The Hippodrome Part 25

It was no use wasting time in sentiment and regrets. _a la Guerre, comme a la Guerre_. The episode was finished.

He would have work enough to divert his mind soon. There was nothing left to him now but the Cause.

He would see Sobrenski to-morrow, and hurry on all arrangements for departure.

After all, as he had once told Arith.e.l.li, in any venture it is only the first step that counts.

CHAPTER XVIII

"Would I lose you now? Would I take you then?

If I lose you now that my heart has need, And come what may after death to men, What thing worth this will the dead years breed?"

THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.

Three days later the early morning post brought Arith.e.l.li a letter.

She sat up in bed eagerly to receive it, and with the heaviness of sleep still upon her eyes. As she read, the lace at her throat trembled with her quickened breathing, and her heart called back an answer to the tender, reckless phrases.

Vardri was idealist as well as lover, and graceful turns of expression came to his pen readily and without effort. In many pages of characteristic, hurried, irregular writing he set forth wild and unpractical schemes for their future.

He urged her to take the dangerous step of leaving Barcelona and cutting herself free of the bonds of her allegiance to the Cause.

If there was risk in going, he wrote, there was infinitely more risk in remaining.

If he abandoned his political views it was more than likely that his father would receive him. Their quarrel and parting four years ago had been solely on those grounds, and he was the only son, and there were large estates to be inherited.

If it were the price of gaining her he was prepared to renounce all his theories, socialist and revolutionist.

He had been able to save a little money lately, enough for their journey to Austria. He was sure of a welcome among the officials and work-people of his former home. The wife of the steward had been his mother's maid, and she and her husband would give him shelter till he could see his father and make terms.

If things turned out well then his life and Arith.e.l.li's would be one long fairy-tale, which should begin where all other fairy-tales ended.

If his father refused to see him then surely they could both find some engagement in another circus or Hippodrome.

She had the advantage of the reputation she had gained here, and he could work in the stables again, and they would be free and together.

Arith.e.l.li kissed the letter, before she put it down, and lay back with her hands over her eyes, trying to think. She had begun her adventures by running away from home, and now for the second time her only course was flight. Even Emile had told her not to waste time in going. For her it seemed there was never to be any peace or rest.

If they could only find some haven away from all the world, she thought. A forest or desert, some unknown spot where there was air and s.p.a.ce and natural savage beauty, a tent to dwell in, a horse to ride, complete freedom, the life of her remote ancestors, simple, dignified.

Once she had craved for change. Now she feared it. She knew what Vardri had ignored, that the moment they both left Barcelona they would become fugitives. If they were discovered they would be treated simply as deserters from the ranks of an army.

Instinctively her thoughts turned to Emile. It was he who must help her to decide. She slid out of bed, and commenced her toilet, while she recalled to mind the things that must be got through during the day. There was a ma.n.u.script to be delivered to Sobrenski, an article of Jean Grave's from _Les Temps Nouveaux_ which she had copied for reproduction.

She finished dressing her hair, and pushed the window more widely open, for the sound of music in the distance had caught her ear.

Though it was now autumn, and in England there would have been mist and gloom and fogs, here the sun shone, and the air was sweet and mild.

The parching, exhausting heat of the summer was gone, and everything smelt fresh and clean, without any touch of winter cold.

Down below in the Calle Catriona the music swelled louder and higher till her attic room was filled with the dancing notes.

Along the pavement two men walked slowly with guitar and flageolet.

They walked turning in opposite directions, their heads thrown back, their feet keeping step, two black-haired, supple vagabonds of gypsy breed, who had come down to the city from their mountain home on the heights of Montserrat.

The guitar tw.a.n.ged merrily, the reed-like notes of the flute were true and clear as the song of a thrush. The melody turned and climbed and twisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase.

Arith.e.l.li listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always was by music.

Something wild and primitive in her responded to the shrill, sweet, insistent call. She had felt like that before, listening to the Tziganes on the Rambla, and it was as if the heart were being dragged out of her body. She thought of the childish story of the Piper of Hamelin. She could understand now what had made the children follow him with dancing footsteps, through street to street, on, on from dawn till dusk.

The guitar-player glanced up in pa.s.sing and mocked her with laughing eyes. An orange-coloured scarf left his brown throat exposed, and there were gold rings in his ears. She kissed her hand and called down greetings in Spanish, and stood at the window, watching and listening and longing to run out into the street and follow as the children followed through the town of Hamelin.

All the joy of life was in those oft-repeated and alluring phrases, the fall of water, the hum of bees, the s.h.i.+ver of aspen leaves, the slow music of a breaking wave.

She strained to hear the last faint echoes till all sound was hidden by a turn of the road, and the brief enchantment was at an end, leaving her to the realities of life.

She dressed slowly, singing under her breath as she plaited her hair before Agnes Sorel's mirror. Before she left the room she thrust the loose sheets of Vardri's letter between the folds of her blouse, leaving the envelope lying among the bed clothes.

Late in the afternoon one of the "comrades" brought her a cipher message, warning her of a meeting arranged to take place in the "Black Hole" up in the hills.

Half an hour after she left the Hippodrome she was in boy's clothes and riding out to the _rendezvous_ to wait till the others appeared. She had hoped for the chance of a talk with Emile, but to her surprise he was not among those who mustered outside the town. She had never known him to be absent from a meeting before, but it was not her business to ask questions.

While the rest of the company occupied themselves with long and bloodthirsty orations, and hatched fresh schemes for the destruction of their fellow-creatures, and the regeneration of the whole earth, she went quietly about her duties as stable boy.

When she had finished she set the lantern at the furthest end of the stable, and pulling off her hat and black curly wig stretched herself wearily at full length on a truss of hay in a dark corner among the tethered horses. The ways of men she had begun to fear and hate, but of the beasts she had no fear, for they were always grateful to those who cared for them, and they also had suffered at the hands of their masters.

A lethargy had taken possession of her whole body, and her limbs felt heavily weighted. She closed her eyes and sank inertly into the bed of soft and fragrant hay.

Her loose s.h.i.+rt of faded dusky red had fallen open at the throat, and showed the dead-white skin. Her feet, in riding boots of brown leather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. A leather strap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like those of a boy than a woman. The horses fidgeted and stamped, and a mule dragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances.

Sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musical ring and jingle.

Arith.e.l.li heard nothing till she awoke to find herself in Vardri's arms, and being lifted into a sitting position with her back against the wall.

In answer to her sleepy murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over her mouth with a whispered--"_Gare a toi pet.i.te! ne fais pas de bruit_."

She sat up fully awake, and swept the veil of hair out of her eyes.

"Oh! it's you, _mon ami_! Is it time to go? I must get up and see to the horses."

But he held her kneeling by her side.

"No, no! Lie still, dear. There's time enough. Yes, Sobrenski is still talking. Can't you hear him? You had my letter safely?"

She laid her hand on her breast.