"What I say, my friend, that I was here last night, and thanks to her
ladyship"--his tone was hard--"arrested in mistake for the White
Knight."
"You--arrested in mistake--but----" Then it was true, and the White
Knight was not in prison. But, in that case, where was the White
Knight?
Elizabeth could have spoken in joy, but Arnold stopped her. He
mistrusted the man. It almost seemed as if there were a trap
somewhere. He felt suddenly afraid.
"I do not know what you say," he said coolly. "This lady has never
met the White Knight in all her life."
The man yawned. "You said that very well, but--it isn't really the
truth, is it, Arnold?" And then Arnold knew that despite the
evidence of his eyes the man who sat on the bed really was the White
Knight.
_CHAPTER XIX_
The faint light from the guttering candle was barely sufficient to
illuminate the tiny kitchen, for a draught blew in through a broken
window, twisting and flicking the flame from side to side. Yet,
despite the shadows, there was no mistaking the figure of the man who
sat at the table, his head buried in his outstretched arms, his
shoulders shaking with emotion.
Through the cracked window watched the White Knight, and the pathos
of the scene hurt him, the silent grief, the loneliness of the
cottage, the very solitude of the man--a sorrow shared is a sorrow
halved, and yet there seemed no one to help carry the burden of the
unhappy man within.
Szamuelly in his Death Train had come and gone--the White Knight had
missed him by an hour--and somehow Wenzel could not doubt that the
anguish he now witnessed was a direct result of that flying visit.
He moved round to the door, and gently twisting the handle pushed and
entered.
The man at the table glanced up, and the White Knight saw that his
face was twisted with pain.
Dully he looked Wenzel up and down. "What do you want?" he asked
tonelessly.
"A word or two with you," Wenzel replied.
Immersed in the depths of his own thoughts, the man did not
understand. "What do want?" he asked for the second time.
Tragedy tinged the air, and Wenzel felt its influence. "A few words,
comrade," he said quietly. "I shall not keep you long."
After a time his meaning seemed to sink into the man's consciousness,
for suddenly the corners of his lips puckered downward. "Go away,
friend. I talk to no one to-night."
Wenzel did not move. "Yet I would ask you to listen. Tell me one
thing--when I looked through the window I saw your shoulders shaking;
your eyes seem red with weeping. A man does not give way without
good cause. Tell me your sorrow."
The man's eyes glittered, and he half rose from his seat. "What the
Hell does it matter to you? Get out!" he muttered savagely. "Leave
me to myself." But from the look of desperation in his eyes Wenzel
divined his purpose.
"No, my friend, not until I have spoken with you. You must not kill
yourself. It is not God's will."
"God!" The man sneered. "There is no God, or if there is He has
forgotten Hungary. Who are you to talk to me of God? Have you had a
son butchered to death before your very eyes? Have you heard your
son crying for death, shrieking with pain?--God, the murderous
hounds! The devils!"
"You mean--Szamuelly?"
For a moment Wenzel regretted mentioning the name, for suddenly the
man's expression changed. Sadness and heartache dissolved from his
face. Instead, his features became distorted by a spasm of
unrelenting hatred. His eyes gleamed wickedly, his lips drew back in
a snarl, exposing his coarse and rotted teeth, while his breath
hissed in the intensity of his feelings.
"Szamuelly! Szamuelly!" He choked. "May his entrails rot in Hell!
May the vampires suck his blood! May God blast his soul! I curse
him, he and all of his, his sons and his sons' sons; his daughters,
his daughters' daughters, and all who may speak to them in
friendship! Curse him, I say! Curse him!" With a sobbing cry the
man's head fell on to his crooked arms.
Wenzel neither spoke nor moved. Gradually the paroxysm passed, then
the man looked up again, tears frankly falling from his eyes, and
dropping, with dismal splashes, upon the rough wooden table.
"The only son left to me here in the village. Pity the grief of an
old man, friend, an old man who, five years ago, had a house full of
healthy sons around him. Six there were--from twelve years of age to
thirty. They were not a marrying sort, so remained with their old
father.
"Six of them, five years ago. Two killed in 1915, one in 1916, and
another in 1917--blast the War! Four sons out of five--and all for
nothing. Have we not lost after all? Is not Hungary beaten,
conquered, ground down? Only one came back to me; he, together with
the youngest and me--we were going to start life anew, but, my God!
the eldest was forced to stop in Budapest and join the railway, to
sweat and toil for Bela Kun.
"I wish to Heaven both he and the youngest had been killed in the
War! Better to die fighting, say I, battling against enemies, than
to--to be tortured to death in front of the eyes of your father by
your own countrymen. Yes, comrade, that is what happened to my
youngest. Just seventeen years of age, and Szamuelly--Szamuelly had
him hanged because he wouldn't wear the Red cockade. He would have
killed me, because I too wouldn't have worn the cursed colour, but
the swine was in a hurry.
"'Tell what I have done to all would-be Whites,' he said, with a
laugh. That's what he said to me, the father of the poor butchered
boy. Oh, Jesus Christ, why have You deserted us in our hour of need?
Why do You not smite these heretics who spit on Your Cross? ... And
now, comrade, what do you want?"
It was as though the old man suddenly recollected that there was
another man present, for he ended with a snarl.
"I want--the help of you and your remaining son, comrade--I am the
White Knight."
The man gazed at him with incredulous eyes, his trembling lips, his
shaking hands testifying to the shock he had received, but, as the
fact filtered into his brain, he dropped suddenly to his knees, and
seizing Wenzel's hand in his own, he kissed it passionately, again
and again, until Wenzel, in embarrassment, withdrew it.
"The White Knight! The White Knight!" With the assistance of the
White Knight the old man shakily rose to his feet and tottered back
to his chair. "God be praised! You, Excellency, you are the man who
has sworn to kill Szamuelly, you, Excellency, are the White Knight,
the Enemy of the Commune, and you need my help, and the help of
my--only son...." He drew himself up and gazed with steadfast eyes
at Wenzel. "God forgive me!" he muttered piously. "God forgive me
for my words. He has not forgotten us.... And now, Excellency?"
His voice finished briskly, and the White Knight knew that he need
fear no betrayal from this man.
"Firstly," he said, "your promise. You must not kill yourself."
The man gazed at him with reproach. "Excellency, I am yours to
command."
"Good! You are a railwayman?"
"Yes, Excellency."
"You are in the telegraph service?"
"Yes, Excellency."
"And your son? I believe he also is in the telegraph department at
the Budapest terminus. Is that not so?"
"Yes, Excellency."
"Good! Your name, my friend, it is Hervesi?"
"Correct, Excellency."
"Now, listen, Hervesi; tell me firstly how you knew that I had sworn
to kill Szamuelly."
"I heard a week ago from my son in Budapest, Excellency. He met a
man named Gunzi, who was searching for the White Knight. 'For why?'
asked my son. 'Because he threatens to kill our great Szamuelly,'
replied this Gunzi. Then my son, so he told me, chuckled inwardly,
and made inquiries about the White Knight, and heard of all your
wonderful deeds, Excellency, so when I saw him three days ago he told
me all."
"Does he hear much news?"
"Plenty, Excellency. He sleeps in the same room as a man named
Nyistor, a labourer who is now Assistant Commissary for Agriculture."
The White Knight smiled. Matters were turning out far better than he
had ever expected.
"What thinks your son, then, Hervesi, of the Commune?"
The railwayman's face twisted into a snarl. "As I, Excellency. He
fought for glorious Hungary, for your country and mine, not for these
filthy Russian murderers."
"Not my country, Hervesi," said Wenzel quietly.
"Not your country, Excellency?" The man looked puzzled. "I do not
understand."
"I am not Hungarian--I am British."
"You--British? Then you are--an enemy!" Instantly Hervesi's face
became suspicious.
"Not an enemy of you or any other honest Hungarian, Hervesi. Only an
enemy of the Commune. I--I was engaged to a Hungarian lady, Hervesi,
but when I got back from the War I found that the Communists
had--killed her, killed her as surely as they killed your son."
"The swine, the swine! So that is why you help us? We Hungarians
never wanted to fight the British, Excellency, but we were the
puppets of German intrigue. Why did England fight us? We were--we
are friends of England."
"England does not forget the fact, Hervesi," but Wenzel said it with
a heavy heart, for even then the Peace Conference was disintegrating
the unhappy country, forgetting all ties of past friendship in the
wild, mad effort to punish the war-makers--and in doing so punished
only the cat's-paws of Germany, while Germany herself---- At that
stage the past was not yet past, and Wenzel hastened to turn the
subject.
"You are a thinker, Hervesi. Good, it is so much the better. But
listen. It is true what your son has told you: I have sworn to kill
Szamuelly. But my task is difficult. In his Death Train he tears
across the country, never remaining in any one place, only just long
enough to kill honest Hungarians, and then he is gone again. I
cannot catch him up. Even to-night I am an hour late, even now
Szamuelly is many miles away from me.
"I must have an ally. Your son can help me. Whenever he can obtain
news of Szamuelly's destination he can wire through to you, so that I
can be there first, and by God's will I can fulfil my oath. Do you
think he will do that for me, Hervesi?"
"Excellency, I answer for him as I answer for myself. Szamuelly must
die," and all unconsciously he uttered the words which for weeks now
had haunted the White Knight.
* * * * * *
The country was stirring; the faint rumblings of discontent were
growing louder and more insistent, the seeds sown by the
counter-revolutionaries were ripening for the crop. The honest
peasants were tired of selling their goods for the worthless paper
money of the Soviet, the workmen were realizing that fifty Soviet
crowns were of little more use than five blue crowns of the old
Austro-Hungarian Bank.
The knell of the Commune was sounding, the tocsin for liberty
ringing, and the people of Hungary were muttering angrily, ominously.
Only in Budapest was the call still unheeded, though not unheard, for
there Bela Kun and his cronies ruled supreme, and people were afraid
to express their feelings for fear of reprisals--revenge which might
come from Cserni, whose red car continually raced the streets of the
city, from Szamuelly with his Death Train, or from the inhuman spider
Korvin-Klein, who sat in his web devouring the virulent as well as
the inoffensive Whites with an impartiality only equalled by his
insatiable appetite.
Away in distant parts the Whites were openly preparing for battle.
The Vends of Western Hungary, forced to flee to Austria, were being
joined by Hungarian officers commanded by Baron Lehar. In Szeged,
where the fuel of counter-revolution burned brightest, a White
Government was being formed, with Nicholas Horthy as Minister of War
and Paul Teleki as Foreign Secretary, while Generals Soos and Gombos
were organizing the White Army.
If the members of the Supreme Soviet Council, kept fully acquainted
with the situation by their numerous spies, were experiencing the
first warnings of their coming doom, under the thrall of the ranting
Bela Kun they hesitated to betray the fact.
With an incredible faith in his waning star, to the Dictator, any
omens of a dark future were hidden by roseate-hued visions of a World
Commune, with himself second only to Lenin or Trotsky. With an
unbounded nerve, of which one could scarcely dream him capable, he
demanded of the Allies the fulfilment of their promise that on the
cessation of hostilities against the Czechs the Tisza should be
evacuated by the Rumanians, for day by day, keeping pace with the
atrocities committed by the Communists upon their own people, the
enemies of Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Serbia, and Rumania, were
advancing on all sides, sometimes repulsed, but more often gaining
the victory over the less organized Red guards.
That Clemenceau, President of the Peace Conference, treated his
message with disdain, ordering that Hungary should observe the
conditions of the Armistice before he would treat with the Soviet
Council, meant nothing to the impudent Dictator, who ironically
replied to Clemenceau that he, Bela Kun, doubted the power of the
President to impose his will upon the Rumanians or the Czechs.
Then, in defiance of the Peace Conference, he issued orders for
mobilization, and upon the walls of Hungary's villages and towns
appeared huge, glaring posters of a sailor's figure, running and
holding aloft a Red flag, which bore the inscription: "FEGYUERBE!"
Ex-soldiers, who for long years had fought the Serbians and Russians,
gazed upon the crude recruiting pictures, read the call "To Arms,"
and realized that fighting must continue, even while their friends
and relations who remained at home were stabbed in the back by the
self-chosen leaders of the nation for whom they would have to fight.
Thus Bela Kun and his satellites failed to heed the writing on the
wall--the passing of the Bavarian Soviet, the miscarriage of the
Austrian Soviet, the failure of the Russian Soviet to come to their
assistance--and laughed at the Allies, at the threatening armies of
the Whites, at the invading hordes of the neighbouring Slavs.
There was only one who really sensed the change--Szamuelly; in an
effort to intimidate the recalcitrants his Death Train tore from one
end of the country to the other, and all the time he hanged,
butchered, murdered, and the trail of corpses he left in his tracks
grew longer and longer.
From Szamuelly and his hangmen the innocent and guilty alike fled in
terror; and the volume of their curses grew louder, till their
reverberating echoes reached the ears of the spies, who in due course
then reported to the fiend himself.
At the constant repetition of the threats he merely laughed: it was
not the individual he feared, but the concerted whole. In his
lightning trips he did not fail to notice the signs of the growing
White menace, and so he said to Bela Kun, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
setting a good example.
Yet his day was to come, and Szamuelly had a hint of it one morning
when he received a letter addressed to him at the Batthyany Palace.
He slit open the envelope. Inside was a plain post card on which
were written six words only:
Szamuelly shall die.
THE WHITE KNIGHT
Szamuelly felt a surge of murderous hate toward the sender, and sent
for Gunzi.
When the detective arrived Szamuelly handed over the card to the
other.
"Look, Comrade Gunzi, look! Here is another message which I have
to-day received through the post."
The detective took and inspected it with a quizzical eye. "He seems
certain of himself," he muttered calmly.
Szamuelly smashed his fist down upon the table before him. "Do you
think I sent for you to hear that?" he shouted furiously, but to the
acute ears of the detective there was an undercurrent of fear in the
voice of the other.
"Well, what do you want of me?" he asked coolly.
"Is there still no trace of the braggart?"
Gunzi shook his head, and his lips tightened. "Not yet, comrade. He
is as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp, yet I shall trace him in the
end. At Aszod, had not Gonnard fled to Budapest, I should have
arrested the White Knight, and by now he would be but a memory."
"Bah, child's talk! Did you not arrest him here, in Budapest itself;
did you not actually imprison him in a cell underneath Parliament
House, and did not you and the fools on the Council let him free
against my advice? I should have hanged that man whether he had been
the White Knight or not."
Gunzi bit his lip. "Who could have foreseen that the White Knight
had such a cunning trick up his sleeve? That day in the Hapsburg
Palace I would have sworn an oath it was not he."
"Even now I do not understand. I cannot get Korvin-Klein to talk.
Was it or was it not the White Knight who appeared before us that
morning?"
"It was. My men trailed him for a time, and then--he disappeared
entirely. They reported to me. I hurried to the room where I had
arrested him the night before and there I found a message from him
thanking me for my help in his escape."
"Yes, yes. All that I know. But what of his scars, the difference
in his expression, in the man himself?"
Gunzi shrugged his shoulders. "The White Knight could most easily
tell you that. Myself, I have only a theory."
"And that?"
"I believe that the White Knight's scars were nothing but
grease-paint. During the night he wiped them off."
"Good God!" Even into Szamuelly's unwilling eyes there crept a glow
of admiration, till suddenly he remembered the message he had just
received, and shivered.
"Gunzi, you must catch him soon. I begin to feel nervous."
"Why should you? You are surrounded by reliable men. I do not think
even the White Knight can pierce through your gang of Terror Boys."
"But the White Knight is uncanny."
Gunzi sneered. "The White Knight is human. He baffled me for a
short time at Aszod, but in the end I got on his track. Give me a
week or two longer and I shall bring him to you, and the next time...
I hope the Council will take your advice, Comrade Szamuelly, and hang
him anyway, right man or not." A spasm of rage convulsed his face.
"God! to think we had the White Knight in our hands and let him go!"
* * * * * *
Hidden in a small copse some hundred yards distant from the track,
two men waited for the Death Train, which was due to thunder toward
them at any moment. From where they were they could just see the red
light which sent out its warning ray from between the iron parallels,
and behind which lay a felled tree.
"Why the red light, Geoffrey, why the warning? Would it not be
better to let the Death Train crash into the obstruction, and so send
it, Szamuelly, and all his hangmen to Hell together?"
"I wish I dared, Arnold, but I am afraid to take the risk. The
time-table is at the best of times irregular. Supposing instead of
the Death Train it were another we wrecked? Suppose an unexpected
express were to come the other way? No, no, Arnold! I must rely
upon this," and he fondly patted the rifle which was stretched out in
front of him, significantly turned in the direction of the barricade.
"Do you think you will get the opportunity--that your courage will
not fail you at the last moment?"
The White Knight laughed softly: "Would you hesitate to kill a rat,
Arnold? To me the life of Szamuelly is less than that of the meanest
rodent. As for the rest, I can only hope that he will not suspect
the truth and cringe into the farthest corner of the coach."
"Will not your constant warnings prepare him for all eventualities?
Tell me, Geoffrey, would not a swift, silent blow be just as
feasible? I do not understand the reason of your repeated messages
to him."
"When should I ever get an opportunity for the swift blow? He is
surrounded night and day. From the very first he has had his men
under an Army discipline, and set guards. No prince threatened by
anarchists has ever been better protected. No, Arnold, do not think
I play for melodramatic effect.
"No will however strong, no courage however deep, is proof in the
long run against the insidious prickings of fear. Threats, if
sustained long enough, are like the dripping of water on the hardest
rock, the succession of footsteps upon the toughest stone.
"Sooner or later his nerve will crack. He will begin to suspect even
his own men, and when suspicion once enters the mind nothing will
drive it out again. When that time comes he will hesitate to sleep
lest during those hours a knife should be plunged into his bosom. He
will fear to eat lest the food should be poisoned. When he reaches
that stage he will flee from the Death Train, from his Terror Boys,
perhaps even from Budapest, and then he will be my prey, and I shall
kill him with more pleasure than I should have in exterminating a
rabid dog."
"That is, of course, if you do not succeed to-night, or at any other
time?"
"To-night is my one opportunity. The trick will not work twice."
"Why not shoot him when he stops at the villages? From a near-by
window..."
"And if I missed? Arnold, I have seen that butcher hang men and
torture children for the mere love of cruelty. He scarcely seeks
excuses for his vile work. What would happen to the villagers if, as
I have said, I missed him? How many would he hang in revenge?"
"I am dull-witted to-night, Geoffrey."
"You are too happy to think of anyone or anything, my dear chap,"
Wenzel said softly; then he sighed. "I envy you, Arnold, but I am
glad, deuced glad! You have earned your reward and Cecile...."
Arnold laughed happily: "I had not meant to say a word to her, but
last night ... you must have noticed the moon, Geoffrey; it seemed to
have a smirk on its face, and when I looked at it, it seemed to wink
at me and then grin derisively. The next thing I knew the words were
out of my mouth, Cecile was in my arms, her lips pressing against
mine.... I wonder why I am telling you all this, Geoffrey? I had
always thought that a man's sensations on such a night were sacred to
himself alone."
In his heart Wenzel agreed, for every word that Arnold uttered flayed
his soul, seared into his heart, and reminded him of another night
when the moon had winked at him in the same way, and a similar
torrent of passionate words had forced themselves from his lips....
Memories! Memories! Was he never going to be free of them?
Memories of Zita! Memories of Elizabeth! His heart cried out in
agony, but his voice was calm when he answered:
"Because your happiness is mine, Arnold." His lips curved ironically
as he wondered dimly whether his lips had ever uttered a greater lie.
There was a short silence, but Arnold was bubbling over with too
great a joy to remain quiet very long.
"Do you know, Geoffrey, this is the first time we have talked
together, alone like this, since the day you walked free from the
hands of the Communists? All this time my curiosity has remained
unappeased. How in the name of God did you deceive them? Your--your
scars, Geoffrey, what happened to them? Why have you avoided the
_château_? Why have you restlessly moved about from place to place,
as though some one forced you ever onwards? Before then I--I had
thought----"
"Stop!" Wenzel heard the fatal words before they were even uttered.
"As my friend, Arnold, do not question me; do not endeavour to awaken
cherished thoughts which must be for ever buried and forgotten."
"Geoffrey, I am sorry! I did not realize. I----"
"Arnold, please!" His voice was weary. "Remember this. I have no
personal feelings left. They are dead, killed in the first case by
the Communists, and then again by----" Just in time he stopped
himself. Another moment and he might have mentioned Elizabeth's
name. "As for the scars... Arnold, I battled with myself for hours
that morning. When I awoke in a cell and realized that the
Communists had me at last, I knew it to be but a matter of hours
before I should be dispatched from this world, but I was not
unprepared. When I first became the White Knight I knew that the
possibility of my being captured eventually was a hundred to one on,
so I took necessary precautions. But for one thing, however, I
should never have made use of them.
"You never suspected my down-at-heel boots as harbouring any means of
escape, did you, Arnold? As a matter of fact, they were not
down-at-heel, for both heels were hollow. Inside were two thick
sticks of grease-paint, Arnold. I rubbed them well into the wounds;
rubbed and rubbed until at last each scar was erased in turn, the
thick grease-paint effectively hiding them. After that I powdered
them well, so that nothing was noticeable except a white pallor over
the whole of my face. Then, on top of it all, dirt; not just a coat
of dust which might wipe off, but thick, ingrained dirt. Have you
ever rubbed dirt into a greasy substance? It was perfectly
effective, as you know."
"Good Lord, it is amazing! Yet--forgive me if I hurt your
feelings--that much I understand; but the wound across your scalp,
your eyebrow, and--and--your twisted cheek?" He choked slightly; it
was hard to mention such things to the White Knight himself.
Wenzel smiled softly to himself. Poor old Arnold! How his words
stumbled!
"I had prepared for all that, Arnold. I had ready a little pad, a
tiny strip of flesh-coloured canvas, on to which was stuck a not
inconsiderable portion of my own hair from another part of the scalp.
Liquid gum, similar to that used in theatrical circles, was more than
sufficient to keep the shaped canvas in its place. Then I dyed my
hair, parted it on the other side--what parting I could induce my
cropped hair to display--brushed the remainder the other way, and
that scar was concealed.
"My eyebrow I treated in exactly the same way. As for my mouth, a
tiny little ivory chip inside did the trick, by pulling and keeping
the flesh more or less as it should be naturally. Incidentally, it
hurt like the Devil, but against that it helped disguise my voice, so
it served a double purpose.
"My changed appearance plus a likely story and a possibility of
leading them on the track of the White Knight earned me my freedom.
I had but one thing to fear--that they would hang me from pure spite,
but--I must be more than a bad penny, for here I am."
Had Arnold been less in a state of profound fascination he might have
detected the bitter tinge which crept into his leader's last words;
even now there was still one question he wished to ask.
"Geoffrey, old man, I have never heard anything more marvellous in
all my life, yet won't you tell me why you hesitated, that morning in
your cell, to make your plans for escape, and what, at the last
moment, made you change your mind?" There was a wistful note in his
voice. In his present happiness he wished all his friends to share
it.
Purposely the White Knight ignored the first part of the question.
"The thought of this moment," Wenzel replied, and again he patted his
rifle. "Szamuelly must die." Suddenly he shot out his hand and
grasped Terhune's arm. "Listen!" he said harshly.
From afar off they heard a faint murmuring, a tremulous, echoing
vibration.
"The Death Train!" whispered Arnold.
Wenzel laughed throatily, and for the first time in weeks there was a
happy timbre in his tone.
The noise of the shrieking monster pounding toward them through the
night grew louder, and some way off its fiery beacon flashed into
view as it rounded a curve. Swaying in its stride it thundered
forward; then with a wild groan, wrung protestingly from it by the
fierce application of the brakes, it slowed up until it came to a
stop, scarcely fifty yards from the warning red light, snorting its
fury into the air.
The immediate neighbourhood of the Death Train was lit up by the
blaze of light from within, and the two watchers were able to see the
hurried exit of several men from the second coach, clambering down to
the ground and running forward into the night.
With a steady hand the White Knight swung round the sight of his
rifle; unwaveringly it pointed to the exit of the first coach, and
there waited....
The men who had rushed forward to investigate returned once again
into the radius of the light. They were gesticulating wildly. A
window swung up, a smooth, purring voice, which the White Knight
believed to be that of Szamuelly, rang out, questioning.
The rifle swung round, pointing significantly toward the man at the
window, but the White Knight was not sure, so he waited. There must
be no mistake that night.
The man withdrew his head from the window. Almost immediately he
emerged from the obscurity of the exit, and the White Knight saw that
he had made no mistake. It was indeed Szamuelly!
Szamuelly was talking excitedly, but he was standing still; the rifle
moved slightly, the White Knight's finger quivered for the fatal
pull, but--the Devil protects his own! At the sight of the
arch-fiend Wenzel's wrath blazed up anew, shaking him in its grip. A
tiny shadow floated before his eyes, the sharp outline of the
Communist against the light became dim and obscure.
Desperately the White Knight realized his prey was moving back into
the coach again, doubtless to sleep while his men moved the
obstruction. Unless he fired now it might be too late. His index
finger tightened. The next moment the air resounded with the
terrifying crash of six explosions; the glass of the coach was
shattered, the bullets ricochetted in every direction, there was a
moan of pain as one of the Terrorists spun round and dropped to the
ground, but--Szamuelly remained upright, unhurt, and untouched. Even
as Wenzel noted the fact he saw the Communist darting for cover.
With a sob in his throat he realized the ghastly truth. He had
failed!
The next moment there was a fusillade from the train, as the
Terrorists snatched their ever-ready revolvers from their holsters
and opened fire in the direction from which the shots had come; but
they did no good, for Wenzel and Terhune were already speeding from
the spot in the automobile by which they had arrived.
"Not yet, Arnold, not yet has Szamuelly's time come." The White
Knight sobbed the words as he drove the car along the pitch-dark
road. "But it will! I swear it will! Szamuelly must die!
Szamuelly shall die!"
_CHAPTER XX_
In the fading days of the Red Terror events succeeded each other with
precipitance. The fury of the people against their bloody leaders
grew more intense, until at length the members of the Soviet began to
tremble in their shoes.
By threats and wholesale murder they endeavoured to squash the
national awakening, but in vain. The starving people could not buy
food, for all the thousands of white Soviet paper crowns they might
flourish: the peasants would not sell their goods for worthless money.
No longer were the Red troops keeping back the Rumanians or the
Czechs; the Peace Conference was awakening to a true realization of
affairs in Budapest.
Now one by one the rats began to leave the sinking ship, and among
the first batch was Gunzi, the astute detective, who knew which side
his bread was buttered.
Well guarded, the shivering Szamuelly called at his apartment one
day, to find Gunzi in the throes of packing up, for he who had come
to Budapest with nothing had already collected enough from what
pickings had been left by the time he arrived there to fill three
large trunks, themselves confiscated in the name of the Soviet
Government.