CHAPTER VI
ZARKA PLAYS TERRORIST
NEXT day, as the two friends were preparing for a morning’s sport, they were surprised by a visit from no less a personage than Count Zarka himself. He came in, all smiles, to invite them to Rozsnyo.
“I really cannot allow you to live here like gipsies,” he said, “when I have a great, almost empty house, within a stone’s throw. You must be my guests while you stay in the forest.”
His manner was polished and civil to a degree which with some people would have seemed charming, yet somehow to the two men it was in the matter of sincerity absolutely unconvincing. The invitation was declined as gracefully as possible, but without hesitation. They liked the free life of the forest, Von Tressen said, the novel change in their mode of existence. Moreover, they were not prepared for visiting, and would feel uncomfortable in a big house.
Zarka forebore to press the invitation beyond the slight combating of their excuses which the appearance of sincerity demanded.
“At least,” he said with his somewhat sinister smile, “you must let me make you free of that part of the forest which is my preserve. I can promise you good sport there.”
They thanked him and could not well refuse.
“Now,” he continued, “if you will not stay at my somewhat formidable house, you will at least not refuse to come and see it. You have doubtless an hour to spare this afternoon. I have some curiosities which may interest you, and the view from my Belvidere is magnificent. I may expect you? Yes?”
Von Tressen glanced at Galabin, who, without hesitation, accepted the invitation. Whereupon with a parting volley of polite remarks and small-talk the Count wheeled his horse and with a flourish rode off.
“An interesting specimen of character,” Galabin observed as they stood watching him down the forest road. “I wonder why he wanted us to stay at Rozsnyo; that is, if he did want us, which I doubt.”
At that moment the Count turned in his saddle and, looking back, saw they were watching him. He waved his riding whip. It was a mere flourish to cover his action of curiosity, and as such the two men recognized it. Then he put his horse to a trot and was quickly out of sight. The two looked at each other and laughed.
“I am glad, anyhow, he asked us up there,” Galabin said. “I want to take every opportunity I can get of examining the place. And I have a curiosity to see what our mysterious window looks like by daylight.”
Count Zarka rode on to Gorla’s Farm and announced himself with, for a ceremonious person, scant ceremony to Philippa Harlberg, whom he found in the house. Perhaps he had an idea that a more formal entry might result in his not seeing her.
“My father is smoking his cigar outside,” she said, as they shook hands.
He returned a protesting smile.
“I did not come particularly to see the General. I came to see you.”
Her reception of the announcement was hardly encouraging, yet she had to submit to the visit with as good a grace as possible.
“I have had news to-day from town,” he observed; then stopped, watching her.
“Ah, yes?” There was repressed apprehension in her tone which he was too clever to fail to notice.
“Prince Roel has not yet been found—dead or alive.”
“Poor fellow!” Her pity was genuine enough, yet there was something behind it.
“The search,” Zarka continued, still eyeing her keenly, “is being energetically carried on by his family as well as by the Government. It is just as well that you did not stay in the city.”
“Yes.” She responded mechanically without conviction.
“A great friend of Prince Roel’s is reported to have set out for Paris.”
“Ah!” She looked at him enquiringly, yet unwilling to show how great her curiosity was.
“Yes,” he proceeded with his evil smile. “Perhaps after all you may have been very wise in changing your intention of going to Paris.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed in the same preoccupied tone. Then with a flash her manner changed. “No. I was wrong to leave town. You should know perfectly well, Count, that I was neither directly nor indirectly the cause of Prince Roel’s disappearance.”
She spoke vehemently, as though lashed by the man’s insinuations into taking a stand against him. He merely smiled, more inscrutably than ever.
“Of course if you will tell me so I am bound to believe it,” he replied. “Only, other people might not be so easily convinced.”
“And why not, pray?” she demanded, with a touch of haughtiness.
“The Prince was well known to be rather more than an admirer of yours, Fräulein.”
“Absurd!” she burst out. “An admirer, perhaps, but nothing more, and you have no warrant for supposing such a thing. Do men make away with themselves for unreturned admiration? I am not to be at the mercy of such a suggestion, Count.”
Behind the tolerant smile of a strong-willed man who holds, or thinks he holds, a winning card, there was a look of intense, hardly disguised admiration in Zarka’s eyes. The girl had at last roused herself to face him; instead of mere avoidance she had sounded now a bold note of open defiance. He realized that, perhaps he had expected it, anyhow he was prepared to meet it.
He replied quietly, veiling the sentiment her outburst had called up—
“It is most unfair,” he said insinuatingly, “that you should be the victim of an unfortunate suspicion; particularly hard that the crime of which you stand accused is simply that of exciting in this man an admiration which you were unable to return. My dear Fräulein, it must often have been your fate—and will be—to commit that offence, if it be one.” As she was not looking at him, he saved himself the trouble of pointing his compliment with one of his characteristic smiles. “But in this case,” he went on suavely—“you will, I am sure, forgive my hinting at it—have not Prince Roel’s friends perhaps something more to go upon than a mere suggestion?”
She turned upon him sharply, and met the insinuating smile she so detested.
“What do you mean, Count?”
He spread out his hands deprecatingly.
“I mean,” he continued in the same quiet voice, subdued because the words themselves carried sting and point sufficient, “have they not evidence of a pre-determination on the Prince’s part not to survive your cruelty?”
“My cruelty!” she cried, and her face went white. “What evidence?”
“The evidence,” he answered quietly and unhesitatingly, “of the roses.”
She was at a loss, that was plain. And the idea of a false underhand accusation struck more fear to her than the certainty of her visitor’s determined persecution.
“The roses?” she repeated.
“The red and the white,” he answered, with an almost mocking seriousness. “The white signifying life, and the red, death. It was perhaps a cruel choice to force upon you.”
“Choice?” she exclaimed in blank amazement. “I know of no choice.”
“Surely!” he insisted blandly. “And you wore the red roses at the Margravine von Reuspach’s ball.”
“I wore——” she replied. “Yes, I remember wearing red roses which Prince Roel sent me. I hesitated whether I should put them in my dress, and only did so because I thought it would be ungracious to refuse.”
Zarka raised his eyebrows in affected astonishment.
“Ungracious, Fräulein? To refuse to send your lover to his death?”
“Prince Roel was not my lover,” she retorted indignantly. “And how could wearing his roses send him to his death?”
“The red ones, Fräulein,” he answered with suave insistence. “The red were for death, the white for life. And you chose to wear the red.”
The girl looked at him half in doubt, half in consternation.
“I know nothing of any white roses,” she replied steadily, although her heart began to be full of a sickening fear of treachery, “nor of any particular significance attached to my wearing red ones.”
The Count looked incredulous.
“Indeed! But Prince Roel is known to have sent roses of both kinds, with a note intimating the significance to turn of which colour you should choose to wear that night.”
She shook her head.
“I know nothing of this. All I received was a bunch of red roses.”
“And no note?”
“And no note. Perhaps, Count,” she went on, with a touch of scorn, “as you know so much more of the affair than I, you will tell me the words of the note.”
Zarka gave a slight bow of acceptance.
“A copy of the note addressed to you is in the hands of the Chancellor, as having been found among Prince Roel’s papers,” he replied. “I have, as you know, had to interest myself in the matter from political reasons. So far as my memory serves me, the words were these:
“‘I send you herewith two bunches of roses, white and red; the white signify love and life; the red, hate and death. Those which you will wear to-night must decide my fate. R.’ Those,” he added with a smile, which seemed to deprecate further denial on her part, “were the words. And you wore the red roses.”
She met his look and replied, unfalteringly—
“Count, I can only repeat I never got the note you speak of, nor the white roses. You, who seem to know so much, should at least know that.”
Her manner was one of defiance rather than defence or explanation, and Zarka felt that intimidation here would hardly serve his purpose. Accordingly he changed his tone.
“I am very glad to hear it,” he said sympathetically, “and more especially for your own sake. But it seems to me that some hideous mistake has been made, possibly by an enemy of the Prince’s, a mistake which is likely to have cost him his life. It strikes, as I have hinted, a particularly cruel blow at you, Fräulein. For the world will hardly believe that you wore the red roses by accident, not design. And—I do not wish to alarm you, but it is necessary to realize and face the situation—the effect on the Prince’s family and friends must be bitter enough to lead to danger to yourself.”
“Danger!” the girl echoed scornfully. “I am not afraid, knowing that I have done nothing to deserve their ill-feeling. What do you mean by danger, Count? It is, as you say, best to know how one stands.”
Zarka affected to hesitate, as shrinking from a truth which might alarm her.
“These Eastern Huns,” he replied slowly and with an assumed deliberation, “are a peculiar race, given to fits of ungovernable passion, and actuated by a blind spirit of revenge for a wrong, fancied or real. They are dangerous people to cross, hot-headed and unreasoning, and there is no knowing to what length their vindictiveness may carry them.”
“I understand your suggestion,” the girl said almost coldly. “Do these people wreak their vengeance on women? I always thought they were chivalrous.”
Zarka’s eyes were fixed on her like those of a snake, ever ready to dart in the direction his prey might try to escape.
“You have never heard,” he replied, almost softly, “of the Blutrache, the blood vengeance?”
“A kind of vendetta,” she replied, in a tone approaching indifference. “Yes. But you will hardly expect me to stand in terror of that.”
“Ah!” he returned. “Then you know little of it.”
“If I knew everything I should not fear it.”
“Indeed, Fräulein?” His exclamation was an incredulous protest.
“No. For two reasons,” she went on. “In the first place, I am entirely innocent of Prince Roel’s death, and in the second, even did it lie at my door, I can hardly suppose that the most blood-thirsty of his avengers would seek retribution against a woman.”
Zarka gave a shrug of doubt.
“Perhaps not. Although I have never heard that these people allowed the sex of their wronger to stand in the way of their vengeance. What I wish to say, Fräulein,” he continued with a change of tone, “is, that I hope I shall be permitted to stand between you and any danger which may exist. Let me assure you of my devotion both to your safety and happiness as to yourself.”
He spoke earnestly, with a touch of repressed passion in his voice. Before she could reply, to her great relief her father came in, and no more on the subject could be said.