It was nine o'clock when Mr. Povey left the little modern red-brick post-office situated in one of the principal thoroughfares, that ran steeply inland from the boulevard, and made his way down the hill.
Nine o'clock was an important hour of the twenty-four to the inhabitants of Corbo, for it was then that the late edition ofEl Imparcial de Corbomade its appearance. The editor and proprietor of that enterprising journal had an arrangement by which the latest European news was sent to him direct from a relative employed on the staff of one of the great Parisian papers. There was another paper published in Corbo, but it was not one that appealed to the sensation-loving San Pietrians.El Diawas a heavy mass of stodgy reading matter, that was run, only too evidently, for political reasons and in the interests of Spain. It is little wonder, then, that as nine o'clock approached a little flutter of excitement and anticipation manifested itself in the crowds that thronged the cafés and boulevards.
Edward called to a little bare-footed, black-eyed urchin, who was calling his papers, and bought a copy. He had no desire, in his present state, nor did he think it a correct thing, to be seen at any of the fashionable haunts facing the gaily lighted promenade, and he turned and walked slowly up the street, keeping his eye open for a place where he could take his refreshment and read his paper in peace.
He decided upon a corner café that did not seem to be too well patronized, and made his way to one of the little round marble-topped tables sheltered by the glass wind-screen, by which the proprietor protected his guests from the sharp gusts which at times beat through the narrow streets of this part of the town.
Calling a waiter, Edward ordered a coffee and cognac, and, lighting a cigar, opened his paper. It was a badly printed sheet, still damp from the press, and smelling evilly of inferior printers' ink. As he gazed idly down the columns, Edward could well understand the popularity of the wretched rag. Sensation was evidently the keynote of its policy—that and scare and scandal. To the editor of theImpartial de Corbonothing was sacred. Povey read first a long leader on the career of King Enrico, of whose health the reports had the last few days been again more favourable. The tone of the article plainly showed that the editor resented this temporary recovery of a monarch whom he evidently considered to be of more worth dead than on the throne of San Pietro. It mattered nothing to him that the Royal victim of his pen lay dying within a mile of his printing press. Ruthlessly the ruler of San Pietro was attacked—virulently and viciously. His mode of legislature, his family quarrels, his private morals, all came under the lash of the pen. On the question of morals the writer, scenting something to whet the appetite of his readers, had let himself go with a vengeance.
The useful relative in Paris had kept him well supplied with anecdotes and paragraphs relating to Enrico's frequent visits to the French capital. These, while the king had been in good health, he had not dared to publish; but now, when any moment might be the last, he was drawing on the stores of his pigeon-holes, with the result that the café loungers of Corbo were given something to talk about.
Edward put down the paper in disgust. It seemed to his English way of thinking, a poor thing, this attacking of a dying man, who, if report spoke true, must be having a bad enough passing as it was.
He looked up to where, between the gables of the opposite houses, the palace rose up gaunt and sombre above the town. The portion of the building which came within his vision was in darkness, save where in the eastern wing a short row of windows showed little patches of yellow light. It was in those rooms that he understood the dying king lay.
Edward pictured the scene behind those windows, the evil-living man helplessly waiting for what he must hope would be annihilation. He imagined the men round the bed, men intent on plunder, and who could barely wait until the breath left their royal master's body. He wondered what visions were disturbing the king's last hours, and he thought of the many things he had heard of the monarch's past life.
He remembered the tales of murdered and mutilated natives in the rubber plantations of the tiny colony in West Africa which was under the rule of San Pietro. He thought of Enrico's sisters and brothers, all of whom had put their relative out of their lives—and of the heir, travelling where no one knew. The death couch of the King of San Pietro must be an uneasy one indeed.
The words of Fagin ran through his mind as he watched the windows; how did they go—"as it came on dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died.... They rose up in quick succession, that he could hardly count them."—Yes, Enrico's last hours must be very like those spent by the old Jew in his Newgate cell.
Edward shuddered a little and took a sip of cognac. Then he picked up the paper again idly and turned to the home news. There were the usual amusement notes and the statistics of play at the tables in the Casino. He read with little interest how a wealthy Austrian nobleman had had a successive run of seventeen on the black, and how he had been forced to have the assistance of one of the attendants to carry the spoil to the hotel.
He looked in vain for an account of the accident on the Alcador road. Galva's death had been soon forgotten, the readers ofEl Imparcial de Corbowere no more interested in it than in the suicide two days previously of the young American, a ruined gambler, who had thrown himself into the sea from the rocks east of the bay.
As he rose to pay his bill, voices at a near table arrested him, and he sat down again and lit the stump of his cigar. Two men, of the middle class, were discussing the motor-car fatality. One of them had remarked how Lieutenant Mozara should have known that road better than to have had such an accident. The speaker himself had seen him often start out that way, and he had a sister, the wife of an innkeeper at Alcador, who had told him that the lieutenant seldom missed the bull-fights that took place periodically in the Plaza of that town. Edward, with his eyes glued to the paper he held before him, drank in every word. It seemed to him corroboration of Anna Paluda's doubts. There was only one direct road to Alcador, and it was difficult to imagine for one moment that such an experienced driver as Lieutenant Mozara undoubtedly was would forget the dangerous bend that wound above the Ardentella rapids.
And yet he said to himself that Gaspar Mozara was scarcely the man to take the risk of the fall. He would be running the same danger as Miranda, and yet here he was in Corbo, to the best of Edward's belief, unhurt. The next words from the adjoining table made matters a little clearer. It was the other man who was speaking now.
"——I was on the road when they were getting the wrecked car out of the water. I gave them a hand, and, although the machine was badly smashed, one thing struck me as very curious. The brakes had not been applied—whatever happened, the car had gone through the wall at full speed."
The lieutenant's words of the afternoon returned to the man who was listening behind the newspaper, how he had put on the brakes when he had seen the danger. Edward was now convinced that Mozara was lying, but even then he was no nearer the solution of the mystery. Perhaps, after all, Miranda had been in the car, but Edward would not allow himself to think that.
He felt sure that some sign further than the hat and cloak would have been found. It was barely possible that the girl's body would be so separated from the car as to leave a hat and cloak only. It was all but a certainty that she would have been pinned beneath the wreckage. The dainty motor bonnet, too, tied tightly, as he remembered, beneath the chin—how could that have become detached?
No, the more Edward Povey thought of the affair the more certain he became that the girl was being held prisoner by some one who suspected her identity. The lieutenant was, no doubt, acting under the orders of others, and she would be kept in captivity until Dasso, after the king's death, was secure on the throne. Her's was too valuable a life to dispose of, unless it were absolutely necessary.
All these things passed through Edward's mind as he made his way in the direction of Venta Villa. The boulevard was crowded with its usual throng of pleasure seekers. From the interior of the café came the clattering of dishes and the laughter of those who were drinking or supping. Each place, too, had its little orchestra, the uniforms showing hazily through the smoke-laden atmosphere.
As Povey passed the Café de l'Europe, the largest and most fashionable in Corbo, he ran his eyes over the people seated at the little tables. Gaily dressed women smoked cigarettes and drank tiny liqueurs as they joked with bored-looking men in evening attire. Here and there the gorgeous uniform of the King's Own Hussars splashed a note of barbaric colour over the scene.
With a little catch of the breath, Edward suddenly pulled up short and slipped back into the shadow of a newspaper kiosk. From behind this he peeped cautiously at the figure of an elderly gentleman who was seated alone before a table on which stood a stone tankard of Pilsener. Then he passed hastily up the little avenue between the crowded tables and entered the main body of the Café de l'Europe.
Here were blotters containing paper and envelopes, and he drew a sheet towards him and wrote a short note. Then, calling a waiter, he asked him to hand it to the gentleman in the tweed suit who was drinking beer outside. He also, ascertaining that this particular waiter spoke a little English, told the man to tell the gentleman in the tweed suit that the writer of the note would be glad of a word with him in private. Then he leaned back and watched through the large plate-glass windows.
*****
Mr. Jasper Jarman, as the waiter touched him on the shoulder and handed him the note, started violently. For him a touch on the shoulder meant but the one thing, in fact he had been dreaming night and day, ever since his arrival on the island, of touches upon the shoulder.
"Ze gentleman, sir, he speak with m'sieu."
"The devil he will." Jasper Jarman rose hastily and grabbed up his hat and umbrella. "I don't know a soul in the dam island, waiter, and I don't want to. You have made a mistake, my good man."
Jasper unfolded the note as he spoke, and his eye travelled to the signature. He gave a gasp and turned again to the waiter.
"Where is he?"
The man bowed, and pointed to the interior of the café.
"I will show m'sieu."
Edward, however, had risen, and he met his uncle as he edged his way between the crowded tables.
"Not a word here," he said, and, taking the old man's arm, he led him out of the sight of the people, some of whom he noticed were already giving them their attention.
They crossed the crowded pavement and the road to the other side of the promenade. This part, bordered as it was by a low sea wall, and without shops or cafés, was practically deserted, and the two men made their way eastward until they came to a flight of a few shallow steps leading down to the well-kept gardens that were the pride of Corbo.
Edward, still with his hand affectionately linked in his uncle's arm, led the way through shrub-bordered paths to a stone seat that, half hidden in a mass of palm foliage, faced the sea. Here it was quiet, the sound of the promenaders reaching them only in a confused murmur. Little lights gleamed here and there from the yachts anchored in the bay.
"So, uncle, there you are," began Edward, unconsciously quoting Hamlet.
"Yes, Edward Povey, I'm here, through your rotten criminal acts, you—you—jail-bird, you——"
"There is no need, I assure you, my dear Uncle Jasper, to be offensive," said Edward Povey.
There was silence for a few moments. Edward Povey nervously poked little holes in the gravel path with the ferrule of his walking-stick.
"Don't you think, uncle, that we had better discuss the situation without personalities—or rudeness?"
Mr. Jasper Jarman's answer was a grunt.
"You see, uncle, I feel that I owe you some sort of apology, or at any rate an explanation. I read what they said in the papers about you. I laughed for ten minutes."
"You did, eh! Well, I read the same as you did, and I didn't laugh for ten seconds."
"But I didn't take it seriously. I thought you would explain easily."
"Yes, and be convicted as an accessory—as one of the gang."
"Accessory to what?"
"To the theft of the bonds—you did well out of that, it seems." Jasper's eyes took in his nephew's attire, the well-cut dark suit, the gleaming jewel in the cravat. "I suppose you decided on San Pietro for the same reason as I did."
"My dear uncle, I was never more astonished in my life than when I saw you sitting there, outside the Café de l'Europe."
"Not more than I was to see you, Mr. Povey."
Edward sat for a moment gazing out over the sea.
"What I'm wondering at is that a clever business man like you should run away from a shadow."
"Yes, the shadow of a jail—what."
"Not at all, uncle. I read in the ParisDaily Mailweeks ago that the bonds had been recovered and that the matter was ended. Why don't you go back, now?"
"The fact that the bonds are safe does not explain my presence at Adderbury Cottage. I'd have to say I was visiting you—and admit you as my nephew."
"And you wouldn't like that?"
"It's not a relationship that I'm proud of, Edward."
Edward looked at his uncle. "As I remarked before, there's no need to be rude," he said.
"I'm only stating facts, Edward. Remember, I go by what I have seen. What wereyoudoing at Bushey, and, for the matter of that, what are you doing here in San Pietro?"
Edward Povey rose and took a turn or two up and down the path. He had asked himself at first whether he had been wise to attract his uncle's attention. But he well knew that until he had found out the reason of the old man's presence on the island, he would know no peace. He was more than relieved to discover the true state of things and that his uncle knew nothing of the Baxendale affair. The best thing to do now was to get the old man back to Kidderminster as soon as possible. There was nothing to associate Edward in his uncle's mind with the Mr. Sydney who lived at Venta Villa, even if, as was hardly probable, that gentleman's name were known to the carpet manufacturer. He pulled up suddenly in his walk as a scheme suggested itself, and stood looking down on Mr. Jarman.
"I really think, uncle, you had better go back and face the music—it's a bit late, I'll admit, but it's your best move."
"And face the scandal too. Not me."
"There won't be any scandal if you do as I say. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper—The Kidderminster Shuttle, isn't it? Tell him that you have been on a long sea voyage by your doctor's orders and that you haven't been able to write or receive letters for weeks. Say that you have just read in an old number of theDaily Telegraphthat you have been 'wanted.' Work up the indignation hot and strong—say that you are hastening home to take proceedings for libel against any one who has said a word against you. You must, also, say that Kyser was a friend of yours and that he had lent you the cottage at Bushey, and that when Aunt Eliza heard he was murdered, she was frightened of ghosts and that is why you left so hurriedly. Say she wouldn't sleep another night in the place for a fortune."
Edward paused and wiped the perspiration from his face. Jasper, who had been looking glum enough when his nephew had begun to speak, now raised his head with a little smile.
"You're a magnificent liar, Edward—same time I rather like your idea—I believe you possess the elements of sense."
Edward smiled his acknowledgments, then went on—
"But I have a favour to ask, uncle. Forget you've seen me. I'm here on business—secret political business."
"I shan't say a word. Get me out of this benighted place and I'll do anything you like. Now come on with me to my hotel and I'll write that letter."
The two men left the gardens and walked up towards the Old Town.
"I'm staying at The Three Lilies, a comfortable old place—nothing grand and smart like these"—Jasper waved to the great hotels on the front,—"but I wanted somewhere quiet, you see."
"The Three Lilies? Is that the little inn that faces an old castle sort of a place—just on the edge of the Old Town?"
"Yes—why?"
"Oh, nothing. I'm only wondering if you have noticed anything strange about that old place opposite."
"Well—they seem rather a queer lot. Men—mostly soldiers—come pretty often to see the man who lives there. They come secretly too; there was one the other night who hid in the yard under my window. I heard something and looked out; you can understand the fright I got when I saw the tip of a man's cigar."
"What kind of a man was he? Can you describe him?"
"I watched after I had put the light out. There was a horse standing at the door opposite and the owner of the place came and saw a man—another soldier—off the premises. When the sound of the horse had died away in the distance, the man under my window crossed over. I've often seen him."
"Sallow face, eh? Thin?"
"That fits him. He's been in the wars, however. I saw him to-day and he walks with a crutch and carries his arm in a sling. Why? Do you know the Johnny who lives in the castle?"
Edward did not answer; he was thinking deeply. These clandestine meetings between Mozara and Dasso were only in accordance with the suspicions that crowded his mind of a plot. A great joy filled his heart as he told himself that Miranda was alive. He was glad he had written to the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer, a strong arm to lean on would be useful in the work Edward Povey had in hand.
It was late when they reached The Three Lilies and the house opposite was in darkness. Edward accompanied his uncle to his room and together they wrote their letter toThe Kidderminster Shuttle. This done, the younger man took his departure. He made an appointment with his uncle at the stone seat in the gardens for eleven o'clock the next morning. He was rather sorry he had advised the old man to hurry away; he would have been useful as an informant, living as he did with the enemy under his eye.
Any schemes such as these, however, were doomed to have a very rude awakening. Edward arrived at the stone seat early and gave himself up to his thoughts. His original misdemeanour in assuming the name and personality of Mr. Kyser was all but forgotten in the light of later events, and the plans for the location and rescue of Galva Baxendale. In his own mind he was rather more than half a hero already, and the shock which he received at five minutes past eleven was a sharp one, and coming, as it did, hard upon his self-adulation seemed to him unmerited and unfair.
As steps approached he looked up expecting to see the portly figure of Mr. Jasper Jarman. Instead, he made out a lean and hungry looking Corbian who, when he saw the figure on the seat, advanced, and snatching off his greasy cap handed a letter to Edward.
"Meester Povee?"
Edward took the envelope and opening it drew out a sheet of paper. It was dated at nine o'clock in the morning and was headed with the device THE THREE LILIES.
"EDWARD POVEY,
"Please accept my very best thanks for the advice you gave me yesterday evening. You have in some measure atoned for the harm you have done. On your head and yours alone rests the onus of my shattered reputation, the anguish of your Aunt Eliza and the possible downfall of one of the largest carpet factories in the Midlands.
"Last night circumstances made it expedient that I should dissemble and show you a tolerance I was far from feeling. You are a liar and I do not doubt for one moment but that you are a thief. It was to avoid the possible trial with such a scoundrel beside me in the dock that I left England. When you get this I shall have departed from the cursed island of San Pietro by the boat that leaves for Spain at ten. You did not mention your poor wife to me. I do not expect I will run across her, it being more than probable that you have murdered the poor woman and buried her in the garden at Adderbury Cottage. If I do see her, however, I will consider it my duty to acquaint her with the evil life of self-indulgence and ease you are living in Corbo.
"The messenger who brings you this is the son of the landlord of The Three Lilies. I have told him that you will reward him—you can afford it.
"JASPER JARMAN"
Edward tore the letter into little pieces and swore softly to himself. It was a rude awakening to his dreams of rescuing distressed damsels. Then he took a silver coin from his pocket and handed it to the son of the landlord of The Three Lilies.
"There's no answer," he said shortly, and turned and walked up to the bustling life of the boulevard. He had entered the gardens with the feelings of Sir Galahad, he left them with those of Charles Peace.
In the early part of the seventeenth century a certain noble duchess, taking a journey through the kingdom of San Pietro, paid a visit to her old and valued friend the Countess Ribero, and the guest-chamber in which the august lady spent two nights has since been called the Duchess Room, and it was upon the faded glories of this distinguished apartment that the bewildered eyes of poor Galva Baxendale looked when she came out of her insensibility.
The moon shining obliquely in at the long windows flooded parts of the room in a white light, mercilessly picking out the threadbare patches in the ragged tapestries and in the faded embroideries of the chair-backs. A fire burning brightly in the grate somewhat relieved the cold splendour of the moonbeams.
Galva was, for a few moments, oblivious to her surroundings. Her head throbbed and ached distractingly, and she gazed with unseeing eyes at the carved oaken pillars of the four-post bed on which she was lying, and on the heavy curtains and fringes which hemmed her in. Her first distinct impression was one of suffocation. She had that horror, so common to those who have lived in and love the open air, of all enclosed spaces and smothering draperies.
She raised herself slowly, and leaning her head on her hand, took a survey of the surrounding objects. The room was a large one, and was lighted by two windows, reaching nearly to the ground, and composed of many small square panes. On the walls the tarnished frames of pictures, mostly portraits, caught the firelight. Facing her was a large tapestry on which were depicted the figures of three huntsmen, with very thin legs, who, accompanied by prancing dogs, were presumably chasing a stag, which was conveniently silhouetted on the top of a symmetrical mountain.
As Galva put her foot to the ground the ludicrous figures seemed to take life and accompany the furniture and the bed in a whirling, fantastic dance, and the girl felt her senses again leaving her. But she must have tottered somehow to the window, for the next she remembered was the cool night breezes of the forest, pine-scented and invigorating, playing upon her forehead. With each inhalation Galva felt her strength coming back to her, and the memory of all that had happened returned to her in every detail.
She remembered Mozara and the car, and how, much against her will, he had insisted on running her out to see the Falls on the Ardentella. She had known that it was a very different thing the journey inland, without a chaperone, to the quiet gliding up and down the promenade at Corbo. She knew also that her guardian did not altogether approve of even this latter, and as the powerful car had bounded on past the palace, she had implored the lieutenant to take her back.
But the young man would not believe she was serious and had laughed at her fears. They would be back in an hour, he had told her, and so, helpless, she had made the best of it, promising herself a sharp retaliation on her escort when she was safely home again.
Galva remembered stopping at a lonely spot where two gate-posts stood sentinel by the side of the road. There was a wood, too, comprised, as far as she could recollect, of pine-trees. Mozara had here alighted to attend to his engine, and after propping open the bonnet had gone back to the tonneau, saying he wanted to get a spanner from the tool-bag he kept there. There was a confused memory after that of a cloth being swathed about her head and the sickly sweet smell of chloroform. Then nothing more—until she had come to herself in this old-world room.
She raised her head in the act of listening and tiptoed to the door. She could detect stealthy movements on the landing outside, and through a little crack in the oaken panel came the gleam of a light.
Galva was no coward. She had the heart of the Estratos and a line of ancestors whose deeds of bravery were chronicled back to the dim ages. But there was something uncanny in this weird room, with the flickering firelight the cold moon and the unknown silent watchers on the landing. Then she heard the footsteps creep away, and, unable to bear the suspense longer, the girl seized the handle of the door and shook it furiously. She tried to call out, to ask who was there, but her tongue seemed a useless lump in her dry mouth, and sound would not come.
The footsteps outside stopped at the first sound of the rattled door, and Galva heard whispered voices. Then a key grated in the lock, and the girl retreated to the farther end of the room. At the first sound she had taken from her pocket a tiny revolver, hardly more than a toy, which Edward, not knowing what was in store for them in San Pietro, had bought for her in Paris. She saw the door slowly opened and an old man enter. Behind him Teresa carried a tray on which were a flask of wine and some covered dishes.
"You are ready for supper, señorita?"
Galva gazed wonderingly at them. All fear had left her now, and she fingered her revolver confidently. The firelight glinted on the little plated barrel and threw gigantic shadows of the old couple on the yellow ceiling. She was speaking in a low voice which she would hardly have recognized as her own.
"Put the tray down," every word came distinctly, "and then stand over there—where I can see you both. Then tell me what this all means."
Pieto looked at his wife hesitatingly, and pointed to the tray. Teresa set it down.
"Now," went on the girl, "I want a full explanation—where is Lieutenant Mozara? I don't think I know either of you—do I?"
"The lieutenant has left the castle."
"It seems that the lieutenant has played a trick on me—a trick that will cost him dear—and," meaningly, "those who are with him in it."
The old people stood with bowed heads and the man mumbled something below his breath.
"Speak up, man."
Pieto raised palsied finger-tips to his mouth. "We are not the servants of Lieutenant Mozara," he said.
Galva stamped her little shoe.
"Then go to the man who is your master, whoever he is, and tell him to come to me here. If either of you two enter this room again without my full permission I will shoot you down like I would a couple of dangerous dogs—now go."
Taking up the lantern which he had set down on the floor on entering the room, the old man made for the door, forcing himself in front of his wife in his anxiety to get clear of the little vixen who could hold a revolver so straight and steady. Teresa gave Galva a long and searching look, then she too followed her craven lord and master.
And Galva gave a little laugh as she found herself alone again. She took the cover from one of the dishes and bent her head over the contents. Whatever could be said of the old dame downstairs Galva noticed with satisfaction that she was no amateur in the art of the kitchen, and the dainty meal was soon eaten with the relish of a healthy fourteen-hour hunger. For the captive told herself that everything depended upon her having the strength to seize any advantage in her position that might occur.
She went again to the open window and looking out judged that she was some twenty-five feet above the ground level, but that below that again ran a moat-like trench, dug perhaps to allow light to the cellars. She thought of the curtains, estimating their length with her eye; they might perhaps reach the twenty-five feet, but there was no way of crossing the trench. True, the portico of the building was only perhaps fifteen feet below her, but it lay some distance to the left and was quite inaccessible.
Galva glanced at the little strap watch on her wrist and saw that it was past ten. From below stairs there came no sound, and she told herself that her jailers had retired for the night, and, again with the view of husbanding her strength, the prisoner prepared to follow their example.
While at supper she had heard the stealthy footsteps again outside her door and the grating of bolts hastily shot into their sockets. It was evident that escape was not to be thought of that night.
The glass of excellent Chianti that she had taken with her meal had quite restored her courage and spirits, and she began to look upon the adventure as rather interesting. It seemed clear to her that whoever was responsible for the outrage meant her no immediate harm, and she had no fear whatever of the old couple down below.
With some little difficulty she piled three of the heavy oak chairs by the door as a precaution against a midnight surprise, and taking off only her outer garments and her shoes, slipped in between the sheets. The fire, which she had replenished from the heap of logs in the grate, shone dully on the rich old furnishings of the room and gave a sense of drowsy comfort and well-being. Candles and matches she found on a little table which she pushed up near the bed. The revolver lay handy underneath her pillow. Miss Galva, in fact, was very comfortable indeed, and had it not been for the thought of her guardian and Anna Paluda and the anxiety they must be feeling, she would have been really happy.
It was broad day when she awoke and the birds in the forest were making merry music. The sun shone in at the windows and gave life to the somewhat sombre apartment. Galva's watch told her it was nine o'clock.
She was feeling remarkably well, her headache had entirely left her, and she was ravenously hungry again. A sound outside the window caused her to slip on her garments and look out. Beneath her the little patch of poor soil that lay between the house and the trees had been, at parts, coaxed into a cultivation of sorts, and the old woman who the night before had brought her supper was gathering some kind of green stuff, putting it into the basket that she carried slung over her arm. From her window, too, the girl could see over the trees to the country beyond—an arid rock-strewn waste and here and there patches of forest land. Away in the distance the range of the Yeldo hills showed a delicate mauve against the morning sky.
Galva watched the old woman for a moment in silence, then—
"Good-morning, Teresa." The girl had heard the name the evening before, and on the old woman looking up, she nodded brightly. "Is breakfast ready, Teresa?" she went on.
The old woman dipped her head sourly.
"Pieto shall bring it up to you," she said.
"Thanks, so much—but, by the way, tell him to take great care how he does it. Listen. He is to bring it in on a tray which he will set down on the little table here. Then he will hold up his hands, both of them, over his head and walk out backwards."
Teresa was making her way slowly towards the house, giving scant attention to the voice above her. Galva raised her voice.
"You understand, don't you, Teresa? Because if your husband doesn't do as he's told, I'll have to shoot him."
The woman in the garden stopped at this and looked up.
"You would shoot my Pieto?"
"Oh, don't be afraid, Teresa; I'd only shoot him in the leg. Then you'd have to nurse him, you know, and that would be a pity, wouldn't it? Think of keeping an eye on a prisoner and an invalid at the same time."
Galva never forgot the pantomime of the next few minutes. Covered by the revolver, the old man shuffled unsteadily into the room with the tray, splashing the white cloth with the contents of the coffee pot. Then, after putting it down where Galva bid him, he began his retreat, backwards, hands held high over his head. Near the door he came to grief with a crash over one of the chairs his prisoner had used as a barricade the night before. The old man remembered to keep his hands up, and the species of contortions, reminiscent of Swedish exercises, with, which he tried to regain his feet brought tears of laughter into Galva's eyes. He was successful at last, and the girl heard his limping steps descend the stairs, where, with many curses, he seemed to be, as Galva expressed it to herself, "taking it out of the missus!"
Left alone the prisoner poured herself out a cup of fragrant coffee.
"There seems to be a humorous side to even this adventure," she said as she contentedly nibbled at a piece of buttered toast.
As day succeeded monotonous day, even Galva's buoyant spirits began to show signs of the strain of hope deferred. The first hours of her captivity had given her little or no uneasiness, feeling sure that her friends would discover her whereabouts; if they did not, she told herself that, armed as she was, she was more than a match for the two craven souls of her jailers.
But on the second night she had heard the sound of a new voice in the room down-stairs, whether one voice or more she could not say. Also the sound of a motor-horn had come to her through the woods. This latter she had not given much thought to at the time, thinking that in all probability it was a car on its way to Alcador. Now that there were visitors in the room below, the memory came back to her and took on a new significance.
Whoever it was who was responsible for this muttering that reached her distantly through the floor, he did not seem anxious for an interview with her. She had pounded on the boards with the heel of her shoe, but beyond a short silence and a little laugh it had had no effect, and the murmuring voices went on again as before. Then she had turned her attention to the heavy fire-irons, and the continued din had brought old Pieto to the landing to remonstrate through the door, and to assure the girl, in answer to her questions, that there was no one in the house save themselves.
But a little later, Galva had heard the opening of the front door and, in the distance, the sound of a motor-engine being started.
The next morning, she had seen a man digging in the little vegetable patch, a coarse, black-browed, evil-faced fellow. Galva remembered having seen the same type of man, with their closely-cropped heads, among the loafers outside the bull-rings in Madrid, and she knew their reputation. She drew back into the room, and for the first time since her capture, her heart failed her. Where were her friends, and why did they not come to her?
Her mind flew, in its need, to the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer, and she told herself, and thrilled at the telling, that he would rush to her assistance did he know. He had asked her on that last day in Paris to write to him, should she be in any trouble, and she, seeing no clouds in her future, had laughed at him. Now she shut her eyes and saw again the eager boyish face, and she knew what a big place he had in her heart.
She threw herself down on the great bed and buried her face in the pillow. The tears that came were the first she had shed and they relieved her. The knowledge that all escape by force was impossible took from her the thoughts that had buoyed her up. Now, she could not tell how many there were against her, and she knew that the man she had seen in the garden was not one to be cowed by a girl with a toy pistol.
She sat up and dried her eyes. What could not be done one way, must be done another. She must think out some scheme, some subterfuge to gain her release. If only she could get a letter or a message sent to Venta Villa. The high road ran only a hundred yards from her window, but the hundred yards might be miles for all the use they were, so securely was her retreat hidden. Of the imaginary accident and of her supposed death she of course knew nothing.
After this the days passed with a dull monotony. The prisoner, seeing that no good was to be expected of it, dropped her bantering tone with the old people. No longer were her meals served to her at the pistol point. For hours together she would sit, a pathetic little figure, in the great arm-chair which she had pulled into the embrasure of one of the windows, not even turning her head when Pieto or his wife entered. She would sit there gazing out across the tree-tops to the arid plains and the wild desolation of the distant hills. There were dark circles showing now under the beautiful eyes, and sometimes the meals were taken away again untasted.
And then a little gleam of hope came to her. Since her first arrival at the little castle she had noticed the covert looks, half admiration, half fear, with which Teresa had regarded her. Twice, too, she had seen that the old woman had been on the point of saying something that was in her mind, but each time she had checked herself and broken off with a sigh. One day Galva spoke to her.
It was a dull and miserable morning, with a fine rain that lashed and blurred the windowpanes, and a high wind moaned through the trees of the forest, swaying their topmost branches. Teresa was leaving the room with the scarcely touched breakfast when Galva laid a gentle hand on her arm.
"Teresa," she whispered.
The dame stopped and looked at her. Galva thought she saw compassion in the beady black eyes.
"Teresa—you are a woman and have a heart. I have seen your heart sometimes in your eyes, when you look at me. Have you no pity there for me? All this is killing me—I am ill, Teresa—I have lived my life in the open air of God's green world, and this," with a despairing gesture that took in all the room, "is weighing on me—killing—crushing me."
Teresa swallowed something in her throat.
"I had a heart, but I thought it dead—and you say you can see it in my eyes. How can I help you? I act for others."
"I am rich, Teresa, you can have anything you wish for. Let me write a letter to my friends. Think of their anxiety. Here," and the girl tore at the bosom of her blouse, snapping a thin ribbon that passed round her neck, "take this now—it's valuable, Teresa, very valuable. See, they are diamonds, and that big red stone is a ru——"
Galva broke off and gazed in wonderment at the old woman. At sight of the glittering object which the girl with trembling hands held out, a sudden change had come into the wrinkled face. She seized on the large marquise ring and looked at it intently, searchingly, but there was no cupidity in her glance, only a great dawning wonderment. She turned roughly on the bewildered girl, bringing her old eyes within a foot of her face.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. "For God's sake—tell me—who are you?"
"I am Miss Galva Baxendale, that is, I—I—— Oh, I see that you know. I can tell by your face that you do."
"I do now. I know that you are the Princess Miranda. I suspected before, and my suspicion has grown every time I saw your eyes. But I told myself that I was getting old and that I saw things that did not exist—only in my brain."
Teresa was on her knees, pressing Galva's hand to her cold lips.
"It was this ring—the sainted Queen who wore it. Oh, how can I tell you——"
The old woman was crying softly now, and she had not cried for nearly twenty years. In a little while she grew more composed and went to the landing and listened.
"They are at their cards," she said, when she returned, "and Pieto is drunk; they will not disturb us," and then Teresa told her story.
"You said to-night that you saw the heart that died—for my heart died seventeen years ago when I buried my José. He was only five, but he never walked. He would just lie in the sun in his little wheeled cradle and look up at the sky and smile at me with his deep eyes and ask me things I could not tell him. Pieto, too, in those days was a good father and loved his little crippled son almost as much as I did. And then one day there was a jingling of harness and Queen Elene drove past our little house, that lay up on the cliff road towards Logillo. She ordered her postilions to stop and called me to the side of the carriage. She had the sweetest smile that ever told of a perfect soul, and tender eyes into which came a mist when I answered her questions about little José.
"And then she got down and knelt in the dust beside the cradle, and the little man looked at her with his great wondering eyes, and put up his thin little hand to touch the glittering ornaments at the Queen's neck. And after that she often drove that way, and would sit with him. Once she told me of her own little child, a maid—but I think she thought it unkind to speak of her own blessings in the face of my sorrow, for she only spoke of you that once."
Teresa held out her hand and took up the ring that she had laid down on the tray.
"This was what he admired more than anything, and your mother would take it from her finger and let him play with it, flashing it back and forth in the sunlight. The day before he died she had lent it to him and he had gone to sleep still holding it. The Queen would not awake him, and in the night he died. When, afterwards, I returned it to the Queen, she wept; she would have had me keep it, but it was, she said, the first gift your father had given her. That is my story—and you, Princess? I do not want to know how you escaped the fate of that devilish work at the Palace. I know only, that you are here and that I ask nothing better than to die for you, for the sake of your sainted mother, and for the joy she brought into my boy's life."
Galva, her eyes moist with tears, bent and kissed the wrinkled brow.
"And I, Teresa, want you to live. I think I want you always to be with me, to talk to me about my mother."
Teresa shook her head. "I am not worthy," she said. "After José was taken from us, Pieto took to the drink, and I—I did not care what happened. We took service with Gabriel Dasso—it was rumoured that his was the hand that killed the Queen. We hoped to gain evidence that it was so, and we would have poisoned him. But we learnt nothing. We obeyed him and did his dirty work, sinking lower and lower until we forgot why we had entered his service. I am not worthy, Princess, to touch the sole of your shoe."
Galva rose.
"I won't write the letter till this afternoon, Teresa. You can get it through to Corbo for me?"
"There is a carrier, Princess, who passes here twice a week, about nightfall. He reaches Corbo at eleven. To-morrow is his next journey. I will see that he takes your letter."
"And you will come and sit with me, Teresa—we have much to talk over, haven't we? It will do you good, dear. Do not let them see down-stairs that you have been crying. For the present you must keep our secret."
When Teresa had left the room, Galva crossed over, and leaning her elbows on the mantelpiece looked long and searchingly at herself in the mirror.