Sylvia & Michael Part 28

"Oh, you think he _is_ a rose-grower?"

"I didn't speculate upon the problem. He got into the train at Plevna and did all he could to make himself useful and agreeable," Sylvia said.

"That's one for you, Ant.i.tch," the Englishman laughed. "Another Bulgarophile. We're hopeless, aren't we? Upon my soul, people like Prussians and Bulgarians are justified in thinking that we're traitors to our convictions when they witness the immediate affinity between most of them and most of us. I say, you must forgive me for being so full of voluble buck this morning," he went on to Sylvia. "It really is the effect of the bath. I feel like a general who's been made a knight commander of that most honorable order for losing an impregnable position and keeping his temper. Well, I'm sorry to bother you, but I think you'd better be confronted by your accomplice. We have reason to doubt his bona fides, and Colonel Michailovitch, our criminal expert, would like to have your testimony. You'll intrust this lady to me?" he asked Ant.i.tch, who saluted ceremoniously. "All right, old thing, you'll bark your knuckles if you try to be too polite in a railway carriage.

Come along, then, and we'll tackle the colonel."

"I think I will come as well," said Ant.i.tch.

"Of course, of course. I don't know if it's etiquette to introduce a suspected spy to her temporary jailer, but this is Lieutenant Ant.i.tch, and my name's Hazlewood. You've come from Rumania, haven't you? Here, let me carry your valise. Even if you are condemned by the court, you won't be condemned to travel any more in this train. What an atrocious sentence! _Voyages forces_ for twenty years!"

"Rumania was very well," said Sylvia, as they pa.s.sed along the corridor to the platform.

"Still flirting with intervention, I suppose?" Hazlewood went on. "Odd effect this war has of making one think of countries as acquaintances.

All Europe has been reduced to a suburb. I was sent up here from Gallipoli, and I find Nish--which with deep respect to Ant.i.tch I had always regarded as an unknown town consisting of mud and pigs, or as one of the stations where it was possible to eat between Vienna and Constantinople--as crowded and cosmopolitan as Monte Carlo. The whole world and his future wife is here."

Sylvia was trying to remember how the name Hazlewood was faintly familiar to her, but the recollection was elusive, and she asked about her big trunk.

"If you're going on to Salonika," he advised, "you'd better get on as soon as possible after the stain of suspicion has been erased from your pa.s.sport. Nish is full up now, but presently--" He broke off, and looked across at Ant.i.tch with an expression of tenderness.

The young Serbian shrugged his shoulders; and they pa.s.sed into the office of Colonel Michailovitch, who was examining Sylvia's pa.s.sport with the rapt concentration of gaze that could only be achieved by some one who was incapable of understanding a single word of what he was apparently reading. The colonel bowed to Sylvia when she entered, and invited her to sit down. Hazlewood asked him if he might look at the pa.s.sport.

"It's quite in order, I think, mon colonel," he said in French. The colonel agreed with him.

"You have no objection to its being returned?"

"_Pas du tout, pas du tout! Plaisir, plaisir!_" exclaimed the colonel.

"And I think you would like to hear from--" Hazlewood glanced at the pa.s.sport--"from Miss Scarlett? Sylvia Scarlett?" he repeated, looking at her. "Why, I believe we have a friend in common. Aren't you a friend of Michael Fane?"

Sylvia realized how familiar his name should be to her; and she felt that her eyes brightened in a.s.sent.

"He's in Serbia, you know," said Hazlewood.

"Now?" she asked.

"Yes. I'll tell you about him. _Je demande pardon, mon colonel, mais je connais cette dame._"

"_Enchante, enchante_," said the colonel, getting up and shaking hands cordially. "_Le Capitaine Antonivitch. Le Lieutenant Lazarevitch_," he added, indicating the other officers, who saluted and shook hands with her.

"They're awful dears, aren't they?" murmured Hazlewood. Then he went on in French, "But, mon colonel, I beg you will ask Miss Scarlett any questions you want to ask about this man Rakoff."

"_Vous me permittez, madame?_" the colonel inquired. "_Desole, mais vous comprenez, la guerre c'est comme ca, n'est-ce pas? Ah oui, la guerre._"

Everybody in the office sighed in echo, "_Ah oui, la guerre!_"

"Where did this man get into the train?"

"At Plevna, I believe."

"Did he talk about anything in particular?"

"About roses mostly. He said he did not believe there could be war with Serbia. He spoke very bitterly against Germany."

Sylvia answered many more questions in favor of her fellow-traveler. The colonel talked for a few moments in Serbian to his a.s.sistants; presently a grubby-looking peasant was brought in, at whom the colonel shouted a number of questions, the answers to which seemed to reduce him to a state of nervous despair. One of the officers retired and came back with the Bulgarian rose-grower; after a great deal of talking the peasant was sent away and Rakoff's pa.s.sport was handed back to him.

"_Je suis libre?_" asked the Bulgarian, looking round him.

The colonel bowed stiffly.

"This lady has spoken of your horticultural pa.s.sion," said Hazlewood, looking at Rakoff straight in the eyes.

"_Je suis infiniment reconnaissant_," the Bulgarian murmured, with a bow. Then he saluted the company and went out.

"I daren't precipitate the situation," the colonel told Hazlewood. "He must leave Nish at once, but if he tries to alight before the Greek frontier, he can always be arrested."

Renewed apologies from the colonel and much cordial saluting from his staff ushered Sylvia out of the office, whence she was followed by Hazlewood and Ant.i.tch, the latter of whom begged her to show her forgiveness by dining with him that night.

"My dear fellow," Hazlewood protested, "Miss Scarlett has promised to dine with me."

In the end she agreed to dine with both, and begged them not to bother about her any more, lest work should suffer.

"No, I'll see you into the town," Hazlewood said, "because I don't know if there's a room in any hotel. You ought really to go on to Salonika at once, but I suppose you want to see Nish on the eve of its calvary."

She looked at him in surprise: there was such a depth of bitterness in his tone.

"I should hate to be a mere sightseer."

"No, forgive me for talking like that. I'm sure you're not, and to show my penitence for the imputation let me help you about your room."

Sylvia and Hazlewood bowed to Ant.i.tch and walked out of the station.

"They've started to commandeer every vehicle and every animal,"

Hazlewood explained, "so we shall have to walk. It's not far. This youth will carry your bag. Your heavy luggage had better remain in the _consigne_. I suppose you more or less guessed what was Michailovitch's difficulty about your friend the Bulgarian rose-grower?"

"No, I don't think I did really."

Sylvia did not care anything about the Bulgarian or the colonel; she was only anxious to hear something about Michael Fane; but because she was so anxious, she could not bring herself to start the topic and must wait for Hazlewood.

"Well, this fellow Rakoff was identified by that peasant chap who was brought in--or at any rate so almost certainly recognized as to amount to identification--as one of the most bloodthirsty _comitadji_ leaders."

"What do they do?"

She felt that she must appear to take some interest in what Hazlewood was telling her, after the way he had helped and was helping her and perhaps would help her.

"Their chief mission in life," he explained, "is the Bulgarization of Macedonia, which they effect in the simplest way possible by murdering everybody who is not Bulgarian. They're also rather fond of Bulgarizing towns and churches by means of dynamite. Altogether the most unpleasant ruffians left in Europe, and in yielding them the superlative I'm not forgetting Orangemen and Junkers. The colonel did not believe that he was a rose-grower, but he was afraid to arrest him, because at this moment it is essential not to give the least excuse for precipitating the situation. We expect to hear at any moment that Bulgaria has declared war on Serbia; but all sorts of negotiations are still in progress. One of the characteristics of our policy during this war is to give a frenzied attention to the molding of a situation after it has hopelessly hardened. This Austrian advance is bad enough, but there's probably worse to follow, and we don't want the worst yet. The people here are counting on French and English help, and they are frightened to death of doing anything that will upset us. As a matter of fact, your evidence was a G.o.dsend to the colonel, because it gave him an excuse to let Rakoff go without losing his dignity. And of course there's always a chance that the fellow is what he claims to be--a peaceful rose-grower, though I doubt it: I can't imagine any one of that trade traveling through Serbia at such a moment. I believe myself that the Germans furnish condemned criminals with sufficiently suspicious accessories to occupy the Allied Intelligence, while they get away with the real goods.

Do you ever read spy-novels? Our spy-novels and spy-plays must have been of priceless a.s.sistance to the Germans in letting them know how to coach their condemned criminals for the part. There's only one thing on earth that bears less resemblance to its original than the English novelist's spy, and that is his detective."

"Where is Michael Fane?" Sylvia asked; she could bear it no longer.