"And those?"
"We will follow Grocz at a distance. Soon after he has entered the
castle we will arrive with a message from Bela Kun, probably
something to do with the hanging of this old man. Once inside our
wits must do the rest."
There was a silence, broken eventually by Arnold.
"Geoffrey, why did you not warn me it was you who were the guard that
night when we rescued the Count Bakocz? When I felt my pistol butt
sink into your flesh I could have gasped with horror. God! It must
have hurt you."
"Not as much as it did you. You scarcely bruised the skin."
"Even so, was there anyone else near by, save the Count, that we had
to act so realistically?"
"No."
"Then--why?" he asked desperately.
"Two men only have seen the White Knight, Arnold. You are one, Apor
is the other. My very plans centre on the secrecy which surrounds
me. I fear even the gratitude of those I rescue. I trust no
one--but you."
"And I--I am a poor help to you, Geoffrey. Yours is the brain, I am
but the muscle. Still, I am more than satisfied. All my life I
shall thank God that I came across you that--that day. If I never
prove of further use to the world I shall rest satisfied that I have,
even in such a small way, helped to alleviate the lot of an unhappy
nation, to counteract the ghastly ravages of the handful of murderers
who govern the country.
"When we were at school together, you and I, Geoffrey, when we used
to outvie one another to see who could be the most daring, I am sure
neither of us ever dreamed that ten years later we should be here, in
Hungary, doing what we are. You were always the leader, though, even
in those days. I could never equal you, for strength, for
daring--for anything."
"Yet, Arnold, if I was the leader, I had more than an able
lieutenant, even as I have to-day. Schooldays! They were long ago!
They were happy days, those. I have changed. You haven't, Arnold.
You are older, a trifle more solemn, but you have still that rugged,
unbendable spirit of loyalty. The Spanish Inquisition would not have
persuaded you to betray a friend, Arnold."
Arnold flushed. He was not used to praise of this kind from his
leader, and, embarrassed, he changed the subject.
"Once inside the castle, Geoffrey--are you not afraid of being
trapped?"
"Trapped!" Scornfully Wenzel derided the suggestion. "Am I so
brainless that I cannot hope to blind the eyes of the unintelligent
spawn? Are my arms too weak to throttle a few of the accursed swine?
No, Arnold, I have no fear on that score."
"What of a rifle bullet? Neither brains nor brawn, Geoffrey, can
successfully withstand the flight of a cartridge."
For the first time that day Wenzel smiled. "Then shall I be glad,
Arnold. Don't you realize that death is all I seek? What is life to
me now? Hell! Hell, from morning till night. My thoughts torture
me when I--I think of--Zita, poor little Zita dying from the shock of
seeing her father bayoneted to death by--by the muckrake of the
earth, the spewed-out refuse of the lowest type of humanity. God!
All I wish is to kill, kill; murder the brutes as they murdered Zita."
So redly did his scars throb with the intensity of his passion that
it seemed to Arnold they might burst with the pressure. Wenzel may
have guessed his thoughts, for he laughed harshly, hideously.
"God was still not satisfied with all He had done to me. No, there
was more to come, Arnold, more to come. First He took away my Zita,
killed my heart, chilled my soul, and then, when I wanted to die that
I might join her, when I murdered six bloody Bolsheviks and gave
myself up that I might perish by their bullets, what queer prank did
He play then?
"Let me be put up against the wall, let the Communists fire, let
every bullet strike me here and here--here--here--so that I fell, and
was left for dead, and yet--what then? Let me live, live that I
might gaze in the mirror at myself and hate my own face as I hate the
Bolsheviks, detest myself as I would the Devil.
"Do you think I am blind that I cannot see the hellish scars which
score my face and head from side to side? God! I wish I couldn't.
It hurts so, it hurts so."
No longer were his eyes expressionless. Once Arnold had looked into
the eyes of a dog, his body flattened beneath the tyres of a
motor-car, and what he saw then remained with him as a memory for
years. Once again he saw the pictured story of unbearable pain, and
this time it was in Geoffrey's eyes.
If his body were on earth, his soul was in the deepest depths of
Hell. If he lived it was only to look for death, the death which was
preferable to life.
The train rumbled on, and Comrade Grocz impatiently waited for the
journey to finish.
* * * * * *
By the time Grocz reached the castle it was practically pitch dark.
Eugene, the ex-coachman, met him at the gate.
"Back again, comrade?"
"Yes, back again, my friend, with good news."