THE FUGITIVE
In dynasties, as in politics, the pendulum pursues its immutable law.
Those who, or whose immediate ancestors, had applauded the tragedy of
fifteen years ago, were now to be seen in the very forefront of the
rejoicings at the fair Estrato who had come out of the blue to rule
over them.
The editor of the _Imparcial_ had at last had his great chance, and the
Marinoni he had purchased second-hand from a Madrid printing office was
working overtime. For edition after edition he drove home the praises
of the rising stars of San Pietro. With the true journalistic spirit
he had seized on the high lights of the romance, points which he knew
would delight the gossip-loving patrons of his sheet, and the cafe
loungers on the promenade of Corbo were regaled with stories of the
love of Galva and Armand, which, if not strictly true, were at least
richly garnished with the roses of romance and were well worth the
reading.
As a counterblast, _El Dia_ had appeared the morning following the
death of the king, with a heavy, wordy, black-bordered leading article
in which the influence of Spain was barely disguised. It had pointed
out to the inhabitants of San Pietro that they would do well to move
warily in the crisis now before them, and that, at least, they should
stay the celebrations of joy until after the vault in Corbo Cathedral
had closed over the remains of the late king, whose small virtues they
unearthed and glorified.
But your Corbian is not given to moving warily, and neither can he
pretend to a sorrow he does not feel. It is small wonder, therefore,
that the gala colours of rejoicing should outweigh the trappings of woe
with which a few axe-grinding friends of the late monarch bedecked
their sorrowing persons.
From an attic window high up in a small and dirty hotel facing the
Cathedral Square, and well shielded by the faded and torn curtains, a
man had sat for days watching the animated scenes beneath him. He sat
with his chin moodily resting in his hand, in his eyes the haunted look
of a man who is hard pressed.
* * * * *
Gabriel Dasso and the lieutenant had, after the encounter with Edward
Povey in the shrubbery of the palace grounds, made their way to the
house in the old town. The ex-dictator did not consider all was lost
until Spain had had her say in the matter; he relied, too, on the army,
a hope which would have been fully justified had he had only Prince
Armand as an opponent.
But he well knew the natures of the gay-hearted youths who held
commission in the San Pietran army, and, knowing this, he sighed, and a
vision of a lovely face rose up before him, a face in which the dark
eyes shone serenely and fearless, and luminous with fascination. He
felt that only too readily would the swords fly from their scabbards to
do service for Queen Miranda.
The men let themselves into the house in the old town and made their
way to the dining-room. Dasso went over and drew the heavy curtains
across the windows. There was wine on the table and he drank greedily.
Mozara was standing dejectedly before the fire, jabbing viciously at
the logs with his heel. The sight of the spur reminded him of
something, and he gave a hard little laugh.
"We might have brought away our horses, Gabriel--we may need them," he
said meaningly.
"Pshaw, we'll win yet." But Dasso's tone was not hopeful as he said
it, and the hand that held the wineglass trembled a little, which was
not usual with the hand of the ex-dictator.
"What! You have been busy with your schemes, Dasso; you have not
noticed the eyes of the Queen, perhaps. Win!"--and the lieutenant
snapped his fingers--"impossible."
Gabriel Dasso leant over the table and he spoke in a low whisper.
Perhaps it was the wine that caused the huskiness to come into his
voice.
"I saw eyes, Gaspar, like those _fifteen years ago_--and I won then.
What is to prevent our doing _now_ what we did _then_?"
He remained silent for a moment, his eyes never leaving Mozara's face.
"----_now_, what we did _then_," he repeated; "the people know nothing
of this girl, and before the story can leak out it will be all over. I
can get the captains from the barracks, Luaz and Pinto, and--oh,
they'll all come with me. The girl shall not be mentioned; they will
think there is only Armand there, and you know what they think of him.
But it must be now; I will not count on their help when once they have
seen her. I myself will find the girl and deal with her as I dealt
with her moth----"
With an oath the lieutenant started forward; the glass he had been
holding crashed to the floor, and his breath came in little painful
gasps.
"You devil--you--Oh, I knew the downward path was broad, I did not
think it was so short. Only a few months since that evil day when I
fell under your thumb. Before the night of the cards I had been no
worse than the others, now---- What's that, Dasso?"
The lieutenant had broken off suddenly and stood in the attitude of
listening, his face grey and set. For a moment there was a strained
silence in the room, then there came to the ears of the men a confused
distant murmur. Dasso reached out a hand and extinguished the lamp.
Cautiously the two men, brought together now by a common danger, moved
to the window; the flicker of the logs in the grate lit up the fear on
their faces. Gabriel drew the blind aside for about an inch and stood
waiting.
All seemed quiet again now, and the men told themselves that they had
heard some drunken roysterers on their way home from the Casino. After
a few moments they returned to the fire. There was a sneer on Dasso's
face as he turned to the younger man and took up the quarrel where it
had been interrupted.
"So you prefer to remain here and be disgraced, eh? My plan is the
only one left and to-night is the only time for the doing. If we
succeed Spain will gloss over the affair; if we fail----"
"Stop, Gabriel, I won't listen to you, and I'll do no more of your
hellish work. A few mouths ago my life was at least decent. I'll have
no dealings with you after what you have said. I can only thank God
that I was with you in this, else that poor girl would have had no
mercy shown her and would now be dead. Perhaps that will atone a
little when I meet my Maker. I'll expose you, Dasso--you--you
murderer."
The spring that Dasso made took the lieutenant unawares and bore him
heavily to the ground, his head striking one of the carved iron
firedogs as he went down with a dull crash, and he lay still where he
had fallen. The face of the elder man was livid with passion.
"You'll expose me, eh? Murderer, eh? Many have thought that, but no
one has called me it to my face." The fingers were tightening round
the throat of the unconscious officer.
"When--you--meet--your--Maker, you said. That will be to-night, my
friend." He pressed more heavily, leaning his weight full upon the
body.
And when all was over and the form beneath him no longer made any
movement or sound, he stood up. There were great beads of moisture on
his face, and the decanter clinked pitifully against the glass as he
poured out more wine.
He took the cloth from the long sideboard and dropped it over the face
of the man on the floor.
Now the sound that they had heard came to him again in little bursts,
and he walked unsteadily to the window. Pieces of the glass dropped by
Mozara crunched under his heel.
The lamp had not been relit, and the murderer was able to see clearly
into the moon-bathed street. The Three Lilies was in
darkness--evidently the sound had not come from that quarter.
Again. This time it was more pronounced, and Dasso could make out a
dark patch, dotted with lantern light, moving towards the house from
the direction of the town. As the murmur grew more distinct, the
watching man could make out a word here and there; they were calling
his name, and the epithets attached to it were not flattering.
Dasso left the window, and crossing to the fire peered into the steel
face of the clock that stood in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then in
the half light he went over to the little safe embedded in the wall.
He unlocked it with trembling fingers and took from it package after
package of papers and carried them over to the fire, and placing them
on the seat of a chair began his task of sorting. Some were put upon
the burning logs without a second glance; others, including a large
roll of paper money, he placed in the breast pocket of his coat.
There were other documents, too, which caused a furrow to take shape
between the evil brows, and which were held to the glow and read
through from their first word to their last before they were finally
pocketed or sent to swell the growing pile of grey ash on the
smouldering logs.
Only once did the man look towards the thing that lay still and
sinister on the great bearskin rug not two feet from where he knelt.
This was when he picked up the envelope containing the hand at cards
which had been the downfall of the man who now was dead.
Dasso held the package for a moment in his hand, the custodian of a
dead man's honour. He seemed to be debating whether Mozara could in
any way further serve him. Then as the noise outside grew louder he
thrust the envelope between the bars and rose to his feet. Now there
came a knocking at the great oaken door, and Dasso heard his name
called by angry voices. He knew why the mob had come seeking him, and
he knew the temperament of the Corbians, that they were creatures in
whom civilization and barbarism were separated by the faintest of
lines, and who knew no restraint or reason once their passions were
aroused.
A stone hurtled through the window-pane and checked by the blind fell
down with a clatter on to the polished floor and rolled almost to his
feet. For the first time Dasso showed signs of haste.
He made his way from the room and through many passages to the servants
quarters at the back, taking, as he ran, from a peg in the lower hall,
a wide-brimmed hat and a common brown cloak which had belonged to old
Pieto.
There came a crashing and splintering from the front of the house, and
the man told himself that the stout oak had given at last. He opened a
door beside the great dresser shutting it behind him and shooting home
the heavy metal bolts. He descended a short flight of steps that lay
there, and which led down to the cellars of the old mansion. At the
foot he waited, and feeling out with his hands he found and lit a horn
lantern.
Through cellar after cellar he made his tortuous way, past bins and
racks of wine, between casks and cases stacked high to the groined
roof. The air was thick and musty and great rats scampered away at the
approach of the flickering yellow light and the hurried footsteps.
Then the air grew cooler, and Dasso stopped and, raising his lantern,
searched the walls round him. A few stone steps led up to an opening,
through which with stooping shoulders the man passed. Here he was in a
tunnel, a narrow tube, that rose gradually until the fugitive could
feel the cool airs of the night upon his face, and he found himself in
front of an iron gateway. He took from the pocket of his coat a key,
and after a few attempts the gate was thrust open, tearing its way
through the mass of vegetation with which the iron-work and hinges were
choked, and Dasso stood in the moonlight of the vegetable garden of his
house. A thick belt of trees separated him from the building itself,
and in the distance he heard the cries of the mob who had now gained an
entrance. He clenched his fists and turned away. As he did so,
through the trees a light splashed redly, then another--and another,
and the man knew that they had set fire to the building.
A curse spluttered out between his teeth as, dropping the lantern into
a water butt that stood at hand, he started to run along the path that
led away from the house.
For perhaps a hundred yards he ran, the path leading between beds of
celery and fruit bushes. The moonlight cut the garden up into sharp
black-green shadows, which were illuminated now and again by flashes of
light from the burning house behind him.
At the foot of the garden a high wall, spiked with broken glass, barred
his way, and turning to the left he ran along at its base till he came
to a door, bolted and barred. In a few moments he had this open, and
was out in a small lane that ran behind the house.
Following this he emerged into a broader road, and again into the main
street in which stood what was left of his home. Here, disguised as he
was, he was safe, and he stood in a doorway and looked up towards the
burning house.
The fire had by now obtained a firm hold, and the old worm-eaten
woodwork was blazing vividly. Silhouetted against the glow were the
dark figures of the incendiaries, like imps of the netherworld, leaping
and howling in drunken joy, and Dasso guessed, and rightly, that some
of the choice vintages it had been his whim to lay down had fallen into
their unappreciative hands.
Higher and higher leaped the flames, casting a glow as of burnished
copper on the dark violet of the sky. Higher, too, rose the voices of
the mob; they were singing now a song of the Estratos, and one which
had not been heard in the streets of Corbo for many a long day.
For perhaps half-an-hour the man stood in the doorway watching the
downfall of his home and of his hopes. Then, drawing his cloak round
him and pulling his hat well over his face, he made his way to the
Cathedral Square.
He had to stop many times on the way to slip into the friendly shadow
of some porch. Late as it was, the town seemed _en fete_ on this night
when their king lay dead in the Palace. The cafes were open and
crowded with revellers, and bands of youths rushed madly past the
homeless man, attracted by that beacon shining in the sky which
promised devilment and plunder. It took Dasso, perhaps, half-an-hour
before he emerged into the comparative quiet of the square facing the
Cathedral.
At the side door of a dirty little hotel he stopped and rapped. The
door was opened by the landlord himself, an evil-looking ruffian, who
held the candle he carried up high to see who it was who came knocking
at this late hour. Dasso took off his hat. The innkeeper fell back.
"Senor Dasso--why, what brings----"
"Don't stand there talking, fool, I'm coming in." He smiled cruelly.
"You won't refuse a lodging to me, Gambi, surely."
The old man drew aside, and the hand holding the candle trembled. The
visitor made his way into the kitchen of the hotel.
For a fortnight now the man had been sitting almost incessantly at the
window looking down into the Cathedral Square. He had seen many
happenings--the State procession of the new King and Queen when they
attended Mass, the shouts of the multitude, and the smiles of the royal
beauty in the carriage.
One night, too, a huge bonfire had been lighted in the square, and an
effigy, whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, had been burnt to the
accompaniment of drunken jeers and savage howls of execration.
The innkeeper, whose many misdeeds made him loath to offend his
unwelcome guest, to whom they were well known, told him that the people
were searching high and low for him, and that they had now come to the
conclusion that he had left the island.
"In another week or two, Gambi, when my beard has grown more, their
conclusion will be justified," Dasso had remarked, and the innkeeper
had been very relieved indeed to hear it.