The Prince had pitched forward with his head in Santa's lap. His hands
were clawing at her gown. As he struggled, he stiffened and slid back,
till he lay across her feet, grinning up at her. The Captain, his
revolver still smoking in his hand, threw himself to his knees, feeling
for his victim's heart. He spoke dully.
“The dream of Monarchy is ended.”
The quietness was broken by a distant clamor. Momentarily it gathered
volume and drew nearer.
Throughout the Palace, which had seemed so wrapt in sleep, feet
were running. From the Palace-yard rose the clatter of arms and the
impatience of orders being shouted. On the door of the chamber an
importunate tapping had commenced.
Hindwood looked up in the midst of freeing Santa. “They'll beat in the
panels. Find out what they want.”
The Captain dragged himself to the door which he did not dare to open. A
rapid exchange of Hungarian followed. As Santa tottered to her feet with
the last cord severed, the Captain tiptoed back.
“Escape by the passage. The shot was heard. They insist on seeing Prince
Rogovich.”
“To be butchered in the streets! I guess not.” Hindwood shook his head.
“Escape does not lie in that direction. They shall see _him_. In ten
minutes. At the window. Tell them.”
The Captain stood aghast, pointing down at the glazing eyes of the man
he had murdered. “They can't.”
“I say they can.”
The answer was delivered. The tapping ceased abruptly.
“Hang on to your nerves.” Hindwood crouched above the body, dragging it
into a sitting posture. “We've exactly ten minutes to make it look like
a man who hopes to become an emperor. The peace of the world may depend
on it.” He turned to the Captain. “You who were his bodyguard, how would
he have dressed if his ambition had been granted?”
Too pale for speech, the Captain moved towards a chest; with trembling
hands he drew forth a purple robe, ermine-lined and gold-woven with
mythical beasts of heraldry. Dipping deeper, he laid beside it a scepter
and an iron crown of twisted laurels.
Hindwood smiled grimly. “So the scene had been rehearsed! How do these
things go? You must help me put them on him.”
When the Prince had been arrayed, “Now the throne,” he ordered. “It'll
take the three of us to move it.”
The gilded throne had been hauled from its alcove, so as to face the
window. The dead man, in the tinsel of his dreams, had been seated on
it. He was bound, to prevent him from lolling--bound with the cords with
which he himself had secured Santa. His gold-encrusted robe was spread
about him. Across his knees, with his right hand resting on it, was the
scepter. On his head was the iron crown of laurels.
“The lamps! Place them at his feet. Switch on all the lights, then
vanish.”
The curtains were flung back. A dazzling shaft pierced the outer
darkness. There was a breathless silence as of worship; a superstitious
rustling; a deafening acclamation, which echoed and roared about the
Palace-yard.
[Illustration: 0338]
It continued unabated for a full five minutes. It sagged and sank. Again
it mounted. Then it paused expectant. It was for all the world like a
triumph at the opera, when a singer only bows and an encore is demanded.
It recommenced. This time there was a note of anger.
The dead man grinned down at the applauding mob. He gave no sign to
these men, prepared to die for him. Slowly it seemed to dawn on them
that he did not care--that he had never cared for their wounds and
hunger; that for men of his sort they were only beasts; that it made no
difference whether they were conquered or victorious; he would sit there
as all the kings and emperors before him, secure and immobile, sneering
at their sacrifices and coining their sufferings into profit.
They found contempt in his vacant stare; cruelty in his marble hands
that clutched the scepter. Gesticulating and cursing, they hurled
reproaches at him. They trampled the officers who tried to quell them.
Shots were exchanged. Pandemonium was commencing.
Hindwood consulted his watch. It lacked but a few minutes till two
o'clock. If he could hold the garrison in confusion, Varensky would have
time to seize his chance.
He turned to the Captain behind the curtain where they watched. “What is
it they want?”
“It was some acknowledgment at first; then a speech; now it's bread.
Can't you hear them, 'Bread! Bread! Or we do not march.'”
At that moment the hammering on the outer door re-started. Hindwood
seized the Captain's arm. “You must speak to them; they wouldn't
understand me. You're in uniform. There's Santa. If you don't all is
lost.”
“What shall I tell them?”
“Anything. Speak to them as the mouthpiece of Prince Rogovich. Say
there's food in the freight-yards--two train-loads of it--and more
arriving; that soon the warehouses of Budapest will be bulging.”
The Captain stepped forward, an heroic figure. Just as he appeared in
the oblong of the window--whether it was the sight of his uniform that
provoked the storm was not certain--a volley of bullets shattered the
glass. He clapped his hand to his forehead. There was a second volley.
The room was plunged in darkness. Hindwood darted forward. The pounding
on the outer-door grew frantic. In the Palace-yard there was the silence
of horror.
Released by the knife of flying lead, the body of the Prince had doubled
forward, as though to peer down at the man who had betrayed him. The
Captain was beyond all help.
As Hindwood leapt back in search of Santa, the door went down with a
crash. In a second the darkness was filled to overflowing--halberdiers,
Palace servants, wild-eyed officials. In the confusion he caught her
hand and escaped unnoticed through the pressing throng. As they hurried
through salons hung with priceless treasures, looting had started. The
first of the mob were ruthlessly at work. At the foot of the marble
staircase he glanced at his watch. “It's exactly two o'clock,” he
murmured.
V
They had passed beneath the gateway where sentries should have
challenged. Their posts were deserted. As they struck the road,
descending beneath the ramparts, Santa questioned, “Why did you say,
'It's exactly two o'clock'?”
“Because of a note I sent Varensky.” He changed the subject. “How were
you captured?”
She hesitated. “It was after we'd quarreled. I was afraid I'd lost you.
A messenger arrived, saying you were with the Governor and wanted me. It
was a lie; the person who wanted me was Prince Rogovich.”
“Then Lajos betrayed you?”
“No. He knew nothing of what happened on the _Ryndam_. He was infatuated
with me and must have talked.” She clutched his arm. “You're putting me
off. You said so strangely, 'It's exactly two o'clock.' What was in your
note to Varensky?” For answer he halted and pointed.
Far below in the gulf of blackness, where a moment ago there had seemed
to be nothing, life had begun to quicken. In the flash of multitudinous
street-lamps, a city was being born. It kindled in vivid strokes, like
veins of fire etched on the pavement of the night. As though an artist
were completing his design, ten thousand windows opened their pin-point
eyes, filling in blank spaces with rapid specks of gold. Seen from such
a height, the effect was in miniature. The very sounds which rose up
were little. At first they were no more than a sustained humming, as
when a hive is about to swarm. They swelled to a melodious muttering.
Then, with a rush of ecstasy, the storm of joy broke; the air pulsated
with the maddening clash of chimes.
She was clinging to him. “What is it? Is it the thing for which we've
hoped?”
He glanced back across his shoulder at the huge pile, towering on the
rock above him. Those madmen up there, destroying and pillaging, had
they time to hear it? The Palace was glowing like a furnace. As he
watched, a column of flame shot tall towards the sky.
Seizing her hand, he broke into a run, making all the haste he could
down the steep decline. Behind them the flames crept like serpents,
licking the clouds and mounting higher. The heat was like the breath of
a pursuer. Night had become vivid as day. There was no concealment. The
crest of the ramparts was a gigantic torch. The Danube far below was
stained red as wine. Their very shadows were lurid. And still the bells
across the river pealed out their joy.
There was a galloping. Riderless horses, broken loose from the stables,
thundered by. Then an automobile, driven by a man with a seared and
wounded face. Others followed. The crowd on foot, fleeing from its
handiwork, was not far behind. As an empty car, with an officer at the
wheel, slowed down at a hairpin bend, Santa and he leapt aboard.
The danger was outdistanced. They had crossed the Danube. They were
scarcely likely now to be implicated in what had happened to Prince
Rogo-vich. But they were still at the mercy of their reckless driver. In
his panic he had not once looked around; he was unaware that he carried
passengers. Hindwood knew very clearly where he wanted to go; it was
probably the last place to which he would be taken. The streets of Pest
near the river were solitary, but somewhere the mob was gathering. It
might prove awkward to be found in the company of a uniformed Monarchist
who was escaping.
Having formulated his plan, he whispered it to Santa. “While I tackle
him, you grasp the wheel.” Leaning forward, he flung his arm about
the man's neck, jerking him backwards. The car swerved and mounted the
pavement. Santa turned it into the road again. Taken by surprise, the
man offered small resistance; the struggle was short. Hindwood toppled
him out, climbed into the front seat and took his place.
“The station. Where is it?” he asked breathlessly. She glanced at
him with a revival of her old suspicion. “We're not leaving. Why the
station?” He could have laughed. “Still the old, distrustful Santa!
Little fool--the food-trains.”
The first streets which they traversed were deserted; yet lamps were
lighted and the air was clamorous with belfry-music. As they drew
further into the city, they shot past groups and isolated individuals,
crawling in the same direction. For the most part they were the kind of
persons Santa had offered to show him that morning--people in rags or
entirely stark, who hobbled from weakness or dragged themselves on all
fours like dogs. It was as though the dead were rising from their graves
to follow the Pied Piper of the Resurrection.
They came to a square, where soldiers had been concentrated. Their
packs and rifles littered the open space; the soldiers themselves had
vanished.
The traffic grew dense. It was all on foot. Hind-wood turned to Santa,
“We shall make better time if we leave the car.”
As they mingled with the crowd, he had a nightmare sensation of
unreality. He had never rubbed shoulders with so many human beings
so nearly naked. They themselves seemed to regard their conditions as
normal. It was he who was odd. Their legs were mere poles; their arms
laths. Their heads were misshapen like deflated footballs. With panting
persistence they padded forward, too frail to be anything but orderly.
The air was full of an earthy fragrance. Their bodies were clammy to the
touch. He could push them aside like shadows. The hair was brittle as
withered moss.
It was the fashionable quarter of Budapest. Great arc-lights shone down
on this flowing river of gray flesh. Behind plate-glass windows
luxuries were displayed for the temptation of the bargain-snatching
foreigner--feathers and furs, jewels and laces. Past them, with eyes
enfevered by starvation, stole the noiseless populace. There was a woman
whose sole clothing was a rag about her neck; she continued to live in
Hindwood's imagination long after the sight of her was gone. And still,
with thunderous merriment, the bells above the city pealed on.
At a turn they came to the station. Further progress was blocked.
Exerting his strength against the weakness of the mob, Hindwood edged
his way forward. When he could go no farther, he swung round on Santa.
“Tell them that I own the food-trains and that I'm going to get them
bread.”
She had no sooner uttered her translation than a lane was cleared. As
he passed, he was aware that parched lips stooped to kiss his hands,
his garments, the very ground that he trod. He shuddered. The indecent
self-abasement of such necessity inflamed his indignation. Ahead a
cordon was drawn across the road. It was composed of Russian refugees.
He recognized them by their baggy blouses and by the short-haired women
of the Battalions of Death. From the tail of a wagon an orator was
speechifying. His head was peaked like a dunce's cap. Beside him stood a
woman, white as a lily with hair the color of raw gold.
Hindwood caught Santa's arm. “For heaven's sake, what's he saying?”
“What he always says on such occasions. He's preaching his gospel of
non-resistance and promising to die for them.”
“Who cares for whom he dies, when bellies are empty and bodies are
naked? Tell them I'll clothe them and give them bread.”
As she translated what he had said, a cry went up which drowned
Varensky. He found himself in the open space, clambering up to the wagon
and dragging Santa up beside him. There was a deep silence.
“Tell them,” he commanded, “that starvation is ended. I'll feed them
on one condition: that they refuse to fight. Tell them I'll drive the
Russian menace back without a single shot being fired. Tell them that
I promise, on my honor as an American, to feed them all. Though
food-trains are exhausted to-night, more will arrive to-morrow. More and
more.”
He paused, blinded with emotion at sight of the forest of thin hands
strained up to him. Shooting out his fist tremendously, he threatened.
“And tell them that I won't feed a jack one of them, if there's another
man, woman or child slaughtered, or a hint of rioting.”