CHAPTER XVIII
A THREATENING PRESENCE
NEXT morning Count Zarka received a letter which occasioned him a considerable amount of uneasiness. It reached him by the hand of a peasant from the mountain district, and its perusal caused the thin lips to be drawn back, and the cruel teeth displayed in a grin which was very far from suggesting pleasure. Written by the man whom he had met at the mountain inn, the letter contained very few words, and those simply words of warning. But they caused the noble Count to meditate deeply. For he was playing a double game, and it presently occurred to him that if the information hindered him in one direction he might turn it to his advantage in the other. So after a hurried breakfast he ordered his horse and rode off towards the farm. He did not take the shortest path though, but one which led him past Von Tressen’s encampment. With his inscrutable grin he gave the two friends good morning, and made them wonder whether he had found out anything of the night’s doings. So they waited expectantly through his airy small-talk for a clue to the real object of his visit, which they felt sure was not paid for nothing.
They had not to wait long.
“By the way, talking of sport,” their amiable visitor observed carelessly, “have you come across another sportsman, almost as solitary as yourselves, who haunts this part of the forest?”
“Yes,” answered Galabin, to whom Von Tressen looked to reply; “there is a man who shoots about here.”
“Ah!” Zarka was still almost indifferent. “I have heard of him but never seen him. A dark, fierce-looking fellow, eh? A forbidding appearance, I am told.”
“Not half as forbidding as some one I know,” thought Galabin, but he said: “Dark certainly, and rather fierce looking.”
“You know him? Yes?”
“Slightly.”
“Ah!” In spite of his patent indifference the Count was becoming interested. “It is curious that a man should wander about here in that fashion. What is your idea of his object? Is he really a sporting enthusiast?”
“He says so,” Galabin answered guardedly.
“Ah, it is singular,” Zarka observed meditatively. “You have seen much of him?”
“No, very little. We asked him to join us at luncheon one day.”
“So! And what opinion did you form of the mysterious one?”
Galabin laughed, as much at their visitor’s curiosity as the recollection of its object. “That he was the most inquisitive person I had ever had the honour to meet.”
The Count raised his eyebrows, and plunged forward his head in surprise. “Inquisitive? About sport?”
“About everything.”
“So? A strange fellow, almost suspicious. May I ask if so humble a person as myself had the honour of awakening his curiosity?”
“Oh, yes,” Galabin answered pleasantly, “The mysterious one asked several questions about you, Count.”
The grin widened, as usual not with mirth.
“So? And doubtless about the only other dwellers in these parts—our friends at the farm?”
“A question or two.”
Between scheming thought and an affectation of amused indifference Zarka was a study.
“I am inclined to be suspicious of the man,” he said. “Did his questions seem merely prompted by idle curiosity, or to have some intent behind them?”
Galabin laughed; he was rather enjoying their visitor’s uneasiness. “It is hard to say, Count,” he answered slily, “since many people have a trick of pretending to be less in earnest than they really are. Certainly your friend seemed eager to know all we could tell him, but that may have been the effect of an exaggerated manner.”
“Just so,” Zarka replied, in a tone which showed he hardly accepted the suggestion. “Did he tell you his name?”
“He called himself D’Alquen.”
“D’Alquen?” The Count was evidently fixing it in his memory. “Perhaps if I have the pleasure of meeting Herr D’Alquen I may be able to satisfy his curiosity on my own account.”
That there was an ugly threat behind his words both his hearers agreed.
“I wonder,” Von Tressen laughed, when their visitor had departed, “what he would think of our somewhat practical curiosity if he knew of it?”
Galabin smiled grimly. “There would probably be two vacancies forthwith in his Majesty’s service, one in the civil department and one in the military. The forest over which our gallant Count rules as Obergespan would make an admirable oubliette: no trace of either of us would be seen again.”
Zarka rode on to the farm, and with the luck of which he often boasted met Philippa at a little distance from the house. Perhaps the smile with which he received her rather blank greeting was occasioned by the idea that she was probably going out to avoid his visit.
“I do not want to worry your father,” he said, “but I have a piece of bad news for you.”
With her insight into the man’s character, a thrill of apprehension ran through her at the words. True or not, she felt this was his first move in the game against her, and if the bad news had its origin in him alone, it was none the less to be dreaded.
“What is it?” she asked, striving bravely to show no sign of alarm.
“We are threatened by what I feared,” he answered, taking from his pocket the letter he had received that morning. “Read that.”
She took it and read the few words it contained.
“Man who followed to inn dangerous. Tried afterwards to rob me. On a peculiar track. Beware.”
Philippa looked up blankly. “I do not understand it.”
Smiling mysteriously, Zarka held out his hand for the paper. “Hardly,” he replied; “it is meant to be obscure, since the sender, a trustworthy friend of mine, did not know into whose hands it might fall. But I will explain the meaning. It refers to a dangerous person who is just now haunting the forest for no good purpose.”
“A robber?”
He shook his head. “Not a robber. The word rob is used to mislead. What he really means is that the man tried to get information out of him. I was shooting in the mountains, and he was following and watching me, as he is constantly watching you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. And for the purpose hinted at here,” he answered, tapping the letter. “You know the man.”
His identity had not occurred to her, but now she realized who it must be. “The man who shot the wild boar?”
Zarka nodded. “No other. You guess his purpose?”
Philippa shook her head. He took a newspaper from his pocket and pointed to a column devoted to Prince Roel’s disappearance. She glanced at a few lines of exaggerated language and then asked: “Need I read all this?”
“Not all,” he answered with a shrug. “But at least a passage here which will explain the object of my visit and my friend’s letter.”
He indicated a paragraph, and she read—
“The theory that the unfortunate Prince’s mysterious disappearance and much-to-be-feared death is attributable to an unhappy love affair, in which he was made the victim of a lady’s caprice, still holds ground, and it is terrible to think of the dire results to which a woman’s thoughtlessness, or worse, may lead. It is reported, although we do not vouch for the truth of the news, that a near kinsman and close friend of Prince Roel has left Markaynar with the object of seeking out and taking vengeance on those who may have been responsible for his death.”
Zarka watched her as she read, and as she came to the end of the paragraph their eyes met. “You understand now?” he said.
“This is the man?”
“None other. You may be certain of that.”
She hardly needed his assurance, since D’Alquen’s manner to her after the boar was killed was stronger evidence than Zarka’s word. She recalled his strange words and felt sure.
“But how comes he here?” she asked.
It was a question that Zarka found it inconvenient to answer by more than a shrug.
“How could he tell that I was here?” she went on. “Why should he watch me? How connect me with Prince Roel’s death?”
“I fancy,” he replied, noting her rising fear, “that he is not certain of your responsibility or——” He paused, still watching cat-like.
“He would not need to watch. He would strike.”
“A woman?” she exclaimed, betwixt fear and indignation.
“You who know the man can tell better than I,” he replied significantly. “I should say his notions of chivalry are not exactly occidental.”
“Then,” she said, “the sooner we escape from this place and go back to civilization and protection the better.”
He had expected her to suggest that expedient, and laughed.
“Civilization and protection are scarcely synonymous terms,” he said. “Are crime and lawlessness confined to the mountains and forests? To return to such a city as ours, nay, to seek refuge in any capital in Europe would be to court, to facilitate the blow. Wait one moment,” he continued, with an abrupt change of tone. “I have a suspicion.”
Leaving his horse, he walked stealthily to the edge of the clearing just beyond where they stood. She followed him with her eyes, her mind full of dark anxious thoughts. He turned and beckoned, holding up his hand to warn her to come cautiously. When she joined him he, without a word, leaned forward and pointed. Above, on the brow of the rising ground, on the outskirts of the wood, in almost the very place where he had been accosted by Von Tressen and Galabin, stood D’Alquen, gun in hand, like a sentry, watching the farm. After a glance at him Philippa drew back, and her companion’s face said plainly, “Did I not tell you so?”
For the moment her indignation got the better of her fear. “What right has he to stand there watching?” she exclaimed.
“None,” Zarka replied. “He is the very genius of suspicion. He watches to make sure.” His tone was more curt and determined now. The preamble was finished; the real business that he had come about was to begin.
“To make sure?” Philippa returned. “Then let him make sure—that I am entirely innocent of Prince Roel’s fate, whatever it may be.”
Zarka’s eyes, contradicting the smile, had the look of a snake’s that is about to strike.
“Does he know the story of the roses, I wonder?” he observed significantly.
“If he does,” she returned, “he knows what, so far as I am concerned, is false.”
“Unhappily it is a story which is much more easily shown to be true than proved false. But,” he added, as his smile deepened, “I fancy we may be sure he does not know it—yet.”
If she recognized the threat in the pause before the last word she chose to ignore it. “Why,” she asked simply, “how is he likely to know it, then? Hardly from you, Count?”
The boldness of her direct question for a moment turned the point of his threat. “I think,” he said, “that there is only one sure way of escaping that fellow’s intention, whatever it may be.”
“And that is——?”
“By letting Aubray Zarka be your protector.”
She met him with an innocent trick of his own subtlety. “Why, surely, Count, I hope I may expect you to defend me from a design which you say threatens my life. You cannot think me so ungenerous as to suppose you would refuse.”
She was not taking it quite as he wished. “I want you,” he urged, “to give me the right to protect you.”
Her face clouded. “I cannot reverse the answer I gave you yesterday,” she said firmly.
At last they were fairly in open conflict. He pointed to where D’Alquen was standing. “You prefer that to me; death to love?” he said, with a gleam of thwarted passion in his eyes.
“Love?” she retorted. “I have told you love is out of the question.”
“And yet,” he rejoined, “it is well to love the man who can protect you.”
His urgency and want of consideration provoked her. “Am I so helpless?” she said.
“More than you fancy,” he returned. “Perhaps, you think,” he continued viciously, “this dashing young Lieutenant can protect you. A fool’s paradise, indeed! The whole of his regiment would not keep that man’s knife or bullet from your heart were he minded to drive it there. You do not know the savage patience and determination of these men. And your lover will doubtless share your fate.”
Whatever her feelings were, she repressed them and kept silence.
“One word,” he pleaded more vehemently as he thought her yielding, “one little word, promising to be my wife, and this awful danger shall pass from you. I swear it! Yes; if I have to shoot that mad fellow yonder with my own hand. I have power here and men who live but to do my will, men who would not hesitate at the risk of their lives to sweep danger and fear from the path of their queen and mistress. My wife! Philippa, you cannot refuse. Give me but hope, and you shall have an earnest that I am promising no more than I can accomplish. That man, who in his mad revenge seeks your life, shall never trouble you again. Only tell me I may hope.”
But she shook her head. “I cannot,” she replied. “And were it possible for me to love you, do you think I could consent to the death of the man who saved my life?”
“In order to reserve you for a worse fate,” he sneered.
“That could hardly be,” she rejoined, “unless it were to be the wife of a man I could not love.”
Zarka’s face was dark now. “You can scarcely expect him to ward off this danger in order that you may marry a rival. A rival! Bah! I make no rival of this flirting Lieutenant. Only—I tell you that you shall not marry him.”
Before Philippa could utter the indignant words that rose to her lips there was a sound of an approaching presence. Owing to the peculiar deadening effect of the wood, the steps were only heard just as three men emerged into the path where Zarka and Philippa stood. Both had looked round with a start. The Count smiled, and Philippa flushed with vexation as she recognized the three. They were Von Tressen, Galabin and D’Alquen.