In Direst Peril Part 26

"Don't you 'urry me, sir, if you please. I'm a coming to it now, and I think before I've done you'll say, sir, as I've got it. 'And now,' says Sacovitch, 'it's all ready, ain't it.' The baroness was standing there close by the table. There was decanters on the table, and a lot of soda-water bottles. She 'elps herself and the other lady to a brandy-and-soda, and says she, just as she let the cork fly, 'Yes,' she says, 'I think you've got it.' I'd 'ave give a guinea at that minute,"

said Hinge, "to know what they'd got, but I never thought I should till Mr. Brunow gets up and says, just at that minute, 'Let's see exactly where we stand,' 'e says. 'Very well,' says Sacovitch; 'it's like this. Now listen, all of you,' 'e says, 'for these is the final instructions.'"

I moved again, half rising from my seat, but Hinge waved a protesting hand against me.

"For G.o.d's sake, sir, don't 'urry me! I'm at it now, and you shall have it all in half a minute, sir. 'It's like this,' says Sacovitch; 'we know,' he says, 'that Miss Rossano has drawn that forty thousand pounds.

What that forty thousand pounds is for,' he says, 'is thoroughly well beknown to all of you. There's Colonel Quorn,' he says--Did you ever 'ear of Colonel Quorn, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" I answered. "Go on with your story."

"'There's Colonel Quorn,' 'e says, 'lying off Civita Vecchia with the count on board 'is s.h.i.+p with the arms and ammunition.' Now I'm a-coming to it, sir; don't you stop me. Such a wicked plot you never heard in all your life. 'The count's on board,' he says, 'and the arms is on board.

The count won't land until he gets both arms and ammunition. Colonel Quorn won't 'hand over neither arms nor ammunition,' he says, 'until he gets that forty thousand pounds. The very minute he gets that money he hands it over to Colonel Quorn, he gets the arms, and he lands. But now, mind you,' says Sacovitch, 'there's this to be considered: the count won't trust his foot on Italian soil, arms or no arms,' he says, 'after what's happened to him, unless he's sure of meeting his friends when he get's there. Now what's got to be done,' says he, 'is to time the delivery of the money. That money mustn't be paid until we've got our people ready. The count won't land until he thinks he's safe, and we must take jolly good care,' says Sacovitch, ''e don't land until we're ready,' he says. 'To be a day too soon on the one side, or a day too late on the other,' he says, 'would wreck us all. And mind you,' he says, 'the Austrian government puts more importance onto this affair than anything else as is happening just at present. They'd sooner pay a million pounds,' he says (I'm giving you his very words, sir)--' they'd sooner pay a million pounds,' he says, 'than miss the Count Rossano."

In spite of my lame foot I was pacing about the room by this time, altogether too eager to control myself longer to physical quietude.

"And then," said Hinge, "this come out, and this is what I want to tell you. Says Sacovitch to the other lady: 'You bring your messenger,'

says he, 'at this time to-morrow here, and I'll give him his last instructions.'"

CHAPTER XIX

My story until now has dragged a lingering length along, but from this point onward it moves swiftly to its close. In the haste I feel to reach that close I strive to obliterate from my mind whatever came between the hour of Hinge's revelation and the hour of the appointment. The task is not easy, for the four-and-twenty hours that intervened were filled with a suspense and anxiety of no common sort. The night pa.s.sed, as even the most anxious of nights will pa.s.s; the day succeeding it crawled on, as even the dreariest of days will crawl; and at last the hour arrived.

When, aided by Hinge on one side and by a stout walking-stick on the other, I left the hotel, the night was already dark, and once more a heavy rain was falling. Hinge had secured a vehicle, which carried us to within a hundred yards of our destination, and was there discharged.

There was a lamp at either end of the brief lane in which the river-side cottage stood, and we could see that the road was diverted. There was still a chance that the traitors who were plotting against us might keep watch, and we slipped into the garden with some little trepidation. Once within the gate, I made a circuit of the house to a.s.sure myself that there was no chance of our being observed, and finding the whole field clear, I climbed, with Hinge's aid, onto the balcony. We had found the whole land in front of the house in darkness, and only a single room on the river-side was illuminated. Hinge touched me on the elbow, and with a forward finger indicated the lighted window, and motioned me on. I went crouching with a stealthy step until I came on a level with the window, and then, kneeling on the wet boards of the veranda, I found within eyeshot Brunow, the baroness, Sacovitch, and Constance Pleyel.

The two men were smoking, wine was set out upon the table, and four gla.s.ses were filled. The whole party had an air of Bohemian ease and jollity. They were talking together, and I could see Sacovitch pacing the room with great vehemence of gesture; but though I could hear the deep murmur of his voice, and could even ascertain that he was speaking in English with a foreign accent, I could not succeed, strain my ears as I might, in making out the burden of a consecutive sentence. Hinge was crouching at my side, his shoulder touching mine. The rain dripped from the upper part of the house onto the shelving roof of the veranda with a monotonous and incessant noise which drowned the voices within at critical moments, so that we caught no more than detached words. All of a sudden I felt Hinge's hand on my wrist, and at that second a step crunched on the gravel between the gate and the door of the house. Then a bell tinkled faintly, and we both saw the whole quartet turn with varying expressions of waiting and attention. Then the door of the room opened and a servant appeared, explaining in dumb show, so far as we were concerned, but to our perfect understanding, that a visitor had arrived. I saw Brunow wave permission to the visitor to enter, and understood quite clearly what was going on, though at this moment the pattering of the rain and the sudden sigh of the wind robbed my ears of even the murmur of his voice. The servant retired, leaving the door open, and the quartet of conspirators bent towards each other while Sacovitch spoke. I watched the movement of his forefinger and the motion of his lips. The glint of his eye, the elevation of his brow, and the inclination of his head towards the open door all meant caution, and I could tell as clearly as if I had heard his words that he was taking upon himself the burden and responsibility of an approaching interview.

An instant later the servant reappeared, laying a needless hand upon the door and swaying it open by a superfluous inch or two as he introduced the visitor.

"Roncivalli!" whispered Hinge, in a tone of unutterable amazement as the man came in.

I thought myself prepared for anything; but the presence of such a man in such company astonished me profoundly. Roncivalli was one of the most trusted of our committee, an Italian _pur sang_, a man whose family had suffered from Austrian misrule for half a century back. He represented a house which had been rich and n.o.ble, and had been persecuted into nothingness. No man had been louder in denunciation of the Austrian cruelty, no man apparently more sincere. There never lived a man who had more reason for sincerity. My first impression was that he must be spying upon the spies, for my opinion of his patriotism had been so lofty, that next to the Count Rossano and poor old Ruffiano, whom Brunow had betrayed, I should have counted him the last man in all the Italian ranks to be bought by Austrian gold.

He came in, hat in hand, with a sweeping salute to the ladies, and tossing his sombrero on the sofa, dripping wet as it was, unb.u.t.toned with both hands a paletot s.h.i.+ning with rain, and displayed himself in evening-dress, with a big jewel s.h.i.+ning in the centre of his s.h.i.+rt-front, after a fas.h.i.+on which became popular a score of years later. Sacovitch stepped forward to help him divest himself of his cloak; and when it was slipped from his shoulders he held it with one hand, groping in the pockets from one side to the other, and in the meantime nodded round with a smiling air, with an allusion which I understood a second later when he held up a long Virginian cigar. Miss Pleyel and the baroness bowed, and Roncivalli set his cigar over the lamp until one end of it became incandescent. Then he began to smoke, and at a wave from Miss Pleyel's hand took an arm-chair close to the window. The baroness rose from her seat and poured out wine for him. Motions of hand and eye, change of feature, and movement of lip indicated an animated social converse, but not a word of it all reached my ears. I was just meditating on Hinge's luck in the fact that on the occasion of his watch the conspirators had thrown open the window as if on purpose that he should secure a hearing of their deliberations, when the baroness put her hand to her round white throat, with an exaggerated gesture of oppression, and then waved it towards the window. Sacovitch bowed and rose from his place. I laid a hand on Hinge, impelling him downward as the Austrian police spy walked towards the window. We each glued ourselves to the wall, and prostrated ourselves on the rainy wood-work of the veranda walk. We heard the grating sound of the window as it rose; and the mingled voices of the people inside--all _five_ speaking together--came out with a gush, and brought such antic.i.p.atory joy and triumph to my heart as I had never felt before.

"Let us make sure," said Roncivalli, in a laughing tone. "We have important business to discuss--at least, I am advised so--and it would be just as well to be certain that we are not overheard." He raised the Venetian blind by the cord, and for a moment the rattle sounded as disturbing to the nerves as anything I can remember. But I heard Sacovitch say:

"The veranda looks upon the river. There is n.o.body within hearing."

"We will see, in any case," Roncivalli responded, and with that he thrust his head between the window-sill and the blind, and peeped out into the river. The lamplight took him from behind and illuminated the tips and edges of his hair, his beard, and his mustache, so that they shone bright gold, though he was a man of darkish complexion. As he turned his head sideways the white of his eye gleamed like an opal, and bending suddenly he looked downward, seeming to stare me in the face so intently that I did not even dare to breathe. I was so absolutely certain that he would give an alarm that it came upon me with a shock of relief beyond description when he drew his head back into the room, and said that everything was clear.

"That is a relief," said the baroness; "but with all you gentlemen smoking, I was afraid that I should faint."

"So?" said Sacovitch, with an altogether insolent disregard in his inquiry. "Let us get to business."

"I am ready," Roncivalli answered, throwing himself anew into the arm-chair.

"A moment," said a voice, which I recognized as Constance Pleyel's; "it is very well to have the window open, but all the same we need not catch our death of cold. Will you be good enough, Signor Roncivalli, to lower the blind."

The signor arose and obeyed her, and as he did so I could see his long figure between me and the whitewashed, lamplit ceiling of the room.

Before another word was spoken Hinge touched me again upon the elbow, and I knew at once the meaning of his signal. We rose, both of us, silently to our knees, and each found a crevice through which he could command a view of the occupants of the room.

"The first thing, I take it," said Sacovitch, "is to decide that the negotiations we are about to conclude are not likely to be broken by any betrayal on either side."

"So far as I am concerned," said Roncivalli, "my being here is guarantee enough. I am not risking my life for nothing, or, if I am, I shall know the reason why."

At this moment Brunow broke in with an Italian-sounding phrase, and the baroness interrupted him.

"Speak English," she said. "Herr Sacovitch has no Italian, and Miss Pleyel no German. English is the one language which is understood by all of us, and we may just as well have everything open and above-board."

With one eye glued to the lower interstice of the Venetian blind, I saw the quintet all bowing and bobbing to each other at this with a Judas politeness which was altogether charming to look at. Roncivalli, with his back half turned towards me, was so near that I could have taken him by the hair. A little removed from him, on the right, sat the baroness, in a captivating little bonnet and gloves of pearl gray, smoothing one hand over the other on her silk-clad knees with a purring satisfaction in the charm of her own attire. At her side sat poor Constance Pleyel with a winegla.s.s in her left hand, looking into its last spot or two as drearily as if she contemplated the dregs of her own wasted and weary life. Beyond her again, and almost facing me, just seen across Roncivalli's shoulders, sat Brunow, smoking at his ease, and toying with his eyegla.s.s with the fingers of both hands. Sacovitch stood upright, his cigar balanced between his first and second fingers, dominating, or seeking to dominate, the whole party.

"I especially desire," he said, in his strong German accent, and ticking off on his left forefinger every important syllable, with such emphasis that he scattered the ashes of his cigar into his own winegla.s.s--"I especially desire that Signor Roncivalli should understand with extreme definiteness that there is no escape from the position which he has elected to a.s.sume."

"No fear of me, my friend," Roncivalli answered. The liquid Italian played against the German guttural like the warble of a flute answering the snarl of a violoncello. "I am doing what I know. Until our friend Rossano came to England I had a place from which he was good enough to depose me. You may say what you like, Herr Sacovitch, but the independence of my country is secure. Italy wins; and I desire Italy to win. I will help you to your Count Rossano if you want him, and if you will pay me for it, because I hate him, and because he is in my way. But Italy wins, all the same."

There was a candor about this which I could appreciate, but Sacovitch turned upon his purchased traitor with something very like a snarl.

"Understand," he said, in his thick German-English, "that I buy you or I do not buy you. Whether I buy you or not, you are sold already. Our last talk was overheard by a fellow-committeeman of yours, who is in my pay, and who will go back to his old patriotism, or come to me, exactly as I tell him."

"I am here for a service," responded Roncivalli "I will do one thing for you, as I have told you all along, and I will do no more. I will give you the Count Rossano, who is in my way, and I will not give you any real chance over Italy for anything you may offer me. I will take your money because I want it, and I will serve your turn because it suits me.

How I reconcile these matters with my own conscience is my own affair."

"Your conscience is your own," Sacovitch answered; "the question of your conduct is our consideration. I want you only to understand that a single false move on either side--" He took a deep pull at his cigar there, and made a purposed pause for effect. "I think, ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with me that I do not exaggerate. Swerve an inch to right or left," he added, "and you lose your life."

Roncivalli's flute-like voice followed the troubled grumble of the German's threat.

"I know my business, Herr Sacovitch, as well as you know yours. I can serve your turn and I can serve my own. Give me what I ask, and you may have the Count Rossano. But if you think that in betraying the man who has usurped my place I betray my cause, you are very much mistaken. So long as Count Rossano is at liberty, it is not worth your while to trap so inconsiderable a person as myself. When once he is in your hands I shall be a great deal too wise to give you the chance of seizing me.

When I fight, I shall fight openly--against Austria," he added, with a laugh.

"Miss Rossano," said Sacovitch, "drew the forty thousand pounds yesterday, and it now lies in the hands of Lady Rollinson. You will go to Southampton by the first train in the morning, accompanied by the Baroness Bonnar, who will introduce you to her English ladys.h.i.+p. Lady Rollinson is in direct communication with the Count Rossano, and will be able to give you a meeting-place at which you will hand over the money to the count. Mr. Brunow and the baroness will accompany you, and will undertake to see that the money is delivered. Any one of you may act as intermediaries between the Count Rossano and the forces on sh.o.r.e; but it must be definitely understood that the count is, under no circ.u.mstances, to be allowed to land until our own side is ready."

"That is clear enough," answered Roncivalli.

"Let me be clearer still,"-said Sacovitch, turning upon him with a menacing look. "In a case like this, many things have to be provided for. It is quite possible that it may seem worth your while to play for forty thousand pounds."

"Not at all," said Roncivalli, tranquilly.

"It is a.s.suredly not worth your while," the Austrian returned. "This enterprise is in my hands, and it has never been my practice to leave any of my agents unwatched. I shall not tell you who will watch you, or who in turn will watch him; but it will save possible trouble if you should understand that from the moment at which you leave, until the Count Rossano is in our hands, you will be under my observation and control as definitely as you are at this moment."

"All this," replied Roncivalli, "is a waste of words. I have undertaken this piece of work for my own purpose, and for my own purpose I shall carry it through. When the work is done I shall go my own way, as I have always told you. I am to have the pleasure of your society, madame," he continued, turning to the baroness. "That is charming, and will beguile a journey which might otherwise be tedious. What is the hour of the train's departure?"

Sacovitch drew out a pocket-book, and, extracting a loose leaf from it, handed it to him.

"You will find all your instructions there: the train, the hotel at which Lady Rollinson is staying, and the boat. Mr. Brunow has my certificate to the captain of the boat, who will place himself at your service at any hour."

"_Buono!_" said the Italian, folding the paper with a flourish, and bestowing it in his breast-pocket. "Is there anything more?"

"That is all," said Sacovitch. "I think we understand each other, and we could do no more than that if we talked till midnight."