided Queen Ernestine to make an immediate appeal to the Emperor of Scythia, who was far more likely to listen to her, now that the influence of his terrible Chancellor was temporarily removed. At the moment he was paying his annual visit to his relations at Kaufenhafen, the capital of Cimbria, and the Queen made up her mind to follow him thither, trusting to the kind offices of their common cousins to secure her an interview. It was a relief to Lord Caerleon that his sister-in-law should be willing to take this long journey, for the whole of the district round Klotsch had now been scoured, without revealing the faintest trace of the missing men, or anything that could throw light upon their fate, and he feared that her brain would give way under the continued anxiety. In view of this personal appeal she became almost hopeful, for she and her helpers were now beginning to feel convinced that Count Mortimer and his secretary had been kidnapped either by Scythia or by persons in Scythian employ, and conveyed in some mysterious way into Scythian territory, to be there imprisoned.
“I will go on my knees to the Emperor to release him!” she said. “I will promise anything in his name—anything, even that we return at once to Sitt Zeynab and never leave it again. Cyril will keep the promises I make for him—he may hate me for making them, but I can bear that, if only he is restored to me safely.”
The Chevalier Goldberg, whom she had at last consented to receive, and even, on Lord Caerleon’s advice, to leave in charge of affairs at Novigrad, was equally ready to make sacrifices on Cyril’s behalf. If it was the plot to place Cyril on the throne of Palestine that had led to his disappearance, the plot should come to an end and the plotters be disbanded the moment he was released, and the heads of the great Jewish syndicate called the United Nation would pledge themselves that he should never again be brought forward as a candidate, and would enforce the same pledge on their poorer brethren the Children of Zion. Besides these concessions, the importance of which was, to the initiated, rather apparent than real, the Chevalier was prepared to give other aid, but the nature of this he did not mention to the Queen, although Lord Caerleon understood that the journey would be as easy as the financier’s influence could make it. At every stopping-place an agent of the Chevalier’s was at hand, to see whether anything was needed, and at Kaufenhafen his representative hadcarte blancheto take any measures advisable for furthering the interview. These included the discreet distribution of presents among various high functionaries of the Scythian Court, and the expense was likely to be considerable.
Usk and Helene drove into Novigrad to see the Queen and Lord Caerleon start on their journey, and returned rather dolefully to Drinitza. They had never anticipated anything like this resultless and hopeless waiting, this wall of silence which seemed to close them round. Even a rumour, though it might be proved baseless, would have been some comfort; but no one came forward with false clues, as generally happens in more thickly populated countries. The disappearance was complete.
“Look here,” said Usk, rousing himself, as they sat silent on the terrace over their after-dinner coffee, “we’re getting into the blues, Nell, and I won’t have it. I shall wake you up jolly early to-morrow morning, as soon as ever I come back from the river, and you shall have a good stiff driving-lesson before breakfast. Give you something else to think about.”
Helene smiled faintly, but she was destined to be waked even earlier than her husband intended, and the driving-lesson was not to take place that day. Usk went down to the river for a swim every morning, and he was still absent when Helene was aroused by hearing a horseman dash up the steep road, and ride clattering into the stone-paved courtyard beside the hotel. She heard him inquire eagerly for the English nobleman, and peeping out of her window, she saw the tokens of dismay, horror, and astonishment exhibited on the faces of the audience which gathered round him. She saw him ride down the road again to find Usk, escorted by several volunteer guides, and she rang wildly for her maid, and sent her to find out what had happened. To her dismay, the landlord returned a polite message that the rider had brought news for the noble Viscount, and for him alone, and that it was of too horrible and appalling a nature for any one else to take the responsibility of communicating it to the gracious lady. From this decision he could not be moved, and Helene, in terrible anxiety, flung on her clothes in wild haste, regardless of the protests of the discreet Hannele, who owed her position to her supposed power of keeping her young mistress within bounds. Dressed at last after a fashion, Helene rushed out, hatless and in slippers, and ran down the sunny, rocky road towards the glen. Before she had gone half the distance, she met Usk hurrying up, some way in advance of the messenger and his friends, and ran to him. She could not speak, but he read her question in her eyes.
“No, he’s not dead—at least we don’t know that he is, but they have found Paschics’s body in the river between here and Novigrad.”
“Dead—murdered?”
“I don’t know. I am going into the town to see. No, you had better not come. I’ll send out to tell you anything we may discover.”
“Oh, I must—I must come,” cried Helene, clutching feebly at his arm, and forthwith stultified herself by spinning round and falling in a dead faint at his feet. To Usk’s intense relief, there appeared at this point a sufficiently comical procession, consisting of Hannele with her Highness’s hat, Jakob with her Highness’s shoes, and William, pressed into the service, with her ladyship’s sunshade. With their assistance, Helene was carried back to the hotel and up to her room. When she recovered consciousness, her first thought was to send Usk off to Novigrad at once, and she went so far as to promise to stay in bed until he came back, although the scandalised Hannele was not a very agreeable sick-nurse, even when her company was the only alternative to Helene’s own anxious forebodings. It was a long, weary day, but Usk returned at last, though without any comfort to offer her.
“It is poor Paschics, sure enough,” he said.
“And he has been murdered?”
“That’s what we can’t be sure about. The body is terribly bruised, but there seems to be no injury sufficient to cause death.”
“But perhaps he was drowned?”
“No; the police-surgeon seemed quite certain it was not that. He rather thinks that death was due to heart-failure following on a violent shock of some kind.”
“Oh, Usk, how terrible! If he could only speak! But the bruises?”
“I have a theory which may account for them. Do you remember what the landlord said about this river flowing underground from Bagnanera, fifteen or sixteen miles away? Well, suppose the poor fellow was thrown into the water there, whether dead or alive, in the hope that he would sink and never be heard of again, but that the river carried him all the way to this place? The bruises would be easily accounted for then, you know.”
“Isn’t it horrible? Oh, Nym, do you mean—you can’t mean that they did that to the dear Count too, and that he has not been found, and we shall never know? What are you going to do?”
“I think of going over to Bagnanera. We never dreamed of extending the search in that direction, it seemed so entirely out of the way. I only wish I could get hold of Hicks to come too.”
“The camera he was to send us came to-day.”
“That won’t tell us where he is, though. We must only hope that the thought of the underground river will strike him when he hears about this. There are not many things that don’t occur to him.”
Very shortly it was evident that Mr Hicks had a correspondent in Novigrad who kept him in touch with the course of affairs, and that the idea which occurred to Usk had struck him also, for the next day a telegram was brought out from the town which read—
“Hope camera arrived safe. Bagnanera good place for views. Am going there to-morrow; will coach Lady Usk if you come. Bring films.”
“Hope camera arrived safe. Bagnanera good place for views. Am going there to-morrow; will coach Lady Usk if you come. Bring films.”
“We must make a day of it,” said Usk.
“And you’ll have to take me,” said Helene.
“I’ve a good mind to take Hannele too, to look after you,” returned Usk; but Helene smiled contentedly, in the certainty that Hannele could not possibly be accommodated in the buggy. In accordance with the cryptic direction at the end of the telegram, William and Jakob accompanied the carriage as a mounted escort, and Mr Hicks smiled when he met the procession, in spite of the seriousness of the occasion.
“Your outfit is real elegant, Lady Usk,” he said, as he helped Helene out. “Guess the natives will be ’most too frightened to stop and look at you.”
“Do they make any opposition to our exploring the place?” asked Usk.
“Not a cent, sir. I’ve been figuring around as cross-examiner all of the morning, and I can’t dig anything suspicious out of them. The whole township isn’t anything but rocks and a few goats, and there’s not a sign of plunder or bribery in any of the houses. Of course, they may all be in it together, and have hidden everything dangerous, but I can’t quite fix it so. And now, if her ladyship will be so good, after a few hints from me, as to work that camera all it’s worth, and make love to the women and the population generally, you and I will strike for the disappearing river.”
“Oh, mayn’t I come?” asked Helene anxiously.
Mr Hicks appeared to consider deeply. “Well, Lady Usk,” he said, “I’d as lief have you come as not, but you could assist us far more by exercising your fascinations upon the villagers. A few nickels laid out in bribing the children to have their pictures taken might raise us up friends that would justify their existence.”
“Then of course I will go to the village,” said Helene.
“Between you and me, sir,” said Mr Hicks, when he had explained the working of the camera, and Helene, attended by Jakob, had begun to climb the steep street of the hamlet, “I have no use for her ladyship the next hour or two. It’s a real ugly place, this cave, with a current that runs like Niagara, and a sweet reputation among the people. They won’t go near it for their lives, and would consider it profane to build a boat. I propose that you and I and your groom should take it in turns to explore, one man swimming, and the other two holding the rope and lighting him.”
Usk agreed, and the first sight of the cave proved to him that Mr Hicks’s precautions were not unnecessary. The river, running swift and dark, lost itself under an overhanging brow of rock, and it required a good deal of nerve to plunge into the blackness within, even when secured by a rope. Various ways of obtaining light were tried, such as burning candles at the entrance, fixing a lantern just inside it, or fastening a candle in the cap, miner’s fashion, and the cave was explored for some distance. Usk, indeed, ventured too far, being caught by the swift current, and only saved by clutching at a rock past which he was swept, until he had regained sufficient strength to add his own efforts to those of Mr Hicks and William as they hauled desperately at the rope. He returned silent and grave, for, as he confided to Mr Hicks, he felt he had been very near death. In the narrow passage he had reached, the torrent took a downward course, and above the rush of the current he believed he could distinguish the roar of water falling from a great height. What fate could be more awful than a plunge over a subterranean cataract, to be dashed and beaten and choked to death in the bowels of the earth? No attempt was made to penetrate farther, but there were some gruesome experiments to be conducted with the carcases of goats, in order to ascertain whether a body thrown into the river here could possibly reappear below Drinitza. The result, it may be mentioned, was of a negative character. Two of the carcases were actually found the next day in the river above Novigrad, but the rest were never seen again, so that the experiment proved little, either as to the body of the unfortunate Paschics or the still unknown fate of Count Mortimer.
Theresult of Queen Ernestine’s journey to Kaufenhafen was in one respect satisfactory, although it threw no light upon the mystery of her husband’s fate. The Emperor of Scythia received her kindly, and pledged his imperial word that neither he nor his ministers had had any hand in Count Mortimer’s disappearance, nor had they the slightest idea where he was at present. No reference was made to the Zionist plot, and the Emperor did not express any disapprobation of Cyril’s late political activity, which, said Prince Soudaroff when he heard of the interview, was a clear waste of a heaven-sent opportunity. Even if the Emperor did know nothing about Cyril, he might surely have dissembled his ignorance, and obtained some useful pledges from the Queen by means of vague promises and hinted hopes. But the whole subject of the interview amused Prince Soudaroff extremely, and he confided hisbon motrespecting the “Prince of the Captivity” so freely to the two or three kindred souls he contrived to gather round him even at Geneva, that it was repeated all over Europe before the end of the week. It was generally added, and the addition may also have been due to the kindred souls, that the Emperor had been wise in asserting his Chancellor’s non-participation in theaffaire Mortimerbefore, and not after, questioning the Chancellor himself on the subject.
Heart-sick from her failure, the Queen was driven almost mad by the accounts which reached her from Illyria of the discovery of Paschics’s body and the abortive search at Bagnanera. Fresh confusion had been imported into the matter by a surgeon of high reputation for whom Usk had telegraphed to the capital of the province, for he certified that the bruises on the body had been caused before death, and could not, therefore, be the result of a buffeting in the subterranean river. Anxious to examine into the mystery herself, and also pay the last tribute of gratitude to her husband’s faithful servant by attending his funeral, Queen Ernestine hurried away from Kaufenhafen, only to fall ill on her journey to Illyria. A nervous fever, brought on by grief and overstrain, kept her a prisoner at Vindobona, tended by her aunt Princess Amalie, who was almost as much at home in the sick-room as at a wedding, and watched over by Lord Caerleon, who had not the heart to leave her and go on to Novigrad.
Then, before Prince Soudaroff’s witticism had time to grow stale by repetition, and when the papers, having made the most of the sensation afforded by the medical evidence as to the cause of the secretary’s death, were beginning to hunt for a fresh topic of interest, there came a rush of events which swept the “Balkan mystery” clean out of men’s minds. Just at first it was remembered sufficiently for Prince Soudaroff’s friends to say among themselves, with exquisite glee, that if he had his secrets from the Emperor, the Emperor clearly kept one or two things secret from him. But as Prince Soudaroff only looked wise and said nothing in public, the world in general thought he had known of the matter all along, little guessing the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair which had taken place in certain chancelleries, that of Scythia not excepted, when the news came. There was a revolution—the fifth, if minor outbreaks are left out of the calculation—in Neustria.
This new revolution was the crowning glory of its kind. Other revolutions had been bungled at their inception, or had dragged on for several years before they could fairly be considered successful, but this one seemed to have been born full-grown. One night Prince Timoleon Malasorte was a casual sojourner in a Lutetian hotel, so little thought of as a political personage that the police either were not aware of his arrival in the forbidden capital, or winked at it. The next night he was master of the army, and by its means of every fortress in the country, master of the ecclesiastical system, and through it of the women of Neustria, master also of the national purse-strings. The whole thing came about with almost the suddenness of a transformation scene. It was never known publicly when and how the idea of the revolution had taken shape, or how long the astutest minds in Europe had toiled by devious and underground paths to prepare its way; all that was certain was that one morning the city was white and purple with unauthorised proclamations, posted in all sorts of forbidden places. The police tore them down, only to find that whatever way they turned, fresh bills were posted behind their backs, and while they did their confused best to keep pace with the bill-stickers, a drastic “Pride’s Purge” was being administered at the centre of parliamentary life. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies were found to be surrounded by troops, and the alarmed legislators saw their sacred precincts invaded by armed men, headed by—as it seemed to their startled eyes—the counterfeit presentment of Timoleon I. Without giving them time to recover from their surprise, the new Timoleon informed them that he had assumed the office of Dictator in order to save the country from the evils menacing it, and announced a dissolution. Before even the most violent deputy could raise his voice in protest, soldiers were filing down the alleys between the rows of seats, and arresting one man here and another there. Those arrested were taken at once into safe keeping, where they met many of their friends in other walks of life, who had been apprehended at their homes or places of business. The city Municipality, indeed, found its numbers almost complete in this new place of meeting. The whole scheme could not, naturally, be carried out with the same celerity and certainty as these preliminary steps, and in the streets of Lutetia there were a number of spasmodic attempts to erect barricades. But Prince Timoleon and his supporters were not men to be trifled with; troops had been posted at strategic points throughout the whole city, and there were cannon ready wherever they were likely to be needed. In these circumstances the barricade-builders found it well to carry back into the houses the bedding and furniture they had requisitioned, to restore the overturned cabs to their normal position, and even to lay down again the torn-up paving-stones. In the more respectable portions of the city no opposition was offered to the new rule. The better class of people were so sick of their late government, so weary of a long succession of mediocrities diversified by knaves, that they were ready to welcome any change that promised stability and some measure of relief from corruption, and above all, they hailed the advent of a man—a commanding personality who would not only command but be obeyed. The priests headed processions of their flocks to take the oath of allegiance to the new government, and—surest sign of the strength that lay behind the movement—the credit of the country rose higher than before, and the Dictator had no difficulty in obtaining money. In all the larger provincial towns a similar change of affairs had taken place, and each town saw that the district round it followed its example. The rural inhabitants submitted to the altered conditions quite philosophically. They had always been of the opinion that they lived in the worst possible world for honest people, so that it was clear they could not become worse off. There was some fear lest the sacred names which had been handed down from the days of the first revolution should be lost to sight, and an absolutist empire, supported, as it was now currently believed this new enterprise had been throughout, on one side by the Jews and on the other by the Jesuits, be set up. But the Dictator was too wise for this. The proclamation which he issued on the night of his triumph, dated from the Presidential palace (which the former occupant had quitted in haste and without much reluctance), was a model in its way. After a short sketch of Roman history, appropriate to the occasion, Prince Timoleon called the nation to witness that he had been welcomed as the saviour of society by the whole people, and established at the head of the government with scarcely the shedding of a drop of blood. There was the inevitable reference to the deeds, sacrifices, and triumphs of his ancestors; but with touching modesty and fairness Timoleon Lucanor, Prince-Dictator, concluded by saying that he proposed immediately to take aplébisciteof the whole nation on the question of reviving the imperial form of government in Neustria. This clinched matters. Timoleon Lucanor trusted the people.
When the great news was flashed over the wires from Neustria to Illyria, and the flock of newspaper correspondents which had settled upon the country round Novigrad, like rooks upon a ploughed field, pocketed their notebooks and their fountain-pens, and took the quickest way back to Europe, they were followed also by all the detectives who had been engaged in the search for Cyril. Curiously enough, as it seemed to Usk and Helene, these men all saw in the Neustrian revolution a chance of exercise for their peculiar talents, and no bribe would induce them to remain. Consequently, to continue the investigation of the mystery there were only Mr Hicks, still pursuing his inquiries in the Bagnanera district, the Chevalier Goldberg, who was called away every few days to Vindobona on business of European importance, but returned doggedly to Novigrad when it was settled, and the two young people at Drinitza, who were now absolutely at a loss, and could not even think of anything more that might be done. They made long driving excursions, during which Helene was duly tutored in the use of the reins, and which were always made the occasion of questioning any country-people who might be met on the road, and they wandered through the beech-forests on the Pelenko estate, and invented wonderful series of events which might happen, to crown all their work and anxiety with success, if only some clue would opportunely show itself. But in the minds of both there was surely growing up the conviction, hateful and long resisted, that the black pool in the cave at Bagnanera held the clue to the secret.
Riding back to the inn one day from Novigrad, tired and dusty, and perhaps a little cross, Usk caught sight of Helene talking to a lady on the terrace. The lady’s face was not familiar to him, and there was something about her look and dress which made him think she was not likely to be an acquaintance of the Schwarzwald-Molzau family, but Helene was so deeply engrossed in listening to her that she had not even heard him ride up.
“Who is the lady talking to Lady Usk?” he asked of the landlord, who came out to take his horse.
The old man looked embarrassed. “It is a Scythian lady, honourable sir, who has driven out to see the glen. Her name is—at least she calls herself—Mlle. Garanine.”
“Tania Garanine—the actress?” cried Usk.
“I know, honourable sir. She is not suitable company for the gracious lady, but what could I do? It was not for me to——”
Usk had left him, and was hastening round the corner of the house. As he reached the terrace, however, he saw the stranger already descending the steps to her carriage. She glanced over her shoulder at him—he noticed that her eyelids were artificially darkened—and laughed gaily when she saw his angry face. In a moment she was driving away, kissing her finger-tips lightly to Helene. The action raised Usk’s wrath to white heat.
“How dare you take up that woman?” he demanded fiercely of Helene. “Surely your own self-respect ought to have kept you from speaking to her.”
“I thought she wasn’t very nice,” murmured Helene, gazing at him with dilated eyes. “Her hair was such a strange colour—I think it must be false—and her skin looked—oh, sodeadwhen she came close. But she sat down here by me, and talked.”
“She’s one of the most notorious women in Europe,” fumed Usk, “and now she’ll spread it abroad that you have noticed her and received her, and what will your people think of me for letting you do it?”
“But you couldn’t help it, nor could I,” pleaded Helene.
“Why didn’t you get rid of her, when you saw the kind of woman she was? I thought exalted persons like you always knew how to dispose of people who tried to force themselves upon your notice?”
“I don’t know how to be rude,” said Helene, with heightened colour. “No one who was unfit to speak to me has ever been allowed to come near me before.”
“That’s a nasty one for me!” said Usk, whose wrath was beginning to evaporate.
“Oh, Nym, I am so sorry; I didn’t mean it. And see, I will tell you how it was that I felt obliged to listen to her. I didn’t dare even to try to cut her short, lest I should lose something important. She talked about the dear Count.”
“I might have known it! More lies, I suppose?”
“I don’t know; I suppose so, I hope so. She said, just as Cousin Ottilie did, that he had gone away of his own accord, but—I couldn’t quite understand—I think she wanted to make me believe that she was the lady Prince Pelenko said he saw in the carriage with him. At least, she talked as if she knew him quite well, and could tell us where he was now, and she said such horrible things. I don’t know whether she only suggested them, or really said they had happened, but I know she hinted that the Count had—had got rid of poor M. Paschics because he knew too much, and he had no more money with which to keep his mouth shut. And she talked about a gay life among the islands somewhere, and then she spoke just as if the dear Count was mad, and told me a dreadful story about some one she knew once who had spent all his money, and was found by his relations, quite by chance, in a refuge for lunatics somewhere near Trieste. She said they had advertised for him everywhere, but he had forgotten his own name, and it was only because his nephew happened to catch sight of him that he was recognised. Do you think—she could mean—that the dear Count is in one of those terrible places?”
Usk pondered a moment. “No; I don’t!” he cried suddenly. “They want to get us out of the neighbourhood, Nell, that’s it! Now that Malasorte has made hiscoup d’état, they see through the bogus plot, and they want to undo their work, if they can. I’m certain they have him hidden somewhere near—in a cave or something of that kind—and find they can’t get him out of the country without our knowing. We’ll stick on here and tire them out. To-morrow I’ll go over and bring Hicks back with me, if I have to drag him by main force. If the whole crew know he’s on our side I don’t care. He’s the man to smell them out.”
“How clever you are, Nym! I never thought that it might be a trick. I do wish I was older, and—and——”
“Wiser?” suggested Usk.
“Yes, wiser, and able to give you good advice.”
“Thanks; I’d just as soon not. I probably shouldn’t take it, you know.”
“Oh, Nym, I wish you wouldn’t laugh. I want to be a better wife to you.”
“You’re tons too good as it is, so don’t get any better. Was I awfully down on you just now about that Garanine woman, Nell? I didn’t mean it, but you must learn to protect yourself, you know. Just say, ‘I was a silly little idiot, and I’ll never do it again.’”
Helene repeated the words with admirable docility. “But I do wish I could think of clever and useful things like you,” she added with a sigh.
When Usk betook himself to Bagnanera the next day, he left Helene listless and unhappy. The actress’s words had affected her more than she knew, and the vision of Cyril, nameless and robbed of everything, in a pauper lunatic asylum, was constantly before her eyes. The prospect of spending the whole day alone, since ten hours at least must elapse before Usk could return, if he was to bring Mr Hicks with him, was terrible, for she could think of nothing but that vision. At last she took herself resolutely in hand, determining to set to work at something that would occupy her thoughts. She would spend the day in the beech-woods, and make a sketch for her mother, setting herself the task of finishing it at a sitting. Telling Jakob that she would need his attendance, she went to her room to get out her colour-box. Hannele, who was mending a torn gown, was pleased to approve of her intention. Sketching was a lady-like and elegant accomplishment (provided the sketcher took care not to sit on the grass), and far more suited to the daughter of a princely house than tearing about over the country with a husband as thoughtless as herself. Helene felt that the rebuke was not undeserved, for she had torn the gown disgracefully in scrambling through a thicket with Usk, and she did not venture to suggest that it might be discarded, although Hannele, in her huge spectacles, had the half-resentful, half-triumphant aspect of an unwilling martyr. Hannele was grumbling monotonously on, therefore, when Helene silenced her suddenly by an imperative gesture. Standing near the window, she had been half-unconsciously aware that two Englishmen who had spent the night at the inn were discussing the views as they breakfasted on the terrace, but now her full attention was aroused by hearing the name of Shishman Pelenko mentioned.
“Queer thing that we should have come straight from Shishman Pelenko to his ancestral halls,” one man had said.
“Would it be well to call? The place looks inhabited.”
“I think not. We know that Shishman isn’t there, and though he’s a good sort, his elder brother is a queer lot, I believe.”
Helene dropped her paint-box, and running down the stairs, presented herself suddenly before the astonished tourists.
“I must ask you to excuse me for disturbing you,” she said, with the little air of dignity which sat so oddly and yet so well on her, “but I think I heard you mention the name of Prince Shishman Pelenko? He is a kind of relation of ours—at least, he is the cousin of a cousin—and his movements have—have puzzled us a little of late.” Was this untrue? she wondered uncomfortably.
“He is an erratic fellow,” said the elder of the two Englishmen—they had both risen politely when she addressed them, “but I am glad to be able to assure you that he was all right ten days ago, Fräulein. We have been mountaineering with him in the Caucasus for more than two months, and though he has had several hairbreadth escapes, he’s as fit as he can be.”
“We heard a rumour—about a duel,” hazarded Helene.
“He has had no opportunity of fighting a duel for three months at least, madame”—the speaker had caught sight of the wedding-ring on Helene’s finger. “Indeed, I know, for he told me himself, that his last duel happened quite three years ago.”
“Thank you. You have relieved my mind very much,” said Helene simply, but she returned into the house with slow, dragging steps. Was her mind relieved, or was it oppressed with a new and vague anxiety? Prince Shishman Pelenko had never been in the neighbourhood at all; his duel, his remorse, his flight from society, were all alike inventions of the Scythian Chancellor’s fertile brain. But if he had not been occupying the Pelenko mansion, then who was the recluse there, who never walked beyond the garden, whom no one in Drinitza had seen? Conviction forced itself upon Helene. The Princess of Dardania’s apparently purposeless display of Prince Valerian’s letter, the visit and the glib falsehoods of Prince Soudaroff, the strange hints of Tania Garanine—all pointed to one fact and one alone. Cyril was imprisoned down there in the Pelenko mansion, and Helene could take no steps to rescue him for a whole day. The idea was intolerable. She must at any rate try to find out whether she was right—and in a moment she saw how this might be done. Only once had she and Usk approached the great house closely in their walks, and then they had noticed a corner of the garden wall where a tree, growing against the masonry, had forced the lower courses out of position, and dislodged the upper stones. Usk had remarked that it was a standing invitation to burglars, and now she would play burglar.
Her face was flushed with excitement when she entered her room again, and she gathered her paint-brushes together with shaking hands. She could think of nothing but her scheme, and did not at first perceive that Hannele was grumbling still.
“Going out alone on the public terrace and speaking to two strangers—Englishmen, too, who have no reverence or good manners! That was not the way your august parents taught you to behave, Highness. And asking after a young rip of a Scythian captain as if life and death hung upon it! What’s Prince Shishman Pelenko to your Highness, I should like to know? I wonder what your noble husband will think when he hears?”
This it was which reached Helene’s ears at last. She turned angrily upon the woman. “Silence, Hannele!” she said, with a decision Hannele had never seen in her before. “I justify myself to my husband, not to you.”
Leaving the maid crushed but indignant, she quitted the room with her painting materials. Jakob was in waiting, with her camp-stool and umbrella, and they climbed to the top of the hill, and plunged into the beech-woods on the other side. When Helene was as near the Pelenko mansion as seemed prudent, she chose a spot in a long grassy glade, bordered on either side by huge trees which were beginning to show the first touch of autumn, and set to work with uncertain fingers, wondering how long it would be before Jakob went to sleep. She had decided not to make him a partner in her enterprise. For one thing, there might be danger for him where a girl would pass unscathed; and again, he would be very likely to presume upon his long service with her family to prevent her doing anything. It seemed to her that her henchman was provokingly wakeful to-day. Generally it needed but a few minutes to set him propped against the trunk of a tree, slumbering peacefully, with his mouth as wide open as if he wished the squirrels to drop beech-nuts into it. But on this occasion it almost seemed that he must have been making resolutions against his drowsiness, so unwinkingly watchful did he remain. Helene thought hours must be passing before his rigid frame relaxed, and his grey head dropped gently back against the tree. When at last he was undoubtedly asleep, she tore out a leaf of her sketch-book, wrote on it in pencil, “I am going to seek another view. I will return here,” and laid it near him with a stone upon it to keep it from blowing away. Then she stole noiselessly past him, and made sure that the tree was between him and herself before she ventured to turn in the direction of the house. She was not long in reaching the corner of the wall, and although it was harder to climb than she had expected, she succeeded in getting over. Inside the wall was a thick belt of shrubbery, so wild and unkempt that it might almost be called a wood, and with beating heart she forced her way through this. There was a clear space in front, she saw, and presently she reached its edge. Crouching down and peering through the bushes, she found that she was close to the house, which looked much less imposing near at hand than from a distance. Originally a pretentious building of the sham classical style dear to the heart of the Europeanised Illyrian, with a good deal of ornamental work in plaster about it, it was now little better than a ruin. Great masses of the balustrading had fallen from the edge of the roof, the walls were cracked in many places, and there were only a few remnants of glass left in the windows. The garden was utterly neglected. Grass was springing up between the stones of the paved pathways, and the water in the large square tank was foul and choked with weed, above which the melancholy fragments of a broken fountain reared themselves. It was evident that whatever debts Prince Valerian Pelenko had contracted in Europe, he had not spent the money on his family seat.
As Helene peeped through the bushes, a slight movement attracted her attention to two persons whom she had not at first noticed—an old man, sitting on a stone seat beside the tank, in the shade of a clump of overgrown myrtles, and a servant, like his master in European dress, lounging against the wall of the house a little behind him. The picture was so pathetic that Helene felt the tears rise to her eyes—the old man sitting there among the ruined glories of his house, his gaze fixed on the dull stagnant waters of the tank. But there was a rustling in the bushes behind her; and turning her head, she saw that a huge fellow in the gorgeous Dardanian dress, his sash bristling with knives and pistols, had tracked her through the wood, and was now within a few feet of her, his cruel eyes gleaming in his fierce face. With a shrill scream she threw herself wildly forward, hoping to find safety in the company of the musing old man, but her foot caught in a briar, and she felt her pursuer’s great hand upon her throat. Her scream had aroused the two occupants of the garden, however, and she saw the old man look round.
“What is it that Danilo has found in the shrubbery—a child?” he asked the servant in French, and bewildered and shaken as Helene was, it seemed to her that the voice was familiar. The servant’s reply was inaudible, but she heard the old man say sharply, “Bring her to me, and I will reprove her. I will not have children mauled by these rough fellows.”
Helene’s captor released her reluctantly as the servant approached, but it appeared to her that the new-comer helped her up with equal reluctance, and cursed her under his breath. He gave the Dardanian some direction in his own language as he led Helene to his master, but she had no time to think what the words might mean, for it was Cyril who sat on the stone bench—Cyril whose clear blue eyes met hers without a trace of recognition. For a moment she was staggered—it could not be Cyril—but even before he spoke again she had no doubt. Old and white-haired and broken, this was the man to whom her childish devotion had been given.
“Do you know, young lady, that you are a trespasser?” he asked her in French. “Doubtless you found your way in by the little door in the wall?” Helene opened her lips to deny this, but he went on without giving her time to speak. “I know one of the servants was going into the town, and they are careless about the door. But you would hardly have gratified your curiosity by entering if you had known that my seclusion here is a matter of life and death.”
Helene gazed at him, unable to speak, and he went on.
“Probably you are unaware that my life is perpetually in danger? You know my name—Shishman Pelenko? But you will not have heard that my steps are continually dogged by hired ruffians. I can’t quite remember why it is—it happened a long time ago—but I am not safe except within these walls and under the protection of my faithful servants. This is Dr Gregorescu, my medical attendant”—he indicated a lithe dark-bearded man who had come up with a cat-like swiftness and softness of tread—“who is good enough to live here with me and watch over my health. My life may not be of much value to the world, but it has still some little charm for myself, and some value for my few friends, I think?” He looked round waggishly at Dr Gregorescu, and laughed—a foolish crackling laugh.
“Your life is most valuable to your friends, Highness,” replied the doctor, not smiling in return, but piercing Helene with his black eyes, “and I fear this young lady’s entrance here may endanger it.”
“Oh, nonsense! she is only a child, and what can she tell the ruffians outside but that I am well guarded? Desire the ruffians on our side to show themselves, if you please.”
“The young lady will be frightened,” objected the doctor.
“All the better for her—teach her a lesson,” was the testy answer. “What, am I to command twice?” he rattled his stick on the stones. “I wish my guard to be visible for an instant.”
For the moment Helene felt like Fitz-James at the instant of his introduction to Roderick Dhu, for at the word of command, reluctantly uttered by Dr Gregorescu, the belt of shrubbery seemed to be suddenly alive with stalwart Dardanians. They sprang up from their lairs in the underwood or started out from behind trees, and stood in full view for a moment, then, at a wave of the doctor’s hand, disappeared again, while the self-styled Prince Shishman improved the occasion.
“You have seen how thoroughly I am protected, young lady,” he said impressively. “Now I do not think, from your face, that you are in the pay of my cruel enemies outside, but if you should be questioned, you may say that these faithful fellows, all trained fighters from their cradles, keep guard over me day and night, and would rejoice at the chance of a fight. You may say also that Dr Gregorescu and the indoor servants are well armed, and that there are underground——”
“Is not your Highness afraid of giving publicity to the exact details of our defences?” asked the doctor smoothly, and Cyril nodded.
“You do well to remind me of prudence, Gregorescu. But I think the young lady, at any rate, will not penetrate within our walls again, for she will remember that to do so would cause great anxiety and pain of mind to a cruelly persecuted man. If you will be good enough to send for the key of the small gate, we will let her out, and see that the door is properly fastened.”