THE WOMAN
Festini stared dumbfounded at the window. He saw the dangling rope, and
knew in what deadly peril he stood.
The girl had been rescued from the outside; he saw the bars laid on the
bed, and the little heap of twine and cord beneath the window told its
own story.
With a curse of rage he ran from the room.
In a moment he had the house roused.
In the rooms below a dozen trusted members of the Red Hand were
sleeping; another dozen were out watching the roads.
“They cannot have gone far,” said Festini. “On your life see that they
are captured.”
He himself went with a man in the direction of the river, the most
likely way of escape. He knew every position his scouts occupied,
and he half walked and half ran through the clogging marsh to where
Gregorio had been posted. He was the most reliable of all the men who
were on duty.
He came to the foot of the little hummock, and called softly.
Gregorio made no reply.
Festini ran up the gentle slope. He flashed his lamp over a prostrate
form.
“Turn him over,” he said calmly.
He looked down at the dead man’s face, and a weary foreboding of defeat
oppressed him. Without a word he turned and walked slowly back to the
house.
Every step he took said, “Tillizini! Tillizini! Tillizini!”
This was the end. He knew it. His mind was less occupied with thoughts
of escape than with a riot of plans to make his exit memorable.
The premier had refused.
He did not require the arrival of a messenger to tell him that.
Tillizini had located the laboratory--that fact was evident. How,
Festini could not guess, but the last card of the Red Hand was
not played. He had still the germs of this terrible disease. They
themselves would be the first victims and leave behind their dreadful
heritage to humanity.
He wondered why the professor had not struck at him. Surely at this,
the eleventh hour, he felt no compunction? Festini dismissed the
possibility with a smile. He knew the breed too well to imagine that
pity or any tender sentiment could influence the anthropologist.
Then he remembered the girl. She explained all. It would be Tillizini’s
first care to place her in safety.
He left word that the guard should be narrowed to a smaller circle
about the house. He went to his room, searched his pockets, and found
letters which he had no desire should fall into the hands of the enemy.
He burned them and sat down to the table to write a letter. He was in
the midst of this when Il Bue came in.
“Our men have found a woman,” he said.
“A woman!” Festini jumped to his feet, his eyes kindling.
“It is not your lady, signor,” said the man, and the other’s heart sank
like a plummet.
“Where did you find her? What was she doing?”
“Making her way to the house,” said Il Bue.
“Bring her here.”
In a few minutes the man returned and ushered a woman into the room.
Festini, dapper and handsome in his well-fitting greatcoat, his feet
covered with the mud of the marsh, stood, his hand resting on the
bare table, an electric reading lamp the only illumination the room
possessed.
It was innocent of furniture; save for the dull glow of the fire in the
broken hearth, it was cheerless. The damp had stripped the walls of its
paper; there was an indefinable air of decay in the room.
The woman standing in the doorway took all this in as she advanced
slowly toward him, her eyes fixed on his face.
“Vera!” he gasped, and stared.
She nodded.
“Let your man go away,” she said.
At a sign from Festini the big man withdrew, closing the door behind
him.
“Why have you come? How did you get here? How did you know I was here?”
He fired the questions at her.
She made no reply, taking off her long fur coat deliberately.
“I have come,” she said at last, “to be with you at the great moment.”
His brows knit. “What do you mean?” he said.
“You are doomed, Festini. I discovered it last night. Sir Ralph had
confidential information from the government ordering him to be present
at the end.”
“The end?” he repeated. “I don’t understand. When is the end to be?”
“To-day,” she answered steadily.
“But you, you,” he said, “why have you come?”
She did not speak for a moment; her eyes were still fixed on his.
“I have served you well,” she said slowly. “Let me serve you to the
end.”
“But there may be danger for you.”
“There will be danger,” she said.
“I cannot allow this; go back to your friends. Leave me to fight this
out alone.”
She shook her head with a little smile.
“We fight this out together, Festini. I have come to stay. They have
traced you.”
“Tillizini?” he asked, without resentment.
She nodded.
“He saw your car in town, suspected you, fastened a band to the wheel.
That band bore a particular mark. I did not know this until last night.
The police all over the country have been examining the roads for signs
of that car. Tillizini did the rest.”
“I see. What is happening?”
“The place is surrounded,” she said.
“Surrounded?” He did not raise his voice. He was not, apparently,
alarmed. He put the question eagerly; it seemed to her that his
interest in the method which had been employed to trap him was greater
than any dread of the consequence.
“How do you mean?”
She led him to the window of the room. It was on the opposite side of
the house to that which Marjorie had been confined, and commanded an
uninterrupted view of the country for six or seven miles. The overnight
mists had cleared away and it was a calm, still night. The low hills of
the horizon could be easily distinguished.
He saw a sprinkling of lights that were familiar to him. They were the
lights of a hamlet, two miles distant, and at intervals a flickering
gleam told him where the road lay.
They watched in silence. Then, of a sudden, they saw a new light. It
was whiter than the others; it flickered three times, and was dark;
flickered again at irregular intervals, and kept winking and winking,
as though it were a candle blown by the wind.
“I understand,” he said. “That is a signal lamp. Are there soldiers?”
She nodded.
“There are a dozen regiments on this side alone,” she said.
“Infantry?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “and horse soldiers, and I saw guns coming through
Witham.”
“And on the river side?” he asked.
“I think they have some torpedo boats. They came up from Chatham last
night.”
He walked round to the other side of the house, but could see nothing.
He went back to his room and found a pair of night glasses, and
searched the river with a long and steady scrutiny.
Then he distinguished the low-lying hulls of the destroyers, anchored
in midstream, their lights out--no sign of life.
He nodded slowly.
“I understand,” he said, for the second time. “Come back with me.”
He put his hand on her shoulder affectionately, and she thrilled at the
touch.
She had not asked about Marjorie, but now the thought occurred to her.
He divined it before she spoke.
“The girl is gone,” he said. “Tillizini released her less than half an
hour ago; he also released some pigeons,” he said, with a quiet smile.
He told her what had happened.
“I think it is best,” she said gravely.
There was no resentment in her heart against his treachery, nor did he
feel it necessary to explain his act or express his contrition.
Those two had much in common--as he had always realized. They took
things for granted.
“I suppose,” he said, after he had sat at the table, his head in his
hands, deep in thought, “there is no question of surrender?”
She shook her head.
“They will accept no surrender,” she said. “They have come to
exterminate you. They dare not take you for fear of your disseminating
the plague.”
“They are very wise,” he said; “but yet I think----”
He bit his knuckles thoughtfully.
“Perhaps----” he began again, then shrugged his shoulders.
He walked with a firm step to the door and called in Il Bue. In a few
words he made the position clear.
“Get the rifles out of the cellar,” he said, “and serve out ammunition
to the men. We are going to make a fight for it, but I tell you there
is no chance of escape. The least we can do is to leave behind a
little souvenir of our earnestness and _bona fides_.”
When the man had gone, he turned to Vera.
“Dear,” he said gently, “you must go back.”
“I have come to stay,” she said. “I want no better end than this.”
He looked at her thoughtfully, tenderly. Then he took her face in both
his hands, and kissed her on the lips.
“As you will,” he said; “it will strengthen me as nothing else could
strengthen me, to have you by me.”
He kissed her again, and her head fell on his shoulder, her arms stole
about his neck.
She was happy. Whatever other joys life had held for her, they were as
nothing to this.
* * * * *
An hour before dawn Festini left the woman who had braved so much for
him, and went the rounds. A new sentry had been posted in the place of
Gregorio. Festini was returning and crossing the room which had served
as a common room and office for the band, when the tinkle of a bell
held him. He turned back.
He had had the house connected by telephone, but an hour before the
arrival of Tillizini, though he did not know this, the wires had been
cut. He walked to the instrument and took down the receiver. Was it
possible that by some chance they had overlooked the wire, and that
he could communicate with the agents of the Red Hand in London? The
thought had not occurred to him before, but at the first word which
reached him his lips curled in an ironic smile.
“Is that you, Festini?” said the voice.
“Yes,” replied the count; “my friend Tillizini, I think?”
“It is I,” said the voice calmly. “Have you nothing to say to me?”
Festini bent his head. For a long time he remained silent.
“I have nothing to say,” he said. “You have won and I have lost; that
is too obvious to need any labouring.”
“Nothing else?” asked the voice.
Festini thought he detected a note of sadness.
“Nothing else,” he replied firmly. “What can I say? Except that I
lose with a good heart. After all, I have so frequently laid down my
creed in regard to such trivial matters as life and death that even
now, confronting the supreme crisis of my life, I can find no more
comforting thought than that creed offers.”
He heard Tillizini’s voice break into a little laugh: a low, amused,
yet despairing little laugh.
“How like you, Festini!” he said. “How like you!”
“What else?” asked the count. “You did not expect me to recant or to
offer you terms? You would have despised me as much as I should despise
you if you proffered me a way of escape. I suppose,” he asked, “you are
speaking from some place of security?”
“I am speaking from one of the destroyers,” said the other. “We have
tapped your wire----”
“Which is cut, I presume,” said Festini coolly.
“Which is cut,” repeated the other. “What of Vera?” asked Tillizini
suddenly.
“I would rather not discuss that,” said Festini, a little haughtily.
“She is with you?”
“Yes, she is here,” replied Festini, after a little hesitation. “In
justice to myself, I have tried to persuade her to go back. I can
conduct her outside these lines without any difficulty.”
“And she refuses?”
“Yes, she refuses,” said Festini. “And I think it is better so.”
He stood with his elbow against the wall, his feet crossed; one who
was not acquainted with the circumstances might have thought he was
conducting a very ordinary and commonplace conversation that involved
more than ordinary thought, but which had not more than ordinary
consequences.
There was another long silence, which Festini broke.
“In all your philosophy, Tillizini,” he said, “and I concede you a
vast and interesting knowledge of human affairs, has it ever occurred
to you how wonderful a thing is a woman? Put out of your mind the
passions and the follies of life, and come down to the essentials and
the utilitarian part of existence. Is there anything so devoted, so
self-effacing, so purely noble? I think”--Tillizini heard him laugh--a
bright, happy, joyous laugh--“I think that all the bother and stress
and scheming of my life, all the crime, as you would call it, all
the endeavour and disappointment, was worth this: here is my reward,
probably more tangible and beautiful than the ten millions we ask from
your government--by the way, I suppose they have adopted you now?” he
added mockingly.
“It is worth much,” said Tillizini.
“It is worth all,” said Festini, and his voice vibrated. “Without
this, philosophy is futile, life has been wasted.”
There was another long pause.
“You have nothing else to say?” asked Tillizini.
“Nothing,” said Festini. “Nothing more than I have said. Is not that
enough?” he asked. “What a glutton you are, Tillizini,” he bantered
him. “What do you desire--a tearful repentance? An admission of my
manifold sins and wickednesses? A plea for mercy? King’s evidence?” He
laughed again. “You never expected that, my friend?”
“No, I never expected that,” said Tillizini’s voice. “I don’t know
exactly what I did expect. I think that is all.”
“I will say _au revoir_,” said Festini.
“Farewell,” said the other’s voice suddenly.
There was such a long wait now that Festini thought the other must have
hung up his receiver.
He was on the point of following his example, when Tillizini’s voice
spoke again.
“And _bon voyage_!” it said.
Festini laughed, and the receivers clicked together.