Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Fitz», sayfa 18

CHAPTER XXXII
MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

We had no difficulty in reaching Middleham railway station, that familiar rendezvous, at the appointed time. Even Lord Frederick, who lived farther afield than any of us, was able, by putting a powerful car to an illegal use, to arrive on the stroke of the hour.

It was to be remarked that the prevailing tone in our coupe was one which almost amounted to gaiety. Judged by the cold agnostic eye, the scheme was only a little this side of madness. But it had the sanction of a high motive. Further, we were brothers in arms who had smelt powder together upon a more dubious enterprise; we had faith in one another; and above all we were sustained, one might even say translated, by the epic quality of an incomparable leader.

Fitz smoked his cigar and cut in at a rubber of bridge with an air of indulgent and serene content.

"It is lucky," he said, "that I know an old innkeeper on the frontier who will be rather useful if we have to go without passports. He is about a mile on the Milesian side, and will be able to provide us with horses and smuggle us across in the darkness. He will also find for us a couple of guides over the mountains."

"You say we can get from the frontier to the Castle at Blaenau in six hours?" inquired the gruff voice of the Chief Constable.

"Yes, unless there is a lot of snow in the passes."

"But if the country is in a state of revolution, aren't we likely to be held up?"

"Perhaps; perhaps not. We shall find a way if we have to take an airship. Eh, Joe?"

The Man of Destiny gave my relation by marriage a fraternal punch in the ribs.

"Ra-ther!" That hero was in the act of cutting an ace and winning the deal.

"I shall arrange," said Fitz, "for a change of horses at Postovik, which is about half way. If all goes well we shall be at the foot of the Castle rock a little before midnight on Thursday. I am thinking, though, that we may have to swim the Maravina."

"Umph!" growled the Chief Constable, declaring an original spade, "a moderately cheerful prospect on a January night in Illyria."

"It may not come to that, of course. But all the bridges and ferries are sure to be guarded. And even if they are, with a bit of luck we may be able to rush them."

As our leader began to evolve his plan of campaign it could not be said to forfeit any of its romance. But I think it would be neither fair nor gracious to Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren's corps of irregulars to say that this spice of adventure made less its glamour. We could all claim some little experience of war and that mimic sphere of action "that provides the image of war without its guilt, and only thirty per cent. of its dangers." Some of us had taken cover upon the veldt and others had crossed the Blakiston after a week's rain; and we all felt as we sped towards the metropolis at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and at the same time endeavoured to restrain the cards from slipping on to the floor, that whatever Fate, that capricious mistress, had in store for us, our hazard was for as high a stake as any set of gamesters need wish to play.

Punctual to the minute, we came into the London terminus. As on the occasion of that former adventure, we posted off to Long's quiet family hotel, with the exception of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who confided his kit-bag to the care of his man Kelly, and adjured him to see that a decent room was found for him, while he went "to rout out Alec at the Continental before they fired the beggar out."

"Tell him we leave Charing Cross at ten-forty in the morning," said Fitz. "That will give me time to see what can be done in the way of papers, although as far as Illyria is concerned, diplomatic relations are pretty sure to have been suspended."

Driving again to Long's Hotel, I was regaled with the remembrance of our former journey; of the incident of the cab which followed us through the November slush; of the weird sequel; of that long night of alarums and excursions, which yet was no more than a prelude to a chaotic vista of events.

I recalled the drive from Ward's with Coverdale; the slow-drawn tragi-comedy of suspense; the waiting-room at the Embassy, the plunge up the stairs, the charming player of Schumann, the presentation to her Royal Highness. I recalled the passages with the Ambassador and their terrible issue; the drive with the Princess to the Savoy; the episode of the pink satin at which I could now afford to laugh. Again I recalled our bizarre visit to Bryanston Square; our reception by my Uncle Theodore, his "Fear nothing" and his still more curious prevision of that which was to come to pass. I recalled our dash for this same Grand Central railway station and the merciful shattering of our hopes midway. I recalled the Scotland Yard inspector with the light moustache, the hand of the Princess guiding me through the traffic, the cool-fingered doctor, the bowl of crimson water at which I did not care to look. Finally, in this panoramic jumble of wild occurrences, the memory of which I should carry to the grave, I recalled that noble, complex, misguided emblem of our species, the Victor of Rodova, the clear-sighted, subtle yet great-hearted hero of an epoch in the destiny of nations; the father of his people, whom his children had slain even while the hand of death was already upon him.

I pictured him lying riddled with bullets on the steps of his palace at Blaenau, riddled with the bullets he had so often despised. Even from the brief account in the evening papers it was clear that the end of the Victor of Rodova had been heroic.

The smouldering volcano had burst into flame at last. A tax-gatherer had been slain in an outlying district. At the signal, a whole province, at the back of one half-patriot, half-brigand, rose up, marched armed to the Capital, and called upon the King at his palace to grant a charter to the people. The King met them alone, as was his custom, on the steps of his palace, and having listened with kindness and patience to their demands, made the reply "that he would take steps to procure the charter for his people if the peccant son who had slain a faithful servant treacherously was rendered to justice."

Whether the King deliberately misread the temper of his subjects, or whether he overestimated the personal power it was his custom to exert, was hard to determine, but in this reply which was so strangely deficient in that high political wisdom in which no man of his age excelled him, lay his doom. The leader of the armed mob, who himself had slain the tax-gatherer, laughed in the King's, face, and immediately riddled him with bullets. And as the King fell, the burghers of Blaenau poured in at the gates, the soldiers revolted because their wages were over-due, possession was taken of the Castle; and the long-deferred republic was proclaimed.

"And where were the aristocracy and the supporters of the monarchy while all this was happening?" I asked, as we sat in the lounge at the hotel having a final drink before turning in.

"Reading between the lines of the dispatch," said Fitz, "I should be inclined to say that they had conspired to throw Ferdinand over at the last and to let in the people. I can reconcile the facts on no other hypothesis."

"Why should they?"

"The aristocracy have always been jealous of his power. He has walked too much alone."

"It is hard to believe that they would yield up their country to mob law."

"They have their own safety to consider. A small and exclusive class, not accustomed to move very actively in public affairs, they have little control of events. And the army having joined with the people, their only hope is to sit on the fence and try to hold what they have."

"You are convinced of the Princess's danger?"

"There is no question of that. Having decided to make an end of their rulers, the French Revolution is quite likely to be enacted over again. They are a semi-barbarous people, and few will deny that they have suffered."

On the morrow Fitz was early abroad. The morning papers brought confirmation of the news from Illyria. The King was dead; the Crown Princess was a close prisoner at Blaenau in the hands of the insurgents; the Chancellor and other ministers had fled the country; a number of regiments had massacred their officers; and it was expected that a Committee of the People would take over the government.

At Charing Cross we found Alexander O'Mulligan already waiting for us. He was in the pink of health and his grin was extraordinarily expansive. Fitz arrived with the necessary tickets for the whole party, but had only been able to procure passports as far as the frontier. But, as he explained, this need not trouble us, as we should leave the train before we came there and make our way over the mountains in the darkness.

As our train wound its way through suburbia we began more clearly to realise the promise of a crowded and glorious week. The motive was adequate; and although the Chief Constable and myself had a sense of the profound rashness of the scheme, we shared the common faith in Fitz.

Our route was by way of Paris. It was more direct to go from Southampton, but there was very little difference in the point of actual time.

When we reached Paris, soon after five that afternoon, we learned that in spite of the representations of the Powers, the fate of the Princess still hung in the balance. We stayed only an hour and then took train again.

All night we travelled and all through the next day; and then, as Fitz had predicted, shortly after five o'clock in the evening of Thursday we had come to the township of Orgov, a mile from the Illyrian frontier on the borders of Milesia. Here we found a shrewd old peasant who had acted as the friend of Fitz on a former occasion, and with whom he had already communicated by telegraph. The old fellow shook his head over the state of affairs in the neighbouring kingdom, but provided us with a couple of trustworthy guides through the mountains and seven tolerable horses, one apiece for each member of our party.

Fitz affirmed his intention of getting to Blaenau in six hours. The innkeeper, however, declared frankly that this was impossible. The winter had been severe; heavy drifts of snow lay in the passes, and in its present state the country itself was full of danger. Indeed, our friend the innkeeper was fain to declare that, unless God was very kind to us, we should never get to Blaenau at all.

However, we were a party of nine, stout fellows, well armed and tolerably mounted. And when we started from Orgov a little after six in the evening, I do not think the sense of peril oppressed us much. Our mission was of the highest; each of us had faith in himself and in his comrades. We were a small but mobile force in fairly hard condition; and I think it may be claimed for each member of it that he had a natural love of adventure.

CHAPTER XXXIII
IN THE BALANCE

The air was shrewd as we set out from Orgov. We took a narrow, winding bridle-path, uncomfortably steep in places, in order to avoid the frontier town of Boruna, wherein trouble might lurk. The stars were out already, with Mars straight before us wonderfully large and red as we rode due east. There was an exhilaration in the atmosphere that was like wine in the veins; and presently we caught the tail of an icy blast that made us glad to wrap our cloaks around us.

An impartial view of such an enterprise rendered it clear that the odds were greatly in favour of a total failure. How could six men and a cripple hope to penetrate into the heart of a closely guarded fortress? And assuming that we got in, by what means did we expect to make our way out again! In all conscience the scheme was wild enough, but this was not the hour in which to lay stress upon that fact.

There can be no doubt that the qualities of our leader were a great aid to his corps. Undaunted courage, invincible optimism were his in amplest measure; and this attitude of mind could not fail to react upon his comrades in arms. Moreover, in the most singular degree he appeared to combine with the audacity of genius, a head for detail and a shrewd practical wisdom, which very seldom embellish the characters of those who depend primarily upon the faculty of inspiration.

As mile by mile we traversed these snow-laden Illyrian mountains, the possibility of anything less than complete success found no place in his thoughts. "Nothing is impossible" was his motto, and this he realised with plenary conviction. His twin soul was calling him to the Castle of Blaenau, and not for an instant did he doubt his ability to obey the summons.

It was our plan to avoid as far as possible all centres of population. Our guides being men of experience, familiar with all the by-paths and bridle-roads, we were able to do this, and even to save time in the process. But as the innkeeper had insisted, Fitz's optimism had misled him when he expected to reach the Illyrian capital in six hours.

When we took our first bait, at an inn above the sinister waters of the Lake of Montardo, it was nearly nine o'clock. Coffee and cakes were very acceptable; indeed I have seldom tasted anything so delicious. But in spite of our diligence and a fair measure of luck, we had come rather less than twenty miles of the journey. Our horses were good for another twelve miles through the formidable pass of Ryhgo, where in the middle of winter the mountain streams are generally in spate.

We went on after a halt of a quarter of an hour. As yet we had seen few signs of the revolution. But at the inn above Montardo ugly rumours were rife. The people and the army were said to have turned against the aristocracy; they were butchering them by the score, and the Crown Princess was declared to be dead.

That our mission was being made in vain Fitz declined to believe. The man's courage had never seemed so remarkable as when confronted with this news.

"If she were already dead," he said, simply, "I should have had information. I shall not believe it until I hold her corpse in my arms."

Through the pass of Ryhgo, overshadowed as it is by the gaunt Illyrian mountains, the narrow path wound along the very edge of a precipice. Below were the waters of the Lake of Montardo, which as we rode above it reflected a baleful grandeur to the stars. The wind was very piercing now and drove sheer in our faces; not a little did it add to the dangers of our progress through the pass. The horses had only to make a false step and their riders would be hurled a thousand feet into those terrible black waters gleaming below.

Before we had overcome this most precarious stage of our journey, the clouds were beaten up rapidly by the wind, and to add to our peril and discomfort it came on to snow. It was, therefore, a great relief when at last we came to an inn at a hamlet with an unpronounceable name which marked the end of the pass. It was then eleven o'clock and we had come little more than half the way.

Here we found a friend awaiting us. He was an Illyrian acquaintance of Fitz's, and he had arranged the details of our mountain journey. A member of a noble family, he was familiar with the court life at Blaenau, and had borne the part of a friend in the previous episode which had culminated in the elopement of the Crown Princess.

He was an agreeable fellow, quite cosmopolitan, and had no difficulty in making himself understood in French, in which tongue he enjoyed a greater felicity than any of us. He answered to the name of John, although his full title, which was very long and hard to pronounce, I have forgotten. He, too, had heard the common report that the Princess was dead, but chose to express no opinion in regard to the truth of it.

When Fitz outlined his project, he expressed a mild astonishment.

"But how," said he, "will you cross the Maravina?"

"You don't suppose," said Fitz, "that we have come as far as this to be deterred by the crossing of the Maravina?"

"All the bridges are closely guarded by the Republicans. The ferries also."

"We can swim the Maravina, at a pinch."

"You English can do most things," said John, "but don't attempt to swim the Maravina in the middle of January is my advice."

John's view drew a growl of deep bass approval from no less a person than the Chief Constable of Middleshire.

"We shall do what we can," said the Man of Destiny, with excellent indifference.

"Yes, but we damn well needn't do what we can't," said the Chief Constable sotto voce, yet meaning no disrespect to his native tongue.

I must confess to an involuntary shudder, as, at the instance of a too-active imagination, the waters of the Maravina pierced a pair of leathers "by a local artist of the name of Jobson." They seemed miserably damp already. And if anything feels more miserable than a pair of leathers when they are damp, I pray to be spared the knowledge.

High as our mission was, the flesh was loth to quit the warm stove at the hostelry of "The Hanging Cross" for those terrible purlieus that wound through the heart of the wild Illyrian mountains. But at least we could congratulate ourselves that the pass of Ryhgo was at an end, and that the black waters of Lake Montardo no longer lay in wait for the hapless traveller a thousand feet below. Also the snow had ceased, the wind had fallen, Mars and his brethren were looking again upon us, and there was a faint suspicion of a crescent moon.

Our weary beasts had been exchanged for a fresh relay at the hostelry of "The Hanging Cross." In addition to a reinforcement in the shape of John, a led horse with a side saddle accompanied us for the use of the Princess. With fairer conditions and a path less perilous to traverse, we began to improve considerably upon our previous rate of progression. Then the road began again to grow difficult, but happily the sky kept clear.

During the later stages of the journey we passed through several hamlets and small towns. To judge by the lights in the windows of the houses and the demeanour of little groups of people in the streets, a general spirit of uneasiness was abroad. Men clad in the picturesque skin caps which are so typical of the country were to be seen carrying formidable-looking guns; and although such a cavalcade excited their curiosity they allowed it to pass.

We had no adventures worthy of the name. In one of the mountain valleys a deep crevasse was concealed by a drift of snow, and we owed it to the vigilance of our guides that we were not its victims. The wind was still very piercing, but acting upon Fitz's advice before we started, we had all taken the precaution to be well clad.

Our progress was really better than we realised. A sudden turn in the road revealed a very broad and rapid torrent. It was the Maravina; and there upon the farther bank was the bluff upstanding rock crowned with the majestic Castle of Blaenau. Nestling close about it was a dark huddle of houses and gaunt church spires of the capital city of Illyria.

"There you are," cried John, with a wave of the hand. "Now, my friends, are you tempted to swim across?"

"I daresay we shall find a bridge," said Fitz, nonchalantly enough.

"They are all bound to be guarded by the enemy."

"May be," said the Man of Destiny imperturbably.

Away to the right, at the distance of a mile, was one of the smaller bridges into the city. It was a rickety, wooden structure, guarded by a gate with a turret, which had a quaintly mediaeval aspect. In front of the gate a bright coke fire was burning in a bucket, and sprawling around it in attitudes which suggested varying phases of somnolence were a number of men in uniform.

A shaggy, fierce-looking, finely-grown fellow rose to his feet and challenged us. Fitz replied promptly in his suavest and best Illyrian. Not a word of the conversation that ensued was intelligible to me, but it was punctuated by the approving laughter of John and the guides, and was conducted on both sides with the highest good-humour.

Its conclusion at any rate was in keeping with this surmise. Fitz was seen to slip a piece of gold into a furtive palm; the password was whispered to him; and the gate was opened just far enough for each of us to pass through one at a time.

"If there is a more corrupt rogue than an Illyrian corporal of infantry," said John, "on the face of this fair earth, I am glad to say I have met him not."

"Evil practices breed an evil state," said the sententious Fitz. "If chaps have to whistle for their wages what can you expect?"

"Let us hope the custodians of the Castle will prove as susceptible," I observed, piously.

"Ah, there you have another sort of bird!" said Fitz.

There was a second gate on the city side of the bridge. This also was guarded by the soldiery, but the password given boldly got us through without a question. There were tall spikes set in a row on the top of the heavy and unwieldy gate. They were adorned with a row of human heads.

To me, I confess, these grisly mementoes brought a shudder.

"They appear to do things pleasantly at Blaenau," said Frederick.

"They can go one better than that, my son," said Fitz, "if they get the chance. I should advise each of you, in the case of emergency, to leave just one cartridge in his revolver."

To a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, with his left arm in a black silk handkerchief, who did not feel particularly secure in the saddle as he rode knee to knee across the bridge with his misguided friend the Chief Constable of Middleshire, the icy wind which saluted him from the mighty torrent swirling beneath, blew distinctly "thin." Somewhat bitterly he began to deplore that decree of fate which had bereft him of the use of a hand.

Through narrow, close-built streets, whose odours were decidedly unpleasant, we passed unmolested until we came into the shadow of the Castle rock. In the faint light of the stars it towered a sheer and beetling pile.

Dismounting, we tied the horses to a fence. Fitz took a dark lantern from his saddle; and among a miscellaneous collection of articles with which he had the forethought to provide himself, was a coil of rope. This it seemed was capable of adjustment into the form of a ladder; and our leader affirmed his intention of being the first man up the Castle wall. He proposed to affix this contrivance to the coping at the top in order that the others might climb up as easily and as expeditiously as possible.

There was nothing for it save to resign myself to stay with the two guides in the charge of the horses. It would have been a physical impossibility for a man bereft of the use of an arm to climb that sheer precipice.

Fitz's parting words of advice to me were characteristic.

"If," said he, "a sentry should come along, and want to know your business – I don't suppose he will, because they don't appear to have mounted a picket – knock out his brains at once, and make one of the guides put on his uniform and shoulder his gun and march up and down. So long, old son."

The Man of Destiny was gone, perhaps for ever. As each of my comrades in arms climbed over the low fence in his wake I wished him good luck. It seemed hardly a fighting chance that we should ever look on one another again.

They had left their cloaks behind, and these, together with my own, were thrown over the horses which had carried us so well. Tobacco is a great solace in seasons of tension, but the long-drawn suspense to which I had to submit soon became intolerable.

To a lover of the aurea mediocritas, a twentieth-century British paterfamilias confirmed in the comfortable security of a civil life, such a predicament was absurd. It was painful indeed to march hour after hour up and down the broken ground at the foot of the Castle rock. A pipe was in my teeth, otherwise I was signally exposed to the rigours of a long January night in Illyria. A bloody end was my perpetual contemplation. And I hardly dared to think what lay in store for my comrades, the faint hope of whose return it was my bounden duty to await.

There were moments in this season of poignant misery when I felt myself to be growing absolutely desperate. Why be ashamed to make the confession? The sensation of impotence was truly terrible. As the time passed and not a sound was to be heard, God alone knew what was being transacted in that frowning eyrie under the cover of the night.

Like most of those who have the unlucky leaven of imagination in their clay, my instinctive optimism is often on its trial. While I marched up and down in the darkness, trying vainly to keep warm, waiting for that tardy dawn in which death lurked for us all, I would have laid long odds that the doom of the Princess was sealed already and that my comrades in arms would share it.

A man should strive in some sort to figure as a hero when he comes to the purple patches in his own history. But if a profuse fear of the immediate future in combination with a lively horror of the present are compatible with that degree, so be it. Throughout those hours of inaction I suffered the torments of the damned.

Again and again I strained nervously to catch a footfall, and each time I did so Fitz's sinister injunction was in my ears. I recognised its wisdom, but what a counsel for a respectable law-abiding Englishman! Conceive the husband of Mrs. Arbuthnot, the father of Miss Lucinda, the sensitive product of a settled state of society, lying in wait to knock out the brains of a fellow creature on hardly any pretext at all!

Prudence is not without a tenderness for those who court her; at least a liberal supply of tobacco was in my pouch. In a state of sheer desperation I smoked away the intolerable hours, and even had tobacco to share with the guides who placidly awaited the dawn in the lee of the horses.

These were rugged, silent, contained men. I had not a word of their language whatever it was, and I think it was a kind of Milesian argot. But there was an air of torpid responsibility about them. They were honest peasants, calm, unimaginative, faithful.

The hour of five was told from half a dozen steeples of the capital. In less than three short hours the fate of us all would be sealed. My mind went back to Middleshire and I could have wept for vexation. Everything was so happy and comfortable there. If Mrs. Arbuthnot did not see eye to eye with me in all things, an occasional discreet diversity of opinion merely added piquancy to double harness.

Yes, life and all that pertained to it was very dear to me. It is proper, of course, to maintain a becoming reticence about that indissoluble core of egoism that lies at the heart of us all. But during these unspeakable hours I could not dissemble it. Why had it pleased fate to project this ill-starred creature, one altogether outside the circle of my interests, one alien in birth, in race, in fortune, into the quiet backwater of my years! Was there not a wantonness in shattering such a comfortable hedonism in this cruel, meaningless, irresponsible way?

What man can be a hero to his autobiographer! By all the rules of the game I ought to have been bathed in a kind of moral limelight as I walked my miserable beat throughout that cursed Illyrian night. It should be the easiest thing in the world to present a picture of stoical disdain for Dame Fortune and her fantasies.

But the blunt truth is before me, ignoble as it is. Life meant too much. The least of my thoughts should have been dedicated to that high and noble mission which had lured me from my happy home in an English county. I should have had my mind wholly concentrated on the fate of the royal lady and on that of those stout fellows who had come so far and who had endured so much that they might serve her.

Well, I will not deny that in a measure my thoughts were for them. But I did not dare to speculate on what had happened to them; their fate was too big with tragic possibilities. Yet ever uppermost within me was a sore vexation. I did not want in the least to die, and I was determined not to do so. Unhappily Fitz had not given me the password which in the last resort might take me across the bridge; I could not communicate with the guides; I was a stranger in a strange land.

Six o'clock was told from the steeples of the city, but there was not a sound from the Castle rock. Despair gripped me by the heart. The Princess was dead and my friends had been unable to make their way out of the fortress they had had the incredible foolhardiness to enter. But until daylight came I must wait at my post; yea, if I could contrive it, longer than that it behoved me to remain.

Already the sleeping city was beginning to stir uneasily. Distant sounds proceeded from it; within ten paces of our horses a farmer's wagon had passed along the road. Figures began to emerge from the darkness and to re-enter it. Doubtless they were workmen going to their toil. The icy blasts from the river congealed my blood. Half-past six told from the steeples; housemaids in pink print dresses were lighting the fires at Dympsfield House.

I began to scourge my brain for a plan of escape in broad daylight from this accursed place, in case Fitz did not return. But even my mind was numbed, and it was under the dominion of two clear facts: I did not know a word of the Illyrian tongue, and I knew nothing of the habits and customs of the country.

The row of heads upon the city gate occupied a chamber to themselves in the halls of my imagination. In whatever direction I turned my thoughts, there was that grisly frieze before my eyes. Presently I made the discovery that I had bitten the stem of my pipe clean through.

It was now seven o'clock and I had yielded up all hope of Fitz. So tragedy after all was to be the end of these wild oscillations which had begun with broad farce. The unhappy "circus rider from Vienna" had been done to death by the people for whom she had given all. Not only had they rejected her sacrifice but they had requited it with brutal treachery. And the noble man who had loved her, and those brave fellows who had dared everything to serve her, regardless of lives they valued as highly as I did my own, had perished in her cause.