Sophy of Kravonia Part 41

"I shouldn't think she'd take either t.i.tle or money, General," said Lepage, bluntly.

"You think she's disinterested? No doubt, no doubt! She'll be the more ready to see the uselessness of prolonging her present att.i.tude." He grew almost vehement, as he laid his hand on a large map which was spread out on the table in front of him. "Look here, Lepage. This is Monday. By Wednesday evening Colonel Stafnitz will be at Kolsko--here!"

He put his finger by the spot. "On Thursday morning he'll start back.

The barges travel well, and--yes--I think he'll have his guns here by Sunday; less than a week from now! Yes, on Thursday night he ought to reach Evena, on Friday Rapska, on Sat.u.r.day the lock at Miklevni. Yes, on Sat.u.r.day the lock at Miklevni! That would bring him here on Sunday. Yes, the lock at Miklevni on Sat.u.r.day, I think." He looked up at Lepage almost imploringly. "If she hesitates, show her that. They're bound to be here in less than a week!"

Lepage c.o.c.ked his head on one side and looked at the Minister thoughtfully. It all sounded very convincing. Colonel Stafnitz would be at the lock at Miklevni on Sat.u.r.day, and on Sunday with the guns at Slavna. And, of course, arduous though the transport would be, they could be before Volseni in two or three days more. It was really no use resisting!

Stenovics pa.s.sed a purse over to Lepage. "For your necessary expenses,"

he said. Lepage took up the purse, which felt well filled, and pocketed it. "The Baroness mayn't fully appreciate what I've been saying," added Stenovics. "But Lukovitch knows every inch of the river--he'll make it quite plain, if she asks him about it. And present her with my sincere respects and sympathy--my sympathy with her as a private person, of course. You mustn't commit me in any way, Lepage."

"I think," said Lepage, "that you're capable of looking after that department yourself, General. But aren't you making the Colonel go a little too fast?"

"No, no; the barges will do about that."

"But he has a large force to move, I suppose?"

"Oh, dear, no! A large force? No, no! Only a company--just about a hundred strong, Lepage." He rose. "Just about a hundred, I think."

"Ah, then he might keep time!" Lepage agreed, still very thoughtfully.

"You'll start at once?" the General asked.

"Within an hour."

"That's right. We must run no unnecessary risks; delay might mean new troubles."

He held out his hand and shook Lepage's warmly. "You must believe that I respect and share your grief at the King's death."

"Which King, General?"

"Oh! oh! King Alexis, of course! We must listen to the voice of the nation. Our new King lives and reigns. The voice of the nation, Lepage!"

"Ah!" said Lepage, dryly. "I'd been suspecting some ventriloquists!"

General Stenovics honored the sally with a broad smile. He thought the representatives with colds would be amused if he repeated it. The pat on the shoulder which he gave Lepage was a congratulation. "The animal is so very inarticulate of itself," he said.

XXI

ON SAt.u.r.dAY AT MIKLEVNI!

Though not remote in distance, yet Volseni was apart and isolated from all that was happening. Not only was nothing known of the two great neighbors--nothing reached men in Volseni of the state of affairs in Slavna itself. They did not know that the thieves were quarrelling about the plunder, nor that the diplomatists had taken cold; they had not bethought them of how the art of the ventriloquists would be at work.

They knew only that young Alexis reigned in Slavna by reason of their King's murder and against the will of him who was dead; only that they had chosen Sophia for their Queen because she had been the dead King's wife and his chosen successor.

All the men who could be spared from labor came into the city; they collected what few horses they could; they filled their little fortress with provisions. They could not go to Slavna, but they awaited with confidence the day when Slavna should dare to move against them into the hills. Slavna had never been able to beat them in their own hills yet; the bolder spirits even implored Lukovitch to lead them down in a raid on the plains.

Lukovitch would sanction no more than a scouting party, to see whether any movement were in progress from the other side. Peter Va.s.sip rode down with his men to within a few miles of Slavna. For result of the expedition he brought back the news of the guns: the great guns, rumor said, had reached Kravonia and were to be in Slavna in a week.

The rank and file hardly understood what that meant; anger that their destined and darling guns should fall into hostile hands was the feeling uppermost. But the tidings struck their leaders home to the heart.

Lukovitch knew what it meant. Dunstanbury, who had served three years in the army at home, knew very well. Covered by such a force as Stafnitz could bring up, the guns could pound Volseni to pieces--and Volseni could strike back not a single blow.

"And it's all through her that the guns are here at all!" said Zerkovitch, with a sigh for the irony of it.

Dunstanbury laid his hand on Lukovitch's shoulder. "It's no use," he said. "We must tell her so, and we must make the men understand. She can't let them have their homes battered to pieces--the town with the women and children in it--and all for nothing!"

"We can't desert her," Lukovitch protested.

"No; we must get her safely away, and then submit."

Since Dunstanbury had offered his services to Sophy, he had a.s.sumed a leading part. His military training and his knowledge of the world gave him an influence over the rude, simple men. Lukovitch looked to him for guidance; he had much to say in the primitive preparations for defence.

But now he declared defence to be impossible.

"Who'll tell her so?" asked Basil Williamson.

"We must get her across the frontier," said Dunstanbury. "There--by St.

Peter's Pa.s.s--the way we came, Basil. It's an easy journey, and I don't suppose they'll try to intercept us. You can send twenty or thirty well-mounted men with us, can't you, Lukovitch? A small party well mounted is what we shall want."

Lukovitch waved his hands sadly. "With the guns against us it would be a mere ma.s.sacre! If it must be, let it be as you say, my lord." His heart was very heavy; after generations of defiance, Volseni must bow to Slavna, and his dead Lord's will go for nothing! All this was the doing of the great guns.

Dunstanbury's argument was sound, but he argued from his heart as well as his head. He was convinced that the best service he could render to Sophy was to get her safely out of the country; his heart urged that her safety was the one and only thing to consider. As she went to and fro among them now, pale and silent, yet always accessible, always ready to listen, to consider, and to answer, she moved him with an infinite pity and a growing attraction. Her life was as though dead or frozen; it seemed to him as though all Kravonia must be to her the tomb of him whose grave in the little hill-side church of Volseni she visited so often. An ardent and overpowering desire rose in him to rescue her, to drag her forth from these dim cold shades into the sunlight of life again. Then the spell of this frozen grief might be broken; then should her drooping glories revive and bloom again. Kravonia and who ruled there--ay, in his heart, even the fate of the gallant little city which harbored them, and whose interest he pleaded--were nothing to him beside Sophy. On her his thoughts were centred.

Sophy's own mind in these days can be gathered only from what others saw. She made no record of it. Fallen in an hour from heights of love and hope and exaltation, she lay stunned in the abyss. In intellect calm and collected, she seems to have been as one numbed in feeling, too maimed for pain, suffering as though from a mortification of the heart.

The simple men and women of Volseni looked on her with awe, and chattered fearfully of the Red Star: how that its wearer had been predestined to high enterprise, but foredoomed to mighty reverses of fortune. Amidst all their pity for her, they spoke of the Evil Eye; some whispered that she had come to bring ruin on Volseni: had not the man who loved her lost both Crown and life?

And it was she through whom the guns had come! The meaning of the guns had spread now to every hearth; what had once been hailed as an achievement second only to her exploit in the Street of the Fountain served now to point more finely the sharpening fears of superst.i.tion.

The men held by her still, but their wives were grumbling at them in their homes. Was she not, after all, a stranger? Must Volseni lie in the dust for her sake, for the sake of her who wore that ominous, inexplicable Star?

Dunstanbury knew all this; Lukovitch hardly sought to deny it, though he was full of scorn for it; and Marie Zerkovitch had by heart the tales of many wise old beldams who had prophesied this and that from the first moment that they saw the Red Star. Surely and not slowly the enthusiasm which had crowned Sophy was turning into a fear which made the people shrink from her even while they pitied, even while they did not cease to love. The hand of heaven was against her and against those who were near her, said the women. The men still feigned not to hear; had they not taken Heaven to witness that they would serve her and avenge the King? Alas, their simple vow was too primitive for days like these--too primitive for the days of the great guns which lay on the bosom of the Krath!

Dunstanbury had an interview with Sophy early on the Tuesday morning, the day after Stafnitz had started for Kolsko. He put his case with the bluntness and honesty native to him. In his devotion to her safety he did not spare her the truth. She listened with the smile devoid of happiness which her face now wore so often.

"I know it all," she said. "They begin to look differently at me as I walk through the street--when I go to the church. If I stay here long enough, they'll all call me a witch! But didn't they swear? And I--haven't I sworn? Are we to do nothing for Monseigneur's memory?"

"What can we do against the guns? The men can die, and the walls be tumbled down! And there are the women and children!"

"Yes, I suppose we can do nothing. But it goes to my heart that they should have Monseigneur's guns."

"Your guns!" Dunstanbury reminded her with a smile of whimsical sympathy.

"That's what they say in the city, too?" she asked.

"The old hags, who are clever at the weather and other mysteries. And, of course, Madame Zerkovitch!"

Sophy's smile broadened a little. "Oh, of course, poor little Marie Zerkovitch!" she exclaimed. "She's been sure I'm a witch ever since she's known me."