_"Why, This Is Treason!"_
There was a gasp. The audience sat frozen. On the stage, with no one
lifting a hand to stop her, the crimson murderess made a leap and
vanished. A moment, and then the spell broke. A girl in the audience
screamed. Some one moved to stand up and overturned a seat with a crash.
The amphitheater under the canopy broke into a pandemonium. Screams and
shouts, crashing of seats, screaming, frightened people struggling to
get out of the darkness. The torches on the stage were dropped and
extinguished. The darkness leaped upon us.
Derek and I were gripping Hope. We were struck by a bench flung backward
from in front. People were rushing at us. We were swept along in the
panic of the crowd.
I heard Derek shout, "We must keep together!"
We fought, but we were swept backward. We found ourselves outside the
canopy. Torchlight was here. It glimmered on the pool of water. People
were everywhere rushing past us, some one way, some another. Aimless,
with the shock of terror upon them. Under the canopy they were still
screaming.
I was momentarily separated from Derek and Hope. I very nearly stumbled
into the pool. A girl was here, crouched on the stone bank. Her wet
crimson veils clung to her white body. Her long, wet hair lay on her. I
stumbled against her. She raised her face. Eyes, wide with terror. Mute,
painted red lips....
I heard Derek calling again, "Charlie!" I shoved my way back to him. The
crowd was thinning out around us. Girls were climbing from the pool,
rushing off in terror, to mingle with the milling throng. Among the
crowd now, down by the edge of the bay, I saw the sinister figures of
men come running. The toilers, miraculously appearing everywhere! I saw,
across the pool, a terrified girl crouching. A huge man in a black cloak
came leaping. The colored lights in the trees glittered on his upraised
knife blade as it descended. The girl fell with a shuddering scream. The
murderer turned and whirled away into the crowd.
"Charlie!"
I was back with Derek and Hope. Hope stood trembling, with her hand
pressed against her mouth. Derek gripped me.
"That cloak, get it off!" He ripped his crimson cloak from him and
tossed it away. He jerked mine off. "Too dangerous! That's the crimson
badge of death to-night."
We stood revealed in the clothes of our own world. My business suit, in
which that day I had worked in Wall Street. Derek in his swagger
uniform. He stood drawn to his full height, a powerful figure. The wires
of our mechanism showed at his wrists. They dangled at the back of his
neck, mounting to that strangely fashioned electrode clamped to his
head. Strange, awe-inspiring figure of a man!
We were momentarily alone under the colored lights of the trees. Hope
murmured, "But they will see us--see you...."
Derek's face was grim, but at her words he laughed harshly. "See us!
What matter?" He swung on me. "It forces our hand; we've got to come out
in the open now! This murder--this king! My God, what a fool to let
himself get into such a condition as this! His people--this chaos--what
a fool!"
He had drawn his dirk. I realized that I was holding mine. Near us the
body of a crimson noble was lying under a tree. A sword was there on the
ground. Derek sprang for it, waved it aloft.
I think that no more than a minute or two had passed since the murder.
Down by the water the boats were hastily loading and leaving the dock.
One of them overturned. There were screams everywhere. Red forms lay
inert upon the ground where they had been trampled, or stabbed. But the
prowling figures of the toilers now seemed to have vanished.
Derek gestured. "Look at the palace! The garden!"
Beyond the canopy I could see the dim gardens surrounding the palace. I
glimpsed the high fence, and the gateway in front. A mob of toilers was
there. The guard at the gate had fled. The mob was surging through. Men
and women in the vivid garments of the fields, armed with sticks and
clubs and stones and the implements of agriculture. They milled at the
gate; rushed through; scattered over the garden. Their shouts floated
back to us in a blended murmur.
We were standing only a dozen feet from the edge of the pavilion. No one
seemed yet to have noticed us. A few straggling lights had come on under
the canopy. I could see the dead lying there in the wreckage of
overturned seats.
Derek said, "We can't help it--it's done. Look at them! They're
attacking the palace!"
This mob springing miraculously into existence! I realized that the
toilers had planned that if Sensua were chosen they would attack the
festival. The murder of Blanca had come as big a surprise to them as to
us....
"Come on! Can you get into the palace, Hope? The king must have gotten
back there. Get your wits, girl!" Derek stood gripping her, shaking her.
"Yea, there's an underground passage. He probably went that way."
From the palace gardens the shouts of the mob sounded louder now. And
from within the building there was an alarm bell tumultuously clanging.
Hope gasped, "This way."
She led us back into the pavilion. We clambered over its broken seats,
past its grewsome huddled figures. Some were still moving.... We went to
a small door under the platform. A dim room was here, deserted now.
Against the wall was a large wardrobe closet; stage costumes were
hanging in it. The closet was fully twenty feet deep. We pushed our way
through the hanging garments. Hope fumbled at the blank board wall in
the rear. Her groping fingers found a secret panel. A door swung aside
and a rush of dank cool air came at us. The dark outlines of a tunnel
stretched ahead.
"In, Charlie!"
I crouched and stepped through the door. Hope closed it behind us. The
tunnel passage was black, but soon we began to see its vague outlines.
Derek, sword in hand, led us. I clutched my dirk. We went perhaps five
hundred feet. Down at first, then up again. I figured we were under the
palace gardens now, as the tunnel was winding to the left. There were
occasional small lights.
Derek whispered to Hope, "The toilers don't know of this?"
"No."
"Where does it bring us out?" I whispered.
"Into the lower floor of the castle. The king must have gone this way.
There might be a guard, Derek. What will you do?"
He laughed. "I can handle this mob. Disperse it! You'll see! And handle
the king." He laughed again grimly. "There is no Blanca to choose now."
The tunnel went round a sharp angle and began steeply ascending. Derek
stopped.
"How much further, Hope?"
"Not far," she whispered.
We crept forward. The tunnel was more like a small corridor now. Beyond
Derek's crouching figure, in the dimness I could see a doorway. Derek
turned and gestured to us to keep back. A palace guard was standing
there. His pike went up.
"Who are you?"
"A friend."
But the man lunged with his pike. Derek leaped aside. His sword flashed;
the flat of it struck the fellow in the face. Derek, with incredible
swiftness, was upon him. They went down together and before the man
could shout, Derek had struck him on the head with the sword hilt. The
guard lay motionless. Derek climbed up as we ran forward to join him.
I noticed now, for the first time, that in his left hand Derek held a
small metal cylinder. A weapon, strange to me, which he had brought with
him. He had not mentioned it. He had produced it, when menaced by this
guard. Then he evidently decided not to use it.
He shoved it back in his pocket. He whirled on us, panting. "Hurry!
Close that door!"
We closed the door of the tunnel.
"Charlie, help me move him!"
We dragged the prostrate figure of the unconscious guard aside into a
shadow of the wall. We were in a lower room of the palace. It seemed
momentarily unoccupied. Overhead we could hear the footsteps of running
people. A confusion in the palace, and outside in the garden the shouts
of the menacing throng of toilers. And above it all, the wild clanging
of the alarm bell from the palace tower.
Derek said swiftly, "Get us to the king!"
Hope led us through the castle corridors, and up a flight of steps to
the main floor. The rooms here were thronged with terrified
people--crimson nobles in their bedraggled finery of the festival. In
all the chaos no one seemed to notice us.
We mounted another staircase. We found a vacant room; through its
windows we looked a moment, gazing into the garden. It was jammed with a
menacing mob, which milled about, leaderless, waving crude weapons,
shouting imprecations at the palace. At the foot of the main steps the
throng stood packed, but none dared to mount. A group of the palace
guards stood on the platform over the moat.
Derek turned away impatiently. "Let's get to the king."
We mounted to the upper story. The castle occupants stared at Derek and
me as we passed them. A group of girls at the head of the staircase fled
before us.
"The king," Derek demanded, "Which is his apartment? Hurry, Hope, we've
no time now!"
We found the frightened king seated on a couch with his counsellors
around him. It was a small room in this top story of the castle, with
long windows to the floor. I saw that they gave onto a balcony which
overlooked the gardens. There were perhaps twenty or thirty people
huddled in the room. A confusion existed here as everywhere else--no one
knowing what to do in this crisis. And that cursed alarm bell wildly
adding to the turmoil. We paused at the doorway.
"Now," whispered Derek. He drew himself to his full height. His eyes
were flashing. It was a Derek I had not seen before; he wore an air of
mastery. As though he, and not the frightened, trembling monarch on the
couch, were master here. And as I stared at him that instant in this
primitive chaotic environment, the power of him swept me. A conqueror.
The strange electrode clamped to his head gave him an aspect miraculous,
awe inspiring.
He strode forward across the apartment. The king was just giving some
futile, vague command to be transmitted to his guards down below. A hush
fell over the room at our appearance. The king half stood up, then sank
back.
"Why--why--who--"
I saw Rohbar here. His long crimson cloak hung from his shoulders, with
its hood thrown back. Beneath it, as it parted in front, his leather
uniform was visible. A sword was strapped to his waist. He was striding
back and forth with folded arms, frowning, but his gaze was very keen.
Rohbar was not frightened. He seemed rather to be gauging the situation,
pondering how he might turn it to his own ends. He stopped short and
swung about to face us. His jaw dropped with surprise, amazement, at our
strangeness.
Derek confronted him. His bulk, and huge weight towered even over Derek.
The king gasped and sat helplessly staring.
Rohbar spoke first. "Who are you?"
"This mob must be dispersed. Don't stand looking at me like that, man!"
Derek spoke in friendly fashion, but vehemently. "This is no time for
explanations."
They were menacing each other. Rohbar's heavy hand fell to his sword,
but Derek boldly pushed him away. He faced the king.
"Your Majesty...."
The king stared blankly at him. The title was no doubt strange to this
realm, but no stranger than Derek's aspect.
"Your Majesty...."
But the noise from the garden, the confusion which now broke out in the
room, and that damnable clattering bell, drowned his words.
The king found his voice. "Be quiet, all of you!" He was on his feet. He
demanded of Derek again, "Who are you?"
Derek said swiftly, "I'll show you. I can disperse this mob! Charlie,
come."
It seemed as though the gaze of everyone in the room went to me. I drew
myself up and flashed defiance back at them. And I followed Derek to one
of the balcony windows. He went through it, with me after him. I stood
at the threshold, watchful of the room behind us. Rohbar was standing
aside, and I saw now the woman Sensua with him. They were whispering,
staring at me and Derek.
I had been wondering why, when Sensua must have known that the king
would choose her--why she had dared to murder her rival. I thought
now--as I saw her with Rohbar--that I could guess the reason. She loved
Rohbar, not the king. Rohbar was plotting to put himself on the throne,
using Sensua as a lover to that end. He had doubtless persuaded her to
this murder, knowing it would arouse the toilers, precipitate this chaos
which was what he wanted. Scheming scoundrel! I could not forget the
look of desire on his face as he had accosted Hope....
And now Derek appeared, to add an unknown element to Rohbar's plans.
There was no way he could guess who or what we were. I saw that he was
puzzled, was whispering to Sensua about us, doubtless wondering how to
handle us.
I saw too, that there were half a dozen crimson cloaked men here who
were not frightened. They had gathered in a group. They stood with hands
upon their swords, eyeing me, and watching Rohbar--as though at a sign
from him they would rush me.
On the balcony Derek stood with the light from the room upon him. The
crowd saw him. The main gateway of the palace was just under his
balcony. The crowd had now started up the steps to where the guards were
standing at the top. At the sight of Derek the mob let out a roar, and
those on the steps retreated down again.
Derek stood at the balcony rail, silent, with upraised arms, gazing down
upon the menacing throng. There was a moment of startled silence as he
appeared. Then the shout broke out louder than before. The crowd was
milling and pushing, but still leaderless. An aimless activity. Someone
threw a stone. It came hurtling up. It missed Derek and struck the
castle wall, falling almost at my feet.
Derek did not move. He stood calmly gazing down; stood like an orator
waiting for the confusion to die before he would speak.
From the platform, just beneath Derek, the guards were staring
wonderingly up, awed, startled. To the right a wing of the building
turned an angle. The castle tower was there: it rose perhaps a hundred
feet higher than our balcony. On the railed platform-balcony girding its
top I saw the figures of other guards standing, gazing down at Derek.
The clanging bell up there was suddenly stilled.
I became aware of the king close behind me. His voice rang out: "What
are you doing? How dare you?"
Derek whirled, "You fool! To what a pass you have come! Your people in
arms against you...."
His violent words brought the king's anger. "How dare you! This is
treason!"
I stood alert, with my hand upon my dirk.
There would be conflict here, I felt that we could not hold it off more
than a moment longer. My mind leaped to that metal cylinder Derek had
concealed. A weapon? Then why did he not have it out now? His eyes were
flashing. The aspect of power, of confidence, upon him was unmistakable.
It heartened me. I took a step toward him.
He smiled faintly. "Wait, Charlie."
The king gasped again. "How dare you? Why, this is treason! Rohbar,
seize him!"
Hope was beside me, her eyes watching the room. Rohbar came striding
forward. Derek rasped, "You perhaps have some sense! Lead His Majesty
away. Take care of him until this is over."
They stood with crossing glances. And upon Rohbar's face a look, queerly
sinister, had come. A smile, sardonic.
He said abruptly to the king, "I think we should let him have his way.
What harm?"
He gestured and Sensua came forward. The crimson murderess! Her
voluptuous figure was shrouded in a crimson cloak. Her heavy painted
lips smiled at the King. Her rounded white arms went over his shoulders.
"Leonto, do as Rohbar says. Let this stranger try. It can do no harm."
The king yielded to her; I watched as she and Rohbar urged him through
an archway that gave into the adjoining apartment.
No wonder Rohbar was sardonically smiling! Derek had played into his
hand. We did not know it then, but we were soon to find it out.