BAFFLED!
There could be no doubt that Cecil had interested Margarita tenderly
and deeply. She had studied him closely; she was acute, and had
gathered, from much he had mentioned incidentally at Palenka, that he
had been unfortunate already in life, young though he was, and that
he had 'a history,' as Mary Montgomerie and Annabelle Erroll had
surmised before.
She guessed that his boyhood and youth had not been quite happy, and
this, more from his reserve concerning them than from confessions
made. She gathered, too, that over his early years no father's love
or protection had been thrown; that he had no brother or sister, but
had possessed a mother on whose memory he doted, and at the mention
of whose name she saw the expression of his eyes soften, and heard at
times his voice grow tremulous; and she loved him all the more for
the little halo of mystery that seemed to surround him.
And she had remarked, with pain, how the rich gloss had left his dark
brown hair, and that there were haggard lines about his eyes and
mouth; and that much of the soldierly _débonnaire_ frankness and
manner in his bearing was gone now.
Empowered by the possession of Tchernaieff's signed permission 'for
the bearer to visit the prisoner,' and encouraged by the absence of
her brother Palenka at the headquarters of General Dochtouroff, she
came again at noon to make final arrangements for his escape and
flight.
'But how to get out of Deligrad?' said he, after their first
greetings were over; and here we may mention that, literally, _grad_
means a fortress in that part of the world.
'That will be my task,' replied Margarita.
'But to fly, like a coward, or a criminal!'
'I wish you could fly like a bird,' said she, playfully. 'Heed not
scruples--what scruples have these people with you? There is no
shame in such a flight. Believe me, Cecil, I do not speak
unadvisedly. If you would be a living man--at the least an
unfettered prisoner, being taken you know not whither,' she
continued, in a voice that suddenly broke, 'you must be out of
Deligrad to-morrow night. Let us not waste time. Listen, and obey
me; I will find the occasion, the means, the guide, a sure means of
escape, if you will but avail yourself of them.'
Did she mean to accompany him in his flight? He half feared so, not
knowing how far the wild impulses of this fair continental might
carry her; but he was not left long in doubt.
'Once clear of Deligrad and the advanced posts,' said she, 'you will
proceed by Banga and Nissa, but that town must be avoided, as it is
fortified with ramparts, palisades, and closely-watched gates; then
by Mustapha-pacha or Glana; but that being a fortress, must be
avoided too; and once beyond Stolo, oh, Cecil, we shall be safe!'
'_We?_'
'I must accompany you to ensure your safety; it is only some fifty
miles; and if my share in your flight is discovered, as it is sure to
be, what will be my fate? Then Bulgaria or cold Britain must be my
abiding-place, after all.'
'_Nous verrons_,' was the dubious response of Cecil, as he took her
hand in his, and her eyes drooped. 'And your plan?' he asked, with
an ill-repressed smile.
'Ottilie--you remember Ottilie; she is a tall girl; and will come
hither about dusk, armed with a pass, and wearing the cap and capote
of a Russian officer. Clad in this costume, you take her place and
pass out; she will give you the parole, when I get it.'
'Leaving her here?'
'Yes.'
'And what will be her punishment?'
'Palenka will save her, I have not the slightest doubt.'
'Could he not, then, save you? Is there no other plan?'
'Listen to me,' she continued, impetuously. 'To give each of the
sentinels a cup of drugged vodka would be easy enough, and doubtless
they would drink them to the last drop. I have seen such things done
on the stage at the theatre in Vienna, and read of such things again
and again in romances; but they would be discovered asleep on their
post, ere you were clear of this--so the disguise is the most perfect
plan, and the darkness will favour it.'
As they spoke their hands were fondly linked for a time--his, in a
spirit of purest gratitude; hers, passionately--there was no
concealing that!
'You will give the parole,' she continued, in a low voice, 'and pass
on to the group of cottages lying yonder in the hollow on the right
of the camp, and there old Theodore will be waiting with horses when
the evening gun is fired. No more; you know all, and now I must be
gone.'
'Farewell, Margarita; to me you are a protecting angel--yet, ere you
go----' he bent down and kissed her, as her face fell on his neck.
'Regard me as a sister,' she faltered: and in a moment more he was
alone, with a confused sense of not having exhibited sufficient
gratitude or regard for one who was risking so much for him.
After she was gone the hours passed slowly, while Cecil remained sunk
in thoughts that were far from being pleasant.
Times there were when he felt sullenly and doggedly resigned to the
inevitable, whatever it might be--to await what fate had in store for
him. His essay in a new country, a new service and field, for
laudable ambition, had proved a miserable and total failure, and life
seemed to have no prize for him now that was worth consideration.
Other times there were when a fierce gust of impatience and
indignation possessed him, and he paced his room like a caged
lion--impatience of coercion and just indignation at the severe
treatment to which he was subjected, the unjust suspicion under which
he lay, and the dangers which menaced him at the hands of the
ignorant, prejudiced, and uninquiring officials at whose mercy he
found himself.
Thus he fell the more readily into Margarita's scheme of seeking
safety in flight, and so ending all connection between himself and
the Servian army.
'Death or Siberia--death or Siberia! What manner of death?' he would
ask of himself; 'a soldier's, surely?'
He felt sometimes, in his over-tension of thought, that peculiar
emotion which many must have experienced--as though he was not
himself, but had two separate identities; and that the old self was
far away from that prison room, before the windows of which the two
Russian sentinels seemed to tread for ever to and fro, with their
bayonets glittering within arm's length of him.
Were misfortune and he to go for ever hand in hand? He deemed that
already he had offered up hostages, bitterly, to evil destiny, when
he was thrust out of his beloved regiment, when he lost Mary, and was
cast, nameless, on the world; and lo! the hand of fate was on him
again, and more heavily than ever.
And ever and anon a gust of rage at Guebhard shook his breast, with a
longing for just vengeance upon him. Guebhard was evidently one of
those strange and pernicious creatures who crop up at rare times in
all phases of society, and have existed in all ages of mankind--one
of a miserable band of men who, according to an essayist, resemble
the lowest animals of creation, and are far more pitiless when their
hate or hunger are raised. 'They are as crafty as they are cruel;
they watch, wait, and see whom they can destroy, and outrage every
feeling dear to the majority of mankind; and to call such men brutes
is to throw scorn upon creatures who may be considered superior to
them in every way.'
Such a man was Mattei Guebhard!
Cecil could punish him, certainly, by carrying off Margarita, and
taking her for ever beyond his reach; but how was he--Cecil--a
fugitive in Bulgaria, without a ducat in his pocket, to subsist
there, and with a beautiful girl on his hands, unless he offered his
sword and his services to Osman Pasha, whose army was ere long to
advance upon Plevna?
Anything--any risk--he thought, was better than utter inaction. The
suspense of his position was intolerable; and it would be easier, he
imagined, when the worst had come, whatever it was, when it was
faced, and all was over for ever!
So the day passed slowly on towards evening; the sounds in the busy
and crowded camp began to lessen and nearly die away; sunset drew
near, and the in-lying pickets were beginning to fall in with
greatcoats and knapsacks, and Cecil looked from time to time towards
the group of white walled cottages, shadowed by dark cypresses, in
the hollow near the camp, where even now, perhaps, old Theodore
awaited him with the horses, and his heart leaped when suddenly the
evening-gun boomed from the earthen rampart on the summit of the
position, and the Servian tricolour came fluttering down the staff as
it was struck for the night.
Steps sounded on the wooden stairs, and a personage entered, clad in
Russian uniform, ushered by the serjeant of the guard. The moment
the latter withdrew, Ottilie, for it was she, divested herself of a
false beard and moustache of grizzled hair, and it seemed strange to
see suddenly the smooth and handsome face, the dark laughing eyes and
pouting lips of the pretty Servian girl.
She wore the deep peak of a flat Russian forage-cap well down over
her face, which was also further hidden by the high fur-collar of a
long regimental grey capote, which reached nearly to the ground, and
in them she proceeded at once to invest Cecil, saying that Theodore
awaited him at the appointed place.
Obedient to the will of her mistress, Ottilie, poor girl, seemed to
have none of her own, and had no fear for herself save in disobeying
the orders of Margarita.
Cecil, even now, lingered in adopting the costume she brought
him--lingered with mingled repugnance and rage at having to adopt
such a _rôle_. Then came an emotion of disgust at a service which
forced such a _rôle_ upon him, mingled with a longing for the freedom
proffered, and so close at hand. Already, in fancy, he seemed to be
in the open air--the free breezy atmosphere, at liberty, and in the
saddle, galloping on and on towards the Bulgarian frontier; already
he seemed to feel the horse under him; to be inhaling the perfume of
night, the fragrance of the pine-forests by the broad-flowing Morava;
but then he thought of the girl whom he was to leave in his place,
and his heart died within him!
She covered her face with her hands, and, while she wept bitterly,
exclaimed, in broken accents:
'Oh, Herr Lieutenant, I have destroyed you! I have forgotten the
pass-word!'
'Perhaps it is as well,' said he, with stern composure; 'but don't
weep, my brave girl, and, hush! cloak yourself again, some one is
coming.'
Steps, voices, and lights were all on the creaking stairs without,
and the guard on the house were now under arms in front of it. Who
were coming? What had caused an alarm? Had the plot of Margarita
been discovered.
'Quick, disguise yourself and begone--you have not a moment to lose,'
exclaimed Cecil, compelling Ottilie to resume her costume and prepare
to withdraw; and it seemed to him that while life lasted, if for
thirty years, as it might do now only for thirty minutes, he would
never forget the memory of those voices and steps on the staircase,
or the glare of light that streamed under the door across the bare
floor of his room.
The idea of resistance, mad and desperate, of shooting down the first
man who entered (for Ottilie had given him pistols), occurred to
Cecil; but only to be relinquished, as he thought of the poor girl
whom he might involve in ruin if he shed blood; and, throwing the
weapons to the other end of the apartment, he drew himself proudly up
to await whatever fate had in store for him now; and he did not doubt
that it was terribly close and finally arranged, when, among the
group who entered, he recognised his former grim visitors, the deputy
minister of police, and the provost-marshal of the camp!