I HAD not ridden more than a couple of miles towards the city when a thought occurred to me and caused me to draw rein suddenly and call to my companions to halt.
“Anything wrong?” asked Zoiloff, looking about him anxiously.
“It has just occurred to me that, as I’m going to put my head in the lion’s mouth by going to General Kolfort, I had better not go unprepared, and I have just thought of a precaution I can take.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t at present explain to you fully, but you or Spernow can help me. I must find some place before I enter Sofia where I can write for an hour or two. Where can I go?”
He thought a moment, and said:
“The safest place would be back to where you passed the night. I am sure of those people, and they know how to hold their tongues;” and, changing our direction, we set off for the house at a brisk trot.
My intention was to write out a full report now for the British Foreign Office, giving a detailed account of the position of matters in regard to the Russian scheme, of the part I had played in it, and of what I believed to be the Russian designs against me. I did not forget the condition that if I failed the Foreign Office were to be at liberty to disown me, and that the whole and sole responsibility of my present action lay with me, let the consequences be what they might. But I calculated that so far I had kept aloof from committing the Government in any way, and could thus claim the protection of the Foreign Office should any personal violence be contemplated by old Kolfort.
I thought out carefully what I had to say, and when we arrived at the house set to work with a will. I gave a clear description of the Princess’s counterplot, and then added my reason for believing that, although it was likely to fail now, it could yet be used for the advantage of Bulgaria and the Balkan States generally. The Prince had decided to abdicate, and if measures could be taken from Downing Street to have a successor to him ready, whether that successor should be Princess Christina or another, and the abdication so timed as to fit in with such a plan, it would be perfectly feasible to checkmate the Russian move. My own opinion, I declared, was in favour of putting the Princess on the throne, thus apparently acting in co-operation and concert with Russia, while at the same time taking secret measures to prevent any marriage on her part with a Russian ally.
For myself, I asked merely that, in the event of my being imprisoned by General Kolfort, the British representative in Bulgaria might be instructed by telegraph to press either for my being liberated or brought to trial. No more to be done than would be done in the case of an ordinary British subject.
When I had completed the despatch, I drafted a telegram announcing that it was on its way, and I instructed my companions how they were to act. Spernow was to take the work in hand, and to push on now for the Servian frontier, and take the train there for Nish, where I knew there was a particularly energetic British Consul. If no communication reached Spernow from me within twenty-four hours of his arrival at Nish he was to send off the despatch by the quickest available means, and twenty-four hours later—so as to allow enough time to elapse to prevent the letter being intercepted—the telegram was to follow. Then Spernow was to return in hot haste to Sofia to report to Zoiloff. He undertook the commission very readily, asking only that Mademoiselle Broumoff should be told of the reason for his absence, and that Zoiloff should arrange the difficulties of getting him leave of absence from his regiment.
Zoiloff and I then resumed our ride to Sofia, discussing very earnestly the new development of our affairs and the possibilities which lay ahead of my interview with the General.
I scarcely thought he would venture to imprison me, resolute and ruthless as he was in pressing his policy; and I said as much to Zoiloff, who was, however, more doubtful.
“In any case it must make no difference to our scheme,” I said. “You must push on without me, and hurry forward all the preparations with the utmost despatch. I should like you to see the Princess and explain to her precisely what has happened this morning, although you need know nothing of her message to me.”
“I understand,” he said drily; “but I should like to warn her against imperilling a valuable life when she doesn’t know the facts. It may be my turn next—who knows?”
“You would act as I did, my friend,” I replied, smiling; “I know you.”
“Well, the conditions would never be the same,” he said bluntly; and I did not pursue the point any further.
When we reached Sofia we parted.
“How shall I know what happens at the General’s?” he asked.
“If you do not hear from me, you may draw your own conclusion that I am on my way to Tirnova. If we are not to meet again—good-bye;” and I held out my hand.
He grasped it warmly, and with a ring of true stalwart friendship he said: “If they shut you up it’ll go hard with me if I don’t find you. And if they kill you you have my oath on it you sha’n’t go unavenged, if I have to shoot that infernal old ruffian with my own hand. It shall be life for life.” And without another word, as though he did not wish me to see how much he was moved, he clapped his heels into his horse’s flanks and cantered off.
I avoided my own house purposely, lest some of the General’s agents should be waiting there for me, for I wished it to be unmistakably clear that my interview with the General was by my own choice; and I did not draw rein till I had reached the courtyard of his house. Then, telling Markov to wait for me with the horses in the street, I entered the house and asked for General Kolfort.
I could see that my visit caused surprise, and observed that one or two of the soldiers present made haste to post themselves so that my retreat would be impossible. I was shown upstairs into the room where I had first seen the General, and where, as usual, one or two officers were lounging. I was kept there about half an hour—quite long enough to irritate me—and then a messenger ushered me into the General’s room.
He looked even harder and grimmer and sterner than ever as he glanced up from his desk and fixed his eyes on me.
“What is your business with me?” he asked curtly.
“That is the question I have come to put to you,” I retorted, quite as shortly.
“Why to me?”
“Because I have heard, not quite incidentally, that you have been sending to my house to inquire for me.”
“You appear to have been called away suddenly.”
“Driven away, I should say rather,” I retorted. “May I ask why you have dared to make such an attempt?”
“Dared?” he returned, with a flash of his eyes at the word.
“Dared,” I repeated.
“I am not answerable to you for the steps taken in the exigencies of State.”
“Exigencies of State you term it. A singular name to describe an act which in plain terms means that when one of your chief men has forced a quarrel on me and challenged me, you would shut me up to prevent our meeting, so that he might have an opportunity of branding me as a coward.”
“I do not think you a coward,” he answered slowly.
“Nor does your Duke Sergius now,” said I.
This touched him, for he asked with evident interest: “What has happened this morning? A good deal may turn on your answer.”
“He is not dead, if that’s what you mean—only badly wounded;” and I gave him a brief description of the fight. He listened closely, but without a sign of his feelings on his face.
“You seem to suggest that you could have killed him,” he said with half a sneer.
“His own second said as much to me, and offered to bear witness to the fact that he owed his life to my forbearance.”
“A very tactful forbearance. And why did you spare him? From what I hear, there is little love lost between you—at least, in the common sense of the term,” he added drily.
“I had my reasons, and they are my own, if you please. But now will you tell me the reason for your conduct?”
“I do not consider it safe for you to be any longer at large.”
The answer was given deliberately, and after a pause. It showed that his intention was to imprison me; but I would not let him see the unpleasant effect of the decision. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
“And your reasons?” I asked.
“I am not accustomed to discuss reasons with prisoners.”
“Yet you will have to state them in my case. Englishmen can’t be packed away like herrings in a barrel to suit even your convenience.”
“You are no Englishman, Count Benderoff.”
“On the contrary, I am a British subject, General Kolfort, and am resolved to claim my rights as one.”
He waved the words aside as though they were of no account.
“I warned you when you first came here——”
“When you lured me here, you mean,” I corrected.
“That you would have to choose in which character I was to deal with you. Had you chosen then to stand on your British nationality—which, by the way, I question entirely—I should have known how to deal with you. Instead of dealing frankly with me, you chose to remain in Sofia, mixing yourself up with intrigues against me, and doing other ridiculous things, until I repeat I cannot any longer allow you to remain at large. I shall send you to Tirnova, that you may have time to cool your inconvenient passions and clear your head.”
“Very well, I am content to go. It will be an excellent illustration for the guidance of Europe as to Russian policy in the Balkans.”
“When Europe hears of it,” he returned significantly.
I blessed my prudence as I thought of the despatch I had sent by Spernow, and at the thought a smile flitted across my face. He stared at me in some doubt, not understanding my confidence.
“I am afraid you think I am only a short-sighted fool, after all, General.”
“I have not formed a very high opinion of your foresight. I know you to be brave and hold you to be clever in your way; but a little longer foresight would have shown you that such an ending as this was inevitable when you decided to meddle with politics here and to act as my secret opponent.”
I began to wonder how much he knew of our plans.
“I did not so lack foresight as to come to this meeting unprepared, at any rate,” said I, significantly. “And if you throw me into one of your confounded prisons, the news will soon be buzzing in every Foreign Office in Europe that Englishmen must be deprived of their liberty in order to prove Russia’s devotion to the cause of freedom in the Balkans.” I threw the words at him recklessly, and all his self-restraint could not help his showing that the blow went home. He had not expected this.
“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly.
“So much the worse for you; but if you were a younger man, General Kolfort, you would not dare to say that to my face,” I added, sternly.
“You will find it no easy task to get your news out of Bulgaria.”
“If I had not known it was already safe across the frontier, do you think I should have been fool enough to come here;” and I laughed and shrugged my shoulders, enjoying his embarrassment. Then I pushed my advantage. “But now, I am ready for your men. Where are you sending me? Tirnova?” And I got up as though the prison were immaterial to me.
He didn’t relish the piece of bluff, and sat silent and uneasy.
“You can sit down again,” he said after a pause.
I threw myself carelessly into my chair again, crossed my legs, glanced at my watch and said, lightly:
“Tirnova’s over a hundred and twenty miles as the crow flies, and if you have any regard for my health—which, by the way, may be an important matter to you by and by—we’d better make a start. I’m wounded, and a long journey might have a very bad effect upon me.”
He threw me a glance of baffled rage; I saw his lips move, and guessed that a pretty little oath had slipped out into his moustache unchristened.
“If you mean to brave me out, your journey may be a much farther and a much quicker one,” he said after a pause. “Mistakes have been made before now, and explained afterwards.”
“Mistake and murder are both spelt with an M,” I said recklessly. “But a murdered Englishman is not by any means easy to explain away.”
A long tense silence followed. He broke it by asking abruptly, seeking to catch me unawares:
“What’s this I hear about your love for the Princess Christina?”
“How on earth can I know what your spies or my enemies tell you?” I replied, not for a moment off my guard.
“Do you dream of making her your wife?”
“Hasn’t she promised to marry the Duke Sergius?”
“Is it true that you love her?”
“If it were you are scarcely the man to whom I should bring such a confidence.”
“What’s your object here in Sofia?”
“To be allowed to mind my own business.”
“What is that business, as you call it?”
“My own concern,” I retorted as sharply as I could rap out the words. It was as clear as daylight that I had touched him with my threat, or he would never continue to question me. I was winning.
“What does your Government want?” he asked, after a pause to recover from his chagrin at my former replies.
“How should I know—except to have their subjects left unmolested?” I was determined to rub this in, and I could see he relished this last rub no better than the first.
“If you refuse to answer my questions you leave me but one alternative,” he threatened.
“Take it,” I answered lightly. “You take it, of course, with your eyes open.”
“You have been engaged in a conspiracy against the Russian influence?”
“I have been engaged in that conspiracy carried on In the Name of a Woman, if that’s what you mean. And, as you are perfectly aware, with not only your consent, but approval and encouragement.”
“You have been working secretly for another object,” he cried angrily.
“Are you accusing the Princess Christina of treachery?”
“Your tongue is as skilful in fence as your sword,” he said, smiling grimly. “But you know my meaning perfectly.”
“Then pack me off to Tirnova—if you think you have proof to prove the unprovable; and at the same time show your hand to the rest of Europe. No, no, General Kolfort,” I said, smiling and shaking my head, as though the thing were no more than a jest, “that cock won’t fight, and you know it.”
“I regard you and could deal with you as a renegade Bulgarian officer conspiring against your Prince; a crime that merits imprisonment.”
“Very good and plausible, no doubt—were it not for the precaution that I have taken to let people in London know differently. But if that’s to be your line, we shall have the gaols pretty full here, and you and I, General, will be able to resume our interesting conferences, hobnobbing in one of them on more equal terms than here;” and I wagged my head at him again.
The taunt enraged him. His eyes flashed fire, and a flush of wrath tinged his dried, wrinkled, parchment cheeks. He sprang to his feet and sounded the bell on his table furiously.
“I will put your devil-may-care humour to the test. You shall go to Tirnova.”
“As you please,” I answered, surprised now in my turn, for I had not thought he would dare to push matters to extremes. “I will tell you one thing. My arrest will be the signal for that despatch to be forwarded. If I do not go to Tirnova, that will not go to London.”
“I care nothing for your Government,” he exclaimed, all self-control gone in his anger. “They dare do nothing, even if they would.”
At that moment an officer entered in response to the bell.
“Arrest the Count Benderoff,” cried the General, pointing at me a finger that trembled with rage. “Give up your sword, sir. You are a traitor, unworthy to bear it.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” I said desperately. “The man who lays a hand on me may look to himself.”
“Call in your men, Captain. If he resists, shoot him,” said the stern old man grimly, and in the moments of waiting we looked at each other in silent defiance. Then came the tramp of men and the clash of arms in the room without, and a file of soldiers marched in.
“I must ask you for your sword, Count Benderoff,” said the officer, quietly and courteously. “You will see resistance is useless.”
For a moment I still resisted and refused.
“I beg you to save trouble,” he said again.
“I will not,” I cried furiously. “If I am to be murdered, it shall be done here, in the presence of my murderer;” and I set my back to the wall and whipped out my sword.
“Shoot him down!” shouted the infuriated old man to the soldiers, who levelled their guns dead at me. “Now, will you give up your sword?”
“No, I’ll die first, you butcher!” I exclaimed, setting my teeth.
“Do your duty, Captain,” said the inflexible old martinet.
“Count Benderoff, let me make another request,” he said, daring even the General’s displeasure in his reluctance to give the command.
“No; you shall butcher me here.”
A moment of terrible strain followed, and then in the room without the sounds of some confusion were heard, and an exclamation of surprise from one or two of the men there. Quick, light steps fled across to the room where we stood.
“Shut that door,” cried the General.
But the order was too late, and the Princess Christina came rushing in, her face deathly white with alarm at what she saw, while with the quickness of thought she placed herself between me and the soldiers who covered me with their muskets.