“Yes, Marshall,” she answered. “I have seen how hopeless it is, and it’s
quite all right. The important thing is for one of you to get out. If
you could stab the guard when he brings the tray—”
“So that’s the sort of thing the Balkans have taught a lady from
Boston?” I asked. “Suppose your grandmother Collins could hear you now?
Anyway, we’d have to stab two of them at the door of this room, and no
one knows how many more before the way out of this nest was clear. No,
that may have been all right in the eighteenth century, but I’m afraid
we shouldn’t get away with it.” Then I told her about the loosened board
and the acid. “If you could tell us how to get to Herrovosca without a
car after we leave this place—” I finished.
“I can’t,” she said, “I’ve only the most hazy idea where we may be.”
“South or southwest of the place where we were captured.”
“I did not know even that,” she said. “We must be somewhere near the
Visichich’s manor. We’re not in it. The country there is hilly, but not
rocky and bare like the cliff out of that window. No, we’re still in the
mountains. I think,” she went on, “if we only knew just where we are,
and how to get here, we should hold the key to the control of Alaria—if
we had some loyal troops.”
“I fear,” I said, “that two ‘ifs’ make a negative.”
“If that’s supposed to be funny,” she said, “I think it’s ill-timed.”
“It wasn’t,” I assured her, solemnly. “I was only trying to point out
that this man’s secrecy is strength for him but not strength for anyone
trying to undermine him. I just don’t believe that the people who
believe in the supernatural Black Ghost would listen even if he were
unmasked before them. They would merely say that the man who was
unmasked was an impostor, and the Black Ghost would go right on.”
“That’s what I mean,” she said, cryptically, “these legends have endured
for eight hundred years, and now a living man has conceived the idea of
impersonating them, and making political capital out of the
impersonation.”
“I believe it’s more than that,” I answered, “this ghost held an army
back not a hundred years ago. And this stronghold bears all the earmarks
of a place that has been built for centuries. Isn’t the Black Ghost
rather a secret society?”
“That has been kept secret for eight hundred years?” she laughed. “I
find it less fantastic to believe in the supernatural. A secret society
it might be, but not a society that has been kept secret for centuries.”
“Yet here it all is,” I said, “and the food’s not ghostly, at any rate.”
“A ghost would be the lesser miracle,” she answered.
“And a real man the greater danger,” I said.
“Much the greater danger, Marshall, if you don’t get to the Queen. I
have a pass that will take you to her through all accredited government
barriers, but don’t forget that there may be no accredited government by
now. They did not search me—thought it quite useless, I suppose. Your
Black Ghost asked me if I carried any despatches or state papers, and
when I gave him my word of honor that I did not, he sent me down here.
Decent of him.” Through one of the diamond shaped spaces in the lath she
handed me a small folded paper. “I hid it in my shoe,” she said. “It’s
as good a hiding place as any. I shall be far safer here than you are,
so do not hesitate on my account. A friend of the Queen will be treated
with respect, so don’t worry.”
I took the paper from her, and placed it in my own shoe. Then I pushed
the canvasses against the hole in the wall again, and went over to see
how John was progressing. As I looked down through the floor I found him
prying at the remaining bars with one that was already loose. At each
pull they moved, but the opening was still closed effectively against
our escape. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes to eleven. I
called down to John, “What do you say I come down there? The two of us
ought to get that out pretty easily.”
“If we had another lever,” he said, “but we haven’t, and if anyone comes
into that room while you are down here the game will be up. I’ll have it
out in a few minutes now. The acid gave out, but I weakened all the bars
with it. I couldn’t hold it where I wanted it, and it ran down the
stone. We’ll have to be careful getting out of here or we’ll be burned
by it.”
“I’ll bring a blanket from the bed,” I said.
“Yes,” John agreed, “and get out a couple of socks from that black bag,
and a clean collar apiece, and four handkerchiefs, and a comb and the
jar of salve. Also I want some water to wash my hands in before we go.
Might as well be civilised if we’re going to pay our first call on
Royalty. And say good-bye to your cousin for me, with apologies and
regrets.”
I obeyed all his instructions and stuffed the things into my pockets. I
had hardly finished when I heard a sharp crack from the room below. I
went to the hole in the wall again and called through to Helena, “He’s
got the bars out, and I am going now. I hope and pray you may be safe.”
“And you,” she said, “don’t forget that the Black Ghost wears a ruby
ring. All my prayers go with you. À dieu.”
“À dieu,” I replied, feeling pretty mean about leaving her, but not
seeing anything else to do. I pushed a blanket through the hole in the
floor, then tied the water pitcher to a torn pillow case, and let that
down, after which I dropped down myself, carefully, so that the rug
would fall back smoothly over the hole. The longer they puzzled over how
we had got out the more time we should have to get away.
“Don’t think about your cousin now,” John said, “there’s very little
chance of our being useful to her if we stay, whereas if we should
really manage to get away we might conceivably be able to get back here
again with a rescue party.”
“The rescue will be accomplished another way,” I said, “if at all.”
John showed me his hands then, they were raw with burns and blisters.
“Good Lord,” I said, “you can’t go with hands like that.”
“Don’t be silly,” he answered, “that’s what I want the handkerchiefs and
salve for. Time’s precious, but I guess we’ll save it by using a little
sense.” He soaked his wounds carefully in the clean water, and then held
them out while I applied the salve. It must have been a stinging dose,
but he stood it well. Then I put the jar back in my pocket, and arranged
the blanket in the window so that what acid remained there should not
burn us or our clothes. John climbed through first. I waited and slowly
counted ten before I followed. The drop was really quite short. I let
myself down from the ledge, holding fast by my hands until I was hanging
flat against the wall of the building. Then I let go. It was all very
simple. Almost too simple. I suspected an ambush any moment as we went
down the path single file. Overhead, the stars were shining; below us,
far down the valley, a single light flickered, though whether it was a
signal light or in a cabin we could not tell. Then, suddenly, the stars
and the light below us were cut off. We had entered a tunnel. I was sure
then, that we were trapped after all. It had been too easy a matter,
getting out of the place. The end of the path must be blocked, and all
that we had won was the pleasure of spending the night outdoors.
But I was wrong. The tunnel was a long one, but unguarded, and fairly
straight. It was damp, however, and very slippery underfoot, and there
were bats in it. Once or twice we brought up square against a wall, but
we always found, a moment or so later, that the way continued at an
angle. It was pitch dark, of course, and though I had brought candles
and some matches from our room, we did not dare to strike a light.
At last, ahead of us, we saw a star. I stopped, and spoke in the lowest
whisper I could manage, to urge John to extra caution. Without a light
we had no means of knowing how much longer the tunnel was, and at its
end there would undoubtedly be a guard. We must go carefully.
That last few yards was so slow and silent that it seemed like years
before we saw the sky above and not ahead of us. The path was still
narrow, and, like that we had seen below our prison windows, a mere
ledge along the cliff. There was no one on the path itself, but on a
level a little above it, with a rifle at his shoulder, his body
silhouetted against the sky from where we crouched, stalked a sentinel.
He was guarding not only the path where we were, but another that
branched off from it as well. The other must be the important one or he
would have stayed down on our level. A short flight of stone steps
connected the two. I could just see them in the darkness. John dropped
to his knees, close to the low retaining wall, and, step by slow step,
began making his way across the open space. I dropped to my knees, too,
but merely to be less obvious in case the man should flash a light. I
could not see John after a moment or two. He disappeared into the
darkness. There was no way for me to tell how far he had crawled, for he
literally made not a sound. Two bats circled round and round over our
heads, swooping close to the sentinel at times. I did not know whether
they would prove a help to us in distracting the man’s attention, or, by
coming too close to us, betray us. Our fate seemed to hang on a bat’s
whim.
I waited a long time before I dared begin my slow and rather painful
crawl. I had to lift my knee quite off the ground at each advance,
because the roll of a pebble would have been suicidal. I passed the
steps at last. They marked the end of the sentinel’s beat. I waited for
him to turn before I moved again. Before he returned I had taken four
steps. He was above me, and just four steps behind, when, careful as I
had been, I struck a loose stone with my knee, and sent it rolling a
yard or two across the path. The sentinel turned suddenly. I heard him.
I jumped to my feet, and ran. Three shots sounded, but I did not stop. A
moment later John was beside me. We wasted no breath talking, but ran on
desperately until he stumbled and fell. He tripped me as he went down,
and we lay for a second, listening for our pursuers. There was no sound.
We had left the path and were no longer on the edge of the cliff, though
still on a side hill, but overhead trees arched so that we could not see
the stars. We were in a forest, which meant that we had come quite far
down the mountain, and were in a valley, for on the exposed upper slopes
there were no trees. We must have run a mile at least.
“There’s no one after us,” John said.
“What does that mean, do you suppose?”
“Either that we lost the way in the darkness or that they can’t be
bothered with catching us. What I think is that if we find our way to
the high road we’ll walk into more of the gang, and if we are lost in
the mountains, as we may be, we don’t count. I was lost in quite
civilised woods in northern Connecticut once, for a day and a night.
This may not be funny before we’re through. There won’t be any friendly
neighbors to come out looking for us. That get-away was too easy.”
“Don’t be so gloomy,” I said, “being lost is probably our only hope of
getting away. We can steer south-west by the stars.”
“That’s all very well to suggest,” John said, “but there is a lot of
rough going around here, and while we twist north and east and all the
ways between to get around gullies and boulders, who is going to tell us
we are really going south-west? I tried that steering by the stars
business in Connecticut and it’ll be the same sort of thing here only
worse.”
“You think we should try to find the high road, then?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think it’s going to matter much what we try to
find. It’s going to be entirely a matter of luck—good luck or bad luck.
What I chiefly hope is that there aren’t any more Fakat Zols working on
their own around here.”
I told him I thought that very unlikely, because one strong bandit would
clean up all the little ones in short order, and he agreed. “Let’s just
keep on down this slope,” he said. “At least it’s down hill, and south.
We’ll undoubtedly have to climb up again before we’re through, and twist
around a lot, but we may come out.”
It was a nightmare journey. At every slightest sound we stopped to
listen. The hillside was smooth enough so that in spite of the darkness
we had little difficulty keeping on it, but there were a thousand noises
in the night that brought us up short to listen again.
We must have walked for more than an hour, when at last a pale gleam on
the highest branches of some trees told us that the moon was up.
Suddenly we heard unmistakable footsteps, and a beam of light from an
electric torch showed us a path, sloping downward, directly ahead of us.
John and I hid as well as we could behind the trees. Unfortunately our
cover was poor. They were pines and sparse, with little underbrush, but
the night was dark, and by crouching low we hoped to escape notice. The
steps approached, there was no attempt at concealment, so we judged that
the person approaching must be one of the Black Ghost’s men. The light
flashed again on the path, nearer, in a wide sweep, blinding to us, who
had been in darkness so long. We waited without moving.
Suddenly a second swathe of light fell across John’s face. I saw him
distinctly from my partial cover. The light stopped an instant, flashed
wider, across me, and then went out.
_CHAPTER V._
There was a moment’s silence, as I edged toward the figure that had held
the light. Before I reached it there was a scuffle a few feet to my
left. I rushed toward it. It was a short fight. The man seemed to have
little strength, but a great deal of determination to get away. He was
nothing to our combined forces. In a moment John had him down, and I
tied his hands behind him with my handkerchief. As an all-purpose tool,
I recommend the humble handkerchief. Then, while I held our prisoner,
John felt about on the path for the electric torch. After a moment he
found it. By its light we stared at our capture. His hat had fallen off,
and long chestnut hair tumbled loose about his—her, shoulders. She wore
well-cut riding breeches, and was young and very good looking, though
she was glaring at us furiously.
“Hell!” I said.
“My God,” said John. “It’s the Countess Visichich!”
“’ow did you get away?” she demanded. “They told me you ’ad got out, but
I couldn’t wait to find out ’ow. I never could see what ’arm you would
do anyway—only ’e wanted to be sure. And you lied to me yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I echoed—“why, so it was only yesterday. At a guess I
should have said week before last.”
“What are we going to do now?” John asked crossly. “We can’t tie her up
and leave her here. We can’t take her with us, and if we let her go
she’ll bring all of the gang down on us before we even know where we
are.”
“Why not let me go?” she suggested, pleasantly.
“That isn’t so easy,” John said, and sounded so sorry that I almost
laughed at him.
“You are gentlemen,” she continued, “what else can you do?”
“Thank you,” I said. “We are complimented, but after all, you do present
difficulties.”
“I come of honorable antecedents,” she said, proudly.
“And take them seriously,” I suggested.
“Of course she does,” John took her part sternly.
“If you will let me go,” she offered, “I swear I will say nothing of
’aving seen you for, say, twenty-four hours. Will that be long enough?”
I agreed, gloomily, but John was more enthusiastic. “Of course,
Countess, of course, it will be quite enough. We really ought to see you
home, but there are difficulties, you know. Forgive us, won’t you?”
“Oh, we are not civilised ’ere,” she laughed. “I am quite safe on this
mountain alone, I assure you. No one could be safer. You might untie my
hands, though, if you don’t mind.”
John made a wry face, and let me do it, his own hands being in a state
of skinlessness that would have been embarrassing to him if she had seen
them, to say nothing of being painful.
“We couldn’t quite,” I said, “tie a lady up and leave her helpless on a
wild mountain side. It’s nice of you to help us out of our difficulties.
Have you a watch, by the way?”
“A watch?” she echoed. “Yes, what for?”
“Will you give us your word to wait here for half an hour before you
start on again?”
“Oh, I say,” John interrupted. “That’s a bit thick, you know. She can’t
do that, Carvin. She’s all alone, and she ought to get home as quickly
as possible.”
“Ten minutes?” she offered.
“Very well,” I grumbled at her. “Ten minutes, then. It’s not very long,
though.” I untied her wrists, and turned to continue our way down the
mountain, taking advantage of the path.
“You ’ave been very kind,” she said, suddenly, “I will do more for you.
Something I should not do. If you go straight down that path you will
meet the men of the Black Ghost. They are in camp at the foot of the
mountain. If they had not been, you would have been followed. If you
watch carefully, about one kilometer from ’ere you will find a path that
branches off to the left. Keep to that, and you will come to a dirt road
in the valley. Follow that road and you will come to another that will
lead to Herrovosca, but farther west than the road of the Pass. I think
you will prefer that. But I must warn you that even the road I suggest
is not free from danger for you.”
“Awfully good of you,” John said.
“It would have been safer for you to ’ave killed me or to ’ave left me
for wild animals to kill. I feel I am making you a very small payment on
a great debt.”
John was about to make some more remarks, so I took him firmly by the
arm. “Only ten minutes,” I reminded him. “Come, now, and don’t waste
time. We have to travel a long way.” He came, then, a little
unwillingly, and with several backward glances to where we had left her
sitting on a stone, slowly twisting up her long hair and shoving it
under her hat in that seductive way women have with hair. When we were
quite out of earshot I was surprised to hear John ask me, “shall we
follow her directions or not?” I had supposed him too much under the
spell of her personality to doubt her.
“Why not?” I said. “Since we have no idea where we are, and she seems
rather a decent sort, even to me, who have not fallen a victim to her
charms. I don’t see why she shouldn’t do us a good turn to repay our
decent treatment of her.”
“That’s what I thought,” John said contentedly. “I’m glad you think so,
too. She must have a swell time up here, swashbuckling around these
mountains. Exactly my idea of the right way to spend a lifetime.”
I laughed, though I was in the act of stumbling over a twig.
Swashbuckling around a lot of bleak mountains in the dark was my idea of
no way to spend a lifetime, or even a small part of it, and I said so.
However, when we found the branch path to the left, we followed it,
still going down the mountain, and, I hoped, not too far from the
general direction of Herrovosca. The only thing that really puzzled me
was her remark about the Black Ghost’s men being in camp. Just what did
that mean? For one thing, that they weren’t up at their mountain
stronghold, which accounted for our escape. But it would mean more than
that. It probably meant trouble somewhere.
The moon was full and high in the heavens when we finally came out on
the roadway. A narrow, muddy roadway, deep with ruts. “A dirt road” had
been the Countess’ description, I found it rather an understatement. It
was a dirty road. I hoped John liked it, but I didn’t ask him. By that
time I was too tired to waste energy asking silly questions. In the dark
it was hard to judge distances or time, but I felt it should be near
dawn. We must have followed it for two miles or more when the sound of a
car drove us off the road. There was a high stone wall on either side at
that point, and John said he’d rather be captured again than attempt to
climb it, and he was sure he couldn’t make it if he did try. The lamps
of the car showed us plainly to its occupants, and they came to a sudden
stop beside us. A voice addressed us in Alarian, John cursed sibilantly
in English, and the voice adopted that language obligingly, asking who
we were and why we were there.
I replied, “Our car broke down, and we had to leave it. We are trying to
find help, and I fear we have lost our way.”
“You are going away from the ’ighway. It is be’ind you about seven
miles. Where did you leave your car?”
That question was a difficult one. However, John answered it quickly
enough. “We don’t know,” he said. “We’ve been walking, it seems, for
years. We lost our way before the moon came up. We thought we’d find a
house on this road, but it apparently goes nowhere.”
“It goes,” the man said, sternly, “to Visichich Manor. If you will get
in we will take you with us, but don’t be ’eadstrong because we ’ave
revolvers.”
There was no means of resisting them. We were exhausted and unarmed and
John was suffering with his burned hands. We were seven miles from the
highway, and heaven only knew how many miles from any inn or town on
that highway. Altogether, we were fairly caught. John climbed slowly
into the car, a little saddened, I feared, with the realisation that the
Visichich woman had set us a trap. Not a mean trap, but a trap, for all
that. She would undoubtedly keep her word and say nothing to anyone
about having seen us, but she had arranged that we should not be a
menace to the Black Ghost. My admiration for her increased a little. I
wondered whether John would feel that way.
It was a seven-passenger car. Our captors let down the two small seats
in the tonneau, so that we sat facing them. They were right, of course.
The state of the country was too unsettled to take chances. Our story of
the broken car would not hold water, because they would not have passed
any abandoned car on the way—unless, and that might be true—they had not
come from the highway, but from the Black Ghost’s camp, which might be
between their manor house and the road. It was possible they had not
heard of our escape, and they still might believe our story. And there
were twenty-four hours in which Countess Katerina would not tell them.
There was still some hope we might get to Herrovosca.
We rode on in silence for about twenty minutes, bumping uncomfortably
over the bad road. Then we thundered through an archway and into an open
space before the long low white building which we had first seen from
the customs house. The ancient archway through which we had come, and
the tower and wall connected with it, might have belonged to a fortress.
A single light showed in the house. The driver of the car got down first
and helped us out, then preceded us up to the door, and knocked loudly
on it. Presently a servant came, and only then did our hosts get out.
They kept discreetly behind us as we entered the wide hallway, and the
driver showed us the way into a room at the right. It was an interesting
room. The walls were white, the iron hardware was handwrought and I
thought very old. Three hanging lamps supplied light of the oil age. The
furniture was of that peculiarly ornate character which usually graces
southern and central European homes. Against their severe white walls
and rich carpets it loses the tawdry appearance that it would have among
the gimcracks of our homes.
The chauffeur and the servant remained in the doorway, in case we should
make any disturbances, of course. I decided we would not. We stood in
silence for several minutes, looking each other over quite frankly, each
pair of us wondering how the other pair might fit into the complicated
scheme of things in this Balkan state. The elder of our captors was a
man of medium height, grey haired, with a beard and a mustache. Both
their mouths had the same ruthless line as the Countess Katerina’s and
they both had the same relieving lines of humor around their amber-brown
eyes. Altogether they were not an alarming pair, and I judged they came
to the same conclusion about us, for they relaxed in a moment or two,
and the older man spoke. “Sit down gentlemen,” he invited.
We obeyed willingly. We had walked enough that night to make sitting
welcome.
“Now, about that car,” he went on. “Perhaps you will tell me some
details of it? I will have a man search for it in the morning.”
“By morning,” John said easily, “it will quite likely have been stripped
beyond recognition by the bandits that I hear are in these mountains.”
The two men looked merely mildly surprised at the mention of bandits.
“Bandits?” the younger inquired pleasantly, “you ’ave ’eard there are
bandits ’ere?”
“Yes,” John went on, “we were very anxious not to meet any of them when
our car broke down. I can imagine a mountain bandit, supreme in his
power and responsible to no one, could be a most unpleasant person to
meet on a dark night. Especially so for two unarmed men.”
“Who has told you of bandits?” The younger man seemed only slightly
interested, as though he asked merely out of politeness.
“We heard of them before we left Rheatia.”
“Oh, Rheatia!” He dismissed Rheatia as though that overgrown neighbor of
his were not worth mentioning. “In Rheatia you will ’ear many tales. The
only bandit I know of in these mountains is Fakat Zol, the Black Ghost.
You may ’ave ’eard of ’im?”
“Yes,” John said, slowly, “that was the name.”
“The ghost of Fakat Zol,” the man went on, slowly, “of course ’e is not
a ghost, but it is true ’e maintains almost an army in the mountains.
That is why the Rheatians ’ate him. ’is band ’as defeated them several
times when they were bent on aggression. That is ’istory. No one goes
through the Pass unless Fakat Zol permits. It ’as always been so. That
is, it ’as been so for eight hundred years, which is long enough. He
rules by superstition, tradition and right. Our ’istory is full of
incidents of ’is appearance. ’e is like your English Robin ’ood, but
become immortal.”
“We are Americans,” John corrected.
“The same thing.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You come from Rheatia?”
“We came through Rheatia.”
“You ’ave business in Alaria?”
We went through the old story of the writer and the artist. I was so
tired of it I wished that it might be safe to change our professions for
a little variety.
“At present,” the younger man said slowly, “Alaria is not a ’ealthy
place for strangers.”
“No?” I was all innocence, or tried to be. “Is there some trouble?”
“There seems to be a slight uneasiness since the King’s death. You
cannot tell what it may lead to. For the present I think we are all very
tired. Let us continue our discussion in the morning.”
He had not asked for passports, but I realised that by morning he would
have made inquiries, and know exactly who we were. Our escape would
undoubtedly be reported to him even if his daughter kept her word. There
was nothing to do but allow ourselves to be led off to bed, hoping that
we should be put where we could get out easily, though even if we got
out of the house, there would still be the wall and its gate to pass.
However, we were at least several miles nearer Herrovosca than we had
been at midnight. We must content ourselves with that reflection and get
some sleep, since we could not do anything else.
They took us to a room in the ancient tower. It was quite comfortable
enough to have been intended as a guest room instead of a prison cell,
though it was not large. The walls were a good four feet thick, of solid
stone, and we climbed up three flights of stairs to get to it. The view
in the very early dawn was magnificent. Rolling hills to the south and
west, and to the north and east, higher and yet higher and more jagged
rose the mountains, all bathed in the romantic light just before the sun
shows itself.
“We really accomplished a big night’s work getting out of that piece of
scenery,” John said, “I guess we deserve a rest.”
I dressed his hands again with fresh water and the remaining
handkerchiefs. They looked better than I had thought they would. Then we
went to bed.
The staircase by which we had come to our room did not end at our floor,
but went on, whether to a roof or another floor I could not see. Outside
on the landing a guard settled himself in a chair against our door. A
few minutes after we were in bed I heard a low conversation between him
and another man, then footsteps went upwards. As I lay quietly, looking
out toward the highest mountains, I caught suddenly a flash of distant
light from one of the lower peaks. It came and went intermittently,
flashing in code, as they had flashed in code from the customs house to
the tower we were now in. No doubt they were flashing a message about
us, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that the point
from which they were being answered was now visible, and must be the
stronghold of Fakat Zol. I spent the next hour drawing a careful sketch
of the mountain peaks, with an indication of the one from which the
signals came, and put the sketch in my shoe under the pass from the
Queen. Then I lay down again, feeling like the best of counter-plotters.
I wondered what my quiet newspaper friends at home would think of me.
They didn’t think they were quiet, but the best they could do for
excitement was a night at a speakeasy, or a little poker, with an
occasional big murder case to liven the day’s work. And with that
comforting thought I went to sleep.
I dreamed of witches in Salem being crushed by the weight of huge stones
on their chests. I was a witch, and the stone struck suddenly, and was
followed by a shout from the onlookers, and then by another. I sat up in
bed, sneezing, and found that a large piece of plaster had fallen from
the ceiling, and struck me on the chest. The dust was so bad I felt
choked. I looked up at the place from which it had fallen, and saw a
large hole, and in it a man’s face peering down at us. He was not
altogether a pleasant looking person, and seemed to be more the night
club type than a wily politician who would deserve imprisonment. He had
bulgy dark eyes, a curly brown mustache and thick wet lips above a three
days’ growth of beard. He was speaking to us in Alarian.
“We don’t speak Alarian,” I said. “Sorry, can’t understand you.”
The man immediately switched to English, “Quick, you hide the plaster,”
he ordered, “they will not know, perhaps. Be quick, I tell you, they may
come any time.”
John lay looking up at him, “Oh, all right,” he said. “We’ll do that for
you, but you needn’t be so upset about it.” He got out of bed slowly,
groaning with the stiffness of his muscles. I slid out as carefully as I
could so as not to disturb the plaster. Then I looked at John’s hands.
They were much improved. “Be all right in a few days,” John said.
“Really not bad at all now, they have stopped smarting entirely.” The
man above scolded at us. “Time for that later,” he said, “hide the
plaster, now, quick.”
“Shut up!” I ordered, “I’ll hide that plaster when and if I get good and
ready.”
He replied in a string of Alarian which I judged to be oaths of no mean
venom. For a moment he left the hole, probably to tear his hair. I then
rebandaged John’s hands, and when I had finished, the man above was
again peering down through his hole and seemed inclined to treat us with
less abruptness. At least he was silent while I pulled the bed apart,
found two mattresses on it, spread all of the plaster I could gather up
between them, and then remade the bed, taking a great deal of trouble to
have it look as much as possible as though it had been slept in. My
efforts did not satisfy John. He laughed at me, lay down on the bed, and
rolled around on it. When he got up again the bed was perfect. It was
tumbled just enough.
“There is one place beside the washing table,” I was directed again. I
didn’t wish the man any harm, and for the time being, of course, we were
friends of the Visichiches’ enemies, but he was peculiarly irritating.
However, I picked up the piece beside the washstand, and tossed it out
of the window. He grunted a protest, but said nothing. I had barely
finished when there came a knock at the door, and when I had opened it,
a man gave us a large can of hot water, a flat leather case containing
seven old-fashioned razors—one for each day in the week and I hoped we
shouldn’t have time to use them—a whisk broom, two tooth brushes, a cake
of perfumed toilet soap, and a note. The latter bore no signature. It
read, simply, “When you are ready to come down stairs, knock on the
door. The man will be waiting for you. We will discuss our affairs over
lunch.”
John, meanwhile, had been dressing. His hands handicapped him a little,
but not seriously. “You’re not to get them wet,” I said, and I washed
his face for him, and shaved him. It was a risky business with the open
razors, but I accomplished it with no great casualties, and then brushed
our clothes, and shined our shoes with a towel.
“Oh, for a whole lot of clean clothes, and a cold shower,” I said,
remembering with a sigh the little pleasant luxuries of life back home.
The common people in the Balkans look on bathing as at least unorthodox,
if not actually sinful, and very unhealthy, and the upper classes have
only progressed beyond the Saturday night stage if they have lived in
more civilised communities. In other words, the people of the Balkans
live as our grandparents did.
At last we were ready, but before we knocked on the door we whispered
“Good-bye” to the man above us. He had recovered his poise, and smiled
down quite pleasantly.
“Gentlemen,” he spoke very softly because of the man outside the door.
“Tell me, gentlemen, you are guests here? You are friends of the Count
Visichich?”
“Not in the least,” John answered, casually, “we are very probably
prisoners here, though no one has said so yet.”
“Ah,” the face above was suddenly wreathed in smiles. He looked almost a
decent sort of chap when he smiled, and vaguely familiar. Probably, I
considered, because he was so very much the night club type.
“If you find you are not prisoners,” he asked, “where will you go?”
“We had started for Herrovosca,” I answered. “If they let us we’ll go
there.”
He smiled again, this time almost supplicatingly. “And you are
Americans, yes?”
“Yes, we told you that.”
“I know, I know. Will you take a message for me in Herrovosca, if you
can get to it? But if you cannot go yourselves will you write it to
someone I will tell you?”
“Is it likely to get us into trouble?” I asked.
“Trouble?” he shook his head so protestingly, so innocently, that I knew
he was lying. “Trouble? Oh, no, gentlemen, not possible.” And then he
stopped and thought for a moment. “Wait, only, please,” he said, and was
gone for a few seconds. When he reappeared he reached down through the
hole, and gave me a folded piece of paper. His arm was covered with a
loose brown sleeve of rough material, but the hand was smooth and white
and the nails were polished. The hand and the sleeve did not match at
all. I took the paper and turned it over. There was nothing on the
outside.
“Open it,” he directed, still smiling ingratiatingly, “it is
instructions that will admit you to the presence of the Queen Yolanda.
My message is to her.”
“Is this the message?” I asked. It looked too short.
“No,” he said. “The message is for you to tell her. I do not wish to
write it on paper. Perhaps someone would find it, then it might make you
trouble. You will tell the Queen—h’m—there is no need, perhaps, to tell
her anything, except that I am here, and I wrote that paper. Only when
you see her, tell her how I look. See, carefully, and that will be
enough. Yes, gentlemen. You will do that?”
“Yes,” I said. “If we are able to get to the Queen we will certainly
tell her about you, but don’t you want to tell us your name?”
“No,” he said, “no. I think I will not tell my name. Only tell her how I
look, and if you cannot see her, write to her. It will be enough. À
dieu, gentlemen, I will _nevaire_ forget you have help me. I will always
be most grateful to you.”
His face disappeared again. John and I exchanged glances. He smiled a
little, shrugged his shoulders, and I took off my shoe and put the third
piece of paper in the heel. It began to feel stuffed, and the lace
spread a little wider than that on the other foot.
Then we knocked on the door, and heard the key grate in the lock, and
our prison was opened. I closed the door behind us, and noticed that
there was no guard on the stairs below except the man who preceded us.
Above, I heard the scrape of a boot, and knew that there was a guard
outside the door of the man with the polished finger nails. He had a
chance, then, to get out, by dropping down to our bed, which would dull
the sound of his fall, and the door of our room was not locked now.
We were bowed through the door of a large dining room, and John said
“Oh” appreciatively, as he saw it. Like the whole house, the walls and
woodwork were white, with heavy wrought iron hardware of intricate
patterns showing smartly black against it. The furniture was polished or
painted with scenes and portraits, or covered with colored leather or
vivid brocades. It was fresh and bright, and I liked it. John spoke in
praise of it. “My God,” he said, “it would be priceless in New York. The
decorators would go mad with excitement.” He leaned down to examine a
series of tiny brilliant medallions painted on the top of a chest. “But
what a crime it would be to move it,” he said. “Here it is perfect, with
the mountains outside as a complement.”
“It’ll make a pleasant memory,” I said. “I’m getting pretty fond of
home, suddenly. It was nice and comfortable there.”
“Yes,” John said. “Yes, I suppose so.” But he didn’t sound as though he
meant it entirely. He was absorbed in studying the lovely old furniture.
Our two captors came in, then. They looked refreshed and ready for the
day. I knew that we did not. In spite of our brushing and shaving we
were still bedraggled and rumpled and unpresentable. The last two days
and nights had been almost as hard on our appearance as on our feelings,
but we must have been a great improvement on the two unshaven tramps
they had found on the road the night before. The elder introduced
himself. “I am Colonel Count Visichich,” he said. “This is my son,
Lieutenant Count Ivan Visichich, in charge of the customs house at the
foot of the Pass. I have also a daughter who will be ’ere in a moment.
When she arrives we will eat lunch. Meanwhile it would be well to sit
down. You gentlemen are probably not yet fully rested. I am afraid you
’ad a difficult time last night.”
We sat on a long carved bench with a crimson damask cushion. It was
under a window and faced the door. John was absorbed in two very old
portraits that hung across the room. He was so much absorbed in them,
indeed, that he did not notice the Countess Visichich when she entered
the room.
“Katerina,” said the Colonel, “I wish to present the two gentlemen of
whom I spoke to you. Gentlemen, this is my daughter, Countess Katerina
Visichich.”
We both hesitated, to see whether she would show any sign of having seen
us before. She did not, but bowed formally. She was keeping the letter
of her word to us. I was not surprised. I had already decided that she
probably would do that. She had the courteous manners of a Frenchwoman,
together with a barbaric sense of honor, and a fearlessness that was the
result of her half civilised surroundings and not-too-distant nomad
ancestors. She smiled at us candidly. “My father and brother tell me you
came ’ere late last night,” she said. “Just before I returned myself, in
fact. Yesterday was very busy for many of us, it would seem. I am so
glad you—’appened to find your way here. It was better as sleeping on
the road, no?” Her eyes teased us, she might be our jailor but she was a
pleasant and a friendly one. “You ’ave ’urt your ’ands,” she went on
concernedly, to John. “Please, may I be of service? I have studied in
the ’ospitals—almost I am a nurse. Come with me—yes?—and I will fix
them.”
She led John out of the room, talking as they went, while the two
Visichich men entertained me assiduously for a quarter of an hour until
she chose to bring John back again, his hands swathed in great white
mounds of gauze. They were no doubt very professional, but they looked
ridiculous, and I saw that he meant to get them off again as soon as
possible. “I have been very cruel to ’im,” she announced, “but my
cruelty was of a moment only, and he is already almost well again of
it.” They smiled at each other, and we sat down to lunch. We were
treated like guests of the house. I hoped that was an omen of release,
but somehow I doubted it. I could not see why they should let us go, and
I was right. After we had finished the meal, they led us to the garden.
As we stepped out into the sunlight the old Count said, gently, “You
gentlemen will find time a little ’eavy on your ’ands, I fear. So long
as you do not go beyond the archway you are quite free to wander as you
will through the garden as long as we remain at ’ome. I regret that we
must leave late this afternoon, and must then request you to return to
the tower for a time. I am sure you understand me without further
explanation.” He offered us cigarettes, and as we took them he said, “I
’ave warned you, gentlemen. This is an uncivilised country.” It might be
uncivilised, but the manners of its people were perfect. I began to wish
that a few of my former bosses could have said threatening things—or
unthreatening ones, for that matter—half so pleasantly. He seemed to be
laughing at some kindly joke, as he waved his hand at us, and turned
away into the house followed by his son. The Countess Katerina stepped
down to a low, tiled terrace. “Come look at my roses for a moment,” she
called, “then I shall be obliged to leave you, too. I am a very busy
woman—so much ’ousekeeping!” She laughed a little. That might easily be
a joke, though I could imagine the Countess Katerina an excellent
housekeeper. European ladies, especially southern European ladies, waste
very little of their time going to parties as American ones do. They
learn, instead, every step in the primitive keeping of their
homes—spinning, weaving, lace-making and all the rest of the thousand
arts that with us are represented by the corner delicatessen and the
department store. Not that I suspected the Countess Katerina of leaving
us to make lace. For that day at least I was sure her cares were not of
the house.
We looked at the roses. Beautiful roses, in a sunken garden, to protect
them from the cold winds of the mountains. Countess Katerina broke off a
lovely peach-colored bud and put it in John’s buttonhole; she took less
time when she did it for me.
“Do you grow roses in America?” she asked.
I laughed. “Yes,” I confessed, “in fact, at the last formal dinner I
went to before I came away the conversation was so horticultural you
might easily have supposed it a gardener’s convention.”
She looked a little puzzled at that until John explained the nature of a
convention. “In Alaria,” she said, “there are not many rose gardens.
This is the finest in the country. I ’ad an English aunt, the wife of my
uncle. She made this garden, with brick walls around it, like England.
We do not use many bricks ’ere. There is so much stone. But she would
’ave it, and I like it. Every year there is a man in London who sends us
new flowers. They are so nice.” She pulled a small red one, “See—’ow
sweet it smells?” She poked it at John’s nose, then at mine. From the
house there was a shout, then a bell began to ring, like an
old-fashioned fire-bell. There was more shouting in a different tone.
Countess Katerina turned and ran back without a word.
“Our friend from the room upstairs has been missed,” I said.
“She’s a swell girl,” John said by way of answer.
“Don’t be a fool,” I protested, “everybody is busy hunting that chap who
dropped the plaster on us. If we look around we may find a way out while
they are looking for him.”
“It seems a mean advantage to take of her,” John began, but he blushed
as he caught my look, and said, “Oh, all right. Yes, of course, I
suppose we must. Come along, then, quietly, and let’s see what we can
find.”
We walked up the five steps from the rose garden, and tried to be as
casually inconspicuous as possible. A car snorted and pop-popped to our
right, and then the motor started and it drove away, cut-out open,
roaring like a plane. A second followed in a moment. Two men shouted.
Another appeared above us on the roof of the old tower, his head just
showing above the battlements. Some electrical instrument up there began
making a fizzy noise like a radio, but as there were no aerials visible
I decided it must be a daytime version of the heliograph. A radio would
be too public for these people, and a telephone too easily put out of
order.
The manor was really a collection of buildings strung together after the
fashion of northern New England farm houses, but these were less
geometric. They had been built to conform to the shape of the hill
rather than with any studied plan. The wall which circled the whole was
high enough to keep off marauders, but not high enough for any defense
against determined attack. The house itself was a maze of walls and
gateways constituting, so far as we were concerned, an inner series of
barriers against escape. Thus the garage, to the right of the place we
stood when the two cars went out, was only a few feet from us, but in
order to reach it we turned in the opposite direction, through an
opening in a low stable, passed an enclosed yard full of chickens and
ducks, with a pond in the center, and a movable pen containing two sheep
busily engaged in cropping the lawn, through another gateway with a
crude wooden gate, into another yard with a cow, past the cow, and
there, on our left, was the garage, and in it, at the back, stood a
third car. I walked forward a few steps to a spot where I could see the
outer gate. A sentry was walking back and forth on the inside, but the
gate itself was open. I nodded to John, who immediately climbed in.
Behind us, in the garden, the Countess called, anxiously. “Quick,” John
whispered, “they’ve missed us.” I jumped in behind the wheel. The key
was in the lock. I slipped into high, and let out the clutch very slowly
as I stepped on the gas with the other foot. The car moved, and began to
creep forward almost noiselessly. Before the sentry saw us we had
reached him. He jumped aside just in time to save himself, and we were
through the forbidden gate. The road sloped suddenly downward, then to
the right in a sharp curve. Just as we rounded it two shots rang out
behind us.
“All right,” I said. “Nothing hit.”
“Nothing but me,” said John.
“Where?” I demanded, alarmed, and swung the car in an abrupt and rutty
curve. He groaned. “Right arm. I don’t think I’m going to do anything
strange, faint or anything like that, but you can’t tell. If I do, don’t
pay any attention, for God’s sake, but keep on going. Good driving, old
man. We’d never have made it if you had stopped to shift gears.”
“Luck,” I said. As it was, with a strange car. “It might have stalled
just as well as not. Hold on to the seat, we’ll have to make as good
time as we can for a while in spite of your arm. If they catch up with
us they’ll shoot us up some more.”
For the next three miles, perhaps, we drove down the rough and muddy
road, then John slowly slumped down in his seat, so that I had to slow
the car while I held him so that he would not fall on the gear lever. I
felt guilty that I was always urging that we escape, and John was always
getting hurt doing it.
_CHAPTER VI_
It seemed years before I reached the high road. Before then I had slowed
down with the realisation that since we had the last car in the garage,
danger must lie ahead of us, and not behind. We had two passes to the
Queen in Herrovosca, so our lack of passports would probably be
overlooked except by the Black Ghost’s adherents, who would shut us up
again in any case if they caught us. John had only fainted, but I had no
idea how badly he might be hurt. My first concern was to get him to a
doctor, though that was a dangerous business, with everyone but the
legal authorities against us, in a country where the legal authorities
had almost become fugitives.
The high road where we turned into it was deserted, except for an old
donkey cart with a small girl driving. She looked too stupid to be a
menace even if she had wished. About three miles farther on we came to a
small village. There was nowhere to go but through it, so I drove
boldly, if not straight, up the main street. It was not very much like
our main streets in America. Here were small thatched-roof houses, many
only one story high. The vehicles in the street were propelled by ox,
horse, mule and donkey power, most of them had solid squeaking wooden
wheels. I felt John move. He sat up.
“How’s your arm?” I asked.
“Feels better, thanks. Aches like the devil, still, but this isn’t so
bad. It was the jolting over those ruts that did me up. I’ll last all
right now till we get to a doctor in Herrovosca. You go right on
driving.”
We left the little village behind us and came suddenly upon a branch
road leading to the left. I turned down it unhesitatingly. Anything
would be better than to stay on the main road where they were looking
for us.
“That’s right,” John agreed. “Safer. I may be the family invalid, but
we’ve got to get to Herrovosca.”
The road was dirt, but smooth enough to make fairly good time, although
there was more traffic than I had expected. Then we came into another
town, this one much larger than the last. The houses were higher, and
closer together. There was still more traffic, and in a moment as we
neared the center of the village, the streets became full of standing
vehicles. There was, however, almost no person in sight. Those that were
still moving were going in the same direction we were. Even children
were conspicuously absent. It was with greater and greater difficulty
that I found space for the car to move. At last, in sight of the large
square that seems to form the center of all Alarian towns, as it does of
all New England towns, we came, perforce, to a stop. Four slow-moving
vehicles closed in behind us, with still more coming, effectually
blocking that way out. Ahead of us a vast crowd mulled, shouting,
gesticulating. We were stopped again. I began to feel that Herrovosca
was the ultimate and dearly attainable goal of those who had served a
proper term in purgatory.
From somewhere in the distance, standing, apparently, on the fountain in
the center of the square, a man was addressing the crowd. A man, as I
could see, with a long white beard, and long white hair that reached to
his shoulders. He held a staff in his hand, with a crucifix on the top.
More vehicles came up behind us, their occupants jumping out, and
rushing on to the square. Here, undoubtedly, was news, if we could get
someone to interpret it for us, but the first need was for a doctor,
since we had to halt, anyway.
John could walk alone, but I helped him out to make sure. We skirted our
way around the standing vehicles, and found a crooked alley, empty of
people, and at its end, near the square, there was a doctor’s sign. I
rang the old-fashioned bell. There was no answer. I rang again, and
still again. At last I heard slow feet shuffling a little, and the door
was opened grudgingly by an old, deaf woman, who waited for us to speak,
scowling, with her hand to her ear. I took refuge in signs, pointing to
John’s arm, and repeating the one word, “doctor,” the same in so many
languages that I hoped she might understand it. She beckoned us to
follow her, and shambled along the passage, grunting as she walked.
Presently we heard shouts and the revivalistic sound of the
white-beard’s voice, and then we were ushered into a room overlooking
the square. There the old woman left us, shutting the door carefully
behind her.
While we waited I looked out of the window. We were not half a city
block from the fountain and the man on it. It was a remarkable thing to
watch, though we did not know what it was all about. He seemed to be
having difficulties with his audience. He was answering questions from
all sides at once, and dramatically waving his arms. From our vantage
point we could see his face plainly when he turned in our direction. He
was younger than his white hair suggested, and rather fine looking in a
patriarchal fashion reminiscent of moving picture Bible scenes. His eyes
were large and dark, his nose aquiline. Words were audible to us, but we
could not understand them. At last a man came into the room, and I
turned as I heard him close the door behind me. He seemed excited. I
spoke to him in German, and hoped that he believed me when I told him
that we had been shot at on the highway, probably by robbers, and my
friend must have his wound dressed.
“What is the matter with your hands?” he asked John.
“I blistered them fixing our car,” John replied innocently, “and a very
charming young lady insisted upon bandaging them up in this absurd way.”
He reached for a pair of surgical scissors the doctor had laid out, to
take the bandages off, but I stopped him. “You are better off that way,”
I said, “let them be, for a while. You don’t want to do anything with
your hands, anyway, so what is the difference?”
The doctor gave us a suspicious look, but got to work, though he divided
his attention somewhat between John and the scene out of the window.
Twice, a woman dashed into the room and shouted something at him, at
which he grew still more excited.
“I wish you would tell us what this is all about,” I said, “who is the
man on the fountain?”
“A mad monk,” he said, “who says he is sent by God to lead the people of
Alaria to a holier form of government. He is an old hermit who is said
to have worked miracles. He is quite mad but some of the people believe
him and there will be trouble here unless something is done.”
“Why not arrest him?” I asked.
The doctor shook his head. “We would not dare,” he said. “In Alaria the
supernatural is always a higher power than any other. But we have one
sure savior.”
“Who?” John asked, though I saw he knew the answer.
“Fakat Zol, the Black Ghost,” the doctor said, simply. “If you do not
keep quiet I cannot help hurting you. Our _hetman_ has sent a message to
him. He will come soon, I hope.”
“Do Alarian ghosts always come when they are sent for?” I asked.
“This is a live ghost,” the doctor answered, winding yards of bandage
around John’s arm. “It is fortunate, too, for with a strange impostor in
Herrovosca, to be crowned as Queen, and a prophet here, raising a mob,
we need something more than police to keep order.”
“But surely,” I said, “if this Princess can establish her identity that
will be the end of the trouble?”
“That has been the beginning of the trouble,” the doctor said, coldly.
“No pretender can ever establish his identity to everyone’s
satisfaction, nor can one ever be proved a fraud to everyone’s
conviction. There will always be some who believe or disbelieve and make
trouble. But something will happen. The Black Ghost, or Prince Conrad,
who is the rightful king, will find a way to arrange matters.”
“Then,” I asked, “there are two rulers in Alaria now?”
“No,” he answered, “there is only one ruler in Alaria.”
“Conrad?” John asked.
“No, the Black Ghost,” the doctor answered, and laughed.
“And who is the Black Ghost?” I asked, “does anyone know? Is he just a
bandit chief, or an Alarian in good standing who plays this part as a
side issue?”
The doctor frowned. “There must be some who know,” he said, “but they do
not tell. The great mass of the people believe he is really the old
crusader, Fakat Zol. Even many of his followers believe that. If it were
not so he would have no power. As it is, if that statue of the Holy
Virgin should step down from the front of the church and the Black Ghost
said it was a trick of the devil, the people would believe the Black
Ghost.” He tied the end of the bandage, and began putting away his
instruments.
“Thank you,” John said, “and now we must go back to our car. Alarian
politics are not for us, even though a prophet and the ghost of a
crusader are about to do battle before our eyes. I’d like to see it so I
could tell about it when we’re home again where things like that don’t
happen. Still, we started for Herrovosca, and as soon as this meeting
breaks up enough to let us through the streets, we must go on. Also, our
car will be robbed if we leave it alone.”
“Two Americans going to Herrovosca in a car,” the doctor said
ruminatively.
“Yes,” John answered, “thanks for doing my arm—if you’ll let us settle
our bill now—”
The noise in the square was increasing momentarily. The prophet’s voice
was no longer audible above the shouts of the townsfolk. Suddenly a
stone crashed through a window not far away. We could hear the breaking
glass, and then the storm broke. The doctor turned to us, “You had
better wait here,” he said, “it won’t be safe for you to go out, even by
the back way. Besides, you gentlemen have not yet explained to me this
gunshot wound. The only bandits of the mountains are Fakat Zol’s men.
They do not fire on harmless travellers. In order that you may remain
here quite safely I will lock the door as I go out.” He smiled, not
pleasantly, and went out quite suddenly. The key turned in the lock on
the other side of the door. I started to intercept him, but since I had
been standing by the window and he had been beside the door while he
spoke, I was too late. We were prisoners again.
“If,” said John, “we ever get back to a slightly less hospitable country
I shall feel lonely and neglected. This sound of keys that turn in locks
has grown to be a familiar lullaby.”
“Let’s see what they do to the prophet,” I said, and went back to the
window. The sound of keys turning in locks had become so familiar to me
that I scarcely paid any attention to it. John, exhausted by his wound
and its dressing, stayed on the sofa.
“Funny,” he groaned, “that of all the doctors in Alaria we should have
happened to come to this man, who is obviously such a staunch adherent
of Conrad’s.”
“Not funny a bit,” I said, “it would have been a bit of amazing luck if
we had happened to find one who wasn’t. Those two women are not exactly
popular heroines.”
Outside was the greatest confusion. The prophet was no longer on the
fountain. In his place half a dozen men were standing, all speaking at
once, but no one paying much attention to them. Every once in a while a
stone crashed through a window, or someone screamed. Then, from
somewhere to the left, came the sound of a trumpet. “The gendarmes!” I
cried. “Listen, John.”
The crowd parted slowly, and into the square rode a small troop of
cavalry. We were in a second story window, and I could see
uninterruptedly from the moment they entered the square. At their head
rode the Black Ghost, on a black horse, his crusader’s cross showing
white against his breast. All his men were in black, and rode black
horses, and every man in the troop wore a short black mask across the
upper part of his face. Only the Black Ghost was entirely covered, even
to the hands.
“Enter the villain of the piece,” I said. “It’s our old friend, Fakat
Zol.”
“I guess that lets us out of our week-end in Herrovosca,” John said, “I
wonder where he’ll send us now, and what he has done with the Countess
Waldek? She thought we’d have her message delivered by now. I wonder who
the devil he is, anyway?”
“Devil is right,” I said, “and that door is far too thick to smash
without being heard, even supposing there’s no one guarding the other
side of it. Too bad. This is our only chance for a getaway. This time
they’ll shut us up so we can’t get out.”
“There’s the window,” said John.
“With your wounded arm? You’d never be able to get through that crowd.
They’d jostle you and you’d faint again.”
There was a narrow iron balcony outside the window and it was not so
very high above the street. We could have dropped without any special
risk, perhaps, if there had not been such a crowd below, and if, on a
similar balcony belonging to the next room, the doctor and various
members of his household had not been standing. They were shouting and
cheering, “Fakat Zol! Fakat Zol! Fakat Zol!”
The black troop rode straight through the square to the fountain. There
they paused, and Fakat Zol, scorning the eminence of the masonry beside
him, raised one arm straight above his head in the fashion made famous
by the Fascisti. It is a dramatic gesture, and he was a dramatic
personification of direct action and force to people to whom pageantry
is the outward and visible sign of authority. And he was more than that.
He was a holy creature, a saint, supernatural, a subject for worship and
the hero of an infinite number of legends. Friends and enemies alike
were his publicity agents.
“I’d like to know,” I said, “that Helena’s safe, though I’m damned if I
think she deserves to be. So far as I can see she’s an out-and-out
political meddler.”
“She probably has the best of intentions,” John answered, “and I don’t
like to think of her in trouble, but I quite agree. Still, I think we
must try to deliver her message to the Queen, though I’m inclined to
wish no one had ever interfered with Conrad. That girl Maria Lalena, or
whoever she is, is too young to know what she’s about.”