Surrounded by trees and haughtily succumbing to decay, an ancient
mansion, colonial in style, stands half-way between the shore of Long
Island Sound and the old post-road to Boston, not many miles from Harlem
Bridge. On the most brilliant day it is a gloomy, ghostly-looking
structure, and the weed-choked grounds surrounding the house add to the
unattractiveness of a spot that was once pleasing to the eye and noted
for the elegance of the hospitality dispensed by those who made the old
brick homestead a cheery place to visit. The house is built on a generous
plan. A wide piazza, supporting white Corinthian columns, faces the lawn.
At the back of the house, jutting out from the second story, is a large
balcony commanding a magnificent view of the Sound. Inside the structure
wide halls, enormous drawing-rooms, a stately dining-apartment, and,
upstairs, a labyrinth of airy sleeping-rooms, prove that their former
occupants were fond of luxury. The furniture has fallen to pieces, the
hangings are worn and dusty, and the partially dismantled house seems
to breathe a protest in every nook and corner against the negligence
that has allowed its former glories to lose their lustre beneath the
iconoclastic hand of time.
It was an especially dreary place at the moment at which it demands our
attention. Surrounded by a high wall, nothing can be seen of the house
from the main road but its sloping roof and the gable windows beneath
it. At the side of the large gateway that makes an entrance for the
carriage-path leading up to the mansion is a small cottage that serves as
a modest lodging for the Rexanian, Rudolph Smolenski, in whose charge the
Strongs’ homestead had been placed some years previous to the opening of
this story.
It is one o’clock in the morning. The day has made a tempestuous
entrance. Lightning flashes across the waters of the Sound, and deep
peals of thunder make the ground tremble with their force. The rain,
after long delay, has come at last, and beats down upon the mansion
and the lodge as though it would wash them clean of all relics of the
past. It leaks through cracks that time has made, and adds to the moist
discomfort of rooms that are never wholly dry. But there are unwonted
signs of cheer in the mansion and at the lodge. There are gleams of
moving lights that meet the storm as it beats against the shuttered
windows of the old house, and a steady ray defeats the darkness in front
of the decaying lodge.
Let us enter the smaller structure first. Two men are seated at a table
in the front room on the ground floor. An oil lamp dimly illuminates the
barely furnished apartment and casts weird shadows across the uncarpeted
floor. One of these men we have met before. It is the impetuous little
Ludovics, whose patriotism is as indiscreet as it is enthusiastic. His
bright beady eyes gleam in the half light: his thin face is flushed,
partially from excitement, but in a larger degree from the brandy he has
drunk.
His companion is Rudolph, the lodge-keeper, a flabby-faced, thickset man,
with heavy features and the look of one who enjoys soft places and hard
liquor. They are bending forward, listening.
“It’s queer they don’t come,” Rudolph remarked, musingly. “I hear no
sound of wheels. Here, man, have another drop to keep you awake.” He
filled Ludovics’ glass from the bottle, and then replenished his own.
Rudolph drank like one who needs renewed vigor, Ludovics like a man
trying to quench the fires of impatience.
“I hope,” said the latter, looking searchingly at Rudolph, “that they
haven’t got too much of this stuff up at the house.”
“Only one bottle, this size,” answered Rudolph, fingering the bottle
lovingly. “One quart won’t do much harm among five men. And they’ll need
it, I tell you. That old house takes water like a sponge on a night like
this. I’ve done what I could to make it comfortable for you all, but I
wasn’t prepared for a flood like this.”
“Hark,” cried Ludovics nervously, turning an ear to the window: “I
thought I heard wheels.”
“They’re in your head, Ludovics,” remarked Rudolph, jocosely. He had
picked up a good deal of slang from the Westchester urchins who haunted
the lodge gate. “Come, light a cigar. In a storm like this it’s a hard
drive after they leave the bridge. I don’t expect them for an hour yet.”
They puffed in silence for a time. Finally Ludovics said, with
suppressed excitement in his voice:
“Rudolph, you’re a man of sense, and you love the cause. Do you realize
the full significance of this night’s work?”
The lodge-keeper turned his puffy, pallid face full toward his guest and
eyed him keenly.
“No, Ludovics; and nobody does. It’ll probably cost me my job.”
Ludovics waved his hand impatiently.
“I don’t mean that. If we are cautious, I don’t see how you can get into
trouble. What I mean is this: we are to have the whole political future
of our fatherland, the fate of dear old Rexania, right here in our grasp.
No power on earth can despoil us of our absolute grip upon a nation’s
destiny so long as the crown prince is within our control. It is an awful
responsibility that comes to us to-night, Rudolph.”
The speaker glanced searchingly at his companion. He would have given
a great deal to know how much of an impression he was making on the
phlegmatic Rexanian, who continued to drink brandy without growing one
whit more demonstrative. Finally Rudolph said, as a tremendous crash of
thunder died away in bounding echoes across the Sound:
“What are you driving at, Ludovics? Can’t you leave the brunt of the
business to Posadowski?”
The excitable little Rexanian controlled his agitation with an effort.
“He’s so damned conservative, Rudolph!” he cried. “I believe he thinks
he can persuade Prince Carlo to abdicate, even if the king does not die
while his heir-apparent is cooped up here.” Then he jumped from his
chair and strode nervously up and down the room. “It’s all nonsense!
Trying to compromise with a monarchy is like giving your wife your purse:
you get the leather back and she keeps the money. Rudolph,”—and here
the little man stood still and glanced piercingly at his companion—“no
monarchy in Europe can be turned into a republic unless somebody,
somewhere, uses heroic measures.”
The lodge-keeper smiled cautiously.
“Don’t you call kidnapping a traveller in this part of the world using
heroic measures?”
Ludovics flushed angrily. “Only fools,” he cried, “use heroic measures
that are not quite heroic enough. Don’t be stupid, Rudolph. You
understand me. Pish! how I hate half-baked patriots! We’d have won our
fight ten years ago, if we hadn’t had among us men who didn’t dare take
advantage of the power they had grasped. The Rexanian republic must
never be lost again because we revolutionists aren’t equal to the crisis
that confronts us. Do you think,” he cried, again standing in front of
Rudolph and gesticulating wildly, “do you think I care for my liberty
or my life if I can do something that will give my country freedom? I
hate all kings, Rudolph. Who dare say to me that a king deserves mercy
at my hands? Did not a king kill my father and banish me from the land
of my birth? Did not a king seize my patrimony and leave me a pauper,
an outcast, a man without a country and without a hope? Mercy? I would
sooner give meat to a dog that bit my shins than grant life to a king
whose breast was at my dagger’s end. Do you know me now, Rudolph? Do you
read my heart? I tell you, man, the night outside is not blacker than my
soul when I think of kings. Kings! Kings! They say God made them! Then,
by God, the devil shall destroy them. Give me more brandy, Rudolph.
The storm is working in my blood! Ha, but that was a glorious flash!
The sky’s own fireworks light the coming of our prince to our little
dove-cot.”
A wild crash of thunder seemed to applaud the madman’s words.
“Keep quiet,” cried Rudolph, jumping up and placing his fat, yellowish
hand on Ludovics’ arm. “I hear the sound of wheels. Yes, yes, man, I am
right. They are here.”
A carriage stopped outside, and a blow that echoed through the cottage
fell on the iron gate that blocked the roadway.