The Man from Brodney's Part 27

Far in the night, Genevra, sleepless and depressed, stole into the hanging garden. Her mind was full of the horrid thing that had happened to Hollingsworth Chase. He had been nothing to her--he could not have been anything to her had he escaped the guns of the a.s.sa.s.sins. And yet her heart was stunned by the stroke that it had sustained. Wide-eyed and sick, she made her way to the railing, and, clinging to the vines, stared for she knew not how long at the dull red glow on the mountain.

The flames were gone, but the last red tinge of their anger still clung to the spot where the bungalow had stood. Behind her, there were lights in a dozen rooms of the chateau. She knew that she was not the only sleepless one. Others were lying wide awake and tense, but for reasons scarcely akin to hers; they were appalled, not heartsick.

The night was still and ominously dark. She had never known a night since she came to j.a.pat when the birds and insects were so mute. A sombre, supernatural calm hung over the island like a pall. Far off, over the black sea, pulsed the fitful glow of an occasional gleam of lightning, faint with the distance which it traversed. There was no moon; the stars were gone; the sky was inky and the air somnolent. The smell of smoke hung about her. She could not help wondering if his fine, strong body was lying up there, burnt to a crisp. It was far past midnight; she was alone in the garden. Sixty feet below her was the ground; above, the black dome of heaven.

She was not to know till long afterward that one of her faithful Thorberg men stood guard in the pa.s.sage leading up from the garden, armed and willing to die. One or the other slept in front of her door through all those nights on the island.

Something hot trickled down her cheeks from the wide, pitying eyes that stared so hard. She was wondering now if he had a mother--sisters. How their hearts would be wrenched by this! A mute prayer that he might have died in the storm of bullets before the fire swept over him struggled against the hope that he might have escaped altogether. She was thinking of him with pity and horror in her heart, not love.

A question was beginning to form itself vaguely in her troubled mind.

Were all of them to die as Chase had died?

Suddenly there came to her ears the sound of something swis.h.i.+ng through the air. An instant later, a solid object fell almost at her feet. She started back with a cry of alarm. A broad shaft of light crossed the garden, thrown by the lamps in the upper hall of the chateau. Her eyes fell upon a wriggling, snakelike thing that lay in this path of light.

Fascinated, almost paralysed, she watched it for a full minute before realising that it was the end of a thick rope, which lost itself in the heavy shadows at the cliff end of the garden. Looking about in terror, as if expecting to see murderous forms emerge from the shadows, she turned to flee. At the head of the steps which led downward into the corridor, she paused for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at the mysterious, wriggling thing. She was standing directly in the shaft of light. To her surprise, the wriggling ceased. The next moment, a faint, subdued shout was borne to her ears. Her flight was checked by that shout, for her startled, bewildered ears caught the sound of her own name. Again the shout, from where she knew not, except that it was distant; it seemed to come from the clouds.

At last, far above, she saw the glimmer of a light. It was too large to be a star, and it moved back and forth.

Sharply it dawned upon her that it was at the top of the cliff which overhung the garden and stretched away to the sea. Some one was up there waving a lantern. She was thinking hard and fast, a light breaking in upon her understanding. Something like joy shot into her being. Who else could it be if not Chase? He alone would call out her name! He was alive!

She called out his name shrilly, her face raised eagerly to the bobbing light. Not until hours afterward was Genevra to resent the use of her Christian name by the man in the clouds.

In her agitation, she forgot to arouse the chateau, but undertook to ascertain the truth for herself. Rus.h.i.+ng over, she grasped the knotted end of the rope. A glance and a single tug were sufficient to convince her that the other end was attached to a support at the top of the cliff. It hung limp and heavy, lifeless. A sharp tug from above caused it to tremble violently in her hands; she dropped it as if it were a serpent. There was something weird, uncanny in its presence, losing itself as it did in the darkness but a few feet above her head. Again she heard the shout, and this time she called out a question.

"Yes," was the answer, far above. "Can you hear me?" Greatly excited, she called back that she could hear and understand. "I'm coming down the rope. Pray for us--but don't worry! Please go inside until we land in the garden. It's a long drop, you know."

"Are you quite sure--is it safe?" she called, shuddering at the thought of the perilous descent of nearly three, hundred feet, sheer through the darkness.

"It's safer than stopping here. Please go inside."

She dully comprehended his meaning: he wanted to save her from seeing his fall in the event that the worst should come to pa.s.s. Scarcely knowing what she did, she moved over into the shadow near the walls and waited breathlessly, all the time wondering why some one did not come from the chateau to lend a.s.sistance.

At last that portion of the rope which lay in the garden began to jerk and writhe vigorously. She knew then that he was coming down, hand over hand, through that long, dangerous stretch of darkness. Elsewhere in this narrative, it has been stated that the cliff reared itself sheer to the height of three hundred and fifty feet directly behind the chateau.

At the summit of this great wall, a shelving ledge projected over the hanging garden; a rope dangling from this ledge would fall into the garden not far from the edge nearest the cliff. The summit of the cliff could be gained only by traversing the mountain slope from the other side; it was impossible to scale it from the floor of the valley which it bounded. A wide table-land extended back from the ledge for several hundred yards and then broke into the sharp, steep incline to the summit of the mountain. This table-land was covered by large, stout trees, thickly grown.

The rope was undoubtedly attached to the trunk of a st.u.r.dy tree at the brow of the cliff.

She could look no longer; it seemed hours since he started from the top.

Every heart-beat brought him nearer to safety, but would he hold out?

Any instant might bring him cras.h.i.+ng to her feet--dead, after all that he may have lived through during that awful night.

At last she heard his heavy panting, groaning almost; the creaking and straining of the rope, the sc.r.a.ping of his hands and body. She opened her eyes and saw the bulky, swaying shadow not twenty feet above the garden. Slowly it drew nearer the gra.s.s-covered floor--foot by foot, straining, struggling, gasping in the final supreme effort--and then, with a sudden rush, the black ma.s.s collapsed and the taut rope sprung loose, the end switching and leaping violently.

Genevra rushed frantically across the garden, half-fearful, half-joyous.

As she came up, the ma.s.s seemed to divide itself into two parts. One sank limply to the ground, the other stood erect for a second and then dropped beside the prostrate, gasping figure.

Chase had come down the rope with another human being clinging to his body!

Genevra fell to her knees beside the man who had accomplished this miracle. She gave but a pa.s.sing glance at the other dark figure beside her. All of her interest was in the writhing, gasping American. She grasped his hands, warm and sticky with blood; she tried to lift his head from the ground, moaning with pity all the time, uttering words of encouragement in his ear.

Many minutes pa.s.sed. At last Chase gave over gasping and began to breathe regularly but heavily. The strain had been tremendous; only superhuman strength and will had carried him through the ordeal. He groaned with pain as the two beside him lifted him to a sitting posture.

"Tell Selim to come ahead," he gasped, his b.l.o.o.d.y hand at his throat.

"We're all right!"

Then, for the first time, Genevra peered in the darkness at the figure beside her. She stared in amazement as it sprang lightly erect and glided across to the patch of light. It was then that she recognised the figure of a woman--a slight, graceful woman in Oriental garb. The woman turned and lifted her face to the heights from which she had descended.

In a shrill, eager voice she called out something in a language strange to the Princess, who knelt there and stared as if she were looking upon a being from another world. A faint shout came from on high, and once more the rope began to writhe.

The Princess pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes, bewildered. The face of the woman in the light, half-shaded, half-illumined, was gloriously beautiful--young, dark, brilliant!

"Oh!" she exclaimed, starting to her feet, a look of understanding coming into her eyes. This was one of the Persians! He had saved her! A feeling of revulsion swept over her, combatting the first natural, womanly pride in the deed of a brave man.

Chase struggled weakly to his feet. He saw the tense, strained figure before him, and, putting out his hand, said:

"She is Selim's wife. I am stronger than he, so I brought her down."

Then looking upward anxiously, he shouted:

"Be careful, Selim! It's easy if you take your time to it."

CHAPTER XX

NEENAH

"Selim's wife, Neenah, saved my life." It was the next morning and Chase was relating his experiences to an eager marvelling company in the breakfast room. "She has a sister whose husband was one of the leaders in the attack. Neenah told Selim and Selim told me. That's all. We were prepared for them when they came last night. Days ago, Selim and I cached the rope at the top of the cliff, antic.i.p.ating just such an emergency as this, and intending to use it if we could reach the chateau in no other way. I figured that they would cut off all other means of getting into your grounds.

"Neenah came up from the village ahead of the attacking party, out of breath and terribly frightened. We didn't waste a second, let me tell you. Grabbing up our guns, we got out through the rear and made a dash across the stable yard. It was near midnight. I had received the committee at nine and had given them my reasons for not resigning the post. They went away apparently satisfied, which aroused my suspicions.

I knew that there was something behind that exhibition of meekness.

"The servants, all of whom were up and ready to join in the fight, attempted to head us off. We had a merry little touch of real warfare just back of the stables. It was as dark as pitch, and I don't believe we hit anybody. But it was lively scrambling for a minute or two, let me tell you." Chase shook his head in sober recollection of the preliminary affray.

Deppingham's big blue eyes were fairly snapping. His wife put her hand on his shoulder with an impulse strange to her and Genevra saw a light blaze in her eyes. "I hope you potted a few of 'em. Serve 'em jolly well right if----"

"Selim says he stumbled over something that groaned as we were racing for the back road. I was looking out for Neenah." He glanced involuntarily from Lady Agnes to the Princess, a touch of confusion suddenly a.s.sailing him. "Selim covered the retreat," he added hastily.

"Instead of keeping the road, we turned up the embankment and struck into the forest. Dropping down behind the bushes, we watched those devils from the town race pell-mell, howling and shooting, down the chateau road. There must have been a hundred of 'em. Five minutes later, the bungalow was afire. It was as bright as day and I had no trouble in recognising Rasula in the crowd. Selim led the way and I followed with Neenah. It was hard going, let me tell you, up hill and down, stumbles and tumbles, scratches and b.u.mps, through five miles of the blackest night imaginable. Hang it all, Browne, I didn't have time to save that case of cigarettes; I'm out nearly a hundred boxes. And those novels you lent me, Lady Deppingham--I can't return. Sorry."

"You might have saved the cigarettes and novels if you hadn't been so occupied in saving the fair Neenah," said her ladys.h.i.+p, with a provoking smile.

"Alas! I thought of that also, but too late. Still, virtue was its own reward. Imagine my delight when we stopped to rest to have Neenah divide her own little store of Turkish cigarettes with me. We had a bully smoke up there in the wood."

"Selim, too?" asked Browne casually.

"Oh, no! Selim was exploring," said Chase easily.

"Neenah is very beautiful," ventured Lady Agnes.