THE PRINCESS CHRISTINA
The amazing turn which events had taken through the terrible act of my
companion filled me with consternation at the possible effects to us
both; and after I had satisfied myself that the two men were dead and
so beyond help, I paced the room in anxious, perturbed thought.
She was not in the least perturbed, and filled the minutes by going
carefully through the leader’s papers in search of anything that would
tend to the confusion of her enemies. A low exclamation of pleasure
told me that, when she found what she sought.
She showed no jot or tittle of remorse at this shedding of blood. To
her the two men were no more than a couple of wild beasts who had
attacked her, and had been killed in her self-defence. She was as hard
and callous as any public executioner could have been.
“See here!” she cried at length. “Here are proofs enough of the
villany,” and she put papers into my hand which showed plainly
enough that the whole matter had been planned by those high in the
Russian party. One was no less than a clear but brief statement of
instructions. If the first attempt at secret assassination failed, this
endeavour by means of a pretended arrest by men in uniform dressed to
look like officers was to be made, and the Countess was to be hurried
to Tirnova to be dealt with there, should she reach the fortress alive.
“You will need these when the attempt is made to implicate you. Yours
is a deadly sin--to have come between Kolfort and his vengeance--and
you will need all your wits to get out of it with your life, even with
these papers, unless you throw yourself under the protection of the
Prince and his party. As I said, you will have to join us now, Count.”
“I shall still take time to consider,” I answered rather shortly.
“You have given me plenty of food for thought. But now, what of your
immediate safety? You cannot stay here.”
“Nor you, either. You let the third man escape, and by this time he is
carrying his news of failure with feet winged with fear. I have done
with this carrion,” and she cast a look of repugnance at the dead men,
and turning away, resumed her cloak with great haste. “You will not
decide now?” she asked, as she was ready to go.
“No, I must have time. But where will you go now?”
“I shall communicate with you. You will be a marked man from this
hour, and easy to find,” she said significantly; “and if you are in
danger sooner than you expect, do not hesitate to let me know. Our next
meeting will be in the Prince’s palace, and the sooner the better.”
“Where will you go now?” I repeated.
“Do not fear for me. You will need all your efforts to save your own
skin. Come!” She left the light burning, and led the way out of the
house by a back entrance that opened on to a narrow alley, along which
we hurried.
“I will see you safe to your home,” I said, when she stopped at the
mouth of it and held out her hand. She smiled.
“No, no, I am in no danger; but for you, take this path as far as it
goes, turn sharp to the right until you come to an avenue of trees, and
at the bottom of that you will know where you are. Good-night, Count!
and once more I thank you with all my heart for your service. But we
shall both live to see my thanks in an alliance that will do great
things for the Prince and for Bulgaria.”
She gave me her hand, and though I pressed her to let me see her safely
across the city, she would not, but put me on my honour not to follow
her, and turning, sped away, keeping in the shadow, and going at such a
speed that she was soon out of my sight.
Then I followed the way she had told me, and found myself close to the
street in which my hotel was situated. I walked slowly from that point,
my brain in a whirl of excitement at all that had happened in the
crowded hours of that night.
When I reached my hotel it was only to pace my room in restless,
anxious, brain-racking thought of the net of complications in which I
found myself involved, and the hundred dangers which appeared to have
sprung up suddenly to menace me. It was in vain that I threw myself
on my bed. I could not sleep. If I dozed, it was only to start up at
the bidding of some dream danger, threatening me with I know not what
consequences. It was long past the dawn before I slept, and when the
servant called me, I sprang up, thinking it was my instant arrest that
was intended.
But my wits were cooler and more collected for the rest, and when hour
after hour of the anxious day passed and nothing happened, I began to
think I had exaggerated the risks of my position.
In the cool of the evening I rode out, and on my return ventured to
find out and pass through the street of the previous night’s adventure.
Nothing unusual was astir. No one paid the least heed to me. I might
have been an ordinary tourist without the least interest in anything
but the scenery. So it was at my hotel. Nothing happened that evening
nor on any of the three remaining days of the week, and I occupied
myself with the business of preparing the large house which I had taken
for my residence.
Yet, even the lack of any consequences to me had a grim significance.
It seemed a fearsome thing, indeed, that murder could be attempted
openly, and two of the would-be assassins shot dead in the effort, and
yet the life of the city flow on without the least interruption, and,
as it appeared, with never a person to ask a question about them or
show the faintest interest in the event. Truly, as my strange companion
in the adventure had said, death counted for little in the grim game of
intrigue that was being played in the country.
I had provided myself with a few letters of introduction, and,
knowing the average poverty of the people and the high esteem set on
riches, I had dropped a number of judicious hints that I was a man of
considerable wealth. I had taken the largest house I could find in the
city, and by these means had opened a way into a certain section of
society. It had been my original intention to use such opportunities
as would thus be afforded to carry out my original intention. But the
adventure with the Countess Bokara would render this less necessary
should I resolve to accept the offer of close service with the Prince
which she had made me; and the few guarded inquiries I was able to
make as to her influence confirmed completely my previous belief in her
power to fulfil all she had promised.
Several days passed, and I was in this condition of comparative
uncertainty when, toward the close of the week following my adventure,
an incident occurred which gave me startling proof that, for all the
apparent quietude, I myself was, as she had declared, a marked man.
I was sitting alone in a _café_ one evening, my friends having left
me, when my attention was attracted to the movements of three men, two
being in uniform, at a table in a far corner of the place. They were
busily occupied over some papers, and a constant succession of men kept
coming to them, as it seemed to me, for some kind of instructions. As
business was constantly transacted in this way at the _cafés_, I had at
first no more than a feeling of idle curiosity; but when the thing had
continued for an hour or more, my interest deepened, and I watched them
closely, although, as I thought, unobserved by them.
At length a message was given them which appeared to cause great
surprise, and they paid their score and hurried out of the place.
I followed them, still impelled mainly by curiosity; and as they
were engrossed in conversation, talking and gesticulating, I had no
difficulty in keeping them in sight as they passed through several
streets, and at length entered a large house which filled one side of a
small quadrangle, close on the street.
I stood awhile at the corner, scanning the house curiously, and made
a mental note to ascertain to whom it belonged, and was in the act of
turning away to retrace my steps to the hotel, when a man came out of
the house, glanced about him as though in some doubt, and then looked
closely at me. He walked to the corner of the street opposite, still
looking at me, and after a minute of doubt, crossed to me.
“I am to give you this, sir,” he said, speaking with the manner of a
confidential servant.
“To me? I think not. What name?” I asked.
“I had no name given to me, but I was to say it was ‘In the Name of a
Woman!’”
“‘In the Name of a Woman?’” I repeated. It could not be for me. I knew
no such pass-word, and I connected it instantly with what I had seen
at the _café_. I was about to send the man away, when it occurred to
me that it might be a message from the Countess Bokara, and that, from
a love of mystery, she had chosen this exceedingly ambiguous method of
communication. I took the letter which the man held out, therefore, and
read a message written in a woman’s handwriting:--
“Follow the Bearer,
In the Name of a Woman.”
I was disposed to smile, but checked myself on seeing the servant’s
eyes fixed upon me.
“I am to follow you,” I said gravely.
Without a word he led the way back to the house, through the deep
gloomy archway, in which I noticed a number of servants and others
lounging and waiting, and up three or four steps into the house.
Turning to make sure that I was behind him, the man crossed a hall, in
which were more men, some in uniform, through a curtained archway at
the end, and up a broad stairway on to a wide landing-place until he
paused before a large dark oak door. He opened this quietly and stood
aside for me to enter.
As I did so, some words came to my ears that were certainly not
intended for a stranger to hear.
“Curse the business. I am sick of the place. The sooner this thing’s
over and Christina is on the throne and married to Sergius, the sooner
we shall be back in Moscow and out of this beastly hole.”
The voice was loud and strident, and the language Russian; and the
speaker, a young red-haired man, in an officer’s uniform, laughed
noisily. I was in the room before the sentence ended, but I came to an
abrupt halt in my surprise, and perceiving at once the mistake that had
been made, I half turned to leave the room again. But the man who had
brought me had already closed the door.
My surprise was not one whit greater than that of the three men in the
room, however, who were standing together by a table with their backs
to the door, and not having heard it open, did not know I was there
till the officer who had spoken turned round.
“Hullo! who the devil’s this?” he exclaimed. “What do you want, sir?”
and I saw his hand go to his sword hilt.
His companions turned quickly on hearing him, and stared at me with
evident amazement.
“Be quiet, Marx,” said one of them in Russian, a much older man,
and apparently in command. Then in Bulgarian to me, “May I ask your
business, sir?”
“On my word, I know no more than yourself,” I answered, keeping my eye
on the red-haired man whose threatening looks I did not at all like. “I
am here ‘In the Name of a Woman,’ I presume. A messenger accosted me a
few minutes since in the street close by and gave me a written message
to follow him. He brought me here--and that’s all I know.”
“A cool devil, on my word,” exclaimed the red-headed man, and whispered
something to the third which I could not catch.
“There has seemingly been some mistake,” said the elder man suavely.
“You have not been long in the room, sir?”
“Certainly not, the door has but barely closed.”
“You are too much of a gentleman, of course, to intrude yourself upon
us unannounced and listen to our private conversation.” There was an
ominous suggestion of threat in the words, and behind them I could
detect not a little anxiety and embarrassment.
One of the other officers gave a little sneering laugh.
“You wish to know whether I have overheard anything? I speak Russian,
and as I entered I could not help hearing what was being said.”
A look of concern showed on all three faces as I spoke.
“You will have the goodness to repeat what you overheard,” said the
elder man, his voice hardening and deepening.
I repeated in Russian almost word for word what had been said, and the
man whose unguarded words I had overheard turned very white.
An embarrassing silence followed.
“And what meaning do you attach to the words, sir?”
“I do not see that they concern me, or that I am called upon to give
any explanation,” I answered coolly.
“By God! you shall answer,” broke in impetuously and passionately the
red-haired man, as he made a couple of strides toward me.
His superior frowned upon him and muttered a word of caution.
I began to feel glad that I had brought my sword-stick with me.
“One moment; excuse me,” said the elder man, whose great uneasiness was
now very manifest, and the three held a hurried consultation, in which
I could see the red-haired man urging some plan from which the elder
strongly dissented. Then the latter turned again to me.
“I must press you to answer my question, sir,” he said.
“The words could have only one possible meaning,” I replied, seeing no
use in equivocation. “The hope was expressed that Christina, presumably
the Princess of Orli, would soon be on the throne and married to the
Duke Sergius, in order that the speaker might be free to return to
Moscow.” I spoke very deliberately.
“I told you so. The fellow may be a spy and can’t go free after that,”
exclaimed the fiery officer. “Have up the men at once and let him be
secured until we find out all about him,” and he went to the bell-pull
to summon the servants or more probably soldiers.
My next act surprised him and stayed his hand, however. I had observed
a couple of heavy bolts on the door, and thinking that I had better
have three men to deal with than thirty, I shot them into their
sockets, and setting my back to the door, said shortly:
“There should be nothing in this which we cannot settle amongst
ourselves, gentlemen, and with your permission I prefer to have no one
else here until it is settled.”
This was too much for the two younger men. They drew their swords at
once and came toward me.
“You will stand aside from that door at once, or take the
consequences,” said the red-haired man.
My answer was to whip my sword from the stick and put myself on the
defensive. The door stood in an angle of the room, excellently placed
for my purpose, as my two opponents would be much hampered in attacking
me together, and I was not afraid of what either could do single-handed.
Their anger at my resistance made them deaf to the protests and
expostulations of their superior. The red man was the first to cross
swords, and he was so indifferent a swordsman that I could have
disabled him had not the second perceived his inferiority and made at
me in his turn.
A very pretty fight followed, but infinitely perilous to me. Even if
I were successful I could not see how possibly to escape from the
house, which as I knew was swarming with men. But I went to work with a
will, and soon had cause to thank the advantage I gained owing to the
position of the door.
The object of the less furious of the two was rather to disarm than
to wound, and I noticed that he neglected more than one opportunity
of wounding me. The other was a hot-headed fool, however, and was
obviously dead bent on killing me; but a couple of minutes later I had
an excellent chance of settling matters with him. He was fighting in
a furious, haphazard, reckless fashion, when the second man stumbled
from some cause and was out of the fray for several passes. I made the
most of the respite, and pressing the fight to the utmost, I ran my
assailant through the sword-arm, inflicting a wound which caused him to
drop his sword. I kicked it behind me, and was thus free to devote my
whole attention to my other assailant.
I was cleverer with the weapon than he, as I perceived to my intense
satisfaction, and was considering where I would wound him and end the
fight, when my luck turned. I trod by mischance on the hilt of the
sword at my feet, stumbled, and, unable to save myself, fell staggering
at full length on the floor.
It was all over, and I gave myself up for lost, when a most unexpected
and infinitely welcome interruption came.
A door at the other end of the room, which was hidden by the curtains
and tapestries that covered the walls, opened, and I heard a woman’s
soft clear voice, in which vibrated a note of indignation and anger,
exclaim:
“Gentlemen, what is this brawling?”
The others turned at the sound of the voice, and I scrambled to my feet
in an instant, gripped my weapon again, and was once more ready against
attack; though I stared with all my eyes at the lovely face of the
queenly woman who had entered.
“Put up your swords, gentlemen, instantly!” she said; and in obedience
the man who still had his weapon sheathed it and fell back abashed
behind his superior officer.
Intuitively I recognised the Princess Christina.