The train back was not due to leave for another hour, so Grocz sat at
the station buffet, surrounded by friends, whiling away the time. It
was good that his old chum Brody came along. There was a tale to
tell, so he told it, and in its recital it lost nothing of the drama.
As the cluster around him grew larger so his voice boomed louder. It
was pleasing to be thus a centre of interest.
All the same he kept his eye on the clock. There was work to be
done. He wanted to see the old man at the end of a rope, his legs
kicking--better still there was Elizabeth....
At last the train puffed out, crowded to double its capacity, as were
all trains in those days, but Grocz saw to it that he had plenty of
room. There was one window seat occupied by an old woman. He thrust
her out of it, and then took her place, stretching his long legs
across to the opposite side. Having settled himself comfortably he
pulled from his pocket a large cigar which had once belonged to Imre
Kiss, and read _The People's Voice_.
Little did he know that in the same train travelled Nemesis, that
among the group of Reds to whom he had boasted of what was to happen
later that night were Arnold Terhune and his mysterious leader, the
White Knight.
They did not speak to one another, the two Englishmen; each had
thoughts of his own. But then it was not safe to talk of anything
but trivialities: for instance, the man in the opposite corner, with
his hawk nose, his cunning eyes, and close-cropped head might have
been a detective.
Dressed in the filthiest of rags, gathered from a garbage heap,
wearing the inevitable Red cockade, behaving like a bully and a
brute, Terhune was not conspicuous in any respect; but the same could
not be said of the White Knight. Towering above many of the tallest
men, Geoffrey Templeton, alias Istvan Wenzel, could not disguise his
height, his rugged strength, nor even his hideous ugliness, from
which even the bestial Reds glanced away in disgust.
With his livid wounds Wenzel was a veritable ogre, an inhuman
monstrosity, terrifying in appearance. There were times when Terhune
turned away his own eyes, retching at the sight of his leader.
The train rumbled on through the environs of the city until it
reached the country, and Terhune, comparing its impressive simplicity
with its tillers and its reapers who composed the occupants of the
carriage, could not arrive at any reconciliation of the situation.
Crowded slum-dwellers, living in filth and grime, rubbing shoulders
with the rich, imbibing the seeds of dissatisfaction, he could well
understand rising in revolution; but where there was beauty and
natural art, fresh air and immense open spaces--there, he felt, the
spread of revolution could only be a disease, a fostered and
malignant growth.
From reason for the creation of internal strife, Arnold's thoughts
passed on to its victims. As always, his memory reverted to the
night when he had first seen Cecile, sitting in the flickering
candlelight by her mother's bedside. He realized that he wanted to
see her again and again after that. Perhaps, one day, when the
Bolshevik Government was overturned, when the country was released
from the grip of the octopus--but that time could only be in the
distant future. He sighed, and, out of the corner of his eye,
glanced at the White Knight.
As usual, Wenzel's face was set in hard lines, his eyes staring
ahead, unblinkingly emotionless. Of what was he thinking? And
Arnold, aware of the tragedy in the life of Geoffrey Templeton, could
well guess.
The train steamed into a local station and the carriage cleared, so
that only Arnold and Wenzel were left, even the cunning-eyed man
taking his departure. Arnold, somewhat suspicious of him, watched
his back disappearing into the exit of the station, and presently
noticed him walking along an adjacent street. He breathed a sigh of
relief, glad to know that to all intents and purposes he had been
mistaken in his assumption of the character of the man.
After a wearisome wait the train continued its journey, and looking
toward the east Arnold saw that the sky was beginning to deepen into
a sombre grey. Farther along the train some one was playing the
_Internationale_ on a violin, and the strains echoed along the
corridor.
Wenzel did not move, but continued to sit mutely awaiting the
journey's end, passively oblivious of anything other than what was
passing through his mind. Arnold chafed at the silence, for now
that, to a certain extent, the necessity for caution was past, his
leader's attitude was uncanny.
"Geoffrey, old man, we are nearly there."
"Well?" Not a muscle of his face moved. Arnold moved across the
carriage so that he sat opposite, hoping that he might read the
expression of Wenzel's eyes, but he was disappointed. Nothing was to
be glimpsed but an impenetrable blank, an expressionless stare.
Arnold wanted to talk. "You have made your plans?" he asked.