THE SPY.
“You understand, then,” said Prince Theophanis to Petros, “that I
will take the girl into my service for the present, but that if she is
required as a witness, the police have only to let me know, and the
Princess will see that she is sent down under proper escort to
Therma?”
“The Lady Eirene will hardly thank you for burdening her with such
trash, lord,” said Petros, with the familiarity of old acquaintance;
“but my poor comrade will kiss the _icons_ for you night and morning,
in gratitude for your protection granted to his son. When the matter
has been forgotten, he will obtain pardon from the Lord Romanos, and
come and claim the child.”
“Ah, by the bye, what has happened to Prince Romanos?” asked the man
called Glafko quickly. “He was to join us here at three, and we have
waited nearly two hours.”
“Truly, lord, I know not. I have not seen my master since the early
morning, when I was thrown from my horse while in attendance upon him,
and he graciously excused me from duty for the rest of the day.”
Danaë listened with delight. Petros was a worthy fellow-conspirator,
after all. He was taking pains to round off her story neatly, and
provide against any chance allusion to the fact of his having been
seen out in this direction.
“You pursued the girl all the way from Therma after getting a bad
fall?” said the blue-eyed man. “Truly, you are a stout-hearted fellow,
friend Petros!”
Petros looked down, with admirably simulated confusion. “Perhaps I may
have been glad to get the day to myself, lord,” he admitted. “There
was the promise to my poor comrade--and I could not broach the matter
to my master, lest he should feel compelled to hand over to the police
one whom he would much prefer to protect.”
“Exactly. Prince Romanos knows nothing.” But Danaë detected a mocking
undercurrent in the blue-eyed man’s speech. He was suspicious about
something, she saw, and she wished she had not told that purposeless
lie about the islands. However, since it was told, it must be
maintained.
“If I might venture to offer counsel, it would be that the Lord
Theophanis and the Lord Glafko should ride on to the end of to-day’s
short stage, and wait for the Lord Romanos at the inn,” said Petros
respectfully. “Since he is late, he will doubtless ride fast thither
by the road, but if not, I shall meet him in my return to Therma, and
can tell him where they are.”
“I suppose we can’t do better,” said Prince Theophanis, beckoning to
the guards to bring up the horses.
“Many be your years, friend Petraki!” said Danaë triumphantly,
prudence forgotten for the moment.
“Wait, my lady, only wait!” he responded, with heartfelt warmth. The
blue-eyed man called Glafko was watching them closely, so that no more
was possible.
“Logofet,” said the Prince, as the guards came up, “you had better
walk, and let the girl ride your horse as far as the inn. To-morrow we
can find her a place on one of the mules.”
The man called Logofet obeyed without demur, much to Danaë’s
astonishment, for she had expected nothing better than to trudge
alongside holding a stirrup. The guards were Thracian Emathians, she
knew by their dress and equipment, and she was prepared to regard
them, as Exarchists, as rather worse than ordinary schismatics, but
they seemed to treat women better than the staunch Patriarchists to
whom she was accustomed. She was just making up her prejudiced little
mind that this was due to poorness of spirit, when she was forcibly
undeceived. She had never mounted a horse before--there were none in
Strio--and when Logofet swung her into the saddle, it was with such
unnecessary force that she went over on the other side. Happily his
comrade was there, and caught her.
“Fool!” he growled, as he restored her to her place. “If the Prince
had seen thee----!”
“The devil fly away with the Prince and the girl too!” snarled
Logofet. “If I had known we were to be ruled by women, I would never
have joined thee, Gavril.”
“Peace! thou art a wild savage from the hills,” said Gavril
contemptuously, “and both the Prince and I can do very well without
thee, if the honour of serving him and Glafko is not enough for thee.
There! Glafko looks round. Thou hast delayed us both with thy
foolishness, and we shall not again be chosen to attend the Prince.”
“So much the better!” muttered Logofet, inciting the horse to a
disquieting prance as he led it. “Hold tight, girl! Is it not enough
for thee to be taken to Klaustra, where kitchen-wenches must be
treated like queens, that thou shouldst try to dismount every step of
the way?”
Horribly frightened, and much encumbered by the necessity of holding
Janni firmly on her knee, Danaë did her best to obey, but the horse’s
movements under Logofet’s leading made her perfectly sick with terror,
until she cried out a despairing appeal to be allowed to walk. The
Prince and his brother-in-law turned instantly, and Logofet received a
sharp rebuke, while Gavril was ordered to lead both horses. Thus
relieved, Danaë succeeded in maintaining her position for an hour or
more, until, as dusk was falling, they reached a wayside inn, the
inner courtyard of which was full of horses and mules and guards and
servants. Those of the latter who wore the livery of Prince Romanos
were separating themselves and their beasts from the rest, so that
there was much confusion.
“No sign of him yet, Wylie,” said the Prince to his companion.
“No, but here is a messenger, I imagine,” as one of the Therma
guardsmen swaggered up with a note.
“He says he can’t come--sudden severe personal bereavement,” said the
Prince, after reading it.
“Ah, he’s playing us false, as I expected. Well, let us get rid of his
fellows, and then I will commend Miss Kalliopé Vlasso to the special
care of the landlord’s wife. I mean to keep an eye on that young
lady.”
* * * * * * * *
“What maggot have you got in your head about this luckless girl?”
asked the Prince, when he and his brother-in-law met at supper. They
spoke English, as was usual when they were alone together.
“I presume that even you can see there’s something remarkably fishy
about her. Why did she and friend Petros, after breathing such violent
mutual hostility, fall like lambs into the same story, and back each
other up?”
“Because it was true, I suppose. But I see. You think they were both
in the plot, and that the hostility was only a blind?”
“And very badly carried out. What makes me certain is the girl’s
denying that she comes from the islands. If ever I heard an island
voice, it’s hers.”
“But her ancestors may have come from there.”
“But she has the type of face. Look here, we’ll ask Armitage when he
comes. If he doesn’t say it is an island type----”
“Yes, but if he does, what does it prove?”
“That she and Petros are acquainted, and probably related, in spite of
her strenuous denials.”
“I suppose you mean me to understand that she was an accomplice in the
sister’s murder, and that we are helping her to fly from justice?”
“By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder,” cried Wylie. “No, I hadn’t thought of
that, though it did cross my mind that the philanthropic Petros was in
all probability the murderous husband of the story. We are certainly
introducing a novel element into our home circle.”
“But that’s absurd. We won’t take her with us.”
“What are we to do--leave her here? That’s exactly what I don’t want
to do. You don’t see my point. What will you take that there has been
no murder at all?”
“I don’t see what you mean.”
“Well, listen. I will send a man back to Therma to-night to bring out
the earliest issues of the papers in the morning. If the girl was
concerned in the affair the fact will have come out by this time. By
her account, the thing was public enough. But if there is no murder in
the papers at all?”
“Because it has been hushed up?”
“No, because it never happened. Because the story was ingeniously
contrived to furnish a reason for the girl’s foisting herself on us,
and going with us to Klaustra.”
“But why burden herself with the child?”
“To make it look more natural, I suppose. How can I tell what’s at the
back of their minds? But you can see that Romanos has contrived to
make us introduce of our own accord the spy who is to keep an eye on
us.”
“We send her back with compliments, I suppose?”
“Not a bit of it. We take her home--the little serpent!--and cherish
her in our collective bosom, keeping a sharp look-out as to her
possibilities of stinging. In other words, we’ll put her where she can
see everything--in the nursery, if I can get Zoe to agree--and take
good care that she tells nothing but the truth. The more she lives in
our very midst, the easier it will be to supervise her correspondence
and her comings and goings.”
“I don’t see making things easy for her, Wylie.”
“Why, what harm can she do, provided she tells the truth? We have
nothing to be ashamed of. And surely it’s better to have our spy
labelled, than not to know who could be trusted and who not?”
“Wylie, I don’t like it. The child--it occurs to me--what if there is
some design against your boy?”
Colonel Wylie’s face showed signs of wavering for a moment, then
regained its decisive lines. “Can’t help that, Maurice. If Zoe and I
and Linton can’t look after the child, why, we deserve to lose him. At
any rate, there’s no plan of substitution, for this baby would be a
puny creature beside him. But I’ll warn Zoe, of course, and get her
help in keeping a watch on the girl. We must sift this thing to the
bottom, for it’s all part and parcel of the disloyalty which I am
convinced Romanos is plotting, and which you won’t believe in.”
“And if the papers confirm the girl’s story in the morning?”
“Why shouldn’t he have had the whole thing made up and inserted? No,
perhaps that’s a little too much. I will beg the young woman’s pardon
if it is so.”
But the papers were entirely on Wylie’s side in the morning,
containing not a word of any such tragedy as Danaë had described. On
the other hand, the landlord’s wife beckoned him mysteriously aside,
and expressed it as her opinion that there was something very queer
about that girl who said she was going to Klaustra to wait on the
Princesses. She had cried out in the night so loud as to wake the
servant-girls who slept with her, and one of them who understood Greek
said that her cries were all of knives and blood, and her own share in
some dreadful deed. The others had teased her to tell them about it,
but she refused to say a word, and they were now sending her to
Coventry in consequence. The news was perplexing, for Wylie could
scarcely believe the girl to be such a practised plotter as even to
support her story by the simulation of nightly terrors. In the faint
hope of clearing up the mystery, he tried to take her by surprise.
“Why did you call out in the night that your sister’s death was your
fault, Kalliopé?” he asked her.
The questioning of the girls had prepared Danaë for further
curiosity, and she answered demurely, “Alas, lord! it is true. I
stirred up my sister to scold her husband when he came home drunk, or
she would have received him meekly, and he would not have killed her.”
He was not prepared with further questions, and she retired in mild
triumph, to take her place with Janni on one of the mules. Wylie’s
obvious suspicions put her on her mettle. She was far too clever to
make palpable efforts to disarm them, but set herself to learn all she
could of her new surroundings, that she might provide against further
attempts to take her by surprise. From some of the guards who could
speak Greek she discovered, much to her astonishment, that the
position of the Theophanis family was by no means that of dependants
upon Prince Romanos. They were the recognised rulers of the northern
or Slav portion of the principality, raising troops and administering
justice, though in subjection to the Therma Government. Danaë’s
assertion of their inferior lot was laughed to scorn, and she was
informed, to her great indignation, that the brunt of the struggle for
freedom in the Hagiamavra peninsula, the glory of which she had always
believed to be her brother’s peculiar possession, had been borne by
them. Why they had allowed themselves to be defeated in the
_plébiscite_ that followed, when their followers would gladly have
manipulated the voting in their favour, no one quite knew, but it was
understood that they had weighty and cunning reasons for accepting
temporarily a subordinate place, from which they would emerge as
undisputed masters of the whole of Emathia. Danaë’s heart leaped when
she heard this. To the glory of saving Janni should be added that of
unmasking the plot which threatened her brother’s rule, and she would
return to Therma doubly a deliverer.
Information regarding the family life of her hereditary foes was
equally easy to obtain. Prince Theophanis and the Lord Glafko were
inseparable friends, neither taking any action without consulting the
other. It was shrewdly suspected that this complete unity was not
altogether to the taste of the Lady Eirene, the Prince’s wife. Her
title to represent the Imperial line was equal, if not superior, to
his, and she was believed to advocate a much more energetic policy
than that pursued by her husband and his friend. But much less had
been heard of her views and wishes since the death of her little son
at the time of the apparent collapse of the family fortunes, and the
guards considered that she had learnt to accept the inferior place
proper to a childless woman. Her sister-in-law, the Lady Zoe, ranked
far higher in the estimation of the Emathians, since in the veins of
her son ran the blood not only of the Theophanis Emperors but of their
adored Glafko, whom they handsomely credited with having led them to
victory in Hagiamavra. To Danaë’s ears this feeling supplied only the
crowning proof of the impiety and heresy of the Slavs among the
Emathians. They could welcome a mere ordinary Englishman, schismatic
to the backbone, without one drop of royal blood, as the ancestor of
their future Emperors! Little did they know that the child she held in
her arms could trace his descent through a succession of Despots of
Strio and Venetian Patricians of unbroken Orthodoxy, until---- A chill
seized her as she remembered Janni’s schismatic mother, but after all,
that mother was dead, and the obvious course was to declare that she
had been Orthodox from her youth up.
A new idea for Janni’s future suggested itself to Danaë’s active mind
on the journey. The child had taken a great fancy to Prince
Theophanis, and held out his arms whenever he came near--an invitation
which the bereaved father could never neglect. The jealous pang which
seized Danaë at first soon gave place to approval. If Prince
Theophanis should wish to adopt Janni! The ironical prospect of his
bringing up his rival’s son to supplant himself, and unconsciously
destroying the prospects of his own nephew, gave her the keenest
delight. She spared no pains to deepen the fondness of the man and the
child for each other, but it was impossible to find out whether the
Prince had any such thought as she desired in his mind.
“Ah, lord, take care of him!” she said impulsively one day, as he bent
to lift Janni before him on his horse. “He is greater than he seems.”
A whimsical smile crossed the Prince’s face. “And are you also greater
than you seem, Kalliopé?” he asked her.
“I am only a poor servant-girl, lord. Do not mock me!” she entreated,
covering her very real confusion by a hasty retreat.
“There’s something mighty queer about her, whatever she is,” said
Wylie, looking after her. “If she has been coached in all she says,
the plot is too deep for my poor brain.”
“It was awfully good of the plotters to send us this little chap, at
any rate,” said the Prince. “I wonder whether Eirene could bring
herself to take to him?”
“I don’t know whether she could, but she certainly won’t. No, I beg
your pardon, Maurice; I had no right to say that. When she sees how
fond you are of him----”
“That would make no difference,” said Maurice sharply.
“Well, we can’t tell. Don’t force the idea on her. She may think of it
for herself. I’ll take the little chap and Kalliopé straight to Zoe
when we get in, so that your wife can just come in and see them
casually.”
“Thanks, Wylie. You and Zoe are really frightfully good----”
“Oh, shut up, old man! I thought we agreed long ago that there was to
be no more of that sort of thing. It’s little enough we can do to make
things easier for you--and your wife, and we’re heartily glad to do
it.”
Danaë, unaware of these arrangements, was rather taken aback on her
arrival at the Konak at Klaustra. The place had been the abode of the
Roumi Governor in the days before liberation, and had been adapted to
European use by the erection of a second storey on three sides of the
hollow square of buildings surrounding the paved court. The central
portion, facing the gateway, was evidently the residence of the
Prince, and a lady in black stood at the top of the steps, with a
background of gaily dressed servants. She came forward to welcome her
husband, and bestowed also a greeting--not a specially cordial one--on
Wylie, who saluted in return, and reined his horse round as soon as
Prince and Princess Theophanis had gone indoors. Danaë was preparing
to dismount and follow them, but he told her hastily to stay where she
was, and turned the mule. The buildings on the left-hand side of the
square formed another dwelling, of less pretensions, and here also a
lady was waiting on the steps. Before Wylie could dismount she ran
down to him, and Danaë watched their greeting with curiosity and
interest. The Lady Zoe was not beautiful, nor particularly young, but
she was unaccountably reminded of another couple she would fain have
forgotten--Janni’s mother and Prince Romanos, now sundered for ever
through her instrumentality.
“And where is the autocrat?” inquired Wylie gaily of his wife.
“Just inside. I would not let Linton bring him out here, lest Maurice
should see--and be reminded----”
“Of course. Let’s go in and pay our respects. Oh, by the bye, Zoe,
what do you say to starting an understudy for him? We have picked up
rather a jolly little waif of about his age, and brought him along
with his nurse.”
“Graham! what an extraordinary thing to do! A child that you know
nothing of? Show him to me at once. He looks clean, at any rate,” she
admitted reluctantly, “and he has rather a dear little face. Are you
sure he hasn’t been anywhere where there’s infection?”
“I can only say that he hasn’t come out with anything between Therma
and here. The girl is tremendously careful of him, too, but I don’t
know anything about his surroundings before we got him. It is a queer
business altogether.”
“Lady, my little lord is tired and hungry,” said Danaë piteously, as
Janni’s eyes began to wrinkle up, and his mouth to open, while the
lady addressed as Zoe stood undecided.
“Poor little man! so he is.” She took him into her arms, and the
impending yell collapsed as if by magic. “He shall share Harold’s
supper, at any rate. Come in, nurse. What is your name? Kalliopé?
Have you had charge of him long?”
“Since he was born, my lady,” lied Danaë with her usual hardihood,
resisting the impulse to snatch her darling from the stranger’s arms,
and following meekly up the steps. At the top stood an elderly English
maid holding a child of about Janni’s age, and dark-haired like him,
but more strongly built, and with his father’s deep blue eyes.
“Hasn’t he grown?” demanded the mother ecstatically, as Wylie took the
child, with a kind word to the maid. “He gets more like you every day.
You must see it.”
“Never was such a likeness, sir,” corroborated the nurse dutifully.
“And so knowing, bless his little heart!”
“Here’s a companion for him. Let’s see what they think of one
another,” said Wylie, waiving judiciously the question of likeness.
“Put yours down here, Zoe. Nonsense! why shouldn’t they like it?”
His wife had demurred, and as it proved, with reason, for when the two
children were set face to face upon the divan, their first
acknowledgment of each other’s presence, after one horrified stare,
was a simultaneous yell. Danaë flew to the rescue of her charge, and
the English nurse of hers, and Wylie stood astonished, while his wife
laughed.
“They will make friends over their bread and milk,” she said. “Come,
Kalliopé.”
Mounting the steps to the roof of the original buildings, they reached
the modern rooms, fitted up in English style, which formed the home of
the Wylies. Danaë glanced round with something like awe at the
appointments of the nursery. She had thought Janni’s nursery at the
villa “European” in the extreme, but it had been nothing like this.
Wylie brought in a second high chair from another room, and the two
nurses were speedily engaged in feeding their respective charges with
bread and milk. Very quickly Danaë observed, to her confusion, that
Janni’s table manners were not producing a favourable impression. He
grabbed at the spoon, filled his mouth too full, and choked, to the
great scandal of his neighbour opposite, who commented on his
behaviour obviously, though unintelligibly, in the nurse’s ear.
“There, there, Master Harold! he don’t know no better,” she said
reprovingly, turning to the parents to add admiringly, “Did you ever
see anybody so quick to notice things, ma’am?”