IN THE JAWS OF THE TRAP
I sat for some moments in stupefied despair. The fall from hope was so
great and sudden, the revelation of my blind folly so cruel. But this
mood did not last long. Soon I was busy thinking again. Alas, the
matter gave little scope for thought! It was sadly simple. Before the
yacht came back, Mouraki would have it settled once for all, if the
settling of it were left to him. Therefore I could not wait. The
passage might be a trap. True; but the house was a prison, and a
prison whose gate I could not open. I had rather meet my fate in the
struggle of hot effort than wait for it tamely here in my chair. And I
did not think of myself alone; Phroso’s interests also pointed to
action. I could trust Mouraki to allow no harm to come to her. He
prized her life no less than I did. To her, then, the passage
threatened no new danger, while it offered a possible slender chance.
Would she come with me? If she would, it might be that Kortes and I,
or Kortes or I, might by some kind caprice of fortune bring her safe
out of Mouraki’s hands. On the top of these calculations came a calm,
restrained, but intense anger, urging me on to try the issue, hand to
hand and man to man, whispering to me that nothing was impossible, and
that Mouraki bore no charmed life. For by now I was ready, aye, more
than ready, to kill him, if only I could come at him, and I made
nothing of the consequences of his death being laid at my door. So is
prudence burnt up in the bright flame of a man’s rage.
I knew where to find Kortes. He would be keeping his faithful watch
outside his Lady’s room. Mouraki had never raised any objection to
this attendance; to forbid it would have been to throw off the mask
before the moment came, and Mouraki would not be guilty of such
premature disclosure. Moreover the Pasha held the men of Neopalia in
no great respect, and certainly did not think that a single islander
could offer any resistance to his schemes. I went to the foot of the
stairs and called softly to our trusty adherent. He came down to me at
once, and I asked him about Phroso.
‘She is alone in her room, my lord,’ he answered. ‘The Governor has
sent my sister away.’
‘Sent her away! Where to?’
‘To the cottage on the hill,’ said he. ‘I don’t know why; the Governor
spoke to her apart.’
‘I know why,’ said I, and I told him briefly of the crime which had
been done.
‘That man should not live,’ said Kortes. ‘I had no doubt that his
escape was allowed in order that he might be dangerous to you.’
‘Well, he hasn’t done much yet.’
‘No, not yet,’ said Kortes gravely. I am bound to add that he took the
news of Francesca’s death with remarkable coolness. In spite of his
good qualities, Kortes was a thorough Neopalian; it needed much to
perturb him. Besides he was thinking of Phroso only, and the affairs
of everybody else passed unheeded by him. This was very evident when I
asked his opinion as to waiting where we were, or essaying the way
that Mouraki’s suspicious carelessness seemed to leave open to us.
‘Oh, the passage, my lord! Let it be the passage. For you and me the
passage is very dangerous, yet hardly more than here, and the Lady
Phroso has her only chance of escape through the passage.’
‘You think it very dangerous for us?’
‘Possibly one of us will come through,’ he said.
‘And at the other end?’
‘There may be a boat. If there is none, she must try (and we with her,
if we are alive) to steal round to the town, and hide in one of the
houses till a boat can be found,’
‘Mouraki would scour the island.’
‘Yes, but a clear hour or two would be enough if we could get her into
a boat.’
‘But he’d send the gunboat after her.’
‘Yes; but, my lord, am I saying that escape is likely? It is possible
only; and possibly the boat might evade pursuit.’
I had the highest regard for Kortes, but he was not a very cheering
companion for an adventure. Given the same desperate circumstances,
Denny would have been serenely confident of success and valiantly
scornful of our opponent. I heaved a regretful sigh for him, and said
to Kortes, with a little irritation:
‘Hang it, we’ve come out right side up before now, and we may again.
Hadn’t we better rouse her?’
During this conversation Kortes had been standing on the lowest step
of the staircase, and I facing him, on the floor of the hall, with one
hand resting on the balustrade. We had talked in low tones, partly
from a fear of eavesdroppers, even more, I think, from the influence
which our position exerted over us. In peril men speak softly. Our
voices sounded as no more than faint murmurs in the roomy hall;
consequently they could not have been audible--where? In the passage!
But as I spoke to Kortes in a petulant reproachful whisper, a sound
struck on my ear, a very little sound. I caught my companion’s arm,
imposing silence on him by a look. The sound came again. I knew the
sound; I had heard it before. I stepped back a pace and looked round
the balustrade to the spot where the entrance to the passage lay.
I should have been past surprise now, after my sojourn in Neopalia;
but I was not. I sprang back, with a cry of wonder, almost (must I
admit it?) of alarm. Small and faint as the noise had been, it had
sufficed for the opening of the door, and in the opening made by the
receding of the planks were the head and shoulders of a man. His face
was hardly a yard from my face; and the face was the face of
Constantine Stefanopoulos.
In the instant of paralysed immobility that followed, the explanation
flashed like lightning through my brain. Constantine, buying his
liberty and pardon from Mouraki, had stolen along the passage. He had
opened the door. He hoped to find me alone--if not alone, yet off my
guard--in the hall. Then a single shot would be enough. His errand
would be done, his pardon won. That my explanation was right the
revolver in his hand witnessed. But he also was surprised. I was
closer than he thought, so close that he started back for an instant.
The interval was enough; before he could raise his weapon and take aim
I put my head down between my shoulders and rushed at him. I think my
head knocked his arm up, his revolver went off, the noise
reverberating through the hall. I almost had hold of him when I was
suddenly seized from behind and hurled backwards. Kortes had a mind to
come first and stood on no ceremony. But in the instant that he was
free, Constantine dived down, like a rabbit into a burrow. He
disappeared; with a shouted oath Kortes sprang after him. I heard the
feet of both of them clattering down the flight of steps.
For a single moment I paused. The report had echoed loud through the
hall. The sentries must have heard it--the sentries before the house,
the sentries in the compound behind the house. Yet none of them rushed
in: not a movement, not a word, not a challenge came from them.
Mouraki Pasha kept good discipline. His orders were law, his
directions held good, though shots rang loud and startling through the
house. Even at that moment I gave a short sharp laugh; for I
remembered that on no account was Lord Wheatley to be interrupted; no,
neither Lord Wheatley nor the man who came to kill Lord Wheatley was
to be interrupted. Oh, Mouraki, Mouraki, your score was mounting up!
Should you ever pay the reckoning?
Shorter far than it has taken to write my thoughts was the pause
during which they galloped through my palpitating brain. In a second I
also was down the flight of stairs beyond. I heard still the footsteps
in front of me, but I could see nothing. It was very dark that night
in the passage. I ran on, yet I seemed to come no nearer to the steps
in front of me. But suddenly I paused, for now there were steps behind
me also, light steps, but sounding distinct in my ear. Then a voice
cried, in terror and distress, ‘My lord, don’t leave me, my lord!’
I turned. Even in the deep gloom I saw a gleam of white: a moment
later I caught Phroso by both her hands.
‘The shot, the shot?’ she whispered.
‘Constantine. He shot at me--no, I’m not hurt. Kortes is after him.’
She swayed towards me. I caught her and passed my arm round her;
without that she would have fallen on the rocky floor of the dim
passage.
‘I heard it and rushed down,’ she panted. ‘I heard it from my room.’
‘Any sign of the sentries?’
‘No.’
‘I must go and help Kortes.’
‘Not without me?’
‘You must wait here.’
‘Not without you.’ Her arms held me now by the shoulders with a
stronger grip than I had thought possible. She would not let me go.
Well then, we must face it together.
‘Come along, then,’ said I. ‘I can see nothing in this rat hole.’
Suddenly, from in front of us, a cry rang out; it was some distance
off. We started towards it, for it was Kortes’s voice that cried.
‘Be careful, be careful,’ urged Phroso. ‘We’re near the bridge now.’
It was true. As she spoke the walls of rock on either side receded. We
had come to the opening. The dark water was below us, and before us
the isolated bridge of rock that spanned the pool. We were where the
Lord of the island had been wont to hurl his enemies headlong from his
side to death.
What happened on the bridge, on the narrow bridge of rock which ran in
front of us, we could not see; but from it came strange sounds, low
oaths and mutterings, the scraping of men’s limbs and the rasping of
cloth on the rock, the hard breathings of struggling combatants; now a
fierce low cry of triumph, a disappointed curse, a desperate groan,
the silence that marked a culminating effort. Now, straining my eyes
to the uttermost, and having grown a little more accustomed to the
darkness, I discerned, beyond the centre of the bridge, a coiling
writhing mass that seemed some one many-limbed animal, but was, in
truth, two men, twisted and turned round about one another in an
embrace which could have no end save death. Which was Kortes, which
Constantine, I could not tell. How they came there I could not tell. I
dared not fire. Phroso hung about me in a paroxysm of fear, her hands
holding me motionless; I myself was awed and fascinated by the dim
spectacle and the confused sounds of that mortal strife.
Backward and forward, to and fro, up and down they writhed and rolled.
Now they hung, a protrusion of deeper blackness, over the black gulf
on this side, now on that. Now the mass separated a little as one
pressed the other downward and seemed about to hurl his enemy over and
himself remain triumphant; now that one, in his turn, tottered on the
edge as if to fall and leave the other panting on the bridge; again
they were mixed together, so that I could not tell which was which,
and the strange appearance of a single, writhing, crawling shape
returned. Then suddenly, from both at once, rang out cries: there was
dread and surprise in one, fierce, uncalculating, self-forgetful
triumph in the other. Not even for Phroso’s sake, or the band of her
encircling arms, could I rest longer. Roughly I fear, at least with
suddenness, I disengaged myself from her grasp. She cried out in
protest and in fear, ‘Don’t go, don’t leave me!’ I could not rest.
Recollecting the peril, I yet rushed quickly on to the bridge, and
moved warily along its narrow perilous way. But even as I came near
the two who fought in the middle, there was a deep groan, a second
wild triumphant cry, a great lurch of the mass, a moment--a short
short moment--when it hung poised over the yawning vault; and then an
instant of utter stillness. I waited as a boy waits to hear the stone
he has thrown strike the water at the bottom of the well. The stone
struck the water: there was a great resounding splash, the water moved
beneath the blow; I saw its dark gleam agitated. Then all was still
again; and the passage of the bridge was clear.
I walked to the spot where the struggle had been, and whence the two
had fallen together. I knelt down and gazed into the chasm. Three
times I called Kortes’s name. No answer came up. I could discern no
movement of the dark waters. They had sunk, the two together, and
neither rose. Perhaps both were wounded to death, perhaps only their
fatal embrace prevented all effort for life. I could see nothing and
hear nothing. My heart was heavy for Kortes, a brave true man and our
only friend. In the death of Constantine I saw less than his fitting
punishment; yet I was glad that he was gone, and the long line of his
villainies closed. This last attempt had been a bold one. Mouraki, no
doubt, had forced him to it; even a craven will be bold where the
penalty of cowardice is death. Yet he had not dared to stand when
discovered. He had fled, and must have been flying when Kortes came up
and grappled with him. For a snapshot at an unwary man he had found
courage, but not for a fair fight. He was an utter coward after all.
He was well dead, and his wife well avenged.
But it was fatal to linger here. Mouraki would be expecting the return
of his emissary. I saw now clearly that the Pasha had prepared the way
for Constantine’s attempt. If no news came, he would not wait long. I
put my reflections behind me and walked briskly back to where I had
left Phroso. I found her lying on the ground; she seemed to be in a
faint. Setting my face close to hers, I saw that her eyes were shut
and her lips parted. I sat down by her in the narrow passage and
supported her head on my arm. Then I took out a flask, and pouring
some of the brandy-and-water it contained into the cup forced a little
between her lips. With a heavy sigh she opened her eyes and shuddered.
‘It is over,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to be afraid; all is over now.’
‘Constantine?’
‘He is dead.’
‘And Kortes?’
‘They are both gone. They fell together into the pool and must be
dead; there’s no sound from it.’
A frightened sob was her answer; she put her hand up to her eyes.
‘Ah, dear Kortes!’ she whispered, and I heard her sob gently again.
‘He was a brave man,’ said I. ‘God rest his soul!’
‘He loved me,’ she said simply, between her sobs. ‘He--he and his
sister were the only friends I had.’
‘You have other friends,’ said I, and my voice was well nigh as low as
hers.
‘You are very good to me, my lord,’ she said, and she conquered her
sobs and lay still, her head on my arm, her hair enveloping my hand in
its silken masses.
‘We must go on,’ said I. ‘We mustn’t stay here. Our only chance is to
go on.’
‘Chance? Chance of what?’ she echoed in a little despairing murmur,
‘Where am I to go? Why should I struggle any more?’
‘Would you fall into Mouraki’s power?’ I asked from between set lips.
‘No; but I need not. I have my dagger.’
‘God forbid!’ I cried in sudden horror; and in spite of myself I felt
my hand tighten and press her head among the coils of her hair. She
also felt it; she raised herself on her elbow, turned to me, and sent
a straining look into my eyes. What answer could I make to it? I
averted my face; she dropped her head between her hands on the rocky
floor.
‘We must go,’ said I again. ‘Can you walk, Phroso?’
I hardly noticed the name I called her, nor did she appear to mark it.
‘I can’t go,’ she moaned. ‘Let me stay here. I can get back to the
house, perhaps.’
‘I won’t leave you here. I won’t leave you to Mouraki.’
‘It will not be to Mouraki, it will be to--’
I caught her hand, crying in a low whisper, ‘No, no.’
‘What else?’ she asked, again sitting up and looking at me.
‘We must make a push for safety, as we meant to before.’
‘Safety?’ Her lips bent in a sadly derisive little smile. ‘What is
this safety you talk about?’ she seemed to say.
‘Yes, safety.’
‘Ah, yes, you must be safe,’ she said, appearing to awake suddenly to
a consciousness of something forgotten. ‘Ah, yes, my lord, you must be
safe. Don’t linger, my lord. Don’t linger!’
‘Do you suppose I’m going alone?’ I asked, and, in spite of
everything, I could not help smiling as I put the question. I believe
she really thought that the course in question might commend itself to
me.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t go alone. But I--I can’t cross that
awful bridge.’
‘Oh yes, you can,’ said I. ‘Come along,’ and I rose and held out my
arms towards her.
She looked at me, the tears still on her cheeks, a doubtful smile
dawning on her lips.
‘My dear lord,’ she said very softly, and stood while I put my arms
round her and lifted her till she lay easily. Then came what I think
was the hardest thing of all to bear. She let her head fall on my
shoulder and lay trustfully, I could almost say luxuriously, back in
my arms; a little happy sigh of relief and peace came from her lips,
her eyes closed, she was content.
Well, I started; and I shall not record precisely what I thought as I
started. What I ought to have thought about was picking my way over
the bridge, and, if more matter for consideration were needed, I might
have speculated on the best thing to do when we reached the outlet of
the passage. Suppose, then, that I thought about what I ought to have
thought about.
‘Keep still while we’re on the bridge,’ said I to Phroso. ‘It’s not
over broad, you know.’
A little movement of the head, till it rested in yet greater seeming
comfort, was Phroso’s only disobedience; for the rest she was
absolutely still. It was fortunate; for to cross that bridge in the
dark, carrying a lady, was not a job I cared much about. However we
came to the other side; the walls of rock closed in again on either
hand, and I felt the way begin to slope downwards under my feet.
‘Does it go pretty straight now?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, quite straight. You can’t miss it, my lord,’ said Phroso,
and another little sigh of content followed the words. I had, I
suppose, little enough to laugh at, but I did laugh very gently and
silently, and I did not propose that Phroso should walk.
‘Are you tired?’ she said presently, just opening her eyes for an
instant.
‘I could carry you for ever,’ I answered.
Phroso smiled under lazy lids that closed again.
In spite of Phroso’s assurance of its simple straightness the road had
many twists and turns in it, and I had often to ask my way. Phroso
gave me directions at once and without hesitation. Evidently she was
thoroughly familiar with the track. When I remarked on this she said,
‘Oh, yes, I often used to come this way. It leads to such a pretty
cave, you know.’
‘Then it doesn’t come out at the same point as the way my friends
took?’
‘No, more than a mile away from that. We must be nearly there now. Are
you tired, my lord?’
‘Not a bit,’ said I, and Phroso accepted the answer without demur.
There can, however, be no harm in admitting now that I was tired, not
so much from carrying Phroso, though, as from the strain of the day
and the night that I had passed through; and I hailed with joy a
glimmer of light which danced before my eyes at the end of a long
straight tunnel. We were going down rapidly now; and, hark, there was
the wash of water welcoming us to the outer air and the light of the
upper world; for day had just dawned as we came to the end of the way.
The light that I saw ahead was ruddy with the rays of the new-risen
sun.
‘Ah,’ sighed Phroso happily, ‘I hear the sea. Oh, I smell it. And see,
my lord, the light!’
I turned from the light, joyful as was the beholding of it, to the
face which lay close by mine. That too I could see now for the first
time plainly. I met Phroso’s eyes. A slight tinge of colour dyed her
cheeks, but she lay still, looking at me, and she said softly, in low
rich tones:
‘You look very weary. Let me walk now, my lord.’
‘No, we’ll go on to the end now,’ I said.
The end was near. Another five minutes brought us where once again the
enfolding walls spread out. The path broadened into a stony beach;
above us the rocks formed an arch: we were in a little cave, and the
waves rolled gently to and fro on the margin of the beach. The mouth
of the cave was narrow and low, the rocks leaving only about a yard
between themselves above and the water below; there was just room for
a boat to pass out and in. Phroso sprang from my arms, and stretched
out her hands to the light.
‘Ah, if we had a boat!’ I cried, running to the water’s edge.
Had the luck indeed changed and fortune begun to smile? It seemed so,
for I had hardly spoken when Phroso suddenly clapped her hands and
cried:
‘A boat! There is a boat, my lord,’ and she leapt forward and caught
me by the hand, her eyes sparkling.
It was true--by marvel, it was true! A good, stout, broad-bottomed
little fishing boat lay beached on the shingle, with its sculls lying
in it. How had it come? Well, I didn’t stop to ask that. My eyes met
Phroso’s in delight. The joy of our happy fortune overcame us. I think
that for the moment we forgot the terrible events which had happened
before our eyes, the sadness of the parting which at the best lay
before us. Both her hands were in mine; we were happy as two children,
prosperously launched on some wonderful fairy-tale adventure--prince
and princess in their cockle boat on a magic sea.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ cried Phroso. ‘Ah, my lord, all goes well with
you. I think God loves you, my lord, as much as--’
She stopped. A rush of rich colour flooded her cheeks. Her deep eyes,
which had gleamed in exultant merriment, sank to the ground. Her hands
loosed mine.
‘--as the lady who waits for you loves you, my lord,’ she said.
I do not know how it was, but Phroso’s words summoned up before my
eyes a vision of Beatrice Hipgrave, pursuing her cheerful way through
the gaieties of the season--or was she in the country by now?--without
wasting very many thoughts on the foolish man who had gone to the
horrid island. The picture of her as the lady who waited for a lover,
forlorn because he tarried, struck with a bitter amusement on my sense
of humour. Phroso saw me smile; her eyes asked a wondering question. I
did not answer it, but turned away and walked down to where the boat
lay.
‘I suppose,’ I said coldly, ‘that this is the best chance?’
‘It is the only chance, my lord,’ she answered; but her eyes were
still puzzled, and her tone was almost careless, as if the matter of
our escape had ceased to be the thing which pressed most urgently on
her mind. I could say nothing to enlighten her; not from my lips,
which longed to forswear her, could come the slightest word in
depreciation of ‘the lady who waited.’
‘Will you get in, then?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Phroso; the joy was gone out of her voice and out of her
eyes.
I helped her into the boat, then I launched it; when it floated clear
on the water of the cave I jumped in myself and took the sculls.
Phroso sat silent and now pale-faced in the stern. I struck the water
with my blades and the boat moved. A couple of strokes took us across
the cave. We reached the mouth. I felt the sun on my neck with its
faint early warmth: that is a good feeling and puts heart in a man.
‘Ah, but the sea and the air are good,’ said Phroso. ‘And it is good
to be free, my lord.’
I looked at her. The sun had caught her eyes now, and the gleam in
them seemed to fire me. I forgot--something that I ought to have
remembered. I rested for a moment on my oars, and, leaning forward,
said in a low voice:
‘Aye, to be free, and together, Phroso.’
Again came the flash of colour, again the sudden happy dancing of her
eyes and the smile that curved in unconquerable wilfulness. I
stretched out a hand, and Phroso’s hand stole timidly to meet it.
Well--surely the Recording Angel looked away!
Thus were we just outside the cave. There rose a straight rock on the
left hand, ending in a level top some four feet above our heads.
And as our hands approached and our eyes--those quicker
foregatherers--met, there came from the top of the rock a laugh, a low
chuckle that I knew well. I don’t think I looked up. I looked still
at Phroso. As I looked, her colour fled, fright leapt into her eyes,
her lips quivered in horror. I knew the truth from her face.
‘Very nice! But what have you done with Cousin Constantine?’ asked
Mouraki Pasha.
The trap, then, had double jaws, and we had escaped Constantine only
to fall into the hands of his master. It was so like Mouraki. I was so
much aghast and yet so little surprised, the fall was so sudden, our
defeat so ludicrous, that I believed I smiled, as I turned my eyes
from Phroso’s and cast a glance at the Pasha.
‘I might have known it, you know,’ said I, aloud.