"For a reason, comrade, which you will learn if you will answer my
question first."
"Well, if you must know, the reason we, Szamuelly and me, believe
that this traitor is strong is because he once overcame two of our
brave troops, put in charge of a prisoner, by cracking their heads
together."
Garami grinned unpleasantly. "Supposing I can put you in touch with
a good comrade who isn't afraid of this _bourgeois_, this White
Knight, as he calls himself. Would he be of use to you, comrade?"
Bela Kun thought for a moment. "Would he act as jailer to Count
Bakocz, think you?"
Garami laughed. "He would act as jailer to the Devil himself if it
so be there was good money to be earned."
"Who is this man?"
"Istvan Wenzel."
"Istvan Wenzel!" repeated another member. "Ay, comrade, I know
Istvan Wenzel. A good man, him. As strong as an ox and as ugly as
sin. His face would be enough to frighten this White Knight away, if
it is the man of whom I am thinking."
"You are thinking of the right man," Garami agreed. "Wenzel can pick
up a man in each hand."
"Can you get in touch with him, Garami?" asked the Dictator.
"He lives but three flats below me."
"It is good. Bring him to me to-morrow. If he is all your praises
sing him to be, he ought well to be a match for this dog who writes
me these notes."
The next morning Wenzel accompanied Garami to Bela Kun.
The streets were full of cars in which sat members of the Workers'
Council, Administrators of the Country, or even People's
Commissaries. They, who preached Socialism, Communism, and
Proletarianism, lived in ease and comfort, surrounded with goods,
food, and furniture filched from the _bourgeoisie_.
Meanwhile the people starved, and rode in tramcars of which the glass
was broken or missing. If they were ignorant, uncouth, and wore the
Red cockade, they might be granted a food ticket and be allowed to
pay high prices for the privilege of eating to live.
If they were intellectual, if they lived and worked by the fruit of
their brains, if they were decent-living, moral, and religious, they
were _bourgeoisie_ and could starve. There were no food tickets for
such as they.
So, though the city was gay with the red bunting which hung from
every roof and every window, stretched from house to house, and with
the music played by gipsy bands, beneath it all the people, the real
Hungarian people, like the proud Magyar aristocracy, wept, and the
tears were of blood.
Such thoughts as these did not worry the boisterous Wenzel or the sly
Garami, as they strode along the streets.
"It's good to be alive this morning, with the sun shining, and the
town all gay with flags and colour; what say you, Garami?"
"I am with you, comrade."
"What puzzles me is why the counter-revolution worry their heads
about changing it all. Here we are, governed by ourselves, can help
ourselves to everything we want. What more does anybody want?
That's what I say. What more can one want? Give me a bellyful, and
money in my pockets, and a woman now and again, and you can keep the
rest. That's what I say. Keep the rest."
"Ho, ho!" chortled Garami. "You say that, you, Wenzel? Who took the
best bed from the house at the corner of the Andrassy Ut? Who
brought away the chairs and the sofa and the table from the home of
Pazmany, the Professor? Who drinks his fill of wine, and forces his
way into the theatre? That's what you say?"
Wenzel spat, as a passing automobile whizzed past. "Bah! You talk
like a babbling brook. Come, the mention of wine and food makes me
feel empty. Comrade Bela Kun must make haste. I must eat."
In due course they were shown in to Bela Kun, who eyed the big Wenzel
up and down, and then smiled cunningly.
"You know why I wished to see you?" he questioned.
"Yes, comrade. It's some one you want to guard the Count Bakocz from
being rescued." He stretched out his long arms and opened wide his
huge hand, then slowly clenched his fingers together, and grinned
evilly. "just let me get any of these _bourgeois_ between my two
hands and I'll wring their necks. Curse them!"
"Then you will take the job on?"
"Yes--at a price, comrade."
"You needn't worry about money, Wenzel. The Government pay well
those who are faithful to it." He leaned forward and his eyes
narrowed. "Only see you do not fail, my friend, for otherwise you
will find your own neck in a noose."
Wenzel burst into a bellow of raucous laughter. "I shall not fail.
Don't you worry, comrade. This White Knight has bitten off more than
he can chew. I'm the man you want. That's what I say. It's me you
want."
"So be it." Bela Kun waved them away. "Don't forget, Comrade
Wenzel, don't let him escape. You will hang heavier than the Count
Bakocz!"
* * * * * *
Sunday! The day before the trial of Count Kalman Bakocz for treason.
Trial! It was mockery to call the proceedings which occurred by this
name.
Counter-revolutionaries, enemies of the proletariat; all such who
were caught were imprisoned, and in due course, usually within
twenty-four hours, brought before Korvin-Klein. Trial--judgment
should be the word! There was no opportunity for defence, no
witnesses brought forward for the defendant. Only prosecution and
execution.
In the prisons of Hungary were _bourgeois_ hostages, held by the
Communists against the possibility of hostile demonstrations from the
people who groaned beneath the heel of the Soviet. Cast into prison,
herded, many of them together, into small filthy cells, they barely
subsisted.
Womenfolk were allowed to bring them what food they could obtain.
Baskets, bags, packages of food were handed in at the prison gates by
weeping women, for husbands, brothers, and sons.
The Red guards received the parcels and, when the women had gone, ate
the food themselves and drank the wine. Occasionally, nay, more
often than not, these hostages, these prisoners, died. That night
there would be a stealthy procession to the waterside, and presently
the waters of the Danube would part with a splash, and the body of
the prisoner would float down, to disappear for evermore.
Food would still arrive, relations never hearing the tragedy of their
loved ones, and the jeering Reds would gobble it up. What stories
the grim walls of the Budapest prisons could tell of the Revolution
of 1919, what tales of death and torture!
Count Bakocz was granted a cell to himself. The remorseless Soviet
had determined he should die, and there was to be no mistake. So he
was taken away from fellow-prisoners and thrown into solitary
confinement, to see only the faces of his two jailers, one during the
day, and one during the night.
Always the ghastly, repulsive features of Wenzel haunted him, asleep
and awake. At times he could not sleep. Wenzel was for ever peeping
through the grill, and every time the Communist gave his guttural
laugh, and greeted him with rude, boisterous remarks.
"Well, my friend, still alive I see. Ho, ho! Too bad. Fancy, you
have not been hanged or shot yet! Too bad. I must see what I can do
for you.
"Wouldn't you like to escape, my little chicken? That wouldn't do at
all, for little Wenzel would hang in your place." Then he would spit
through the grill. "Pah! The more you _bourgeois_ hang the better
pleased shall I be, that's what I say."
Three days, or rather three nights, Wenzel had guarded his prisoner,
and still no attempt had been made to rescue the Count. Only Wenzel
laughed; the Workers' Council was becoming nervous, for regularly
each morning Bela Kun received a message from the White Knight.
Whence came the slips of paper he knew not, and once it was not a
message, but a tiny white piece of carved wood--a white knight.
Another time there were two knights, the white one untouched, but the
red carved in two.
This, with the knowledge that his Government was merely resting on
the brink of a volcano, gave Bela Kun no rest. On all sides the
country was likely to be attacked, by Rumanians, by
Czecho-Slovakians, and by Serbs.
His life became harassed, and he in his turn tightened the
thumb-screws on the unfortunate _bourgeoisie_. New laws were made
each day and flashed to every part of the country, there to be put
into force by the local People's Commissaries and the local councils.
"More than two people never to meet together in the street." This,
amazing as it may seem, was actually put into force, and innocent
citizens were unable to stop and chat to friends for fear of
counter-revolution, of plot, and counter-plot. Only Red soldiers
could jest together, or those who wore the Red emblem, or those who
met in Parliament Square to witness the execution of enemies of the
proletariat.
When Wenzel went on duty Garami was there to meet him.
"Ho, Wenzel!" he said, "to-night's the last opportunity to rescue
Count Bakocz. You must keep your eye open--that is, if this
_bourgeois_ really intends to attempt a rescue."
Wenzel struck his chest. "Why worry, you? Do you believe that I
shall let pass anyone? Bah! This is the last night our friend
inside will ever live to see. I must see him fall to-morrow. Ha!
Old skin and bones won't dent the ground overmuch, comrade. That's
what I say."
Garami looked pleased. "Ay, comrade, it was a good thing I did for
every one, was it not, to have you put as jailer here. You will not
forget, eh?"
Wenzel grinned. "I shall not forget, friend. One tenth of what I
make goes to you for the recommendation. Easy money, comrade. And
what if I am offered a bribe?"
"Hush!" Garami looked round, startled, and reaching up he placed his
hand over the other man's mouth. "Canst not keep a still tongue,
chatterer?" He lowered his voice. "A tenth to me, Wenzel, a tenth
to me."
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Wenzel opened his huge throat and roared with
laughter. "And will you share a tenth of the rope, Jew? Give me
less money and less rope, that's what I say. Less money. My neck
needs no gentle bandage, thank you, comrade."
Garami shrugged his shoulders. "I meant nothing," he muttered
between his teeth. "Well, good night, Wenzel. There are soldiers
within call, good Red comrades, who will not hesitate to run a
_bourgeois_ through with bayonets. If there is anything wrong,
shout."
"Yah! Anything wrong! What can be wrong? If anyone comes I will
spit on them and they will run. Good night, comrade. Let no uneasy
dreams disturb you. To-morrow Count Bakocz will--die." His eyes
flashed joyfully, as if he were already watching the life blood
draining away from the victim's body, and his gloating expression
caused Garami to hurry the quicker away.
Ample preparations had been made to guard the prison well. Posted in
different parts of the building were groups of Red soldiers. No one
could enter without the knowledge of the guards, and even if
intruders were successful in this there was still the huge Wenzel to
overcome.
Garami breathed a little easier as he left the prison. He had been
responsible for the appointment of Wenzel, and if anything should go
wrong he was not too sure of his comrades' affability, that he would
not hang side by side with his _protégé_.
That, therefore, was the position at ten o'clock on Sunday night, the
night before the prisoner was to be tried, which was, of course,
synonymous with death. If the White Knight failed the Count would
die.
The hours wore on. The soldiers sang and ate, drank and joked, and
Wenzel sat on his chair, outside the Count's cell, singing too, his
huge voice echoing through the dim corridors so that prisoners in
distant cells could not sleep.
At intervals he would open the grill to shout insults at the hapless
prisoner, picturing the death that would overtake him in the morning,
by all of which the Count remained unmoved.
He knew, just as every one else knew, that on the morrow he would
die, and so he gave his last thoughts to the family left behind at
Balassagyarmat. If a tear rolled down his cheek it was not because
he was afraid of death. His poor Elizabeth, his poor Cecile! Only
the seventeen-year-old Francis to guard and protect them, and such
friends as could creep to them unseen.
What of his family at Balassagyarmat? Since the night Arnold Terhune
had brought the news of the White Knight's oath they had heard
nothing. When Sunday night arrived they did not attempt sleep.
Cecile and Francis joined their mother, and in the darkness they held
hands and comforted one another through the lonely hours.
With anxious hearts, with fear that the White Knight would fail
counter-balancing their hope that he would succeed, could they, by
some miracle, have seen the prison then, at two o'clock in the
morning, they might have flinched with horror, for still nothing had
happened.
The guards still talked and sang, Wenzel still sat on his stool. The
only movement was that of a Red soldier who staggered about with
bottles of wine, liberally dosing the guards with liquor.
From somewhere or other he produced yet more bottles. "Come along,
comrades, some more," he cried, and the guards grinned and held out
their mugs.
The soldier served them all. "Let us--let--let us drink a toast," he
called out, "l-let us drink to the Revolution."
"Ay, ay," answered the men, and they drank deeply.
"Must take some to the others," muttered the proposer, and he
staggered away.
The noisy rowdyism gradually died away as the potent wine took
effect. The drink must have been stronger than usual, for the Reds
found their heads nodding--nodding.... Ten minutes later every man
was sound asleep, and when the soldier returned who had, in his
generosity, visited the other guards all through the prison, and
served out drink to toast the Revolution, he chuckled, and
straightened up.
"Drunken swine," he muttered. It was Arnold Terhune.
The first part of his task completed, there was now the hardest part
to perform.
With noiseless steps he traversed the corridors going in the
direction of Count Bakocz's cell. At the actual corridor he came to
a halt and listened. Round the corner he could hear the heavy
breathing of Wenzel, who now seemed quieter.
With scarcely a movement Terhune leaned forward till he could see
what was happening, and his heart leaped with joy as he noticed that
Wenzel, though seated with his back to the cell, was just slightly
turned away from him.
If he could but creep along without being seen or heard he hoped to
succeed in getting near enough to use a chloroform pad which he had
ready. He determined to try.
Squeezing his back against the wall, and moving with the utmost
caution, he turned the corner. If Wenzel should glance only just
slightly round now, he would be seen. Breathing a prayer that Wenzel
would not move he advanced slowly forward.
Four feet, three feet, two feet. Another few paces and he could jump
and catch the unconscious Wenzel unprepared, but at that moment
Wenzel turned.
For a second or two Terhune seemed paralysed with astonishment, until
Wenzel gave a roar, and would have jumped for him, but the Englishman
was infinitesimally quicker, and even as Wenzel commenced to move he
had quickly advanced the extra pace and with a dull thud brought a
revolver butt down upon Wenzel's defenceless head, and the jailer
collapsed with a groan.
Terhune worked with nightmare haste. From his pocket he produced a
key, a duplicate of the original, and before Count Bakocz was even
aware of what was happening, had opened the cell-door and was pulling
the bewildered aristocrat away.
Terhune had not bargained on Wenzel's strength. No sooner had the
echoing footsteps of the two men faded away in the distance than
Wenzel raised his ponderous frame from the floor and stumblingly
commenced the pursuit, blood pouring down his face and blinding his
eyes.
Whatever drug it was with which Terhune had doctored the guards'
wine, it could not have been a very powerful one, for even as the two
men rushed past several of the guards sat up, rubbing their eyes in
bewilderment, and by the time Wenzel was on the scene they were all
sitting up from the positions into which they had fallen.
The sight of Wenzel, his face and clothes covered in blood, rushing
into their midst, was their first intimation that anything was wrong.
"Dogs! Beasts!" furiously shouted Wenzel. "The prisoner has
escaped!"
There was a dramatic silence while the stupefied guards gazed at one
another, and observing this, Wenzel gabbled with rage. "Fools,
dolts, idiots! follow them! follow me!" and rushing past them,
kicking them as he went, he led the pursuit, and the guards,
realizing at last what had happened, rushed pell-mell after him.
Wenzel was outside, staring up and down the street.
"Which way?" the guards cried, but Wenzel shook his head helplessly.
Some distance away two shadows darted across the dark street, but one
of the guards saw. "That way, look!" he called; and the guards set
off in a ragged group, Wenzel leading them.
Here and there against an occasional light they saw twin shadows
fleeing from them, one stumbling and falling, the other pulling.
Gradually Wenzel and the guards caught up. Another moment and the
two who were pursued would have been caught, but seeing this, they
parted company, one to fall helplessly to the ground, where he lay
without moving, and the other to speed still quicker away, till he
was lost from sight.
Wenzel struck a match. The fallen one, his face smothered in the mud
of the road, was the Count.
"Ho, ho, comrades!" hoarsely cried out Wenzel in triumph, "back to
the jail with him. Get up!" he ordered, and kicked the man at his
feet, but the Count did not move. "Fainted. Pah! the chicken.
Come, friends, carry him back. I hope they will lash him for this."
The guards dragged the helpless man along the streets, till inside
the prison they let him fall, and there he lay, cold and stiff.
Suddenly Wenzel gave a cry, and with his already filthy handkerchief
wiped away the mud from the face of the prisoner, and having done so
gazed with stupefaction at what he saw.
It was not Count Bakocz who lay there, but a two or three days' old
corpse of another man, dressed in the Count's clothes.
The White Knight had won again.
_CHAPTER IV_
Because of the rigid censorship not one of the Budapest newspapers
hinted at the escape of Count Bakocz; yet the news was passed on from
mouth to mouth, was repeated and commented upon, until it finally
percolated into the uttermost environs of the city. Disclaimed by
the risen scum, in their requisitioned mansions, acclaimed in the
sanctuaries of the refugees; by the first it was furtively believed
but outwardly denied, and by the second inwardly discredited but
optimistically confirmed.
At the Supreme Soviet Council, in permanent session at the Hapsburg
Palace, questions and answers were flung to and fro across the table.
Comrade blamed comrade, and easily aroused suspicions disfigured the
already brutal faces.
Their prey, like a plucked goose, hot and sizzling from the spit, had
been snatched from their watering mouths, and the anger of the rulers
of the nation was unbounded. Their pride was insulted, their
prestige threatened.
They turned their knit and scowling brows toward Szamuelly, who
smiled banefully.
"Peace, comrades! What matters the loss of one chicken from such a
well-filled run? Who misses a single grain of wheat from a bushel?"
"Ho," said Pogany, "but do hens only inhabit the roost? There are
also cocks which crow."
"Yes, and from one grain of wheat may spring many other grains,
remember, Comrade Szamuelly," cried another.
"Quite so, quite so, friends. I agree with you, and that is why I
say--give me my way. Three days' loot and pillage and I swear there
would be no cocks left to crow. Death to the _bourgeoisie_! Hang
the magnates! Let them join the traitor Tisza. What say you,
comrades?"
From several directions came affirmative cries. "Well said,
Szamuelly! three days' sack." "Well said! 'Tis what I say too."
Pleased with the reception of his words Szamuelly continued, his
voice rising higher as the prospect of the sanguinary feast for which
he had long been working seemed appreciably nearer.
"Remember, friends, the world looks upon us as disciples of Russia
to-day, to-morrow we may be leading other countries along the road to
freedom. A glorious millennium is before us, yet there is still work
to be done and done well. We have enemies working against us. Any
moment may see a counter-revolution commencing. We must strike now,
kill these pestilent rebels, and plant fear into the hearts of the
waverers. As, in the past, we have been ruled by the whip, so now
must we govern with a rod of iron. Kill, kill! Let the red blood
spurting from the corpses of the _bourgeoisie_ carry its own
message." He laughed. "There will be many who will be pleased to
join our ranks afterwards."
He sat down, the big hall resounding with feverish applause, and only
the chosen of Lenin, Bela Kun, President of the Council, remained
silent. His hate for his superiors, his lust for power, were not one
whit less than that of his bloodthirsty lieutenant, yet he feared to
say the word which would permit the execution of a measure which
might prove to be the blackest blot in the history of Hungary.
What streak of caution, what strange emotion restrained him, none can
say. Perhaps he feared ghosts of the past, perhaps shadows of the
Hapsburgs, aghast at the sacrilege of this invasion of their sacred
domain, strung together his lips with spiritual threads. Whatever it
may have been bleeding Budapest was spared; the ravenous wolves
contented themselves with spasmodic raids and petty pilfery.
"Not yet, Comrade Szamuelly. The time is not yet. You must wait.
Perhaps one day in the future----"
Szamuelly laughed scornfully. "Wait! Have we not waited all our
lives for the emancipation of the workmen? Have we not planned and
plotted to gather the reins of government into our own hands, to rid
the country of the accursed gentry, the proud aristocracy? Are we
all afraid?" He spread his arms dramatically.
From one came a growl. It was the sullen Pogany, the Minister for
War. "Hold hard, Szamuelly! be careful whom you accuse of cowardice.
Yet I agree with Bela Kun. 'Tis better to wait. We must be
recognized as a government by the Entente that the world may know
Communism is come to stay. Besides, it is possible that we may go
too far----"
Szamuelly jumped up from his chair with a gesture of disgust. "Bah!
A paltry excuse! It is not going far enough which we should fear.
We must crush the dogs under our heels, grind them into the dust,
till their backbones are broken and their brains jellied. It is a
dead man who does not strike one in the back."
It was Kunfi, the ex-journalist, who next interrupted. "Very good,
Szamuelly, but in the meantime--what of the White Knight? Can you
crush his bones so that he rescues no more of the _bourgeoisie_? Can
you hang him in Parliament Square?"
There was a brief silence, and Szamuelly became, once again, the
centre of interest.
"If the rope does not break, comrades," he boasted.
Bela Kun smiled softly. "Not so quickly, friend Szamuelly. I have
now sent for one Wenzel who claimed to be a better man than the White
Knight, and yet--I am afraid Comrade Wenzel must hang. At any moment
now he may arrive, and you shall hear, before he dies, how he fared."
"In the meantime----?"
"We will discuss affairs of State. For instance, I am informed by
Comrade Agoston that there are treasures still untouched in the
Castle Gisella. We ought to teach its occupants the meaning of the
word Communism. What say you, friends?"
"Ay, ay." The confirmation was unanimous.
Before anyone could speak again there was an interruption. The doors
of the council chamber swung open and an officer of the Red Army
entered.
"Well!" Annoyed by the intrusion, Bela Kun turned to the man, who
stood there, unshaven, dirty, and utterly disreputable. Once he had
been a refractory private; but on the strength of a long record of
disciplinary breaches and subsequent punishment he was considered
worthy of a better rank in the proletarian army.
"Comrade Wenzel has disappeared."