JARDIN RUSSE
At midnight the two young men had not yet parted. For, as Sengoun
explained, the hour for parting was already past, and it was too late
to consider it now. And Neeland thought so, too, what with the
laughter and the music, and the soft night breezes to counsel folly,
and the city's haunting brilliancy stretching away in bewitching
perspectives still unexplored.
From every fairy lamp the lustrous capital signalled to youth her
invitation, her challenge, and her menace. Like some jewelled
sorceress--some dreaming Circe by the river bank, pondering new
spells--so Paris lay in all her mystery and beauty under the July
stars.
Sengoun, his arm through Neeland's, had become affectionately
confidential. He explained that he really was a nocturnal creature;
that now he had completely waked up; that his habits were due to a
passion for astronomy, and that the stars he had discovered at odd
hours of the early morning were more amazing than any celestial bodies
ever before identified.
But Neeland, whose head and heart were already occupied, declined to
study any constellations; and they drifted through the bluish lustre
of white arc-lights and the clustered yellow glare of incandescent
lamps toward a splash of iridescent glory among the chestnut trees,
where music sounded and tables stood amid flowers and grass and little
slender fountains which balanced silver globes upon their jets.
The waiters were in Russian peasant dress; the orchestra was Russian
gipsy; the bill of fare was Russian; and there was only champagne to
be had.
Balalaika orchestra and spectators were singing some evidently
familiar song--one of those rushing, clattering, clashing choruses of
the Steppes; and Sengoun sang too, with all his might, when he and
Neeland were seated, which was thirsty work.
Two fascinating Russian gipsy girls were dancing--slim, tawny, supple
creatures in their scarlet and their jingling bangles. After a
deafening storm of applause, their flashing smiles swept the audience,
and, linking arms, they sauntered off between the tables under the
trees.
"I wish to dance," remarked Sengoun. "My legs will kick over something
if I don't."
They were playing an American dance--a sort of skating step; people
rose; couple after couple took the floor; and Sengoun looked around
for a partner. He discovered no eligible partner likely to favour him
without a quarrel with her escort; and he was debating with Neeland
whether a row would be worth while, when the gipsy girls sauntered
by.
"Oh," he said gaily, "a pretty Tzigane can save my life if she will!"
And the girls laughed and Sengoun led one of them out at a reckless
pace.
The other smiled and looked at Neeland, and, seating herself, leaned
on the table watching the whirl on the floor.
"Don't you dance?" she asked, with a sidelong glance out of her
splendid black eyes.
"Yes; but I'm likely to do most of my dancing on your pretty feet."
"_Merci!_ In that case I prefer a cigarette."
She selected one from his case, lighted it, folded her arms on the
table, and continued to gaze at the dancers.
"I'm tired tonight," she remarked.
"You dance beautifully."
"Thank you."
Sengoun, flushed and satisfied, came back with his gipsy partner when
the music ceased.
"Now I hope we may have some more singing!" he exclaimed, as they
seated themselves and a waiter filled their great, bubble-shaped
glasses.
And he did sing at the top of his delightful voice when the balalaikas
swept out into a ringing and familiar song, and the two gipsy girls
sang, too--laughed and sang, holding the frosty goblets high in the
sparkling light.
It was evident to Neeland that the song was a favourite one with
Russians. Sengoun was quite overcome; they all touched goblets.
"Brava, my little Tziganes!" he said with happy emotion. "My little
compatriots! My little tawny panthers of the Caucasus! What do you
call yourselves in this bandbox of a country where two steps backward
take you across any frontier?"
His dancing partner laughed till her sequins jingled from throat to
ankle:
"They call us Fifi and Nini," she replied. "Ask yourself why!"
"For example," added the other girl, "we rise from this table and
thank you. There is nothing further. _C'est fini--c'est
Fifi--Nini--comprenez-vous, Prince Erlik?_"
"Hi! What?" exclaimed Sengoun. "I'm known, it appears, even to that
devilish name of mine!"
Everybody laughed.
"After all," he said, more soberly, "it's a gipsy's trade to know
everybody and everything. _Tiens!_" He slapped a goldpiece on the
table. "A kiss apiece against a louis that you don't know my comrade's
name and nation!"
The girl called Nini laughed:
"We're quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but a _louis d'or_ is
not a copper penny. And your comrade is American and his name is
Tchames."
"James!" exclaimed Sengoun.
"I said so--Tchames."
"What else?"
"Nilan."
"Neeland?"
"I said so."
Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini's hand and looked at Neeland with
an uncomfortable laugh.
"I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish me, these Tziganes.
Tell us some more, Nini----" He beckoned a waiter and pointed
indignantly at the empty goblets.
The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed their faces with
slim and dusky hands, and gazed at Sengoun out of humorous,
half-veiled eyes.
"What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?" they asked mockingly.
"Well, for example, is my country really mobilising?"
"Since the twenty-fifth."
"_Tiens!_ And old Papa Kaiser and the Clown Prince Footit--what do
they say to that?"
"It must be stopped."
"What! _Sang dieu!_ We must stop mobilising against the Austrians?
But we are not going to stop, you know, while Francis Joseph continues
to pull faces at poor old Servian Peter!"
Neeland said:
"The evening paper has it that Austria is more reasonable and that the
Servian affair can be arranged. There will be no war," he added
confidently.
"There will be war," remarked Nini with a shrug of her bare, brown
shoulders over which her hair and her gilded sequins fell in a bright
mass.
"Why?" asked Neeland, smiling.
"Why? Because, for one thing, you have brought war into Europe!"
"Come, now! No mystery!" said Sengoun gaily. "Explain how my comrade
has brought war into Europe, you little fraud!"
Nini looked at Neeland:
"What else except papers was in the box you lost?" she asked coolly.
Neeland, very red and uncomfortable, gazed back at the girl without
replying; and she laughed at him, showing her white teeth.
"You brought the Yellow Devil into Europe, M'sieu Nilan! Erlik, the
Yellow Demon. When he travels there is unrest. Where he rests there is
war!"
"You're very clever," retorted Neeland, quite out of countenance.
"Yes, we are," said Fifi, with her quick smile. "And who but M'sieu
Nilan should admit it?"
"Very clever," repeated Neeland, still amazed and profoundly uneasy.
"But this Yellow Devil you say I brought into Europe must have been
resting in America, then. And, if so, why is there no war there?"
"There would have been--with Mexico. You brought the Yellow Demon
here, but just in time!"
"All right. Grant that, then. But--perhaps he was a long time resting
in America. What about that, pretty gipsy?"
The girl shrugged again:
"Is your memory so poor, M'sieu Nilan? What has your country done but
fight since Erlik rested among your people? You fought in Samoa; in
Hawaii; your warships went to Chile, to Brazil, to San Domingo; the
blood of your soldiers and sailors was shed in Hayti, in Cuba, in the
Philippines, in China----"
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Neeland. "That girl is dead right!"
Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed without restraint;
and the gipsies laughed, too, their beautiful eyes and teeth flashing
under their black cascades of unbound hair.
"Show me your palms," said Nini, and drew Sengoun's and Neeland's
hands across the table, holding them in both of hers.
"See," she added, nudging Fifi with her shoulder, "both of them born
under the Dark Star! It is war they shall live to see--war!"
"Under the Dark Star, Erlik," repeated the other girl, looking closely
into the two palms, "and there is war there!"
"And death?" inquired Sengoun gaily. "I don't care, if I can lead a
_sotnia_ up Achi-Baba and twist the gullet of the Padisha before I say
Fifi--Nini!"
The gipsies searched his palm with intent and brilliant gaze.
"_Zut!_" said Fifi. "_Je ne vois rien que d'l'amour et la guerre aux
dames!_"
"_T'en fais pas!_" laughed Sengoun. "I ask no further favour of
Fortune; I'll manage my regiment myself. And, listen to me, Fifi," he
added with a frightful frown, "if the war you predict doesn't arrive,
I'll come back and beat you as though you were married to a Turk!"
While they still explored his palm, whispering together at intervals,
Sengoun caught the chorus of the air which the orchestra was playing,
and sang it lustily and with intense pleasure to himself.
Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual strangers knew
about his own and intimate affairs, had become silent and almost
glum.
But the slight gloom which invaded him came from resentment toward
those people who had followed him from Brookhollow to Paris, and who,
in the very moment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction from
him.
He thought of Kestner and of Breslau--of Scheherazade, and the
terrible episode in her stateroom.
Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow house, there was
nothing in his subsequent conduct on which he could plume himself. He
could not congratulate himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carried
him through as far as the rue Soleil d'Or--mere chance, and that
capricious fortune which sometimes convoys the stupid, fatuous, and
astigmatic.
Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom, an intense desire to
distinguish himself began to burn.
If there were any way on earth to trace that accursed box----
He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies, who had relinquished
Sangoun's hand and who were still conversing together in low tones
while Sangoun beat time on the jingling table top and sang joyously
at the top of his baritone voice:
"Eh, zoum--zoum--zoum!
Boum--boum--boum!
Here's to the Artillery
Gaily riding by!
Fetch me a distillery,
Let me drink it dry--
Fill me full of sillery!
Here's to the artillery!
Zoum--zoum--zoum!
Boum--boum--boum!"
"Fifi!"
"_M'sieu?_"
"You're so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?"
"Pouf!" giggled Fifi. "On its way to Berlin, _pardie_!"
"That's easy to say. Tell me something else more expensive."
Nini said, surprised:
"What we know is free to Prince Erlik's friend. Did you think we sell
to Russians?"
"I don't know anything about you or where you get your information,"
said Neeland. "I suppose you're in the Secret Service of the Russian
Government."
"_Mon ami_, Nilan," said Fifi, smiling, "we should feel lonely
_outside_ the Secret Service. Few in Europe are outside--few in the
world, fewer in the half-world. As for us Tziganes, who belong to
neither, the business of everybody becomes our secret to sell for a
silver piece--but _not_ to Russians in the moment of peril!... Nor to
their comrades.... What do you desire to know, _comrade_?"
"Anything," he said simply, "that might help me to regain what I have
lost."
"And what do you suppose!" exclaimed Fifi, opening her magnificent
black eyes very wide. "Did you imagine that nobody was paying any
attention to what happened in the rue Soleil d'Or this noon?"
Nini laughed.
"The word flew as fast as the robber's taxicab. How many thousand
secret friends to the Triple Entente do you suppose knew of it half an
hour after it happened? From the Trocadero to Montparnasse, from the
Point du Jour to Charenton, from the Bois to the Bièvre, the word
flew. Every taxicab, omnibus, _sapin_, every _bateau-mouche_, every
train that left any terminal was watched.
"Five embassies and legations were instantly under redoubled
surveillance; hundreds of cafés, bars, restaurants, _hôtels_; all the
theatres, gardens, cabarets, _brasseries_.
"Your pigs of Apaches are not neglected, _va_! But, to my idea, they
got out of Paris before we watchers knew of the affair at all--in an
automobile, perhaps--perhaps by rail. God knows," said the girl,
looking absently at the dancing which had begun again. "But if we ever
lay our eyes on Minna Minti, we wear toys in our garters which will
certainly persuade her to take a little stroll with us."
After a silence, Neeland said:
"Is Minna Minti then so well known?"
"Not at the Opéra Comique," replied Fifi with a shrug, "but _since_
then."
"An _artiste_, that woman!" added Nini. "Why deny it? It appears that
she has twisted more than one red button out of a broadcloth coat."
"She'll get the Seraglio medal for this day's work," said Fifi.
"Or the _croix-de-fer_," added Nini. "Ah, _zut_! She annoys me."
"Did you ever hear of a place called the Café des Bulgars?" asked
Neeland, carelessly.
"Yes."
"What sort of place is it?"
"Like any other."
"Quite respectable?"
"Perfectly," said Nini, smiling. "One drinks good beer there."
"Munich beer," added Fifi.
"Then it is watched?" asked Neeland.
"All German cafés are watched. Otherwise, it is not suspected."
Sengoun, who had been listening, shook his head. "There's nothing to
interest us at the Café des Bulgars," he said. Then he summoned a
waiter and pointed tragically at the empty goblets.