Truxton King: A Story of Graustark Part 19

The Countess Marlanx was trembling violently. Tullis, observing this, tried to laugh away her nervousness.

"Mere coincidence, that's all," he said. "Surely you are not superst.i.tious. You can't believe she brought about this storm?"

"It isn't that," she said in a low voice. "I feel as if a grave personal danger had just pa.s.sed me by. Not danger for the rest of you, but for me alone. That is the sensation I have: the feeling of one who has stepped back from the brink of an abyss just in time to avoid being pushed over.

I can't make you understand. See! I am trembling. I have seen no more than the rest of you, yet am more terrified, more upset than Robin, poor child. Perhaps I am foolish. I _know_ that something dreadful has--I might say, touched me. Something that no one else could have seen or felt."

"Nerves, my dear Countess. Shadows! I used to see them and feel them when I was a lad no bigger than Bobby if left alone in the dark. It is a grown-up fear of goblins. You'll be over it as soon as we are outside."

Ten minutes later the cavalcade started down the rain-swept road toward the city, dry blankets having been placed across the saddles occupied by the ladies and the Prince. The Witch stood in her doorway, laughing gleefully, inviting them to come often.

"Come again, your Highness," she croaked sarcastically.

"The next time I come, it will be with a torch to burn you alive!"

shouted back Dangloss. To Tullis he added: "'Gad, sir, they did well to burn witches in your town of Salem. You cleared the country of them, the pests."

Darkness was approaching fast among the sombre hills; the great pa.s.s was enveloped in the mists and the gloaming of early night. In a compact body the guardsmen rode close about Prince Robin and his friend.

Ingomede had urged this upon Tullis, still oppressed by the feeling of disaster that had come over her in the hovel.

"It means something, my friend, it means something," she insisted. "I feel it--I am sure of it." Riding quite close beside him, she added in lower tones: "I was with my husband no longer ago than yesterday. Do you know that I believe it is Count Marlanx that I feel everywhere about me now? _He_--his presence--is in the air! Oh, I wish I could make you feel as I do."

"You haven't told me why you ran away on Sunday," he said, abruptly, dismissing her argument with small ceremony.

"He sent for me. I--I had to go." There was a new, strange expression in her eyes that puzzled him for a long time. Suddenly the solution came: she was completely captive to the will of this hated husband. The realisation brought a distinct, sickening shock with it.

Down through the lowering shades rode the Prince's party, swiftly, even gaily by virtue of relaxation from the strain of a weird half hour. No one revealed the slightest sign of apprehension arising from the mysterious demonstration in which nature had taken a hand.

Truxton King was holding forth, with cynical good humour, for the benefit, if not the edification of Baron Dangloss, with whom he rode--Mr. Hobbs galloping behind not unlike the faithful Sancho of another Quixote's day.

"It's all tommy-rot, Baron," said Truxton. "We've got a dozen stage wizards in New York who can do all she did and then some. That smoke from the kettle is a corking good trick--but that's all it is, take my word for it. The storm? Why, you know as well as I do, Baron, that she can't bring rain like that. If she could, they'd have her over in the United States right now, saving the crops, with or without water. That was chance. Hobbs told me this morning it looked like rain. By the way, I must apologise to him. I said he was a crazy kill-joy. The thing that puzzles me is what became of the owner of that eye. I'll stake my life on it, I saw an eye. 'Gad, it looked right into mine. Queerest feeling it gave me."

"Ah, that's it, my young friend. What became of the eye? Poof! And it is gone. We searched immediately. No sign. It is most extraordinary."

"I'll admit it's rather gruesome, but--I say, do you know I've a mind to look into that matter if you don't object, Baron. It's a game of some sort. She's a wily old dame, but I think if we go about it right we can catch her napping and expose the whole game. I'm going back there in a day or two and try to get at the bottom of it. That confounded eye worries me. She's laughing up her sleeve at us, too, you know."

"I should advise you to keep away from her, my friend. Granted she has tricked us: why not? It is her trade. She does no harm--except that she's most offensively impudent. And I rather imagine she'll resent your investigation, if you attempt it. I can't say that I'd blame her." The Baron laughed.

"Baron, it struck me a bit s.h.i.+very at the time, but I want to say to you now that the eye that I saw at the crack was not that of an idle peeper, nor was it a mere fakir's subst.i.tute. It was as malevolent as the devil and it glared--do you understand? Glared! It didn't _peep!_"

Truxton King, for reasons best known to himself, soon relapsed into a thoughtful, contemplative silence. Between us, he was sorely vexed and disappointed. When the gallant start was made from the glen of "dead men's bones," he found that he was to be cast utterly aside, quite completely ignored by the fair Loraine. She rode off with young Count Vos Engo without so much as a friendly wave of the hand to him. He said it over to himself several times: "not even a friendly wave of her hand." It was as if she had forgotten his existence, or--merciful Powers! What was worse--as if she took this way of showing him his place. Of course, that being her att.i.tude, he glumly found his place--which turned out rather ironically to be under the eye of a police officer--and made up his mind that he would stay there.

Vos Engo, being an officer in the Royal Guard, rode ahead by order of Colonel Quinnox. Truxton, therefore, had her back in view--at rather a vexing distance, too--for mile after mile of the ride to the city. Not so far ahead, however, that he could not observe every movement of her light, graceful figure as she swept down the King's Highway. She was a perfect horsewoman, firm, jaunty, free. Somehow he knew, without seeing, that a stray brown wisp of hair caressed her face with insistent adoration: he could see her hand go up from time to time to brush it back--just as if it were not a happy place for a wisp of hair.

Perhaps--he s.h.i.+vered with the thought of it--perhaps it even caressed her lips. Ah, who would not be a wisp of brown hair!

He galloped along beside the Baron, a prey to gloomy considerations.

What was the use? He had no chance to win her. That was for story-books and plays. She belonged to another world--far above his. And even beyond that, she was not likely to be attracted by such a rude, ungainly, sunburned lout as he, with such chaps about as Vos Engo, or that what's-his-name fellow, or a dozen others whom he had seen. Confound it all, she was meant for a prince, or an archduke. What chance had he?

But she was the loveliest creature he had ever seen. Yes; she was the golden girl of his dreams. Within his grasp, so to speak, and yet he could not hope to seize her, after all. Was she meant for that popinjay youth with the petulant eye and the sullen jaw? Was he to be the lucky man, this Vos Engo?

The Baron's dry, insinuating voice broke in upon the young man's thoughts. "I think it's pretty well understood that she's going to marry him." The little old minister had been reading King's thoughts; he had the satisfaction of seeing his victim start guiltily. It was on the tip of Truxton's tongue to blurt out: "How the devil did you know what I was thinking about?" But he managed to control himself, asking instead, with bland interest:

"Indeed? Is it a good match, Baron?"

The Baron smiled. "I think so. He has been a trifle wild, but I believe he has settled down. Splendid family. He is desperately in love, as you may have noted."

"I hadn't thought much about it. Is she in love with him?"

"She sees a great deal of him," was the diplomatic answer.

Truxton considered well for a minute or two, and then bluntly asked:

"Would you mind telling me just who she is, Baron? What is her name?"

Dangloss was truly startled. He gave the young man a quick, penetrating glance; then a set, hard expression came into his eyes.

"Do you mean, sir, that you don't know her?" he asked, almost harshly.

"I don't know her name."

"And you had the effrontery to--My excellent friend, you amaze me. I can't believe it of you. Why, sir, how dare you say this to me? I know that Americans are bold, but, by gad, sir, I've always looked upon them as gentlemen. You--"

"Hold on, Baron Dangloss," interrupted Truxton, very red in the face.

"Don't say it, please. You'd better hear my side of the story first. She went to school with my sister. She knows me, but, confound it, sir, she refuses to tell me who she is. Do you think that is fair? Now, I'll tell you how it came about." He related the story of the goldfish and the pinhook. The Baron smiled comfortably to himself, a sphinx-like expression coming into his beady eyes as he stared steadily on ahead; her trim grey back seemed to encourage his admiring smile.

"Well, my boy, if she elects to keep you in the dark concerning her name, it is not for me to betray her," he said at the end of the recital. "Ladies in her position, I dare say, enjoy these little mysteries. If she wants you to know, she'll tell you. Perhaps it would be well for you to be properly, officially presented to her hi--to the young lady. Your countryman, Mr. Tullis, will be glad to do so, I fancy.

But let me suggest: don't permit your ingenuousness to get the better of you again. She's having sport with you on account of it. We all know her propensities."

It was dusk when they entered the northern gates. Above the Castle, King said good-bye to Tullis and the Countess, gravely saluted the sleepy Prince, and followed Mr. Hobbs off to the heart of the city. He was hot with resentment. Either she had forgotten to say good-bye to him or had wilfully decided to ignore him altogether; at any rate, she entered the gates to the Castle grounds without so much as an indifferent glance in his direction.

Truxton knew in advance that he was to have a sleepless, unhappy night.

In his room at the hotel he found the second anonymous letter, unquestionably from the same source, but this time printed in crude, stilted letters. It had been stuck under the door, together with some letters that had been forwarded from Teheran.

"_Leave the city at once. You are in great danger. Save yourself_!"

This time he did not laugh. That it was from Olga Platanova he made no doubt. But why she should interest herself so persistently in his welfare was quite beyond him, knowing as he did that in no sense had he appealed to her susceptibility. And what, after all, could she mean by "great danger"? "Save yourself!" He sat for a long time considering the situation. At last he struck the window sill a resounding thwack with his fist and announced his decision to the silent, disinterested wall opposite.

"I'll take her advice. I'll get out. Not because I'm afraid to stay, but because there's no use. She's got no eyes for me. I'm a plain impossibility so far as she's concerned. It's Vos Engo--d.a.m.n little rat!

Old Dangloss came within an ace of speaking of her as 'her Highness.'

That's enough for me. That means she's a princess. It's all very nice in novels, but in real life men don't go about picking up any princess they happen to like. No, sir! I might just as well get out while I can. She treated me as if I were a yellow dog to-day--after I'd been d.a.m.ned agreeable to her, too, standing between her and the lightning. I might have been struck. I wonder if she would have been grateful. No; she wouldn't. She'd have smiled her sweetest, and said: "wasn't it lucky?"

He picked up the note once more. "If I were a storybook hero, I'd stick this thing in my pocket and set out by myself to unravel the mystery behind it. But I've chucked the hero job for good and all. I'm going to hand this over to Dangloss. It's the sensible thing to do, even if it isn't what a would-be hero in search of a princess aught to do. What's more, I'll hunt the Baron up this very hour. Hope it doesn't get Olga into trouble."

He indulged in another long spell of thoughtfulness. "No, by George, I'll not turn tail at the first sign of danger. I'll stay here and a.s.sist Dangloss in unravelling this matter. And I'll go up to that Witch's hole before I'm a day older to have it out with her. I'll find out where the smoke came from and I'll know where that eye went to." He sighed without knowing it. "By Jove, I'd like to do something to show her I'm not the blooming duffer she thinks I am."

He could not find Baron Dangloss that night, nor early the next day.

Hobbs, after being stigmatised as the only British coward in the world, changed his mind and made ready to accompany King to the hovel in Ganlook Gap.

By noon the streets in the vicinity of the Plaza were filled with strange, rough-looking men, undeniably labourers.