SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS
The four burly men sat down upon the chests, Von Blitz alone being
visible to the watchers. They were fagged to the last extreme.
"Dis is der last," panted Von Blitz, blowing hard and stretching his big
arms. The guttural German tones were highly accentuated by the effort
required in speaking. His three helpers said nothing in reply. For fully
five minutes the quartette sat silent, collecting their strength for the
next trip with the chests. Again it was Von Blitz who spoke. He had been
staring savagely at the floor for several minutes, brooding deeply.
"I fix him," he growled. "His time vill come, by tarn! I let him know he
can't take my vives avay mit him. Der dog! I fix him some day purdy
soon. Und dem tarn vimmens! Dem tarn hyenas! Dey run avay mit him, eh?
Ach, Gott, if I could only put my hands by deir necks yet!"
"Vat for you fret, Yacob?" growled one of the Boers. "You couldn't take
dose vimmens back by Europe mit you. I tink you got goot luck by losing
dem. Misder Chase can't take dem back needer--so, dey go to hell yet.
Don't fret."
"Veil," said Von Blitz, arising. "Come on, boys. Dis is der lasd of dem.
Den ve blow der tarn t'ing up. Grab hold dere, Joost. Up mit it, Jan.
Vat? No?"
"Gott in himmel, Yacob, vait a minutes. My back is proke," protested
Joost stubbornly. Von Blitz swore steadily for a minute, but could not
move the impassive Boers. He began pacing back and forth, growling to
himself. At last he stopped in front of the tired trio.
"Vat for you tink I vant you in on dis, you svine? To set aroundt und
dream? Nobody else knows aboud dis treasures, und ve got it all for
ourselves--ve four und no more, und you say, 'Vat's der hurry?' It's all
ours. Ve divide it oop in der cave mit all der money ve get from der
bank. Vat? Yes? Den, ven der time comes, ve send it all by Australia und
no von is der viser. Der natives von't know und der white peebles von't
be alive to care aboudt it. Ve let it stay hided in der cave undil dis
drouble is all over und den it vill be easy to get it avay from der
island, yoost so quiet. Come on, boys! Don't be lazy!"
"I don't like dot scheme to rob der bank," growled Jan. "If der peeples
get onto us, dey vould cut us to bieces."
"But dey von't get onto us, you fool. Dey vouldn't take it demselves if
it vas handed to dem. Dey're too honest, yes. Vell, don't dey say ve're
honest, too? Vell, vat more you vant? Dey don't know how much money und
rubies dere is in der bank. Ve von't take all of it--und dey von't know
der difference. Ve burn der books. Das is all. Ve get in by der bank
to-night, boys."
"I don't like id," said Joost. "Id's stealing from our freunds, Yacob.
Besides, if der oder heirs should go before der government mit der
story. Vat den?"
"Der oder heirs vill never get der chance, boys. Dey vill die mit der
plague--ha, ha! Sure! Dere von't be no oder heirs. Rasula says it must
be so. Ve can'd vait, boys. It vill be years before der business is
settled. Ve must get vat ve can now and vait for der decision
aftervards. Brodney has wrote to Rasula, saying dat dot Chase feller is
to stay here vedder ve vant him or not. He says Chase is a goot man! By
tarn, it makes me cry to fink of vot he has done by me--dot goot man!"
To the amazement of all, the burly German began to blubber.
"Don't cry, Yacob," cried Joost, coming to his master's side and shaking
him by the shoulder. "You can get oder vives some day--besser as dese,
yes!"
"Joost, I can't help crying--I can't. Ven I t'ink how I got to kill dem
yet! I hates to kill vimmens."
They permitted him to weep and swear for a few minutes. Then, without
offering further consolation, the three foremen made ready to take up
the remaining chests.
"Come on, Yacob," said Jan gruffly.
Von Blitz shook his fist at the door across the chamber and thundered
his final maledictions.
"Sir John says in der letter to Misder Chase dere is a movements on foot
in London to settle der contest out of court," volunteered Joost.
"Sure, but he also say dat ve all may die mit old age before it is over
yet."
"Don't forget der plague!" said Jan.
They groaned mightily as they lifted the heavy chests to their shoulders
and started for the door.
"Close der door, Jan," commanded Von Blitz from the passage. "Ve vill
light der fuse ven ve haf got beyond der first bend. Vat? Look! By tam,
von of you swine has broke der fuse. Vait! Ve vill fix him now."
The door was closed behind them, but the listeners could hear them
repairing the damage that Selim had done to the fuse.
Led by Selim, the four made a rush for the door leading into the
château. They threw it open and passed through, flying as if for their
lives. No one could tell how soon an explosion might bring disaster to
the region; they put distance between them and the powder keg. Selim
paused long enough to drop the bolts and turn the great key with the
lever. At the second turn in the narrow corridor, he overtook Chase and
the scurrying women.
"Is there nothing to be done?" cried the Princess. "Can we not prevent
the explosion? They will cut off our means of escape in that--"
"I know too much about gunpowder, Princess," said Chase drily, "to fool
with it. It's like a mule. It kicks hard. 'Gad, it was hard to stand
there and hear those brutes planning it all and not be able to stop
them."
The Princess was once more at his side; he had clasped her arm to lead
her securely in the wake of Neenah's electric lantern. She came to a
sudden stop.
"And pray, Mr. Chase," she said sharply, as if the thought occurred to
her for the first time, "why _didn't_ you stop them? You had the
advantage. You and Selim could have surprised them--you could have taken
them without a struggle!"
He laughed softly, deprecatingly, not a little impressed by the justice
of her criticism.
"No doubt you consider me a coward," he said ruefully.
"You know that I do not," she protested. "I--I can't understand your
motive, that is all."
"You forget that I am the representative of these very men. I am the
trusted agent of Sir John Brodney, who has refused to supplant me with
another. All this may sound ridiculous to you, when you take my
anomalous position into account. I can't very well represent Sir John
and at the same time make prisoners or corpses of his clients, even
though I am being shielded by their legal foes. I don't mean to say that
I condone the attempt Von Blitz is making to rob his fellow-workmen of
this hidden plate and the plunder in the bank. They are traitors to
their friends and I shall turn them over sooner or later to the people
they are looting. I'll not have Von Blitz saying, even to himself, that
I have not only stolen his wives but have also cast him into the hands
of his philistines. It may sound quixotic to you, but I think that Lord
Deppingham and Mr. Browne will understand my attitude."
"But Von Blitz has sworn to kill you," she expostulated with some heat.
"You are wasting your integrity, I must say, Mr. Chase."
"Would you have me shoot him from ambush?" he demanded.
"Not at all. You could have taken him captive and held him safe until
the time comes for you to leave the island."
"He would not have been my captive in any event. I could do no more than
deliver him into the hands of his enemies. Would that be fair?"
"But he is a thief!"
"No more so than Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme, who unquestionably
cheated the natives out of the very treasure we have seen carried away."
"Admitting all that, Mr. Chase, you still forget that he has stolen
property which now belongs quite as much to Lady Deppingham and Mr.
Browne as it does to the natives."
"Quite true. But I am not a constable nor a thief catcher. I am a
soldier of the defence, not an officer of the Crown at this stage of the
game. To-day I shall contrive to send word to Rasula that Von Blitz has
stolen the treasure chests. Mr. Von Blitz will have a sad time
explaining this little defection to his friends. We must not overlook
the fact that Lady Deppingham and Robert Browne are quite willing to
take everything from the islanders. Everything that Taswell Skaggs and
John Wyckholme possessed in this island belongs to them under the terms
of the will."
They were at the top of the second flight of stairs by this time and
quite a distance from the treasure chamber. His coolness, the absence of
any sign of returning sentiment, was puzzling her sorely. Every vestige
of that emotion which had overwhelmed him during their sweet encounter
was gone, to all appearances: he was as calm and as matter-of-fact as if
she were the merest stranger. She was trying to find the
solution--trying to read the mind of this smiling philosopher. Half an
hour before, she had been carried away, rendered, helpless by the
passion that swayed him; now he spoke and looked as if he had forgotten
the result of his storming. Strangely enough, she was piqued.
When they came into the well-lighted upper corridor he proceeded
ruthlessly to upset all of her harsh calculations. They were now
traversing the mosaic floors of the hall that led to the lower terraces.
He stopped suddenly, stepping directly in front of her. As she drew up
in surprise, he reached down and took both of her hands in his. For the
moment, she was too amazed to oppose this sudden action. She looked up
into his face, many emotions in her own--reproof, wonder, dismay,
hauteur--joy!
"Wait," he said gently. They were quite alone. The stream of daylight
from the distant French windows barely reached to this quiet spot. She
saw the most wonderful light in his grey eyes; her lips parted in quick,
timorous confusion. "I love you. I am sorry for what I did down there. I
couldn't help it--nor could you. Yet I took a cruel advantage of you. I
know what you've been thinking, too. You have been saying to yourself
that I wanted to see how far I could go--don't speak! I know. You are
wrong. I've absolutely worshipped you since those first days in
Thorberg--wildly, hopelessly--day and night. I was afraid of you--yes,
afraid of you because you are a princess. But I've got over all that,
Genevra. You are a woman--a living, real woman with the blood and the
heart and the lips that were made for men to crave. I want to tell you
this, here in the light of day, not in the darkness that hid all the
truth in me except that which you might have felt in my kiss."
"Please, please don't," she said once more, her lip trembling, her eyes
full of the softness that the woman who loves cannot hide. "You shall
not go on! It is wrong!"
"It is not wrong," he cried passionately. "My love is not wrong. I want
you to understand and to believe. I can't hope that you will be my
wife--it's too wildly improbable. You are not for such as I. You are
pledged to a man of your own world--your own exalted world. But listen,
Genevra--see, my eyes call you darling even though my lips dare not---
Genevra, I'd give my soul to hear you say that you will be my wife. You
_do_ understand how it is with me?"
The delicious sense of possession thrilled her; she glowed with the
return of her self-esteem, in the restoration of that quality which
proclaimed her a princess of the blood. She was sure of him now! She was
sure of herself. She had her emotions well in hand. And so, despite the
delicious warmth that swept through her being, she chose to reveal no
sign of it to him.
"I do understand," she said quietly, meeting his gaze with a directness
that hurt him sorely. "And you, too, understand. I could not be your
wife. I am glad yet sorry that you love me, and I am proud to have heard
you say that you want me. But I am a sensible creature, Mr. Chase, and,
being sensible, am therefore selfish. I have seen women of my unhappy
station venture out side of their narrow confines in the search for
life-long joy with men who might have been kings had they not been born
under happier stars--men of the great wide world instead of the
soulless, heartless patch which such as I call a realm. Not one in a
hundred of those women found the happiness they were so sure of grasping
just outside their prison walls. It was not in the blood. We are the
embodiment of convention, the product of tradition. Time has proved in
nearly every instance that we cannot step from the path our prejudices
know. We must marry and live and die in the sphere to which we were
born. It must sound very bald to you, but the fact remains, just the
same. We must go through life unloved and uncherished, bringing princes
into the world, seeing happiness and love just beyond our reach all the
time. We have hearts and we have blood in our veins, as you say, and we
may love, too, but believe me, dear friend, we are bound by chains no
force can break--the chains of prejudice."
She had withdrawn her hands from his; he was standing before her as calm
and unmoved as a statue.
"I understand all of that," he said, a faint smile moving his lips. She
was not expecting such resignation as this.
"I am glad that you--that you understand," she said.
"Just the same," he went on gently, "you love me as I love you. You
kissed me. I could feel love in you then. I can see it in you now.
Perhaps you are right in what you say about not finding happiness
outside the walls, but I doubt it, Genevra. You will marry Prince Karl
in June, and all the rest of your life will be bleak December. You will
never forget this month of March--our month." He paused for a moment to
look deeply into her incredulous eyes. His face writhed in sudden pain.
Then he burst forth with a vehemence that startled her. "My God, I pity
you with all my soul! All your life!"
"Don't pity me!" she cried fiercely. "I cannot endure that!"
"Forgive me! I shouldn't say such things to you. It's as if I were
bullying you,"
"You must not think of me as unhappy--ever. Go on your own way,
Hollingsworth Chase, and forget that you have known me. _You_ will find
happiness with some one else. You have loved before; you can and will
love again. I--- I have never loved before--but perhaps, like you, I
shall love again. You _will_ love again?" she demanded, her lip
trembling with an irresolution she could not control.
"Yes," he said calmly, "I'll love the wife of Karl Brabetz." His eyes
swept hungrily over the golden bronze hair; then he turned away with the
short, hard laugh of the man who scoffs at his own despair. She started
violently; her cheek went red and white and her eyes widened as though
they were looking upon something unpleasant; her thoughts went back to
the naïve prophecy in the treasure chamber.
She followed him slowly to the terrace. He stopped in the doorway and
leisurely drew forth his cigarette case.
"Shall we wait for the explosion?" he asked without a sign of the
emotion that had gone before. She gravely selected a cigarette from the
case which he extended. As he lighted his own, he watched her draw from
her little gold bag a diamond-studded case, half filled. Without a word
of apology, she calmly deposited the cigarette in the case and restored
it to the bottom of the bag.
Then she looked up brightly. "I am not smoking, you see," she said, with
a smile. "I am saving all of these for you when the famine comes."
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, something like incredulity in the smile that
transfigured his face.
"I _could_ be a thrifty housewife, couldn't I?" she asked naïvely.
At that moment, a dull, heavy report, as of distant thunder, came to
their ears. The windows rattled sharply and the earth beneath them
seemed to quiver. Involuntarily she drew nearer to him, casting a glance
of alarm over her shoulder in the direction from which they had come.
"You could, if you had half a chance," he said drily, and then casually
remarked the explosion.