CHAPTER III
THE PRINCESS CHRISTINA
THE amazing turn which events had taken through the terrible act of my companion filled me with consternation at the possible effects to us both; and after I had satisfied myself that the two men were dead and so beyond help, I paced the room in anxious, perturbed thought.
She was not in the least perturbed, and filled the minutes by going carefully through the leader’s papers in search of anything that would tend to the confusion of her enemies. A low exclamation of pleasure told me that, when she found what she sought.
She showed no jot or tittle of remorse at this shedding of blood. To her the two men were no more than a couple of wild beasts who had attacked her, and had been killed in her self-defence. She was as hard and callous as any public executioner could have been.
“See here!” she cried at length. “Here are proofs enough of the villany,” and she put papers into my hand which showed plainly enough that the whole matter had been planned by those high in the Russian party. One was no less than a clear but brief statement of instructions. If the first attempt at secret assassination failed, this endeavour by means of a pretended arrest by men in uniform dressed to look like officers was to be made, and the Countess was to be hurried to Tirnova to be dealt with there, should she reach the fortress alive.
“You will need these when the attempt is made to implicate you. Yours is a deadly sin—to have come between Kolfort and his vengeance—and you will need all your wits to get out of it with your life, even with these papers, unless you throw yourself under the protection of the Prince and his party. As I said, you will have to join us now, Count.”
“I shall still take time to consider,” I answered rather shortly. “You have given me plenty of food for thought. But now, what of your immediate safety? You cannot stay here.”
“Nor you, either. You let the third man escape, and by this time he is carrying his news of failure with feet winged with fear. I have done with this carrion,” and she cast a look of repugnance at the dead men, and turning away, resumed her cloak with great haste. “You will not decide now?” she asked, as she was ready to go.
“No, I must have time. But where will you go now?”
“I shall communicate with you. You will be a marked man from this hour, and easy to find,” she said significantly; “and if you are in danger sooner than you expect, do not hesitate to let me know. Our next meeting will be in the Prince’s palace, and the sooner the better.”
“Where will you go now?” I repeated.
“Do not fear for me. You will need all your efforts to save your own skin. Come!” She left the light burning, and led the way out of the house by a back entrance that opened on to a narrow alley, along which we hurried.
“I will see you safe to your home,” I said, when she stopped at the mouth of it and held out her hand. She smiled.
“No, no, I am in no danger; but for you, take this path as far as it goes, turn sharp to the right until you come to an avenue of trees, and at the bottom of that you will know where you are. Good-night, Count! and once more I thank you with all my heart for your service. But we shall both live to see my thanks in an alliance that will do great things for the Prince and for Bulgaria.”
She gave me her hand, and though I pressed her to let me see her safely across the city, she would not, but put me on my honour not to follow her, and turning, sped away, keeping in the shadow, and going at such a speed that she was soon out of my sight.
Then I followed the way she had told me, and found myself close to the street in which my hotel was situated. I walked slowly from that point, my brain in a whirl of excitement at all that had happened in the crowded hours of that night.
When I reached my hotel it was only to pace my room in restless, anxious, brain-racking thought of the net of complications in which I found myself involved, and the hundred dangers which appeared to have sprung up suddenly to menace me. It was in vain that I threw myself on my bed. I could not sleep. If I dozed, it was only to start up at the bidding of some dream danger, threatening me with I know not what consequences. It was long past the dawn before I slept, and when the servant called me, I sprang up, thinking it was my instant arrest that was intended.
But my wits were cooler and more collected for the rest, and when hour after hour of the anxious day passed and nothing happened, I began to think I had exaggerated the risks of my position.
In the cool of the evening I rode out, and on my return ventured to find out and pass through the street of the previous night’s adventure. Nothing unusual was astir. No one paid the least heed to me. I might have been an ordinary tourist without the least interest in anything but the scenery. So it was at my hotel. Nothing happened that evening nor on any of the three remaining days of the week, and I occupied myself with the business of preparing the large house which I had taken for my residence.
Yet, even the lack of any consequences to me had a grim significance. It seemed a fearsome thing, indeed, that murder could be attempted openly, and two of the would-be assassins shot dead in the effort, and yet the life of the city flow on without the least interruption, and, as it appeared, with never a person to ask a question about them or show the faintest interest in the event. Truly, as my strange companion in the adventure had said, death counted for little in the grim game of intrigue that was being played in the country.
I had provided myself with a few letters of introduction, and, knowing the average poverty of the people and the high esteem set on riches, I had dropped a number of judicious hints that I was a man of considerable wealth. I had taken the largest house I could find in the city, and by these means had opened a way into a certain section of society. It had been my original intention to use such opportunities as would thus be afforded to carry out my original intention. But the adventure with the Countess Bokara would render this less necessary should I resolve to accept the offer of close service with the Prince which she had made me; and the few guarded inquiries I was able to make as to her influence confirmed completely my previous belief in her power to fulfil all she had promised.
Several days passed, and I was in this condition of comparative uncertainty when, toward the close of the week following my adventure, an incident occurred which gave me startling proof that, for all the apparent quietude, I myself was, as she had declared, a marked man.
I was sitting alone in a café one evening, my friends having left me, when my attention was attracted to the movements of three men, two being in uniform, at a table in a far corner of the place. They were busily occupied over some papers, and a constant succession of men kept coming to them, as it seemed to me, for some kind of instructions. As business was constantly transacted in this way at the cafés, I had at first no more than a feeling of idle curiosity; but when the thing had continued for an hour or more, my interest deepened, and I watched them closely, although, as I thought, unobserved by them.
At length a message was given them which appeared to cause great surprise, and they paid their score and hurried out of the place.
I followed them, still impelled mainly by curiosity; and as they were engrossed in conversation, talking and gesticulating, I had no difficulty in keeping them in sight as they passed through several streets, and at length entered a large house which filled one side of a small quadrangle, close on the street.
I stood awhile at the corner, scanning the house curiously, and made a mental note to ascertain to whom it belonged, and was in the act of turning away to retrace my steps to the hotel, when a man came out of the house, glanced about him as though in some doubt, and then looked closely at me. He walked to the corner of the street opposite, still looking at me, and after a minute of doubt, crossed to me.
“I am to give you this, sir,” he said, speaking with the manner of a confidential servant.
“To me? I think not. What name?” I asked.
“I had no name given to me, but I was to say it was ‘In the Name of a Woman!’”
“‘In the Name of a Woman?’” I repeated. It could not be for me. I knew no such pass-word, and I connected it instantly with what I had seen at the café. I was about to send the man away, when it occurred to me that it might be a message from the Countess Bokara, and that, from a love of mystery, she had chosen this exceedingly ambiguous method of communication. I took the letter which the man held out, therefore, and read a message written in a woman’s handwriting:—
“Follow the Bearer,
In the Name of a Woman.”
I was disposed to smile, but checked myself on seeing the servant’s eyes fixed upon me.
“I am to follow you,” I said gravely.
Without a word he led the way back to the house, through the deep gloomy archway, in which I noticed a number of servants and others lounging and waiting, and up three or four steps into the house. Turning to make sure that I was behind him, the man crossed a hall, in which were more men, some in uniform, through a curtained archway at the end, and up a broad stairway on to a wide landing-place until he paused before a large dark oak door. He opened this quietly and stood aside for me to enter.
As I did so, some words came to my ears that were certainly not intended for a stranger to hear.
“Curse the business. I am sick of the place. The sooner this thing’s over and Christina is on the throne and married to Sergius, the sooner we shall be back in Moscow and out of this beastly hole.”
The voice was loud and strident, and the language Russian; and the speaker, a young red-haired man, in an officer’s uniform, laughed noisily. I was in the room before the sentence ended, but I came to an abrupt halt in my surprise, and perceiving at once the mistake that had been made, I half turned to leave the room again. But the man who had brought me had already closed the door.
My surprise was not one whit greater than that of the three men in the room, however, who were standing together by a table with their backs to the door, and not having heard it open, did not know I was there till the officer who had spoken turned round.
“Hullo! who the devil’s this?” he exclaimed. “What do you want, sir?” and I saw his hand go to his sword hilt.
His companions turned quickly on hearing him, and stared at me with evident amazement.
“Be quiet, Marx,” said one of them in Russian, a much older man, and apparently in command. Then in Bulgarian to me, “May I ask your business, sir?”
“On my word, I know no more than yourself,” I answered, keeping my eye on the red-haired man whose threatening looks I did not at all like. “I am here ‘In the Name of a Woman,’ I presume. A messenger accosted me a few minutes since in the street close by and gave me a written message to follow him. He brought me here—and that’s all I know.”
“A cool devil, on my word,” exclaimed the red-headed man, and whispered something to the third which I could not catch.
“There has seemingly been some mistake,” said the elder man suavely. “You have not been long in the room, sir?”
“Certainly not, the door has but barely closed.”
“You are too much of a gentleman, of course, to intrude yourself upon us unannounced and listen to our private conversation.” There was an ominous suggestion of threat in the words, and behind them I could detect not a little anxiety and embarrassment.
One of the other officers gave a little sneering laugh.
“You wish to know whether I have overheard anything? I speak Russian, and as I entered I could not help hearing what was being said.”
A look of concern showed on all three faces as I spoke.
“You will have the goodness to repeat what you overheard,” said the elder man, his voice hardening and deepening.
I repeated in Russian almost word for word what had been said, and the man whose unguarded words I had overheard turned very white.
An embarrassing silence followed.
“And what meaning do you attach to the words, sir?”
“I do not see that they concern me, or that I am called upon to give any explanation,” I answered coolly.
“By God! you shall answer,” broke in impetuously and passionately the red-haired man, as he made a couple of strides toward me.
His superior frowned upon him and muttered a word of caution.
I began to feel glad that I had brought my sword-stick with me.
“One moment; excuse me,” said the elder man, whose great uneasiness was now very manifest, and the three held a hurried consultation, in which I could see the red-haired man urging some plan from which the elder strongly dissented. Then the latter turned again to me.
“I must press you to answer my question, sir,” he said.
“The words could have only one possible meaning,” I replied, seeing no use in equivocation. “The hope was expressed that Christina, presumably the Princess of Orli, would soon be on the throne and married to the Duke Sergius, in order that the speaker might be free to return to Moscow.” I spoke very deliberately.
“I told you so. The fellow may be a spy and can’t go free after that,” exclaimed the fiery officer. “Have up the men at once and let him be secured until we find out all about him,” and he went to the bell-pull to summon the servants or more probably soldiers.
My next act surprised him and stayed his hand, however. I had observed a couple of heavy bolts on the door, and thinking that I had better have three men to deal with than thirty, I shot them into their sockets, and setting my back to the door, said shortly:
“There should be nothing in this which we cannot settle amongst ourselves, gentlemen, and with your permission I prefer to have no one else here until it is settled.”
This was too much for the two younger men. They drew their swords at once and came toward me.
“You will stand aside from that door at once, or take the consequences,” said the red-haired man.
My answer was to whip my sword from the stick and put myself on the defensive. The door stood in an angle of the room, excellently placed for my purpose, as my two opponents would be much hampered in attacking me together, and I was not afraid of what either could do single-handed.
Their anger at my resistance made them deaf to the protests and expostulations of their superior. The red man was the first to cross swords, and he was so indifferent a swordsman that I could have disabled him had not the second perceived his inferiority and made at me in his turn.
A very pretty fight followed, but infinitely perilous to me. Even if I were successful I could not see how possibly to escape from the house, which as I knew was swarming with men. But I went to work with a will, and soon had cause to thank the advantage I gained owing to the position of the door.
The object of the less furious of the two was rather to disarm than to wound, and I noticed that he neglected more than one opportunity of wounding me. The other was a hot-headed fool, however, and was obviously dead bent on killing me; but a couple of minutes later I had an excellent chance of settling matters with him. He was fighting in a furious, haphazard, reckless fashion, when the second man stumbled from some cause and was out of the fray for several passes. I made the most of the respite, and pressing the fight to the utmost, I ran my assailant through the sword-arm, inflicting a wound which caused him to drop his sword. I kicked it behind me, and was thus free to devote my whole attention to my other assailant.
I was cleverer with the weapon than he, as I perceived to my intense satisfaction, and was considering where I would wound him and end the fight, when my luck turned. I trod by mischance on the hilt of the sword at my feet, stumbled, and, unable to save myself, fell staggering at full length on the floor.
It was all over, and I gave myself up for lost, when a most unexpected and infinitely welcome interruption came.
A door at the other end of the room, which was hidden by the curtains and tapestries that covered the walls, opened, and I heard a woman’s soft clear voice, in which vibrated a note of indignation and anger, exclaim:
“Gentlemen, what is this brawling?”
The others turned at the sound of the voice, and I scrambled to my feet in an instant, gripped my weapon again, and was once more ready against attack; though I stared with all my eyes at the lovely face of the queenly woman who had entered.
“Put up your swords, gentlemen, instantly!” she said; and in obedience the man who still had his weapon sheathed it and fell back abashed behind his superior officer.
Intuitively I recognised the Princess Christina.