great flowers of the begonia. Possessing a good frontage to the lake,
there was also a boathouse and landing-stage--the former having a
smoking-room built right out over the water. On the other side there
ran the high road to Losone on the one hand, and to Ronco on the other.
In summer this road was alive with the motor cars of the Americans doing
Europe in five-and-twenty minutes; but a night of winter found it
deserted enough, and not a soul was to be discerned, either in the
little village above the shanty or upon the highway itself. Benny had
hoped to meet some friend or neighbour among the villagers who would
have helped him to guard the airship; but finding none, he determined to
telephone to Ascone directly it was safe to do so--and with that in his
head he opened the garden gate and went in.
The consummation of a perilous emprise is often commonplace to the point
of banality, and this is especially the case when the quest of man or
woman is the objective. Benny had crossed the Simplon that he might
reach the lake before another--and having reached it, might warn a
madman of his danger. To do that, he had imperilled his own life as many
times as there had been minutes in his journey; he had run the risk of
being frozen alive or dashed to instant death in the chasms of the pass.
And now that it was done he went up to the door of the house like any
ordinary traveller, stood an instant while his eyes searched the
unlighted windows, then rang the bell upon the right-hand side of the
porch, and waited quietly. All the excitement of the quest appeared to
have subsided at this time. He thought nothing of his victory; he did
not even remember that it had been a victory!
The bell was unanswered, not a little to his surprise. He had looked at
his watch before he left the ship, and had discovered that it was just a
quarter-past seven. By all rights, Sir Luton should have been then at
his dinner, and it occurred to him that the old woman who kept the
shanty might be so busy in her kitchen that she did not hear him.
Against this was the black fact of the unlighted windows, and the
silence. Benny could hear the splash of the waves as they ebbed and
flowed upon the shore of the lake, but no other sound save that of the
distant bells of Losone. It began to force itself upon his mind that
this silence was prophetic, and, with a shiver of apprehension different
from any he had yet experienced, he rang a second time, and listened to
the jangling reverberations and their diminuendos. Again the summons
was unanswered. It was plain that there was no one in the house, and
that his errand had been in vain.
He would not admit this at the beginning, or even contemplate a house of
shadows. Knowing Luton Delayne, he thought it very likely that he had
gone to one of the neighbouring towns for his dinner; while the old
woman, taking advantage of his absence, would have run down to the
village to her home there. Going round to the back of the house, which
looked upon the lake, he found it shut and barred, and no evidence of
occupation whatever--but the bars were no obstacle to such a wit as his,
and forcing the kitchen window, he climbed in and began to search the
place. A fleck of fire reddened in the grate; there were dirty plates
upon a bare table, with a candle and a box of matches. Benny lit the
candle, and passed on into the hall. The shanty had been occupied that
day, so much was evident.
It was here that a strange hallucination took possession of him, and one
he had some little difficulty to stifle. Suddenly, and without warning,
he thought that he heard Luton Delayne's voice from one of the inner
rooms; but when he entered it there was no sign of occupation whatever,
no evidence that it had been used for many months. This should have set
his mind at rest, but no such result followed upon the discovery. For
the second time he heard the voice calling him from another quarter of
the house; and, refusing to believe that he could be mistaken a second
time, he crossed the narrow hall, and entered the room he had used as
his study. Here at last were those visible evidences of occupation he
had sought vainly elsewhere. The remains of such a meal as a man would
have ordered were still upon the table. A fire burned in the grate, and
a flask of red wine stood upon a side table. Whoever had occupied this
room had left it during the day, and, what was more, he had written a
letter shortly before he left.
Benny set down the candle upon the side table, and knelt to warm himself
before the fire, upon which he heaped fresh logs. The window showed him
the broad expanse of the lake with the mountains upon the far side of
it, and the star cluster of Magadino at their feet. A man of
indomitable courage, he was astonished to discover how greatly the
hallucination of the voice had shaken him, and how real it had seemed
when it called him. He had never realised the remoteness of the shanty
before, nor its isolation from the towns by the lakeside. Presently a
fit of shivering seized him, and he started up fearing that he was about
to be ill, and determined that his will should master the situation. He
heaped up the logs until the fire roared in the chimney, and then
searching the kitchen for candles made such an illumination as that
little room had never witnessed before. The light cheered him--he drank
what was left of the wine in the flask, and ate of the bread and butter
upon the table.
He had pipe and tobacco, and these had ever been his good friends in
every kind of emergency. A long smoke by the fireside cleared his brain
of the cobwebs, and gave him a clearer vision. And first he said that
Luton had left the house, and it was doubtful if he would return. Had
it been otherwise, had he gone across to dine at one of the neighbouring
towns, assuredly the beldame would have returned to her kitchen by this
time and made her preparations for the night. So it was clear that
Delayne had left the shanty, and that he, Benny, had come too late.
Whether this were a good thing or a bad he had as yet no means of
knowing. The darker suggestion that the man had been arrested by the
police, and that the old woman had fled the shanty in consequence, was
not to be put aside. That seemed a very likely thing to have happened;
but if it had happened, he would hear of it soon enough, and so would
every newspaper in Switzerland.
This latter thought grew with the minutes and awakened every instinct to
the danger. He wondered that it had not occurred to him directly he
found the shanty deserted, and was going on to say that it was the
absolutely obvious thing, when a sound arose which chilled him to the
very marrow. A moment later he laughed aloud, and picked up one of the
candles. Of course, the telephone still ran to the shanty. There is
hardly a decent house in Switzerland which does not possess it.
A telephone bell ringing clearly in the silence of the house! Well, it
was a thing to give a man a start--and his nerves were not what they
should be! Not until he had the receiver in his hand, and began to
reply to the unknown at the other end of the wire, did he bethink him
that here was companionship of a sort after all. This telephone would
summon help from Ascona, if he needed it. He took heart at the thought,
and cried "Halloa" in his old tone. This was the Benny of
yesterday--the man who had done what no man had ever done before.
"Halloa--halloa!--this is the Villa Favorita--who do you say you are?--I
don't hear you!--Halloa--halloa!--the Abbe Villari?--Good God! Abbe--how
did you know that I was here?--What, you didn't know?--then that's the
rummest go of all--You wanted Sir Luton Delayne--Well, I'm d----d!"
He dropped the instrument and laughed aloud. His talk had been half in
French, half in English, and he remembered that the abbe understood both
tongues perfectly. But it was no time to apologise. The news was too
astounding; he would not lose a word of it.
"You heard all about it from Susette--yes, I suppose she would tell a
priest--And you warned the man this morning?--I wish you'd told me,
Abbe--it would have saved me a matter of five thousand pounds. Of
course, it was done for the best--all that's granted.--Did you say you
were at Brigue?--going up to the Hospice?--Yes, I remember, now--well,
he's away all right--the bird has flown.--Oh, I don't know where--I hope
it's south--you'll understand that--You haven't seen Lady Delayne?--Ah!
you never did like that charming lady, did you, Reverence?--Speak up a
little, I don't quite catch that.--The boy, Philip, has gone over the
pass, did you say?--He might have been here, for all I know--I shall try
to find out in the morning--Let me know if you hear anything of Lady
Delayne--It was a big thing for you to do, and a very kind thing under
the circumstances.--She won't forget it, nor will I.--Good night,
sir--and don't forget to ring up in the morning."
He stood a little while when the abbe had ceased to speak, holding the
instrument in his hand, and realising anew the weird stillness of the
house. It was as though he remained incredulous, and could not grasp
the meaning of the few words which had come across the mountains upon
the frail wire--words which revealed in a twinkling the acumen of the
little abbe and the reality of his friendship. Benny could have sworn
that the priest did not know one word of the story, had hardly heard Sir
Luton's name, and would as soon have thought of connecting it with the
episode upon the Zaat as with his own flight across Mont Blanc. And now
the abbe had undeceived him in an instant, and spoken of his own
shrewdness and perception beyond possibility of question.
Of course, the girl, Susette, would have told him. Benny recollected
that she was a Catholic, and his odd notions about the ancient faith
included the belief that nothing is kept secret, not even the most
trivial things of a common day. So he argued that Susette would have
"confessed," and the gendarme, Philip, have done the same, putting the
abbe in possession of all the facts, and dictating this friendly
intervention. The priest had been the man to warn Sir Luton. Possibly
he had done so directly Philip Gaillarde left Andana. And if it were so,
then the baronet was safe, and this journey had been vain indeed.
He had come to this conclusion anew when he heard someone open the front
door of the shanty, and presently recognised the hacking cough of the
beldame who should have been keeping it. Her feminine outburst when she
discovered him, the muttered oath and then the trembling recognition
were brushed aside while he asked her of his guest and heard her
garrulous answer. Ah, that Englishman!--what she had suffered at his
hands! And now he had gone--he went at eleven o'clock. This very
morning, Bajazet, the postboy from the inn, had driven him; he would
know all about it. For her part, Mother of God, she was glad that the
house was quit of him. Such a man to serve--such anger, such words! She
hoped that he would never return; but now that the master was come again
she could be content. Which being said, she began with the method of a
Swiss to set the house in order, and to justify her existence. It
blazed with lights from garret to kitchen before half an hour had
passed; fires roared in the grates; pots were steaming upon the hob.
And while she worked she repeated her story that the Englishman had
driven away at eleven o'clock, and that Bajazet could say where he had
gone.
Benny let her have her say, and then went to the telephone to ring up
the inn as she advised him. Being answered immediately, he asked for
help to get his airship into shelter, and begged them to send up
Cordivet, the gendarme, and as many young fellows of the place as they
could summon. As to Bajazet, he must come to the villa immediately, if
he could; and there would be ten francs for him if he hurried. Which
being done, and the woman instructed to have supper ready within the
hour, he went out to the lakeside and there waited for the postboy.
The night had fallen clear and the heavy clouds were now breaking to
show a monstrous moon, shining full and round upon the sleeping water.
By here and there the siren of a steamer could be heard, and the voices
of young people who sang as they rowed; while from the village inn, some
third of a mile up the road, the music of fiddles and a harp floated
down upon the still air. Such a contrast to the rigour and cold of the
heights was hardly to be imagined, and it seemed to Benny to stand for
such a haven of rest as a man might win when he had crossed the pass and
emerged victorious.
For himself, he knew that he was at the crisis of his life, and faced it
with all the resolution he could command. To-night, or if not to-night,
to-morrow, would tell him plainly enough whither his road lay, and to
what house of fortune it would lead. Luton Delayne's possible flight
had been in his calculations vaguely when he set out for Andana. He
knew that his desire for this man's safety was honest, and that he would
have contrived it whatever the sacrifice had cost him. Henceforth these
people must lead their own lives. He perceived that it would be better
that he should not see Lily again, and that she had been wise to leave
Andana without a word to him. If the very fact led also to another
conclusion, he strove to turn from it at such a moment. The vanity of
his secret hopes was not to be disguised. Sometimes he had been ready to
say that this sense of inglorious defeat, this merciless rebuke which
fortune administered to him was well deserved. What had he, born to so
humble a station, to do with such a friendship or its privileges? When
he answered that his attainments had given him every right, he flushed
secretly, as though someone overheard him. Success found him a shy
lover, though he had wooed her daringly enough.
This passed at the lakeside, but the interlude of waiting galled him,
and he found himself impelled resistlessly to act--he knew now how.
When the coachman, Bajazet, appeared, he was greeted as an old friend:
taken apart and made much of, and wine commanded for him. It seemed
good to be talking to a man who had played a part, however humble, in
the drama of the day. Benny led him to the little study and poured out
a tumbler of red wine with his own hands, while he asked him twenty
questions and hardly waited for an answer.
"So milord went away at eleven o'clock, Bajazet?"
"He did, Monsieur--it was just before the hour."
"He was very anxious to go?"
Bajazet raised his eyes to the ceiling.
"All the time, all the time, he gave me no rest! I know your countrymen,
but not many such as he, thanks be to God! He is at Domo d'Ossola this
night. May he remain there many years!"
Benny looked at him as though he had been lying.
"At Domo d'Ossola? But you are not speaking wisely, Bajazet; you make
some mistake? A man who goes to Domo d'Ossola is returning to
Switzerland. It is impossible to believe it--of my friend! Think again,
and tell me truly."
The fellow shook his head, and drank a little more wine.
"I know what I am saying. Milord wished to go by the railway, but the
trains were not running. Very well, then, he will cross the pass. Why
should he not do so, Monsieur? There are many who wish to see it; why
should not your countryman be among the number? I tell you, I left him
at the posthouse. He was engaging horses for the journey; perhaps he is
at the Hospice to-night. Should you wish to know that the telephone
will inform you. What I have said is of my own knowledge, Monsieur; the
rest is with God!"
He laughed, and reached out his hand to the flask. Upon the road without
the light of many lanterns was to be seen, and, anon, the voice of
Cordivet, the gendarme, to be heard. A little company of men and boys
had come up from the inn to do the Englishman's bidding, and Cordivet
marshalled them as though they had been an army. Soon these were
grouped about the airship; their eyes staring at the glistening steel of
its tubes; their tongues loosed in wonder. Had they been English the
buffoons among them would have worked a mischief; but the love of things
mechanical waxes strong among the Swiss even in the villages to-day, and
these youths understood very well what was asked of them. Willing lads
were sent hither and thither for tarpaulins to cover the machinery;
strong arms helped to wheel the ship down toward the garden by the lake.
These good folk had heard of the great Flight, and they stood awed
before the master who held the key to the secrets. Every word they
spoke was a tribute to his achievement--every gesture honoured him.
Benny saw the machine safely anchored, and then went in to eat the
supper prepared before him. His mind was already made up, and he had
determined that the worthy Bajazet should drive him immediately to Domo
d'Ossola, and afterwards, if need be, to the summit of the Simplon. For
had not the fellow said that Luton Delayne would cross the pass, and if
that mad purpose were filled, who would save the man from the penalties
of his folly?
Benny had the vague idea that he might yet be in time--he knew not how!
But he promised Bajazet a hundred francs if his work were well done, and
they went at a gallop, blindly in the silence of the night toward the
mighty high road which must speak eternally of Napoleon and his genius.
*CHAPTER XXVI*
*AT THE HOSPICE*
It was three in the morning when Bajazet turned into the yard of the
Hotel de Ville at Domo d'Ossola and ordered a sleepy ostler to prepare
horses for Brigue.
In summer the place would have been wide awake enough even at such an
hour, for the summer would have found it alive with motorists about to
cross the pass according to the regulations which forbid them to travel
at the height of the day. But being the month of February, the town was
as silent as the grave when the carriage drove in, and even the ostler
could be discovered with difficulty. When twenty questions had recalled
his understanding, he remembered that an Englishman had set out for
Brigue yesterday, but had no idea who he was. His description, however,
answered to that of Luton Delayne, and Benny quickly came to the
conclusion that the baronet had persisted in his madness, and had
returned to Switzerland upon an impulse no one else might pretend to
understand.
And yet, was it so difficult to be understood? Luton Delayne knew the
best and the worst that life had in store for him. Of all his fortune,
good or ill, fortune of character and of possessions, there remained to
him but the supreme desire to seek out the woman who had been his wife,
and to throw himself upon her pity. Desperately, and with almost a
child's trust, he had come to believe that she would save him. The
unanswered letter, the hours of loneliness by the lakeside, the
alternations of hope and despair, so drove him at the last, that,
flinging all reason to the winds, he determined to go to her and hear
the worst. And he had set off immediately when the abbe sent him a
warning message. What mattered it, if he could win a hearing from her?
The good that was in him claimed audience now. He believed that she
would judge him lightly if all were known; and, determined that it
should be known, he drove to Iselle and the pass.
Perhaps Benny guessed something of this when he commanded horses for the
journey to Brigue, and announced his determination to depart
immediately. He understood men in many moods, and could almost
sympathise with this broken man who thus flung down the gauntlet to the
world and did not stop to consider that it might be picked up--not by a
chivalrous enemy, but by the police. For himself, his task was plain,
and events had not changed the trend of it. He would save Luton Delayne
from a public exposure if he could, and would save him for the woman's
sake. What happened afterwards must be as destiny decided. It would be
enough for him that he had done his duty to one who claimed his
friendship, and for whom he would measure no sacrifice.
There was a considerable delay before the carriage could leave the
hotel, and he was glad of the hot coffee which the maids prepared for
him. Early as it was, the great road to the pass now became alive with
peasants coming down into Italy or returning to the Valley of the Rhone.
These seldom travel by the train, and for them the Hospice upon the
summit of the pass is kept open during the winter months. Benny watched
them as they tramped stolidly through the darkness, their eyes set upon
a visionary city, and their faces pinched with the cold. When he spoke
to one of them at the door of the inn yard, an old man whose sister was
ill at Baveno, the veteran told him that there had been a dreadful storm
on the heights last night, and that a bruit of accidents was abroad. He
also spoke of the railway, and of the mishap above Brigue; but that, he
said, had now been put right, and the trains were running as usual. When
he left, with a five-franc piece for his gratuity, he confessed that it
was seldom an Englishman was met upon the pass nowadays--bad luck to all
this craze for railway travelling which robbed so many of their dues.
Benny was pleased at the news about the trains, for it fitted in very
well with the idea which had come to him at the shanty, and had not been
abandoned during the journey. He perceived that all now depended upon
what the gendarme Philip had done--whether the lad had attempted to
reach Italy by the pass, or had waited for the line to Milan to be
reopened. In the former case, nothing could save Luton Delayne from
arrest--or worse. In the latter, it might very well be that the baronet
would reach Sierre, and, having met his wife, would be persuaded to take
the express to Paris. Should that be done, his escape was almost
assured, for the heat of the hue and cry had subsided by this time, and
but for Philip Gaillarde might have been forgotten altogether. The
gendarme, truly, was the key to the whole situation, and Benny was
almost tempted to ring up the abbe at the Hospice and ask if he had news
of him. This, however, would have been a concession to mere curiosity,
and, set upon his purpose of overtaking the baronet if he could, he
entered his carriage about four o'clock and departed immediately for
Brigue.
Many know the Simplon Pass by name, but to few of this generation is it
more than a name. Sometimes, in the history lesson, the boy learns that
the great road was built at Napoleon's command immediately after the
battle of Marengo, and that it took no fewer than six years to
construct. By here and there in an old painting there are pictures of
the Ponto Alto, or, more commonly, of the Gallery of Gondo, with its
wondrous black-mouthed tunnel and arched bridge, and mighty ramparts
uplifted, as it were, to the very heavens. But these things are but
traditions to the flitting tourist, who climbs mountains in a railway
carriage and would have his waterfalls illuminated.
Benny knew nothing of the pass, but insensibly the wonders of it grew
upon him as the day dawned and the fertile valleys of Italy began to
give place to the grandeur and desolation of the heights. What mind had
conceived these things--what hand had planned them? An engineer by
every instinct of his being, he tried to understand the spirit in which
this great work was conceived and the labour which had accomplished it.
And from that he passed to the sheer fascination of it all; of these
frail bridges spanning the very jaws of hell; of the galleries wrought
in the face of the iron rock; of the vast aqueducts bringing black
torrents, and the mighty roofs which defied the thundering avalanche.
By one man's genius this had come to be; the gates had been opened, the
goal attained. And with that man he crossed the pass in spirit, and
lifted his eyes to the stars, and dwelt in the infinite.
Upward and still upward--to what end, to what humour of destiny? Must
all this grandeur of the road melt ultimately to a vulgar truth of life;
must it give place to a man's shame and a woman's tears? He tried to
think that it could not be, and yet the inevitableness of it all seemed
written upon every rock which towered above him. He believed no longer
that Philip Gaillarde had gone down into Italy. The lad, he thought,
would be advised by others, and all that had been done at the villa
would be well known to the authorities. Possibly, and this was to be
reckoned with, Philip had himself gone up to the Hospice and would there
meet the baronet face to face. And if he did so it might well be that a
new page in this sordid tragedy would be written that very day. Benny
would not dwell upon this, but he encouraged Bajazet with new promises,
while that good fellow urged on his horses with wild cries and a great
cracking of his whip, which echoed in the hills like a pistol shot.