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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13913-0.txt b/13913-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4c48da --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9703 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 *** +[Illustration: Shirley Claiborne] + + + + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + + +by + +MEREDITH NICHOLSON + +Author of _The House of a Thousand Candles_, _The Main Chance_, +_Zelda Dameron_, etc. + + +With Illustrations by +CLARENCE F. RUTHERFORD + + +Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.—Malory. + + +INDIANAPOLIS +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1907 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +JANUARY + + + + +To the Memory of +Herman Kountze + + + + +THE SHINING ROAD + + +Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city’s bound, +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found. +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn, +And there are happy highways leading on and always on; +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance. + +Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds, +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds; +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine, +E’en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day. + +Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace; +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release! +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town. +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I’ll break a lance for you! + +O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear! +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day. +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried +As o’er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride! + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + I “Events, Events” + II The Claibornes, of Washington + III Dark Tidings + IV John Armitage a Prisoner + V A Lost Cigarette Case + VI Toward the Western Stars + VII On the Dark Deck + VIII “The King Is Dead; Long Live the King” + IX “This Is America, Mr. Armitage” + X John Armitage Is Shadowed + XI The Toss of a Napkin + XII A Camp in the Mountains + XIII The Lady of the Pergola + XIV An Enforced Interview + XV Shirley Learns a Secret + XVI Narrow Margins + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding + XVIII An Exchange of Messages + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty + XX The First Ride Together + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow + XXIII The Verge of Morning + XXIV The Attack in the Road + XXV The Port of Missing Men + XXVI “Who Are You, John Armitage?” + XXVII Decent Burial +XXVIII John Armitage + + + + +CHAPTER I + +“EVENTS, EVENTS” + +Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +—_Troilus and Cressida._ + + +“The knowledge that you’re alive gives me no pleasure,” growled the grim +old Austrian premier. + +“Thank you!” laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. “You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you—I believe you admitted it—a slight service.” + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair. + +He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies. + +It was not often that the light in the old man’s eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor. + +The card was a gentleman’s _carte de visite_, and bore the name John +Armitage. + +“I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris. +Where did you get it?” demanded the minister. + +“I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made,” replied the +young man. “Besides, it’s English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it.” + +“Which is not particularly creditable; but it’s probably just as well +so.” + +He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy. + +“I hope you are quite well,” said Armitage kindly. + +“I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years.” + +“It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria’s good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read—only +to-day, in the _Contemporary Review_—an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest.” + +The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated. + +“But you are here for rest—one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else.” + +“What brings you here?” asked the old man with sudden energy. “If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting—” + +“Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?” + +“If you are waiting for events—for events! If you expect something to +happen!” + +Armitage laughed at the old gentleman’s earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette. + +“Waiting doesn’t suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands—and my wits are—let +us say—average!” + +Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly. + +“Is it true”—he turned again and glanced about—“is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?” + +“Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it,” said Armitage, +meeting the old man’s eyes steadily. + +“The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year.” + +“I am aware of that,” replied John Armitage; “but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting—you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing.” + +“Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well,” growled Von +Stroebel. + +“And the packet I gave you—” + +The old man nodded. + +“—that packet contained the Archduke Karl’s sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!” + +“Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive—and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?” + +“I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear,” said +John Armitage. + +“Then you should give me the documents.” + +“No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City.” + +“I should have them; I _must_ have them!” thundered the old man. + +“In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir.” + +The palsy in the old man’s hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage. + +“That packet is lost, I tell you!” he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. “It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That’s what I’m here for—my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?” + +Count von Stroebel’s bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion—a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit. + +“The packet has been stolen,” he observed calmly; “whom do you suspect of +taking it?” + +The old man leaned upon the table heavily. + +“That amiable Francis—” + +“The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered.” + +“But his mother—she is the devil!” blurted the old man. + +“Pray drop that,” said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. “I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,—am I to +understand that Francis has it?” + +“Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves.” + +“I don’t know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar.” + +“He has a dozen names—one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He’s a blackmailer, who aims high—a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He’s a bad lot, I tell you. I’ve had my best +men after him, and they’ve just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do—” began the old man. + +“Yes; that packet must be recovered,” answered Armitage. “If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it.” + +His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister. + +“You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire.” + +John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence. + +“Events! Events!” muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power. + +“Events!” the young man murmured. + +“Events!” repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. “A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people—and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!” + +The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright. + +“Why the devil don’t you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?” demanded the premier. + +“Like a gentleman?” repeated Armitage. “It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I _am_ dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead.” + +“Francis is a troublesome blackguard,” declared the old man. “I wish to +God _he_ would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don’t you +suppose he could go to Budapest to-morrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He’s as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you.” + +Armitage nodded and smiled. + +“I dare say,” he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: “No doubt you are speaking the truth.” + +“Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!” + +There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued: + +“We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage—the commission—would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men.” + +“I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name.” + +“He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe.” + +Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly. + +“I will show you the gentleman’s pleasant countenance,” said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest. + +“Rambaud!” he exclaimed. + +“That’s his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his _noms de guerre_.” + +“Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before.” + +“That is possible,” remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances. + +“I expect to see him here within a few days.” + +Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva. + +“He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so.” + +“Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men,” said the +minister. + +“You wish to arrest him?” + +“You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can’t have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can’t advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers—Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there’s a woman, is there? I’ve +found that there usually is!” + +“There’s a very charming young American girl, to be more exact.” + +The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph. + +“I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait—” + +“Events!” and John Armitage laughed. “I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my _forte_. That’s what I like about America; they’re up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost.” + +“They’re a lot of swine!” rumbled Von Stroebel’s heavy bass. + +“I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don’t imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them—in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting—why not?” + +“I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and—fairly clever—” + +Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count’s praise. + +“Thank you, with all my heart!” + +“Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen—who can tell? Events—events—if a man will watch and wait and +study events—” + +“Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events,” laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. “To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years—a pretty spectacle, too.” + +“Carrion! Carrion!” almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +“Don’t mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But”—he gulped down more of the brandy—“where and how do +you live?” + +“Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke’s death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died—and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch.” + +“Washington!” snorted the count. “In due course it will be the storm +center of the world.” + +“You read the wrong American newspapers,” laughed Armitage. + +They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used: + +“Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?” + +“As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University.” + +“What the devil did you do that for?” growled Von Stroebel. + +“From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry—I am very sorry we can’t meet on +some common ground.” + +“I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far—very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease.” + +“What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks—it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor’s name you commit an anachronism.” + +The count frowned and growled. + +“Don’t talk to me like that. It is not amusing.” + +“No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains—it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination.” + +“You put it coarsely,” remarked the old man grimly. “I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone.” + +“Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings.” + +“I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere.” + +“On the other hand, I should become king myself.” + +“Don’t be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse.” + +“My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping—by the Archduke’s own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor’s nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then—events, events!” + +Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him. + +“Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you.” + +Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly. + +“I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more.” + +“It is too late. The chasm is too deep.” + +The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly. + +The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner. + +“I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service—to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly.” + +“Your place is secure—no one can gainsay that,” broke in Armitage. + +“If you would do something for me—for me—do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don’t care what that service may be; I don’t care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. _Do something for Austria_—for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years—then take your name again—and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs.” + +[Illustration: “Do something for Austria”] + +“For the Empire—something for the Empire?” murmured the young man, +wondering. + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose. + +“You will accept the commission—I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again.” As he took Armitage’s +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily. + +“Good night; good-by!” he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON + +—the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.—_The Naulahka_. + + +The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention. + +“’Tis he, the unknown, Dick.” + +“I must say I like his persistence!” exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. “In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here—” + +“Over here you have better manners,” replied the girl, laughing. “But why +trouble yourself? He doesn’t even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language.” + +“But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater—he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It’s growing a trifle monotonous; it’s really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him.” + +“You flatter yourself, Richard,” mocked the girl. “He’s fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost—yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is”—she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment—“light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I’m sure that he is an exemplary person—kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews’ and nieces’ Christmas trees.” + +She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother’s growling disdain. + +The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern. + +“He has a sense of humor,” the girl resumed. “I saw him yesterday—” + +“You’re always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” + +“Don’t interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +_Fliegende Blätter_.” + +“But that’s no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn’t. I’m disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard’s eyes!” + +He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed. + +“I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all,” she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother’s impatience. + +“Which doesn’t help the matter materially, that I can see!” exclaimed the +young man. “With a full beard he’d probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother.” + +“It isn’t your fault, Dick,” laughed the girl. “You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him—that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It’s +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you’d find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together—the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible.” + +“Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party—America for Americans and +only white men on guard!” + +“Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they’d have more weight if +I hadn’t seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven’t forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We’ll call the incident closed, little brother.” + +“Our friend Chauvenet, even,” continued Captain Claiborne, “is less +persistent—less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven’t seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat.” + +“Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world,” declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes. + +“He lives by his wits—and lives well.” + +Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper. + +“He’s reading the _Neue Freie Presse_,” remarked Dick, “by which token I +argue that he’s some sort of a Dutchman. He’s probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary.” + +“You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction—that air of having been places and seen things and +known people—” + +“Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that—even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It’s well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching.” + +Shirley Claiborne’s eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the _Neue +Freie Presse_. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly—with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference. + +“He has known real sorrow,” persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. “He’s traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief,” the girl continued with mock +sympathy. + +“Then let us leave him in peace! We can’t decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow.” + +Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business. + +Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother’s school and were enjoying a late _déjeuner_ +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip. + +Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl’s +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight. + +Much of Shirley’s girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens. + +Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia’s reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth’s foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the _r_ and _l_ slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl—may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne’s pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking. + +As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly. + +“Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world.” + +The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attaché of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station. + +The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked. + +“Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There’s mystery in +the air—the great Stroebel is here—under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man—a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor—he’s only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way—what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;” and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties. + +“We met him in Vienna,” said Shirley Claiborne, “when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear.” + +“He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe—and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies—no post-mortem confidences from him!” + +The reader of the _Neue Freie Presse_, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attaché, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially. + +“Why, Armitage, of all men!” and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance. + +“Shirley—Miss Claiborne—allow me to present Mr. Armitage.” The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attaché, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone. + +“One always meets Armitage!” declared Singleton. “He knows our America as +well as we do—and very well indeed—for an Englishman.” + +Armitage bowed gravely. + +“You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I’m really a fair sort of American—I +have sometimes told New York people all about—Colorado—Montana—New +Mexico!” + +His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life. + +“Of course you’re not English!” exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest. + +“I’m really getting sensitive about it,” said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. “But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?” + +The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley’s passingly, and she smiled at him—it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man’s dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper—and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair. + +“Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here—in this +very house!” whispered Singleton impressively. + +“Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you.” He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton’s promise to look him up later, and left them. + +When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ which +Armitage had cast aside at their table. + +“Now we shall know!” he declared, unfolding the newspaper. + +“Know what, Dick?” + +“At least what our friend without a country is so interested in.” + +He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister. + +“Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!” he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them. + +“Isn’t that the worst!” exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully. + +“He’s certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation.” + +“He isn’t an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn.” + +“Well, your Mr. Armitage didn’t seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!” + +“Don’t be foolish, Dick. It’s unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again—” + +“Yes—not if I see him _first_!” ejaculated Claiborne. + +“Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing—and +satisfying—to know.” + +Later in the day the old attaché fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked: + +“Your friend Armitage seems a good sort.” + +“Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs.” + +“Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives—when +he’s at home?” + +“Lord bless you, boy, I don’t know anything about Armitage!” spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions. + +“But you introduced us to him—my sister and me. I assumed—” + +“My dear Claiborne, I’m always introducing people! It’s my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He’s always around everywhere. +I’ve dined with him in Paris, and I’ve rarely seen a man order a better +dinner.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARK TIDINGS + +The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.—Shakespeare. + + +The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler’s on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage’s voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed. + +“Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren’t +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause—” + +He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box. + +“I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne.” + +“I’d like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything.” + +“Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs.” + +“Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home,” replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket. + +“My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage,” +Shirley explained. + +“These last errands are always trying—there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff.” + +“There’s the wireless,” said Shirley. “In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again—that photographs don’t give.” + +“Such as—?” + +“Oh—the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter’s; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon’s tomb—the awfulness +of what he did and was—and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,”—and +she laughed lightly,—“I have made a most serious confession.” + +“It is a new idea—that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance—a tremendous story.” + +“That is what makes me sorry to go home,” said Shirley meditatively. “We +are so new—still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there’s a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost.” + +“But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn’t do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don’t think of their past as much as of their +future—the future of the whole human race.” + +Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother’s benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about. + +Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy’s delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of “the spirit of place” that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat—as she often did—in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators’ gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times. + +Armitage was aware that a jeweler’s shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl’s voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before _High Tide at Gettysburg_, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting—its ardor and fire—took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes. + +His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel’s departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy. + +He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage. + +“But America—isn’t America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,—its discovery,—the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another’s armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior.” + +“He could afford to say it; he was the victor,” said Shirley. + +“Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions.” + +The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage. + +“There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning.” + +“Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?” + +It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes. + +“There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn’t fair game for an +assassin,” said Claiborne. + +“No; he deserved a better fate,” remarked Armitage. + +“He was a grand old man,” said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. “Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered.” + +“Yes; he was a wise and useful man,” observed Armitage, still grave. “He +was one of the great men of his time.” + +His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further. + +“And now we shall see—” began the young American. + +“We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings.” + +John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat. + +“A queer devil,” observed Claiborne, as they drove away. “A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?” + +“I found _him_, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure.” + +“I shouldn’t have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far.” + +“And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes.” + +“Lord help us, he hasn’t been buying you a watch?” + +“No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana.” + +“Humph! you’re chaffing.” + +“Not in the least. He paid—I couldn’t help being a witness to the +transaction—he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch—_his_ ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?” + +“I’m afraid it rather does for my theory. I’ll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn’t a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel’s death. You don’t suppose he knew him, +do you?” + +“It’s possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he’s done for.” + +“Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he’s out of +the way.” + +Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel’s +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days. + +It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa. + +“We are running for the _King Edward_, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America,” +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister’s +benefit. + +“That is possible; I am very fond of Washington,” responded Armitage +carelessly. + +“Of course you will look us up,” persisted Dick. “I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while—and it will always be a pleasure—” + +Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage. + +“Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel’s assassin?” she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand. + +“Nothing. It’s a very mysterious and puzzling affair.” + +“It’s horrible to think such a thing possible—he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer.” + +“Yes; undoubtedly.” + +Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage’s back—a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door—Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother’s benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key. + +“The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin,” she +observed. + +“Yes,” replied Armitage gravely. + +He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek—he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right—made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing. + +“The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt,” said Shirley. “The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time.” + +“That is quite likely,” said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. “In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself.” + +He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage. + +“Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of that fellow.” + +Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage’s +last words. “I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself,” he had said. + +She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door—his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage. + +And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER + +All things are bright in the track of the sun, + All things are fair I see; +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me. + +And the world turns round and round and round, + And my thought sinks into the sea; +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery. + +—S.W. Duffield. + + +The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes’ departure. + +While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes’ notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman’s death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage’s character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week. + +He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear. + +The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord. + +Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet’s activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry. + +It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms. + +At about eight o’clock, as Armitage turned the pages of _Figaro_ in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed. + +It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvétique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of _pensions_. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed. + +Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan _gendarmerie_ have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet’s errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered. + +Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint. + +The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened. + +Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear. + +“It’s stifling in this hole,” said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. “If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat.” + +He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness. + +“You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it.” + +The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva? + +“The old man’s death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths.” + +“We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel’s.” + +“He was a beast. He is well dead.” + +“That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools.” + +The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses. + +“I am going to America at once,” said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling. + +“It is probably just as well,” said the other. “There’s work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues.” + +“The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one’s self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington,” remarked Chauvenet. + +“Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy.” + +There was a keen irony in the fellow’s tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table. + +“Enough of that, if you please.” + +“As you will, _carino_; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of _la belle Americaine_. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army.” + +“Humph! He is an ass,” ejaculated Chauvenet. + +A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him. + +Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +rôle of host, employed a Servian dialect. + +“I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, _carino_. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules.” + +“Don’t be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don’t believe +those fellows are over there. They’re probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,—that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and—” + +“The heights—the heights!” And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily. + +“Yes; the heights,” repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily. + +“But that declaration—that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say.” + +“There is no place—but one—that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend.” + +“You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way.” + +“Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel’s archives.” + +“Do you say ‘risked much’? My valued neck, that is all!” said the other. +“You and Winkelried are without gratitude.” + +“You will do well,” said Chauvenet, “to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days—! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen.” + +He glanced at his watch. + +“I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade.” + +They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune. + +His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat. + +As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A LOST CIGARETTE CASE + +To other woods the trail leads on, + To other worlds and new, +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too. + +—Henry A. Beers. + + +The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man’s +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage’s back. + +The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German. + +“Who are you and what do you want here?” + +Armitage shook his head; and replied in English: + +“I do not understand.” + +The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive’s +face, then ran his hands over Armitage’s pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security. + +Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant’s legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action. + +“Get up,” he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage’s +head. + +“I will shoot,” he said again in his halting German. + +“Undoubtedly you will!” and something in the fellow’s manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation. + +The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen. + +“I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you,” admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door. + +Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand. + +The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done. + +“You will go to that corner;” and the Servian translated for his +prisoner’s benefit with a gesture of the revolver. + +“Anything to please you, worthy fellow,” replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man’s object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized. + +Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care. + +Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian’s caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage’s head. + +He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm’s length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans. + +“There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!” yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway: + +“Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what’s the trouble.” + +It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain. + +As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian’s head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding. + +It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came. + +Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside. + +Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words: + +“Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand.” + +Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax. + +Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight. + +Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke—in French—in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand’s tone: + +“A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!” + +With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet’s legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing. + +Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard. + +The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself: + +“A few murders, more or less!” + +At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express. + +As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found. + +His annoyance at the loss was balanced—could he have known it—by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen—one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead—bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto _Fide non armis_. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters _F.A._ + +The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet. + +“It isn’t possible!” gasped Durand. + +“It is quite possible,” replied Chauvenet. “The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!” + +The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet’s face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope. + +“Who is he? Who is he?” whispered Durand, very white of face. + +“It may be—it must be some one deeply concerned.” + +Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand’s arm so tight that +the man flinched. + +“There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He’s here—I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!” + +He dropped his hand from Durand’s arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand. + +“John Armitage—John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence.” + +His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face. + +“Who is John Armitage?” demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself: + +“Is it possible? Is it possible?” and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case. + +“My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?” + +Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand’s ear: + +“Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!” + +“Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?” asked Durand +irritably. + +“He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation.” + +“Clearly so,” remarked Durand ironically. “But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here—” + +Chauvenet again struck the table smartly. + +“Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke’s friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them—” + +“Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that,” said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes. + +“Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him.” + +“And quickly. There must be—” + +“—another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna.” + +They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS + +Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star. + +—_Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + + +Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the _King Edward_, whereas he might have taken the _Touraine_ +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the _King Edward_ was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors. + +Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel. + +“I hope,” observed Dick, “that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I’m not wholly sure that we shan’t +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles.” + +“Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the _Tecumseh_. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?” + +Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap. + +“I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as _père et mère_ get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility.” + +“Thank you, Captain.” + +“And if there are any titled blackguards on board—” + +“You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won’t you, little +brother?” + +“Humph! Thank God, I’m an American!” + +“That’s a worthy sentiment, Richard.” + +“I’d like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we’d get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I’d like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don’t +count.” + +“Yes, dearest,” mocked Shirley. “Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don’t indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room—” + +“Probably from the Liverpool consul—he’s been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole.” + +“Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They’re orchids—from London—but—with Mr. Armitage’s card. Wouldn’t +that excite you?” + +“It makes me sick!” and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug. + +“They are beautiful orchids. I don’t remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard—in such quantities. Now, you really didn’t +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn’t so bad; and he may be an American, after all.” + +“A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again—” + +“Yes, Richard, if you should meet again—” + +“I’d ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up.” + +“Yes; I’m sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard,” mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother’s stalwart shoulders. + +“Don’t be silly,” observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them. + +“I shan’t, but please don’t be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,”—and she took hold of his arm entreatingly—“for there he +is—as tall and mysterious as ever—and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!” + +“This is good fortune, indeed,” said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. “I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am.” + +He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne’s resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne’s +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day. + +Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain’s +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down. + +“You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn’t lay hold of +me in my sleep.” + +He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar. + +“This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune.” + +“Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements,” replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass. + +Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,—enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler’s hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man’s manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage’s belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man’s eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage’s strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet. + +Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father’s fame made them conspicuous. + +Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness. + +“Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor”—John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again—“can I make any adequate apology for doing so.” + +Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man’s attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say. + +“A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed.” + +Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter. + +“I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the _King Edward_ by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there.” + +Claiborne smiled in spite of himself. + +“But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don’t know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us—it’s altogether too unusual. It’s almost preposterous!” + +And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely. + +“It’s only decent for a man to give his references when it’s natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,—I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder—what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it,” and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it. + +Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley’s sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley’s hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage? + +The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious. + +“Pardon me,” he asked, “but are you an Englishman?” + +“I am not,” answered Armitage. “I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere—but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand—” + +He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something. + +“On the other hand,” Armitage repeated, “I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died—very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion—particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!” John Armitage laughed. + +“It is, indeed, a real merit,” declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage’s wish to appear well in his +eyes. + +“And now,” said Armitage, “I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself—and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again.” + +“I have been interested,” remarked Dick; “and,” he added, “I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage.” + +Armitage began talking of the American army—its strength and +weaknesses—with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk. + +The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON THE DARK DECK + +Ease, of all good gifts the best, + War and wave at last decree: +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea. + +William Watson. + + +“I am Columbus every time I cross,” said Shirley. “What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country.” + +“Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we’re sure to get into trouble if we don’t turn +back.” + +“You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land.” + +“Don’t starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!” + +“Choose a cheerfuller word!” pleaded Shirley. + +“I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down ‘full faddom five.’” + +“I’m sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate’s business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis.” + +They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides. + +“Armitage isn’t a bad sort,” Dick admitted to Shirley. “He’s either an +awful liar, or he’s seen a lot of the world.” + +“Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware,” observed Shirley. +“I’m surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere ‘peddler,’—and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world.” + +“Well, if he’s a peddler he’s a high-class one—probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works.” + +Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer’s interest. + +“The glass-blower’s a deep one, all right,” remarked Dick to Shirley. “He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there’s no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you’d hold on to him +tight till we’re docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him—and I haven’t dared tell her he’s only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me—” + +“It would, Richard. Be a generous foe—whether—whether you can afford to +be or not!” + +“My sister—my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I’m going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once.” + +Shirley and Armitage talked—as people will on ship-board—of everything +under the sun. Shirley’s enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world’s larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background. + +Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night. + +“Time oughtn’t to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass.” + +“I like the idea. Such people could become fishers—permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food.” + +“They wouldn’t eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea—mine, please note—is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once— + +“‘Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.’” + +“But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn’t have +much show. And dreams passing over—the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures—” he said, and paused inquiringly. + +She looked at him quickly. + +“How do you know I do?” + +“You like Detaille particularly.” + +“Am I to defend my taste?—what’s the answer, if you don’t mind?” + +“Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter.” + +She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris—in cafés, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases. + +“It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it.” + +“No; there certainly was not!” He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley’s tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war. + +“I was in Paris during the exhibition,” he said quietly. “Ormsby, the +American painter—the man who did the _High Tide at Gettysburg_—is an +acquaintance of mine.” + +“Oh!” + +It was Ormsby’s painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett’s charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject. + +Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage’s remark at the +carriage door in Geneva—that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the _King Edward_; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity. + +“We’re all imperialists at heart,” said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. “We Americans are hungry for empire; +we’re simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation.” + +“And before he’d gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand.” + +“No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick’s +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry’s for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?” + +“Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks—if the thing is bound +to be—I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne,” he exclaimed, as though with inspiration. + +“Yes—you have an idea—” + +“Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be—” + +“Yes—the suspense is terrible!—what might I be, your Majesty?” + +“Well, we should call you—” + +He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense. + +“I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn’t flattering,” +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him. + +“Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title—you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress—that’s the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered.” + +They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals—that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night—interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea. + +“Accident to the dynamo—we shall have the lights on in a moment!” +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger. + +“Shall we go in?” asked Armitage. + +“Yes, it is getting cold,” replied Shirley. + +For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand. + +They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage’s arm tightened. + +“What is that?—there is some one following us,” she said. + +At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about. + +“Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne.” + +He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley’s grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster. + +“Are you hurt? What has happened?” she demanded. + +“It must have been a sea-serpent,” he replied, laughing. + +The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off. + +“I guess it was a sea-serpent,” he said. “It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful.” Then in a lower tone to Shirley: “That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!” + +“Oh, no,” she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; “it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I’m sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn’t feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you—it is no jesting +matter—” + +“Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers.” + +“Yes, it should be reported,” said Shirley. + +“It was very strange. Why, the deck of the _King Edward_ is the safest +place in the world; but it’s something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn’t caught his cloak—” + +Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident. + +Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies. + +The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the _King Edward_. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider. + +It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail. + +“Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes—” + +“That will do,” said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man. + +“You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting—” said the purser. + +“It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility.” + +And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook: + +“_Zmai_—; _travels as Peter Ludovic_.” + +Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers—some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk’s clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage’s hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister. + +“Do something for Austria—something for the Empire.” These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +“THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING” + +Low he lies, yet high and great +Looms he, lying thus in state.— +How exalted o’er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen! + +—James Whitcomb Riley. + + +John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable. + +Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the _King Edward_ sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage’s mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage? + +The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door. + +“Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!” + +“Jim Sanderson, come in!” Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice. + +“It’s my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury.” + +The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. “You’re a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?” + +“Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two.” + +“You’re getting soft,—that’s what’s the matter with you! You’re afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I’ll admit that it’s +rather more diverting here.” + +“There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats.” + +Sanderson winked prodigiously. + +“The papers _have_ rather skinned me; but on the whole, I’ll do very +well. They say it isn’t respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn’t to hold it up against a man that he’s rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it’s nothing +against me, is it?” + +“Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it’s the +Lord’s hand again.” + +“Why sure!” and the Senator from Montana winked once more. “But it’s +expensive. I’ve got to be elected again next winter—I’m only filling out +Billings’ term—and I’m not sure I can go up against it.” + +“But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you’ll not falter, if I know you.” + +“There’s hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I’m jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England—one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen—” + +“My dear Sanderson, don’t call me English! I’ve told you a dozen times +that I’m not English.” + +“So you did; so you did! I’d forgotten that you’re so damned sensitive +about it;” and Sanderson’s eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man’s nativity. + +“I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once—three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess.” + +Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection. + +“The sprinkling cart for me! I’ve got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State’s push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You’re all right, and I guess +you’re about as good an American as they make—anywhere—John Armitage!” + +The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o’clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies. + +Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attaché of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian’s +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attaché proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage’s eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man’s gaze. + +It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attaché at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man’s +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne. + +The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese. + +“They must be crushed—crushed,” said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French. + +“Yes, _he_ must be crushed,” returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun. + +Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,—a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines. + +“Welcome once more, constituent! We’re proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they’re hung out to-night for +the world to see.” She guided Armitage toward the Secretary’s gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste. + +“It isn’t merely an art gallery; it’s the most beautiful room in +America,” murmured Mrs. Sanderson. + +“I can well believe it. There’s my favorite Vibert,—I wondered what had +become of it.” + +“It isn’t surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It’s a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king’s coronation would +not be out of place,—in fact, there’s a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He’s a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago.” + +“Ah, to be sure! I haven’t seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little.” + +“Then you knew him,—in the old country?” + +“Yes; I used to see him—when I was a boy,” remarked Armitage. + +Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,—that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage’s antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him. + +The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art. + +“Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there’s the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her.” + +“I am wholly agreeable,” laughed Armitage. “The sooner the better, and be +done with it.” + +“Don’t be so frivolous. There—you can look safely now. She’s stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,—the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,—have a care!” + +Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once. + +“To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!” exclaimed +Shirley. “And you, Mr. Armitage,—” + +“Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne,” laughed John, taking her hand. + +“But I haven’t introduced you yet”—began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled. + +“No; the _King Edward_ did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken. + +The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze. + +“Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day.” + +“Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary,” declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration. + +“The word seems to have been coined for her,” said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache. + +“And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty,” +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy. + +“How charming!” laughed Mrs. Sanderson. “And this lovely room is just the +place for it.” + +They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure. + +“Is Baron von Marhof in the room?” he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle. + +The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching. + +The attaché hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief. + +The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room: + +“His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna,” he said, and gave his arm to his chief. + +It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attaché’s words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone. + +The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof’s +carriage in the court below. + +“The King is dead; long live the King!” murmured Shirley. + +“Long live the King!” repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, “Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!” + +Then he turned to Shirley with a smile. + +“It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well.” + +“Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere.” + +“And Captain Claiborne?” + +“He’s probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage.” + +“Thank you; you are very kind,” he said gravely. “I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon.” + +As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl’s praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied. + +“The girl has gone to your head. Why didn’t you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?” + +“I don’t remember that you gave me a chance; but I’ll say now that I +intend to know them better.” + +She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm’s +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case. + +“Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?” + +He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage’s eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet’s lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose. + +“You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host’s oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!” + +He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,—all, as it seemed, at a single stroke. + +“My dear sir,” began Chauvenet, white with rage. + +“My dear Monsieur Chauvenet,” said Armitage, striking a match, “I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly.” + +The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke. + +“Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?” demanded Chauvenet +furiously. + +“My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it—now I have it—wherefore it must be mine!” + +Chauvenet’s rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly. + +“Between gentlemen—so small a matter!” + +“To be sure—the merest trifle,” laughed Armitage with entire good humor. + +“And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker—” + +“Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets—” + +“Come naturally—quite so!” and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction. + +“But the genial art of assassination—there’s a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!” + +Chauvenet’s hand went again to his lip. + +“To be sure!” he ejaculated with zest. + +“But alone—alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires—I should say—courageous associates. Now in my affairs—would +you believe me?—I am obliged to manage quite alone.” + +“How melancholy!” exclaimed Chauvenet. + +“It is indeed very sad!” and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night. + +“Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!” + +“The thought does credit to a generous nature!” responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +“THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE” + +Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had + arisen, +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale; +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail. + +—L. Frank Tooker. + + +Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington. + +Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man’s hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart’s desire. + +With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,—that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said: + +“Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!” + +Emperors and kings! They were as impossible to-day as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador’s +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep. + +Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary’s ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the _King Edward_, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention. + +At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her. + +“Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?” + +“It is all of that!” she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet’s praise. + +“I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!” he continued. + +“No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!” + +She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,—his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season. + +“Poor Franzel is indeed _triste_. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!” + +“Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!” + +“Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself.” + +“That is very sad, Monsieur,”—and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. “My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn—alone.” + +He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture. + +“There are sadder blows than losing one’s sovereign, Mademoiselle!” and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend. + +She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley’s heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her. + +The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl’s heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek. + +Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley. + +He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring. + +Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff. + +“Oh! Oh!” and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her. + +“What is it, Miss? Did you call?” + +“No; it was nothing, Thomas—nothing at all,” and she mounted and turned +toward home. + +Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man’s life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her. + +“Miss Claiborne!” + +The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone: + +“Mr. Armitage!” She laughed. “I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me.” + +He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,—he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed. + +“You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man’s life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me—” + +“Please don’t speak of that! It was so terrible!” + +“But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made—that +night on the _King Edward_.” + +“Yes; I have not forgotten.” + +“And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me.” + +“But this is America, Mr. Armitage!” + +“That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,—it is unpardonable—indefensible!” + +She saw that he was greatly troubled. + +“But you couldn’t help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It’s a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man—” + +“I know the man.” + +“Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up.” + +She was seeking to minimize the matter,—to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind. + +Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm. + +“Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can’t +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason—for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn’t presuming—” + +He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English. + +“How am I to know whether it would be presuming?” she asked. + +“But I was going to say—” + +“When rudely interrupted!” She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished. + +“—that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice.” + +She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits. + +“How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past.” + +“But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here—” + +“Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected.” + +She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter. + +“It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can’t travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia.” + +“You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting.” + +“Yes; at Storm Springs. It’s really beautiful down there,” she said +simply. + +It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth: + +“I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills.” + +“Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There’s a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer—up when it’s warm, down when it’s cold. +There’s the secret of our mercurial temperament.” + +A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice. + +“He’s just up from the farm and doesn’t like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon,” she said as they rode on. + +“Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!” he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again! + +“Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people’s names.” + +“Then you reverse the usual fashionable process—you go south to meet the +rising mercury.” + +“I hadn’t thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep—and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood’s golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?” + +“Nothing, but my entire approval,” he said. + +He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED + +Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + +—Walt Whitman. + + +Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o’clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument’s gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm. + +Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise. + +The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage’s case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o’clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow’s steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him. + +When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance. + +“My friend,” he said, “there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you.” + +“Pardon me—” + +“You are watching me; and the thing won’t do.” + +“Yes, I’m watching you; but—” + +“But the thing won’t do! If you are hired—” + +“_Nein! Nein!_ You do me a wrong, sir.” + +“Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I’m going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir.” + +Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently. + +Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away. + +He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him. + +He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,—an American soldier’s campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair. + +“Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful—” + +The man’s face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition. + +“My dear fellow, you really become annoying,” and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. “I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far.” + +The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him: + +“Don’t you know me? I am Oscar—don’t you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are—” + +He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood. + +John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage’s manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller’s display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes. + +Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness. + +“Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come.” + +The man’s hand went to his hat. + +“None of that!” + +Armitage arrested him with a gesture. “My name is Armitage,—John +Armitage,” he said. “I advise you to remember it. Now go!” + +The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed. + +It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator. + +Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully. + +“What do you want?” he demanded bluntly. + +He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow’s bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him. + +“I want nothing, Mr. Armitage,” he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent. + +“Then you will be easily satisfied,” said Armitage. “You said your name +was—?” + +“Oscar—Oscar Breunig.” + +Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity. + +“You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?” + +“I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek—yes?” + +“What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?” asked Armitage. + +“I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government—yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution.” + +He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,—eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier. + +“Oscar!” he said; and repeated, very softly, “Oscar!” + +The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm’s length. + +“None of that nonsense! Sit down!” He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair. + +“So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?” + +“I served in the Philippines,—yes?” + +“Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?” + +“I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay,” said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed. + +“Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar.” + +The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare. + +“You are not dead,—Mr.—Armitage; but your father—?” + +“My father is dead, Oscar.” + +“He was a good man,” said the soldier. + +“Yes; he was a good man,” repeated Armitage gravely. “I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now—” + +The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee. + +“You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers.” + +“There are enemies—yes?” and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation. + +“I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants—you are not +married?” + +“How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable,” declared Oscar solemnly. + +“I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else—” + +The man nodded his comprehension. + +“That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage.” + +Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him. + +“You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet—able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on.” + +“You should remember—” began Oscar. + +“I remember nothing,” observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar. + +“Do you think you could find that place?” + +The man breathed hard over it for several minutes. + +“Yes; it would be easy,” and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia’s +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered. + +“It is a farm—yes?” + +“It is a wilderness, I fancy,” said Armitage. “I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there—going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There’s some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here’s a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores—plain military +necessities, you understand—and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it.” + +“Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job,” said Oscar. + +“And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of—let me consider—a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We’ll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar.” + +The man nodded gravely. + +“And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here—” + +“I have not been, here—is it not?” + +“It is,” replied Armitage, smiling. “You read and write English?” + +“Yes; one must, to serve in the army.” + +“If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,—unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,—do you understand?” + +“It is the custom of the country,” assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret. + +“To be sure,” laughed Armitage; “and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated.” + +He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table. + +“It is much money,” observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously. + +“It will be enough for your purposes. You can’t spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon—perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,—who can tell +without trying it? Don’t write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don’t hear from me again.” + +He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN + +As music and splendor + Survive not the lamp and the lute, +The heart’s echoes render + No song when the spirit is mute— +No songs but sad dirges, + Like the wind through a ruined cell, +Or the mournful surges + That ring the dead seaman’s knell. +—Shelley. + + +Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attaché of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop. + +“Here’s a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret,” laughed +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table. + +With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attaché, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth’s +dominion. + +Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness. + +“He has not old Stroebel’s right hand to hold him up,” remarked a young +German officer. + +“Thereby hangs a dark tale,” remarked Claiborne. “Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago—after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge.” + +“Bah! Francis is not as dark as he’s painted. He’s the most lied-about +prince in Europe,” remarked Chauvenet. “He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!” + +“Nothing can happen,” remarked the German sadly. “I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions.” + +“That is quite true,” said Armitage quietly. + +“But,” observed the Spaniard, “if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion—?” + +“Such speculations are quite idle,” commented Chauvenet. “There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him.” + +“Of course,” said the German. “If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again.” + +“The same applies to the boy he carried away with him—undoubtedly +dead—or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said—” + +“A pretty tale it is!” commented the German—“that the child wasn’t +exactly Karl’s own. He took it quite hard—went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him.” + +“He was surely mad,” remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. “He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well.” + +They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses—and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries—and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention. + +He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar. + +“With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,”—and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,—“that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive.” + +Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet’s recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened. + +“It’s my experience,” continued Chauvenet, “that we never meet a person +once only—there’s always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall.” + +“At his old tricks, I suppose,” observed some one. + +“No; that was the strangest part of it. He’s struck a deeper game—though +I’m blessed if I can make it out—he’s dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself _Mister_—I’ve forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He’s made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American—his English is +excellent—and he hints at large American interests.” + +“He probably has forged securities to sell,” commented the German. “I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly.” + +“I dare say,” returned Chauvenet. + +“Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend,” remarked Claiborne +leadingly. + +“No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way.” + +All felt that they were now to hear the dénouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders. + +“Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest—the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, _Fide non armis_.” + +“The devil!” exclaimed the young German. “Why, that’s very like—” + +“Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert—in Berlin, you know—I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up—I wanted to make sure—and +handed it to him, the imitation baron.” + +“That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say,” remarked +the German. + +“He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,”—continued Chauvenet,—“‘Allow me, Baron!’” + +“Well spoken!” exclaimed the Spanish officer. + +“Not so well, either,” laughed Chauvenet. “He had the best of it—he’s a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said—” and Chauvenet’s mirth +stifled him for a moment. + +“Yes; what was it?” demanded the German impatiently. + +“He said: ‘Thank you, waiter!’ and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!” + +They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne’s eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage’s cigarette case—on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, “if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we’ll have to run along.” + +Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him. + +“That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the _King Edward_—every word of it +is true.” + +“You should face him—you must have it out with him!” exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer’s +eyes. + +“But the time hasn’t come for that—” + +“Then if there is something between you,”—began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant. + +“There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end.” + +Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him. + +“Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don’t like it, I tell you! You’ve got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don’t offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance—and the acquaintance of my family!” + +Armitage’s face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick. + +“I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters.” + +“Then you need never take the trouble!” + +“In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied,” said Armitage +quietly, and turned away. + +He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers. + +Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS + +—Who climbed the blue Virginia hills + Against embattled foes; +And planted there, in valleys fair, + The lily and the rose; +Whose fragrance lives in many lands, + Whose beauty stars the earth, +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth. + +—Francis O. Ticknor. + + +The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places. + +Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love. + +He had wanted time to think—to ponder his affairs—to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage. + +He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting. + +“Good morning,” said Oscar, saluting. + +“You are prompt, Sergeant,” and Armitage shook hands with him. + +As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow. + +“The place—what of it?” asked Armitage. + +“There may be worse—I have not decided.” + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +“Is it as bad as that?” + +The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage’s +further questions with soldierlike brevity. + +“You have been here—” + +“Two weeks, sir.” + +“And nothing has happened? It is a good report.” + +“It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal—yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place.” + +The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn. + +“I am quite ready, sir,” reported Oscar, touching his hat. “There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way.” + +“Then let us be off,” said Armitage, swinging into the saddle. + +Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood. + +“It is good,” said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him. + +“Yes, it is good,” repeated Armitage. + +A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage’s eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer’s cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence. + +“This is Lamar post-office,” announced Oscar. + +“There must be some mail here for me,” said Armitage. + +Oscar handed him several long envelopes—they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket. + +“You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable.” + +“I take a Washington paper—it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world—yes? At the post-office +back there”—he jerked his head to indicate—“it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room.” + +“To be sure,” laughed Armitage. “I hope it is a good article.” + +“It is vile,” replied Oscar. “His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye.” + +“Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days.” + +It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet’s assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else—a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well. + +On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him. + +They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage’s property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas. + +Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse. + +“It is a fine valley—yes?” asked Oscar. + +“It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!” replied Armitage. “There +is a white building with colonnades away over there—is it the house of +the reigning deity?” + +“It is not, sir,” answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. “It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills—do you +see?—it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls—” + +“Golf? Is it possible!” + +“There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself—men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley.” + +Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started. + +“Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls.” + +“I could not tell it better,” responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse. + +“And our place—is it below there?” demanded Armitage. + +“It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen’s houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands.” + +“Poor Oscar!” laughed Armitage. + +His mood had not often in his life been so high. + +On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her—even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground. + +“Let us go,” he said presently. + +Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand. + +“You will find it easier to walk,” he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge. + +“This is the place, sir,” and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate. + +The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared. + +“There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty,” remarked Oscar. + +He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice: + +“It is different from our old hills and forests—yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick.” + +“But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!” + +“Here,” said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, “is what they call the Port of Missing Men.” + +There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted “No Thoroughfare.” Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight. + +“It is a bad place,” remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground. + +The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry. + +“Why the name?” asked Armitage. + +“There were gray soldiers of many battles—yes?—who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender—no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts,” and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion. + +They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow. + +“Your house, sir,” and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases. + +“There shall be breakfast,” said the man. + +He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match. + +“All one floor—plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir—a place to eat here—a +kitchen beyond—a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all.” + +“It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established.” + +“This is yours—the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but—you will require hot water for shaving—is it not so?” + +“You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting.” + +Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys. + +“The place was built by fools,” declared Oscar gloomily. + +“Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them—you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!” + +He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered. + +“You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast.” +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room. + +A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said—that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him. + +He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron’s escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington. + +Armitage’s cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read: + +“The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel.” + + * * * * * + +Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room. + +“Shall we unpack—yes?” + +“It is a capital idea,” said John Armitage. + +“I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition—and his uniforms—yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse.” + +“The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please.” + +The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner’s taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth. + +“You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn’t blend +well in our rainbow—put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud—drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable—give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned—I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well,” he added whimsically. + +He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim: + +“‘Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!’ + +“’Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet’s mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now— + +“‘Nothing can we call our own but death, +And that small model of the barren earth +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. +For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.’” + +Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought. + +“Oscar,” he called abruptly, “how far is it down to Storm Springs?” + +“A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA + +April, April, +Laugh, thy girlish laughter; +Then, the moment after, +Weep thy girlish, tears! +April, that mine ears +Like a lover greetest, +If I tell thee, sweetest, +All my hopes and fears, +April, April, +Laugh thy golden laughter, +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears! + +—William Watson. + + +A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler’s writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf—a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry—and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams—made, in fact, some notes in regard to them—and wrote +replies. Then, at four o’clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses. + +“It is spring, and in April a man’s blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air.” + +He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him. + +They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region. + +“We shall go down into the valley, Oscar,” he said; and thereafter it was +he that led. + +They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes. + +Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted. + +“You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don’t know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances.” + +He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world—they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them. + +At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop. + +He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity. + +“How near is Judge Claiborne’s place?” he asked. + +The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on. + +He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener’s shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day’s light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought. + +It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him. + +Her head went up with surprise and—he was sure—with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet. + +“I am caught—_in flagrante delicto_! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy.” + +“They said—they said you had gone to Mexico?” said Shirley +questioningly. + +“Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!” he +laughed. + +“Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother—” + +“Yes, your brother—he is the best fellow in the world!” + +She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes. + +“Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box—” + +“Oh, the cigarette case!” and he held it up. “It’s really mine—and I’m +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law.” + +“Yes, I believe that is true.” And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest. + +“But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne.” + +She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater: + +“Why?” + +“Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately—most +unfortunately—I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you—” + +He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand. + +“And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances,” said Shirley. + +“You are infinitely kind and generous—” + +“No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things—of course +not!” + +Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed. + +“Then—” + +“Then I will tell you—what I have not told any one else—that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel.” + +“You know it—you are quite sure of it?” he asked blankly. + +“Certainly. I saw that person—at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week—I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person.” + +Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character. + +“But Captain Claiborne—” + +He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily: + +“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so—” + +“By Monsieur Chauvenet.” + +“So he said.” + +“And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s +entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily. + +“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively. “I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.” + +Armitage laughed. + +“That is a little pointed.” + +“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly. “It is”—she weighed the +word—“ridiculous that both of you should be here.” + +“Thank you, for my half! I didn’t know he was here! But I am not exactly +_here_—I have a much, safer place,”—he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.” + +He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley. + +He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly. + +“Oh, this won’t do at all! I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—and she +indicated it by a nod of her head. + +“Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility—you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear—I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates—particularly when I came over the fence! It’s a +long way around anyhow—and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn.” + +“My brother—” + +“Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.” + +“But—there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself.” + +They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment. + +“I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it’s a whim—the merest whim, I assure you.” + +[Illustration: He delighted in the picture she made] + +He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat—(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)—her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley’s hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill. + +Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit. + +She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on. + +“But when I wait for people they always come—even in a strange pergola!” +he added daringly. “Now, in Geneva, not long ago—” + +He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times. + +“In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear—it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate,” he concluded mournfully. + +He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate. + +He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone. + +She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW + +_En, garde, Messieurs_! And if my hand is hard, + Remember I’ve been buffeting at will; + I am a whit impatient, and ’tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. _Messieurs, en garde_. + +—W. Lindsey. + + +“Monsieur Chauvenet!” + +Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage’s salutation. + +“My dear Armitage!” he murmured. + +“I didn’t go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn’t take the risk.” + +“He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health,” replied the other. + +“You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?” +mocked Armitage. + +“My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life—such pleasures of late have +been denied me.” + +“But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair.” + +“Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass,” continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. “I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society.” + +“But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy.” + +Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage’s plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage’s courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion’s sterner tones +disconcerted him. + +“I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game—it is +spectacular—it is picturesque—it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna—they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man’s common +ambitions.” + +“Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?” + +“It is both,” replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone: + +“I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne’s +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana.” + +Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance. + +“Of course. The hour was chosen well!” + +“More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He’s a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express.” + +Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him. + +“He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel’s life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!” + +Chauvenet’s gloved fingers caught at his mustache. + +“That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed—therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there’s a +difference between us—you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel’s +death.” + +He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly. + +“A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur.” + +“Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel’s death, it’s unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It’s a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman—you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!” + +“You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count’s departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?” + +Chauvenet’s hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony. + +“To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter.” + +“Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you—” + +The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled. + +“You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer.” + +“I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night, +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet.” + +“If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!” + +“Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!” + +“You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely.” + +“You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!” laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor. + +“Perhaps—perhaps—I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!” + +“So you would sell out, would you?” laughed Armitage. “You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next—who +knows?” + +“As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner.” + +“All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you—I don’t! But remember—if there’s a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne’s, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch—forward!” + +Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses. + +He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET + +Nightingales warble about it + All night under blossom and star; +The wild swan is dying without it, + And the eagle crieth afar; +The sun, he doth mount but to find it + Searching the green earth o’er; +But more doth a man’s heart mind it— + O more, more, more! + +—G.E. Woodberry. + + +Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother’s letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice: + +“I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, _ma chérie_, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I’ll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,—or _was_! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,—after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He’s over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!” + + * * * * * + +“Dear old Dick!” and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills. + +She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy’s zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony’s back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast’s fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable. + +It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages. + +Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,—the ability to forecast the enemy’s strategy and +then strike his weakest point,—that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops. + +Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons. + +Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,—not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,—received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens. + +He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne. + +The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf. + +“A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away.” + +Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet. + +“Steady, Fanny! Don’t come near her, please—” this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse’s bridle. She had +the true horsewoman’s pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet’s proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley’s +hand. + +“Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!” + +“Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn’t run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home.” + +She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet’s company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse. + +“But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends.” + +“You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?” + +“What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper ‘Yes, Sister,’ ‘No, Sister,’ to everything they +hear.” + +“Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet.” + +“No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,—you must know—” + +The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley’s hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly. + +Chauvenet went on rapidly in French: + +“You must know why I am here—why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear—you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments—” + +“Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur—” + +Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man’s shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed. + +“Monsieur!” cried Shirley in a low tone; “look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me.” + +Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly. + +“What is it, my dear fellow—my watch—my purse—my horse?” he said in +English. + +“He wants none of those things,” said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. “The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?” she asked pleasantly. + +“You cain’t do nothin’ for me,” drawled the man. “Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella’. I got a little business with him.” + +“He is a foreigner—he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay,” said Shirley. + +She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them. + +“Miss, I have seen you befo’, and I reckon we ain’t got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella’ ain’t no business up hy’eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it’s all right +for you, Miss; but what’s yo’ frien’ ridin’ the hills for at night? He’s +lookin’ for some un’, and I reckon as how that some un’ air me!” + +He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley’s +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French. + +“Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life—that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me.” + +The rifle—a repeater of the newest type—went to the man’s shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet’s head. + +“None o’ that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +’ere negotiations.” + +Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly. + +“The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else.” + +As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet’s position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man’s reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying: + +“Mountain folks air slow, and we don’t know much, but a stranger don’t +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he’s got to tell why; and the third time—well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella’ that there ain’t no third time.” + +Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly: + +“I have never been here before in my life.” + +The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl: + +“You air a liar, seh!” + +Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed. + +“This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend,” said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer’s interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her. + +[Illustration: “You air a liar, seh!”] + +“My friend,” she said, “I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father’s +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember.” + +The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage. + +“I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a—still, do you call it?—in his +life—” and she smiled upon him sweetly. “But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter.” + +Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone: + +“We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don’t want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn’t that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him.” + +She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor. + +“Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me.” + +“But it is growing dark—I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you—” + +“Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman.” + +The mountaineer took off his hat. + +“Thank ye, Miss,” he said; and then to Chauvenet: “Get out!” + +“Don’t trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet,” and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer. + +“What is your name?” + +“Tom Selfridge.” + +“Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?” asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer’s bared tangle of tow. + +“The name you called him ain’t it. It’s a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo’—it’s—it’s like the a’my—” + +“Is it Armitage?” asked Shirley quickly. + +“That’s it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +’im. He’s moved up hy’eh, and it ain’t fer no good. The word’s out that a +city man’s lookin’ for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man’s stayin’—” + +“Where?” + +“At the huntin’ club where folks don’t go no more. I ain’t seen him, but +th’ word’s passed. He’s a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella’ that’s been a soldier into th’ army stayin’ with ’im. I thought +yo’ furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did.” + +The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had—and +the thing was funny—served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage’s whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer. + +“I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you—will you believe me?” + +“I reckon I got to, Miss.” + +“Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road.” + +“I’ll do it gladly, Miss.” + +“Thank you; now let us be off.” + +She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key. + +“They are an odd and suspicious people, but they’re as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again—not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +NARROW MARGINS + +The black-caps pipe among the reeds, + And there’ll be rain to follow; +There is a murmur as of wind + In every coign and hollow; +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears. + +—Amélie Rives. + + +The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage’s life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet. + +The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father’s, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth—but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes. + +She had kept Dick’s letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl: + +“What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars’ worth of +telegrams from Sanderson—wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it’s all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the _exposé_ at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage’s) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and _who_ is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present—even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again—he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!—and +sooner or later he’s bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is _he_! And why didn’t Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse.” + + * * * * * + +Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick’s +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener’s work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor’s; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola. + +Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime. + +Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon. + +Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again. + +The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly. + +“This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you.” + +He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat. + +“You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley coldly. + +“I’m afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission.” + +He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him. + +“No! No! This is impossible—it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion.” + +“In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn’t mean to apologize for coming”—and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. “But,” he went on, “it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium—geraniums are splendid for the +purpose—and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!” + +“It must have hurt him,” said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe. + +“I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn’t take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!” + +“I suppose you didn’t think of us—all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!” + +There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly. + +“Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn’t know I was being followed—I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it.” + +“You mustn’t try to see me! You mustn’t come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently—at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain.” + +“I know that! I realize all that!” + +“Then you must not come! You must leave instantly.” + +She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly. + +“You have been hurt—why did you not tell me that?” + +“It is nothing—the fellow had a knife, and he—but it’s only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!” + +The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda. + +As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochère. + +“I’m off—please believe in me—a little.” + +“You must not go if you are hurt—and you can’t run away now—my father +and mother are at the door.” + +There was an instant’s respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses. + +“You can’t go now; come in and wait.” + +There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture—through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings. + +She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda. + +“Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers.” + +And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING + +Oh, sweetly fall the April days! + My love was made of frost and light, + Of light to warm and frost to blight +The sweet, strange April of her ways. +Eyes like a dream of changing skies, +And every frown and blush I prize. + With cloud and flush the spring comes in, + With frown and blush maids’ loves begin; +For love is rare like April days. + +—L. Frank Tooker. + + +Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage’s plight—his +injuries and the dangers that beset him—that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her. + +The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna. + +“The trouble is,” said the Ambassador, “that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy—a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together.” + +“And a weak hand,” suggested Judge Claiborne, “might easily lose or +scatter them.” + +“Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice—and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow—” + +The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers. + +“Yes; after him, what?” + +“After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the _disjecta membra_ of the Empire +together.” + +“But there are shadows on the screen,” remarked Judge Claiborne. “There +was Karl—the mad prince.” + +“Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion.” + +Judge Claiborne laughed. + +“I don’t like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger.” + +“No; you are a miracle—that is the only explanation,” replied Marhof. + +“But a man like Karl—what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem.” + +“No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die.” + +“But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father’s exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son—” + +“In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information.” + +“I have heard as much,” and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne’s tone. + +The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel’s name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions. + +“Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate,” she said. “He +believed in the divine right and all that.” + +“So do I, Miss Claiborne. It’s all we’ve got to stand on!” + +“But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely—” + +“He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week,” declared the Baron vigorously. + +They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home. + +“I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter,” remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den. + +“You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley.” + +“Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I’ll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house.” + +“I have a few notes to write; they’ll take only a minute, and I’ll write +them here.” + +She heard her father’s door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library. + +“You must go—you must go!” she whispered with deep tensity. + +“Yes; I must go. You have been kind—you are most generous—” + +But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about. + +“I shall go home,” he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak. + +“Come! Come! This is all very dreadful—you must go to a physician at +once.” + +“My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing.” But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk. + +“I do not need the doctor—not now. My man will care for me.” + +He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength. + +“It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion—it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you—” + +“Please say nothing at all—but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again—you must leave the valley!” + +“I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me.” + +“You must leave the bungalow—I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there—the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them—” + +“Yes?” + +“—that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go.” + +He bent and kissed her hand. + +“You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world.” His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him. + +“Do not let them hurt you again—” she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out. + +Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES + +When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate, + And time seemed but the vassal of my will, +I entertained certain guests of state— + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made. + +—S. Weir Mitchell. + + +“Who am I?” asked John Armitage soberly. + +He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage’s arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention. + +“Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man’s name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country.” + +“Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor.” + +“First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover—yes?” + +“Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble.” + +“It would be better on the fifth—” + +“The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is—mark, My Majesty—pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms.” + +“Yes, sire.” + +And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence. + +“If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar.” + +“He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money.” + +“You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I’ll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business—” and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot. + +Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk. + +“They killed the great prime minister—yes?” + +“They undoubtedly did, Oscar.” + +“He was a good man—he was a very great man,” said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him. + +The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage’s life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one’s dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar’s care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence. + +“To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world—to +do something for Austria—such things are to the soul’s credit, Oscar,” +and then Armitage’s mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar’s comprehension. + +The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage’s mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin’s trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears. + +At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse’s flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods. + +Oscar’s whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse’s flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable. + +A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar’s lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other’s faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant’s ear: + +“You are a Servian: it is an ugly race.” + +And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl. + +“We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife,” grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian’s grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand. + +“Throw up your hands,” he yelled. + +The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily. + +Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, “Oscar!” and repeated the name several times. + +Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English: + +“All steady, sir!” + +The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian’s bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver. + +“Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman’s gun and be sure to find his +knife.” + +The task was to Oscar’s taste, and he made quick work of the Servian’s +pockets. + +“Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?” + +“Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives—” the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up. + +“Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow.” + +They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors. + +When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room. + +Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman. + +“Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him.” + +He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian’s small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner’s knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head. + +“He is a large devil,” commented Oscar. + +“He is large, certainly,” remarked Armitage. “Give him a chair. Now,” he +said to the man in deliberate German, “I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian.” + +The man nodded. + +“Your name is Zmai Miletich.” + +The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage. + +“Your name,” repeated Armitage, “is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand—do you follow me?” + +The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily. + +“I ask you again,” repeated Armitage, “whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake.” + +Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head. + +“There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March.” + +The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed. + +“Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done—” + +The blood suffused the man’s dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him. + +“That will do. You tried to kill me on the _King Edward_; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne’s garden; and you came up +here to-night with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar.” + +He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write. + +“Don’t shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings.” + +Armitage wrote: + + * * * * * + +“MONSIEUR: + +“Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you—is +even now aboard the _Tacoma_, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned. + +“You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity—which I am sure interests you greatly—before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps.” + + * * * * * + +Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F. + +“Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?” + +“He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof.” + +“You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master.” + +“It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass.” + +“Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!” he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet. + +“You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night—or any other old night, as we say +in America—if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you—buzzard meat!” + +“The orders are understood,” said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant’s ribs. + +“Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur’s receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?” + +It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms. + +Again through the moonlight strode the three—out of Armitage’s land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer. + +There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt. + +It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage’s hands at the +bungalow. + +“Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man,” Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French: + +“You are young to die, Monsieur.” + +“A man more or less!” and Oscar shrugged his shoulders. + +“You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder.” + +“One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also.” + +“That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills.” + +Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY + +When he came where the trees were thin, +The moon sat waiting there to see; +On her worn palm she laid her chin, +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been. + +—William Vaughn Moody. + + +In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus: + +Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy’s counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs. + +They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof’s business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters. + +The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words: + +“You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel—we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson’s knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date—going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him.” + +“He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics,” +said Judge Claiborne. “I talked with him a number of times on the _King +Edward_ and must say that I liked him.” + +“Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy,” said Dick. + +“It might be explained—” began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. “Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne.” + +“We met them abroad,” said Dick; “and they both turned up again in +Washington.” + +“One of them is here, or has been here in the valley—why not the other?” +asked Judge Claiborne. + +“But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage’s whereabouts,” Dick +protested. + +“Certainly not,” declared his father. + +“How did you make Armitage’s acquaintance?” asked the Ambassador. “Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him—if you can remember.” + +Dick laughed. + +“It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking _déjeuner_ at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton—the ubiquitous—was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attaché.” + +“And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions,” declared Judge +Claiborne. + +They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage’s whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there. + +“We must find him—there must be no mistake about it,” said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. “They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities.” + +“And when we have young Armitage—” the Judge began. + +“Then we shall know the truth.” + +“But suppose—suppose,” and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +“suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die—to-night—to-morrow—” + +“We will assume nothing of the kind!” ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +“It is impossible.” Then to Captain Claiborne: “You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him.” + +And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once. + +Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him. + +“Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting—and after a long leave, too.” + +“I am on duty. Don’t forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat.” + +“Humph! It doesn’t follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!” + +“You couldn’t be that, Shirley, dear.” + +“Thank you, Captain.” + +They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance: + +“Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times.” + +“Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it’s rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron.” + +“Which he wasn’t—” + +“Well, Sanderson says he couldn’t have been, and the rogues’ gallery +pictures don’t resemble our friend at all.” + +“Ugh; don’t speak of it!” and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed. + +“What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?” she asked. + +“Guess again!” exclaimed Dick hurriedly. “Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow.” + +He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair. + +“Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?” + +“Impertinent! How dare you?” + +“But Shirley, the question is fair!” + +“Is it, Richard?” + +“And I want you to answer me.” + +“That’s different.” + +He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back. + +“Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn’t do +_this_—” + +“This what, Dick?” + +“You know what I mean. I ask you again—have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?” + +He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self. + +“Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn’t he?” + +“He’s a regular old brick,” declared Dick solemnly. + +“It’s a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor—about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself.” + +“I am proud to be his son,” declared Dick, meeting Shirley’s eyes +unflinchingly. + +Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz. + +“A captain—a mere captain of the line—is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing—after a long leave for foreign +travel—and sent away to visit his parents—and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador.” + +“Thanks for the ‘mere captain,’ dearest. You needn’t rub it in.” + +“I wouldn’t. But you are fair game—for your sister only! And you’re +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attaché. It rather directed attention to you, didn’t it, Dick?” + +Dick colored. + +“It certainly did.” + +“And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble—” + +“I have every intention of meeting him!” + +“Oh!” + +“Of course, I shall meet him—some time, somewhere. He’s at the Springs, +isn’t he?” + +“Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven’t seen him for several +days.” + +“What I should like to see,” said Dick, “is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor.” + +He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains. + +“Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me.” + +“That doesn’t answer my question. You don’t know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer—” + +“Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven’t said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven’t exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare.” + +“When I find Mr. Armitage—” + +“You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas.” + +“I shall find him there—or here!” + +“Good luck to you, Captain!” + +There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER + +My mistress bent that brow of hers; +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs +When pity would be softening through, +Fixed me a breathing-while or two + With life or death in the balance: right! +The blood replenished me again; +My last thought was at least not vain: +I and my mistress, side by side +Shall be together, breathe and ride, +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night? + +—R. Browning. + + +“We shall be leaving soon,” said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. “It is not safe to wait much longer.” + +He tossed a copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April. + +“Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave.” + +“I enlisted for the campaign—yes?—I shall wait until I am discharged.” +And the little man buttoned his coat. + +“Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There’s another man coming to get into the game—he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills to-night. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say.” + +The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow. + +“If I should die unshriven during the next week, here’s a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him—tell him—” + +He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on. + +“—tell him, Oscar, that there’s a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King.” + +Oscar stared at Armitage blankly. + +“That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron’s hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in.” + +“You should not go out alone—” + +“Don’t trouble about me; I shan’t go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,—I feel it in +my bones.” + +He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills. + +At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon—perhaps in a few hours—he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them. + +He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose. + +“God said, ‘I am tired of kings,’” he muttered. “But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service,” he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. “To think that it may be for me to say!” And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge. + +“I shall soon be free,” he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills. + +Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step—a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman’s figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening. + +When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman’s security, died on his lips. + +“Shirley!” he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground. + +A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight. + +“I did not know that dreams really came true,” he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind. + +She began abruptly, not heeding his words. + +“You must go away—at once—I came to tell you that you can not stay +here.” + +“But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,”—he began. + +“It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you—it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go—you must seek the law’s +aid—” + +“How do you know I dare—” + +“I don’t know—that you dare!” + +“I know that you have a great heart and that I love you,” he said. + +She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps. + +“I can’t be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came—” + +“If I dared think or believe or hope—” + +“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me.” + +“How do you classify me, please—with friends or acquaintances?” + +He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone. + +“I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?” + +“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.” + +“You are explicit!” he laughed. “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do.” + +“That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of—of—what might be called the Armitage riddle.” + +“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?” + +“Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one’s enmity, +and there’s something about murder that is—that isn’t exactly nice! It’s +positively unesthetic.” + +She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words. + +“You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man’s life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be.” + +“You put it rather flatly, but that’s about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid—” + +“Not of me, I hope—” + +“Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity.” + +“That is unkind,—that is unkind,” and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence. + +He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her. + +“You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you—it will take but a +moment—why and what—” + +“Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can’t +allow you to tell me; I really don’t want to know!” + +“I am willing that every one should know—to-morrow—or the day +after—not later.” + +She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought. + +“The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done—” + +“I have done nothing to be ashamed of,—I swear I have not!” + +“Whatever it is,—and I don’t care what it is,”—she said deliberately, +“—it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother—” + +She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly. + +“My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now.” + +“But _he_ doesn’t understand—” + +“My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand.” + +“And you have done this—you have come to warn me—” + +“It does look pretty bad,” she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. “But my brother and I—we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case.” + +“Oh, I’m a case, am I?” and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. “But I’d really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs.” + +“Then you will have to ask him.” + +“To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet’s request. I swear to you +that I’m as much in the dark as you are.” + +“I’m quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,—perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof.” + +“Good Lord!” + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +“I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?” + +“I don’t know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I’m only a traitor and not a +spy.” + +“You are the noblest woman in the world,” he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. “You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man—for a man she +did not know! And my life—whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow—or the day after—I shall justify these +great kindnesses—this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!” + +As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away. + +“I must go back,” said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight. + +“You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again.” + +She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once. + +“Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,—I +should have gone back instantly.” + +“But not across that spider’s web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley.” + +“It is much nearer by the bridge,—and I have my horse over there.” + +“We shall get the horse without trouble,” he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said: + +“This is the Port of Missing Men.” + +“Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It’s a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself.” + +“I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I’ll wait here. Fetch the horse,” she said, “and hurry, please.” + +“If there are explanations to make,” he began, looking at her gravely. + +“I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate.” + +As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him. + +“Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar,” Armitage commanded. + +They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses. + +“You are not to come with me, Oscar.” + +“A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent—yes?” + +“It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne’s stables; and ask and answer no +questions.” + +A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following. + +He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road. + +“The bridge would have been simpler and quicker,” said Shirley; “as it +is, I shall be late to the ball.” + +“I am contrite enough; but you don’t make explanations.” + +“No; I don’t explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point,” she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible. + +Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile. + +He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living. + +Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her. + +“You ride wonderfully,” he said. + +“The horse is a joy. He’s a Pendragon—I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I’m +sure.” + +“You are quite right. He’s a Virginia horse. You are incomparable—no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It’s a brave woman who isn’t +a slave to her hair-pins—I don’t believe you spilled one.” + +She drew rein at the cross-roads. + +“We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?” + +“Let me go to your own gate, please!” + +“Not at all!” she said with decision. + +“Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don’t see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks—for oh, so many things!” he pleaded. + +“To-morrow—or the day after—or never!” + +She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills. + +Near her father’s estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier. + +It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road. + +“It is my captain’s horse—yes?” he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. “I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable—yes?” + +A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father’s house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently. + +“Where have you been, Shirley?” + +“Walking.” + +“But you went for a ride—the stable-men told me.” + +“I believe that is true, Captain.” + +“And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English.” + +“Well, they do say English isn’t very well taught at West Point, +Captain,” she replied, pulling off her gloves. “You oughtn’t to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy.” + +“I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage—” + +“Captain!” + +“Bah! What are you going to do now?” + +“I’m going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone.” + +“They have—for which you should be grateful!” + +Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD + +A glance, a word—and joy or pain + Befalls; what was no more shall be. +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny! + +—T.B. Aldrich. + + +Oscar’s eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched. + +“It is the big fellow—yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known.” + +Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road. + +“It is mischief that brings him from the hills—yes?” Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly—very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones: + +“Good evening, my friend; it’s a fine evening for a walk.” + +Zmai drew back and growled. + +“Let me pass,” he said in his difficult German. + +“It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia—yes?” and Oscar’s tone was pleasantly +conversational. + +Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault. + +“A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains—yes?” + +“I have no time for you,” snarled the Servian. “Be gone!” and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall. + +“One should not be in too much haste, comrade;” and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips. + +The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back. + +“It is a message—yes?” asked Oscar. + +“It is my affair,” blurted the big fellow. “I mean no harm to you.” + +“It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife—yes?” + +The little soldier whipped out his revolver. + +“In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words—Ah!” + +Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture. + +The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar’s feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels. + +Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening. + +Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar’s revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report. + +At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head. + +“Stop; I want the letter!” shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels. + +Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow’s broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar’s +hands slipped on the fellow’s hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head. + +As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep. + +“The letter—give me the letter!” commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian’s. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar’s hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man’s gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades. + +Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. + +“Damn the sheep!” roared Claiborne. + +“It is sheep—yes?” and Oscar started to bolt. + +“Halt!” + +The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar’s ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer. + +“What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?” + +Oscar saluted and summoned his best English. + +“It was an accident, sir.” + +“Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable.” + +“There was a sheep-stealer—yes? He is yonder by the pens—and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead—no?” + +At that moment Claiborne’s eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door. + +“That is the sheep-stealer,” said Oscar. “We shall catch him—yes?” + +Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back. + +“One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What’s that you have there? Give it to me—quick!” + +“It’s a piece of wool—” + +But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar’s hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever. + +He blinked under Claiborne’s sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library. + +“You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You have been a soldier.” + +“In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home.” + +“Where do you live?” + +“I work as teamster in the coal mines—yes?—they are by Lamar, sir.” + +Claiborne studied Oscar’s erect figure carefully. + +“Let me see your hands,” he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms. + +“You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn’t go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt.” + +Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written: + +CABLEGRAM +WINKELRIED, VIENNA. +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET. + +Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar. + +“Where did you get this?” + +“From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder.” + +“Who is he and where did he get it?” + +“I don’t know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race—yes?” + +“What were you going to do with the paper?” + +Oscar grinned. + +“If I could read it—yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?” + +Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar’s tranquil eyes. + +“Dick!” called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar. + +“Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?” + +“I think not, Dick.” + +“It was he that brought your horse home.” + +“To be sure it is! I hadn’t recognized him. Thank you very much;” and she +smiled at Oscar. + +Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper. + +“Where is Monsieur Chauvenet—have you any idea?” + +“If he isn’t at the hotel or in Washington, I’m sure I don’t know. If we +are going to the dance—” + +“Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away.” + +“I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;” and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness. + +Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read. + +“Don’t touch it!” he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly: + +“I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?” + +“Don’t you know what _you_ are doing here?” she asked, and he flushed. + +“I know what, but not _why_!” he blurted irritably; “but that’s enough!” + +“You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don’t know why.” + +“I have my orders and I’m going to find him, if it takes ten years.” + +Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley. + +“There’s no doubt of that being Chauvenet’s writing, is there?” + +“I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness.” + +The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain. + +Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently. + +“Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer—an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It’s most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I’m going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!” + +Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders. + +“Do it, Dick! He’s undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character.” + +“I tell you I’ll find him,” he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers. + +“I’ll help you, Dick,” she said, buttoning her glove. + +“That’s like you, Shirley.” + +“If you want to find Mr. Armitage—” + +“Of course I want to find him—” His voice rose to a roar. + +“Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!” + +“Yes; I needed my man for other business,” said Armitage, folding his +arms, “and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him.” + +Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face. + +“You are worse than I thought—eavesdropper, housebreaker!” + +“Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?” + +“You are a rogue, an impostor—” + +“We will grant that,” said Armitage quietly. “Where is your warrant for +my arrest?” + +“That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you.” + +“It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow.” + +Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land’s commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The _coup de théâtre_ by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house. + +“You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here,” said +Claiborne. + +“In America—in free Virginia—without legal process?” asked Armitage, +laughing. + +“You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!” + +“You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you—day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now—that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me.” + +“No!” shouted Claiborne. + +Armitage drew a step nearer. + +“You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is.” + +“You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once.” + +“Do so!—but _I_ must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn’t understand it, and it is clear you +don’t. Give me the message!” + +He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides. + +“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Armitage!” + +“I don’t like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne.” + +Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words: + +“Winkelried—Vienna—not later than Friday—Chauvenet.” + +“Shirley!” roared Claiborne. + +John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited. + +Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW + +So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of + battle, +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled + were many. +E’en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh + in splendor, +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin + is breathless, +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and + the valleys, +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless + ether +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd— +Such and so many the fires ’twixt the ships and the streams + of the Xanthus +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city. +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside + them +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses, +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning. + +_The Iliad_: Translation of Prentiss Cummings. + + +“In Vienna, Friday!” + +“There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;” and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar. + +“Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do.” + +“Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands—” + +“_Our_ own hands, if you would be accurate!” + +“You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart’s desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn’t the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it.” + +“You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation.” + +“But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,—what +becomes of her in these transactions?” + +“That is none of your affair,” replied Chauvenet, frowning. “I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter.” + +“Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there—ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be.” + +“Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul.” + +“The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage’s house.” + +“Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit.” + +The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand’s eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. “I do not require watching, my dear +Durand,” he had said. + +“A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;” but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet’s mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere. + +While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar’s +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage’s bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited. + +Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face. + +“The letters!” snapped Chauvenet. + +“Is the message safe?” demanded Durand. + +“Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,—the +little soldier,—as I crossed a strange field.” + +When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper. + +“Horses; saddle our two horses quick—and get another if you have to +steal it,” he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow’s +head and cleanse his face. + +“So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?” + +The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet’s rapid German. + +In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning. + +The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies. + +“We have no time to lose. That message must go to-night. You may be sure +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we’ve got to go down to +Storm Springs.” + +They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed. + +“He is not so big a fool, this Armitage,” remarked Durand. “He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna.” + +“I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward.” + +“Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation.” + +“If we fail—” began Chauvenet. + +“You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?” + +“We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,—and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,—he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him.” + +“And the fair daughter of the valley—” + +“Pish! We are not discussing the young lady.” + +“I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine _she_ knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him.” + +“His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular.” + +Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly. + +“Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way—a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!” + +An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o’clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai’s laggard beast permitted. + +The beat of a horse’s hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal’s walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse’s quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly. + +In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian’s +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse. + +“Wait!” said the Servian. + +The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man’s deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet’s party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them. + +“Who goes there?” + +The stranger’s horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast’s up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined. + +“Who goes there?” shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger’s horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai’s great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack. + +“The knife?” bawled the Servian. + +“No!” answered Chauvenet. + +“The devil!” yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast’s +flanks. + +Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse’s head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips. + +The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner. + +“Tie him,” said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man’s arms +and bound them tight. + +The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive’s horse. + +“The fellow takes it pretty coolly,” remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. “What are you going to do with him?” + +“We will take him to his own place—it is near—and coax the papers out +of him; then we’ll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter.” + +Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse. + +“I am ready,” he reported. + +“Go ahead; we follow;” and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask: + +“Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?” + +“Undoubtedly. I didn’t get a square look at him, but he’s a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he’s riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago.” + +“Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!” + +“The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack.” + +Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai. + +“The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it.” + +They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway. + +Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh. + +“You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?” + +“Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There’s the house.” + +He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet’s courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage’s +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others. + +“Bring him in!” he said, without taking his eyes from the room. + +A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail. + +Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them. + +“Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;” and as Durand turned into Armitage’s room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner. + +“Take off the bag,” he commanded. + +Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access. + +“Mr. John Armitage—” + +Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne. + +The perspiration on Claiborne’s face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men. + +The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage’s room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor. + +“It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!” muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne’s face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor. + +Durand stepped forward with an oath. + +“Who is the man?” he demanded. + +“It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology—” +Chauvenet began. + +“You put it mildly,” cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. “I don’t +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur—” + +“It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation—anything you ask,” stammered Chauvenet. + +“You are looking for John Armitage, are you?” demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet’s words. “Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o’clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you.” + +“You are violent, my dear sir—” began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet’s. + +“I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!” + +Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm’s length. + +“You know too much!” + +“I don’t know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War.” + +Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation. + +“You don’t understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance.” + +It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness. + +“You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear,” said Claiborne. “What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?” + +“He is a menace to a great throne—an impostor—a—” + +Chauvenet’s eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man’s gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him. + +“Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles—are not +for these free hills.” + +“_Where is John Armitage_?” + +Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed. + +Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf. + +“I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father’s, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!” + +“Come; we waste time,” said Durand in French. “It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!” + +“Yes; you’d better go,” said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. “I don’t believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I’ll go to bed. I’m sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can’t just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice.” + +He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them. + +“Good night, and clear out,” and he waved his arm in dismissal. + +“Come!” said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. + +As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight. + +As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VERGE OF MORNING + +O to mount again where erst I haunted; +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, + And the low green meadows + Bright with sward; +And when even dies, the million-tinted, +And the night has come, and planets glinted, + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr’d. + +—R.L.S. + + +“I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!” + +Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar’s arm to check the +rush of the little man. + +Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms. + +“Yes; they are very interesting.” + +“And those ribbons and that cloak,—I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman’s horse. Then make some +coffee and wait.” + +As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne. + +“I didn’t expect this of you; I really didn’t expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?” + +“I don’t know—I’ll be _damned_ if I know!” and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage’s +slumbering wrath. + +“You’d better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can’t explain yourself I’m going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?” + +“I didn’t _come_ here, Armitage; I was brought—with a potato sack over +my head. There’s the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn’t on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs.” + +“What are you doing up here in the mountains—why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!” + +“Armitage”—as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it—“Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now—” + +“Damn my cigarette case!” bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it. + +“That’s what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,—you must admit +that.” + +“It was, indeed!” + +“It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!” + +“No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne.” + +Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently. + +“And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!” + +“What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don’t know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can’t get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I’m going to chuck you back into the sack.” + +“I came up here in the hills to look for you—you—you—! Do you +understand?” began Claiborne angrily. “And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they’ve +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody’s eye. And there’s all +there is of the story, and I don’t care a damn whether you believe it or +not.” + +Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage’s tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud. + +“Your face—your face, Claiborne; it’s funny. It’s too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it’s something ghastly. For God’s sake go in there +and wash your face!” + +He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave. + +“Claiborne—” + +Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp. + +“You don’t know who I am or what I am; and I haven’t got time to tell +you now. It’s a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what’s going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain—or—must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?” + +“Marhof may go to the devil! He’s a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof’s cause.” + +“They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye.” + +“I believe you, Armitage.” + +“Thank you. Now your horse is at the door—run along like a good fellow.” + +Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on. + +“Oscar!” he yelled, “bring in that coffee—with cups for two.” + +He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings. + +“Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle.” + +He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes. + +“Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There’s a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you’d like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs,” he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank. + +“I’m taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods.” + +There was a great color in Armitage’s face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor. + +“Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise—isn’t that so, Claiborne?—and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag—original package, you understand. And see if +you can’t find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar—” + +With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. “If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!” + +[Illustration: “Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne.”] + +He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click. + +Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage’s +shoulder. + +Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty. + +“Lord, man! I didn’t mean to throw you into the road! There’s a clean bed +in there that you’re welcome to—go in and get some sleep.” + +“I’m not going into the valley,” roared Claiborne, “and I’m not going to +bed; I’m going with you, damn you!” + +“But bless your soul, man, you can’t go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I’m terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances—” + +“I repeat that I’m going with you. I don’t know why I’m in this row, and +I don’t know what it’s all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can’t be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there.” + +“But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again,” said Armitage earnestly. “Take your horse +and go.” + +“I’m going back to the valley when you do.” + +“Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice.” + +He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with: + +“I do not think a braver gentleman, +More active-valiant or more valiant-young, +More daring or more bold, is now alive +To grace this latter age with noble deeds. +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;— + +“Lord, Claiborne, you don’t know what’s ahead of us! It’s the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this—not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we’ll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We’re off!” + +“All ready, sir;” said Oscar briskly. + +“It’s half-past two. They didn’t get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They’ve probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven’t got me!” + +“They had me and didn’t want me,” said Claiborne, mounting his own horse. + +“They’ll have a good many things they don’t want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn’t enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it’s been a great old lark. And now to catch them!” + +Outside the preserve they paused for an instant. + +“They’re not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven’t studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven’t followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There’s a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I’m guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land.” + +“To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business,” said +Claiborne. + +“Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I’ll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses.” + +Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses—two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again. + +“Come! We’re on the verge of morning,” said Armitage, “and there’s no +time to lose.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD + +Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him. + +—Louise Imogen Guiney. + + +“There’s an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I’m not mistaken, and if +we’ve made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad.” + +Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter. + +“It’s a strange business,” Claiborne muttered half-aloud. + +The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas. + +He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance. + +“It’s all right; they haven’t passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they’re handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don’t forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I’m afraid we’re going to have a wet +morning.” + +They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches. + +“Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic,” said +Armitage; “but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I’ve done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it.” + +Claiborne groaned mockingly. + +“I suppose I’ll know what it’s all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I’m fighting for.” + +“You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you’ve got to take +the consequences. You’ve done what you set out to do—you’ve found me; +and you’re traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I’m going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor—I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build—and in the +dark—on horseback—” + +“That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they’d plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion.” + +“Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours.” + +The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot. + +Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted. + +“Bully for us! We’ve cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?” + +“There are three horses all right enough, and they’re forcing the beasts. +What’s the word?” + +“Drive them back! Ready—here we go!” roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard. + +They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop. + +“‘Not later than Friday’—back you go!” shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy’s rout. One of the horses—it seemed from its rider’s +yells to be Chauvenet’s—turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come. + +Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them. + +“They’re rattled,” said Claiborne, “and the fog isn’t helping them any.” + +“We’re getting close to my place,” said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses. + +“It’s Oscar! He’s a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right.” + +“If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment,” +observed Claiborne. “The fog muffles sounds. The road’s pretty level in +here.” + +“We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We’re +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!” + +The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again. + +“By George! They’re coming—here we go!” + +They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice. + +“Oscar has them on the run—bully for Oscar! They’re getting close—thank +the Lord for this level stretch—now howl and let ’er go!” + +They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses’ hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground. + +“They’re terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed,” shouted +Claiborne. “Now for it!” + +They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist. + +There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant’s glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand’s impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right. + +With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet’s frightened horse, panic-stricken at the +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed. + +The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses. + +“That was too close for fun—are you all there?” asked Armitage. + +“Still in it; but Chauvenet’s friend won’t miss every time. There’s +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse.” + +“Oh, he’s a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun.” + +They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light. + +“This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you’d get out of this +and go home. You see they’re an ugly lot and don’t use toy pistols.” + +“Remember the potato sack! That’s my watchword,” laughed Claiborne. + +They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade. + +“I should value a change of raiment,” observed Armitage. “There was an +advantage in armor—your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn’t stick to your hide.” + +“Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again.” + +They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage’s bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs. + +“Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!” And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar. + +The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage’s +shots. + +“Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!” + +“There!” + +Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe. + +“He’s crazy—he’s gone clean out of his head!” muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. “What do you make of it?” + +“He’s having fun with them. He’s just rattling them to warm himself +up—the little beggar. I didn’t know it was in him.” + +Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop. + +Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar’s wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver. + +“Oh, for a saber now!” growled Claiborne. + +But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand’s horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business. + +The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear. + +“My horse got it that time!” shouted Claiborne. + +“So did I,” replied Armitage; “but never you mind, old man, we’ve got +them cornered now.” + + +Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder. + +“Much damage?” + +“It struck a hard place, but I am still fit.” + +The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne’s horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace. + +“Poor devil! We’ll have a reckoning pretty soon,” cried Armitage +cheerily. “No kingdom is worth a good horse!” + +They advanced at a trot toward the Port. + +“You’ll be afoot any minute now, but we’re in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won’t care to drop +into! I’m off for the gate—you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer.” + +Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +Fast they come, fast they come; + See how they gather! +Wide waves the eagle plume, + Blended with heather. +Cast your plaids, draw your blades, + Forward each man set! +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset! + +—Sir Walter Scott. + + +Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left. + +“It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man—yes?” was the little +sergeant’s comment. “We shall come back for the saddle and bridle.” + +“Humph! Where do you think those men are?” + +“Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position.” + +“I’m not sure of that. They’ll escape across the old bridge.” + +“_Nein_. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once—they would not +need our bullets!” + +Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage. + +“It’s the signal that he’s got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you.” + +“You will have my horse—yes?” Oscar began to dismount. + +“No; I do well enough this way. Forward!—the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them.” + +The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol. + +The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him! + +As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet’s party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines. + +“They’re really not so bad—bad luck to them!” he muttered. “I’ll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;” and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage’s slow advance out into the open. + +The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne’s +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure. + +Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target’s elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing. + +“I’ve never been the same since that fever,” growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance. + +Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage’s advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading. + +“They are all together again, are they?” asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne’s rock, his eyes upon the barricade. + +“The gentleman with the curly hair—I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot—yes?” + +Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences. + +“Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I’d like to try hunger on +them,” said Armitage. + +“They’ll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they’ll break it down, and we’ll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them—alive?” + +“I certainly do!” Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider. + +The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth. + +“For God’s sake, get off that horse, Armitage!” bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. “There’s no use in wasting yourself that way.” + +“My arm aches and I’ve got to do something. Let’s try storming them just +for fun. It’s a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that’s supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we’ll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn’t as stiff as it looks from this side—know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can’t be seen from this side.” + +“Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You’ve got a +hole in you now! Get down!” + +“You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them.” + +His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert. + +Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering: + +“For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!” + +Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them. + +“They can’t jump this—they’ll veer off before they get here,” shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. “Wait till they check their horses for the +turn.” + +“We are fools. They have got us trapped;” and Durand’s hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai’s scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne’s voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts. + +But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure. + +Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood: + +“It is in the blood; he is like a king.” + +But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field: + +“He bade me do something for Austria—for Austria!” + +“He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him,” said Zmai. + +Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar’s horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him. + +“Take him first,” cried Chauvenet. “Then be ready for Armitage!” + +Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage’s +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause—not heeding Armitage’s cries—on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared. + +Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse’s forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet’s curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels. + +Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage’s face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud: + +“Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried’s in +jail and the jig’s up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!” + +He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage’s head. + +“Drop that gun—drop it damned quick!” and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet’s head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed. + +It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight. + +“It’s all over but the shouting—what’s next?” demanded Claiborne. + +“Tie him up—and tie the other one up,” said Armitage, staring about +queerly. “Where the devil is Oscar?” + +“He’s after the big fellow. You’re badly fussed, old man. We’ve got to +get out of this and fix you up.” + +“I’m all right. I’ve got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we’ve got them nailed, and it’s all right, old +man!” + +Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently. + +“If you start to run I’ll certainly kill you, Monsieur.” + +“We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings.” + +Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes. + +“Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing.” + +“But, Messieurs,” began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure—“this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions.” + +“I don’t question it,” laughed Claiborne. + +“But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country.” + +“It will, indeed,” and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage’s hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. “In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur.” + +“I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage—” + +Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously. + +“You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I’ll choke you!” + +Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand: + +“Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?” + +Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand’s pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage. + +“We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions.” + +A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave. + +“Where is the Servian?” demanded Armitage. + +The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage. + +“He will not come back,” said the sergeant quietly. + +“That is bad,” remarked Armitage. “Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage’s house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately.” + +“But Armitage—not Marhof—for God’s sake, not Marhof.” Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +“Not Marhof!” + +“We can fix this among ourselves—just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs,” protested Durand. + +“That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored,” said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision. + +“Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?” + +Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage’s tone. + +“It’s a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn’t take as much time as +you thought it would.” + +Oscar had mounted Armitage’s horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road. + +“After you deliver Mr. Armitage’s message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here.” + +“No!” began Armitage. “Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don’t propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!” + +“Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He’s +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!” + +The conspirators’ horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them. + +“Don’t treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we’ll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!” + +Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern. + +“Wait a few hours, Armitage—let us sit down and talk it all over. We’re +not as black as your imagination paints us!” + +“Save your breath! You’ve had your fun so far, and now I’m going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you’re not made for work in the open. Forward!” + +They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +“WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?” + +“_Morbleu, Monsieur_, you give me too much majesty,” said +the Prince.—_The History of Henry Esmond_. + + +“These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer—let them sequester +themselves!” and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. “I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about—he may wish to explore my trunks again,” and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd. + +“Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we’ll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,—but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time.” + +He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat. + +“I’d like to hold a little private execution for this,” growled the +officer. “A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart.” + +“Don’t be spiteful! I’m as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that.” + +“You’re not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can’t do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he’ll fix you up in a +jiffy.” + +“That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve—yes, I guess we’ll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir.” + +“Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage.” + +“I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry’s the Baron will be +glad to let me off.” + +[Illustration: With their wrists tied behind them, they looked the +least bit absurd] + +He laughed softly and began repeating: + +“‘Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.’” + +Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh: + +“I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I’ll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival—but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown—it’s in the leather-covered trunk in my room—the one with +the most steamer labels on it—go bring it, Claiborne, and we’ll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick—they ought to be here by this +time!” + +He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air. + +“The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there’s no treason in hauling up an alien flag,” and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner. + +“Here they are,” called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions. + +“Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but”—and he looked at Shirley. + +“If you will do me the honor to enter—all of you!” and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them. + +“We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man,” said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand. + +“What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?” demanded Judge +Claiborne. + +“There was a battle,” replied Dick, grinning, “and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet.” + +Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley’s cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly. + +Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o’clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her. + +“You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear.” + +“Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together,” said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly. + +Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne. + +“Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage,” said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand. + +“Won’t you please come in?” said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began: + +“Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual—they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne’s advice.” + +“Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy,” said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage’s face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees. + +“You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests.” + +The Baron nodded. + +“Yes, I dare say,” he remarked dryly. + +“And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them—one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question.” + +Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily: + +“This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!” + +“Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question—just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me—a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work—and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the _King Edward_. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne’s table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one—some one in +particular.” + +Armitage’s eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded: + +“Who am I, Monsieur?” + +Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly: + +“You are the devil—an impostor, a liar, a thief!” + +Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English: + +“Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?” + +“Answer and be quick about it!” snapped Claiborne. + +“I tell you”—began Chauvenet fiercely. + +“_Who am I_?” asked Armitage again. + +“I don’t know who you are—” + +“You do not! You certainly do not!” laughed Armitage; “but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?” + +“I thought—” + +“Yes; you thought—” + +“I thought—there seemed reasons to believe—” + +“Yes; and you believe it; go on!” + +Chauvenet’s eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German: + +“This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation—he is +a menace to the throne—” + +“Who is he?” demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage. + +“I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away—drove him here to watch him. See these things—that +sword—those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death—one death—at Vienna—and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!” + +The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador’s +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered: + +“He would be king; he would be king!” + +Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne. + +“That will do. The gentleman may retire now.” + +As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling. + +“I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl,” he said +quietly; “nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne’s supper-party belongs to me. Here it is.” + +The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly. + +“This device—the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur.” + +“It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl’s son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder—all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly.” + +The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold—the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors—the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador’s fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus. + +The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage. + +“Where is he, Monsieur?” he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows. + +“The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be—he, too, is dead.” + +“You are quite sure—you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?” + +“I am quite sure.” + +“That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!” + +“No, it is not enough,” replied Armitage quietly. “Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke—his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago.” + +“Yes; he was mad—quite mad,” blurted the Baron. + +“That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year.” + +Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused. + +“What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?” + +“I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key.” + +As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down. + +“Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?” said the Baron kindly. + +“No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons—for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, _is not his son_!” + +“What!” roared the Baron. + +“It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance.” + +The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword. + +“It is a marvelous story—it is wonderful! Can it be true—can it be +true?” murmured the Ambassador. + +“The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours,” said Judge Claiborne. + +“You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir,” said the Baron, “but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners—” + +“They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus,” and Armitage smiled. “I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case—it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me—and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl’s reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne.” + +“Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I—” + +“And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl’s repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house.” + +The Ambassador’s eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage’s lips; but Armitage went on: + +“I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the _George W. Custis_, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan’s wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn’t my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +_Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive.” + +He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne. + +Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all. + +“Who are _you_, John Armitage?” + +And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout: + +“I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke’s son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father’s place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short—I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies.” + +“Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father—you +never went to him?” + +“I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria—Austria, always +Austria!” + +“Yes; that was quite like him,” said the Ambassador. “He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America—he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you—that you should have chosen to live here.” + +“Then when I saw him at Geneva—that last interview—he told me that +Karl’s statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again—never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now—” + +He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened. + +“It was not my fault—it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I’ve got them in the room there where they can’t do any +harm!—and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I’m sick—yes, I’m sick—and sleepy—and you’d better haul +down that flag over the door—it’s treason, I tell you!—and if you see +Shirley, tell her I’m John Armitage—tell her I’m John Armitage, John +Arm—” + +The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +DECENT BURIAL + +To-morrow? ’Tis not ours to know + That we again shall see the flowers. +To-morrow is the gods’—but, oh! + To day is ours. + +—C.E. Merrill, Jr. + + +Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador’s demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne’s bag, and all was now in readiness for the night. + +Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars. + +“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—yes?” + +“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?” + +“But the men should be hanged—for they shot our captain, and he may +die.” + +The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne. + +“He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.” + +Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper. + +“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic—no?” + +“You need not tell me how—or anything about it—but you are sure he is +quite dead?” + +“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. “I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it +not so?” + +“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.” + +“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner—yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them—though I had not touched them—and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down—God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.” + +And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars. + +“Yes, it must have been terrible,” said Claiborne. + +“But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him.” + +“But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law’s aid at once.” + +“Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station.” + +Claiborne looked at his watch. + +“I will go with you,” he said. + +They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see. + +“He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes.” + +When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks. + +_“From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!”_ + +Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian’s soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying: + +_“—That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys.”_ + +He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat. + +“He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him.” + +“Yes, we were spared murder,” said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne’s side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar’s shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning. + +“You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?” asked Claiborne. + +“Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father’s place—the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain’s mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition—no?” + +The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne’s direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily: + +“If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they’re put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the _George W. Custis_, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender.” + +Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears. + +“We will waive our right to a writ of _habeas corpus_,” remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. “Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne’s courteous treatment of us.” + +“Shut up!” snapped Chauvenet. + +“You will both of you do well to hold your tongues,” remarked Claiborne +dryly. “One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back.” + +“You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne,” drawled Durand. + +“There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?” demanded +Chauvenet. + +“I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision—” + +Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern. + +“We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!” said Durand. + +“Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding—kidnapping us this way—without opportunity for +counsel.” + +“And without benefit of clergy,” laughed Claiborne. “Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm.” + +“Drive on!” ejaculated Chauvenet. + +As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles. + +“That’s the end of one chapter,” remarked Judge Claiborne. + +“They’re glad enough to go,” said Dick. “What’s the latest word from +Vienna?” + +“The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly—thanks to +Mr. John Armitage,” and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow. + +When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage’s condition was satisfactory. + +“He is a hardy plant,” said the surgeon, “and will pull through.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +JOHN ARMITAGE + +If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.—Marius the Epicurean. + + +June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof’s cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily. + +“He’s as obstinate as a mule!” + +Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron’s vehemence. + +“He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances.” + +“What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!” + +“I suppose there is; but he’s of age; he’s a grown man. I don’t see what +you’re going to do about it.” + +“Neither do I! But think what he’s putting aside. The boy’s clever—he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position—the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father’s memory and reputation behind him—” + +“But the idea of reward doesn’t appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night.” + +“There’s one thing I haven’t dared to ask him: to take his own name—to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn’t want his +father’s money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too.” + +“It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage.” + +“It’s simply providential that he hasn’t become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!” + +They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by. + +“Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger.” + +He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligée shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free. + +“Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can’t be sure of you long,” said the Baron. + +“You have spoiled me,—I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true.” + +“Something must be done about your father’s estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready.” + +The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously. + +Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees. + +“No,—no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country—something that we may hope pleases him if he knows.” + +The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request. + +“But the name—the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known—a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe—surely +you can at least accept that.” + +The Ambassador’s tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw—or thought he saw—the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron. + +“How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?” he asked, +sitting down. + +“Nothing,—absolutely nothing. The presence of the _Sophia Margaret_ off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,—please do not forget that!—and +you are a friend of my family,—a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness.” + +The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still +unanswered. + +“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.” + +“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him. + +“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. “I read in the _Neue Freie Presse_ a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.” + +“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.” + +“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge +Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them.” + +“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron. + +Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed. + +“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody.” + +A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read. + +“It’s from the commander of the _Sophia Margaret_, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health.” + +“It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But”—and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously—“as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That’s what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense.” + +Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,—before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man’s desire. + +The Baron’s next words broke harshly upon his mood. + +“The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,—you could make yourself the younger—the great Stroebel—” + +The mention of his name brought back the Baron’s still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling. + +“I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,—if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,—that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me.” + +He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses. + +Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron’s +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim. + +At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +_vestigia_ that interested him deeply,—a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her. + +“They told me you wouldn’t dare venture out for a week,” she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand. + +“That was what they told me,” he said, laughing; “but I escaped from my +keepers.” + +“You will undoubtedly take cold,—without your hat!” + +“Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances.” + +“You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero.” + +“Please!” He held up his hand. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” + +“About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow.” + +She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy’s whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,—an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,—not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him. + +“I didn’t know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn’t have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn’t +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall.” + +“Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It’s hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven’t your hat—” + +“Neither have you; you shan’t outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,—the loot of the pergola!” + +“There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can’t be responsible +for you.” + +“The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that’s what I +have come to ask you about.” + +“Then I should say that you oughtn’t to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he’s your uncle.” + +“No! No! I don’t want him to be my uncle! I don’t need any uncle!” + +He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh. + +“I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don’t worry; the sheep won’t +tell—and I won’t.” + +He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them. + +“Shirley!” + +He touched her hand. + +“Shirley!” and his fingers closed upon hers. + +“I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,—before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood—I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;—but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father’s eyes,—his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,—they wish me to take that.” + +She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills. + +“The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,—in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,—it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man’s right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,—unless you tell me I must, Shirley!” + +There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips. + +“It was that way,—you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes.” + +He caught her hand and kissed it,—bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face. + +“I do not know,”—and he scarcely heard the whispered words,—“I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,—but I love—John Armitage,” she +said. + +Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron’s +question. +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 *** diff --git a/13913-h/13913-h.htm b/13913-h/13913-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16ec413 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/13913-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9942 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>The Port of Missing Men | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> +#pg-header div, #pg-footer div { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 2em; +} +#pg-footer div.agate { + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-footer li { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + text-indent: -0.6em; +} +#pg-footer div.secthead { + font-size: 110%; + font-weight: bold; +} +#pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license { + font-size: 110%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-header-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight:bold; +} +#pg-footer-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight: normal; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header p { + text-indent: -4em; + margin-left: 4em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0; + font-size: medium +} +#pg-header #pg-header-authlist { + all: initial; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header strong { + font-weight: normal; +} +#pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator { + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: 0; + margin-right: auto; + margin-top: 2em; + text-align: center +} + + .xhtml_center {text-align: center; display: block;} + .xhtml_center table { + display: table; + text-align: left; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe63_6875 {width: 63.6875em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe70_25 {width: 70.25em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe69_8125 {width: 69.8125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe69_8125 {width: 69.8125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe67_3125 {width: 67.3125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe70_25 {width: 70.25em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe57 {width: 57em;} + +body { + margin-left: 8%; + width: 85%; + /* == margin-left:7% */ + } + +p { + /* all paragraphs unless overridden */ + margin-top: 1em; + /* inter-paragraph space */ + margin-bottom: 0; + /* use only top-margin for spacing */ + line-height: 1.4em; + /* interline spacing (“leading”) */ + } +body > p { + /* paras at <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 ***</div> level - not in <div> or <table> */ + text-align: justify; + /* or left?? */ + text-indent: 1em; + /* first-line indent */ + } +/* suppress indentation on paragraphs following heads */ +h2 + p, h3 + p, h4 + p { + text-indent: 0 + } +/* tighter spacing for list item paragraphs */ +dd, li { + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0; + line-height: 1.2em; + /* a bit closer than p’s */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Head 2 is for chapter heads. + * ********************************************************************** */ +h2 { + /* text-align:center; left-aligned by default. */ + margin-top: 3em; + /* extra space above.. */ + margin-bottom: 2em; + /* ..and below */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars overlap */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Head 3 is for main-topic heads. + * ********************************************************************** */ +h3 { + /* text-align:center; left-aligned by default. */ + margin-top: 2em; + /* extra space above but not below */ + font-weight: normal; + /* override default of bold */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars overlap */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Styling the default HR and some special-purpose ones. + * Default rule centered and clear of floats; sized for thought-breaks + * ********************************************************************** */ +hr { + width: 45%; + /* adjust to ape original work */ + margin-top: 1em; + /* space above & below */ + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: auto; + /* these two ensure a.. */ + margin-right: auto; + /* ..centered rule */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars & floats overlap rule */ + } + +img {border: 1px solid black; padding: 6px;} + +.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +.caption {font-weight: bold;} +.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%;} +.w100 {width: 100%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe57" id="frontispiece"> + <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>Shirley Claiborne</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<h1 id="id00002" style="margin-top: 3em">THE PORT OF MISSING MEN</h1> + +<p id="id00003">by</p> + +<h3 id="id00004">MEREDITH NICHOLSON</h3> + +<p id="id00005">Author of <i>The House of a Thousand Candles</i>, <i>The Main Chance</i>, +<i>Zelda Dameron</i>, etc.</p> + +<p>With Illustrations by<br> +CLARENCE F. RUTHERFORD</p> + +<p id="id00007" style="margin-top: 7em">Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.—Malory.</p> + +<p>INDIANAPOLIS<br> +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br> +PUBLISHERS</p> + + + + +<p>COPYRIGHT 1907<br> +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br> +JANUARY</p> + +<p id="id00008" style="margin-top: 2em">To the Memory of Herman Kountze</p> + +<h3 id="id00009" style="margin-top: 4em">THE SHINING ROAD</h3> + +<p id="id00010">Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city’s bound,<br> + +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found.<br> + +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn,<br> + +And there are happy highways leading on and always on;<br> + +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance.<br></p> + +<p id="id00011">Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds,<br> + +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds;<br> + +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine,<br> + +E’en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine!<br> + +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day.<br></p> + +<p id="id00012">Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace;<br> + +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release!<br> + +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down<br> + +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town.<br> + +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I’ll break a lance for you!<br></p> + +<p id="id00013">O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear!<br> + +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear!<br> + +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away<br> + +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day.<br> + +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried<br> + +As o’er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride!</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00014" style="margin-top: 4em">CONTENTS</h2></div> + +<p id="id00015" style="margin-top: 2em">CHAPTER<br> + I “Events, Events”<br> + II The Claibornes, of Washington<br> + III Dark Tidings<br> + IV John Armitage a Prisoner<br> + V A Lost Cigarette Case<br> + VI Toward the Western Stars<br> + VII On the Dark Deck<br> + VIII “The King Is Dead; Long Live the King”<br> + IX “This Is America, Mr. Armitage”<br> + X John Armitage Is Shadowed<br> + XI The Toss of a Napkin<br> + XII A Camp in the Mountains<br> + XIII The Lady of the Pergola<br> + XIV An Enforced Interview<br> + XV Shirley Learns a Secret<br> + XVI Narrow Margins<br> + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding<br> + XVIII An Exchange of Messages<br> + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty<br> + XX The First Ride Together<br> + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold<br> + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow<br> + XXIII The Verge of Morning<br> + XXIV The Attack in the Road<br> + XXV The Port of Missing Men<br> + XXVI “Who Are You, John Armitage?”<br> + XXVII Decent Burial<br> +XXVIII John Armitage</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00016" style="margin-top: 5em">CHAPTER I</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00017">“EVENTS, EVENTS”</h3> + +<p id="id00018">Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +—<i>Troilus and Cressida.</i></p> + +<p id="id00019" style="margin-top: 2em">“The knowledge that you’re alive gives me no pleasure,” growled the grim +old Austrian premier.</p> + +<p id="id00020">“Thank you!” laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. “You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you—I believe you admitted it—a slight service.”</p> + +<p id="id00021">Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair.</p> + +<p id="id00022">He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies.</p> + +<p id="id00023">It was not often that the light in the old man’s eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor.</p> + +<p id="id00024">The card was a gentleman’s <i>carte de visite</i>, and bore the name John +Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00025">“I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris.<br> +Where did you get it?” demanded the minister.</p> + +<p id="id00026">“I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made,” replied the +young man. “Besides, it’s English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it.”</p> + +<p id="id00027">“Which is not particularly creditable; but it’s probably just as well +so.”</p> + +<p id="id00028">He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy.</p> + +<p id="id00029">“I hope you are quite well,” said Armitage kindly.</p> + +<p id="id00030">“I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years.”</p> + +<p id="id00031">“It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria’s good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read—only +to-day, in the <i>Contemporary Review</i>—an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest.”</p> + +<p id="id00032">The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated.</p> + +<p id="id00033">“But you are here for rest—one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else.”</p> + +<p id="id00034">“What brings you here?” asked the old man with sudden energy. “If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting—”</p> + +<p id="id00035">“Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?”</p> + +<p id="id00036">“If you are waiting for events—for events! If you expect something to +happen!”</p> + +<p id="id00037">Armitage laughed at the old gentleman’s earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette.</p> + +<p id="id00038">“Waiting doesn’t suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands—and my wits are—let +us say—average!”</p> + +<p id="id00039">Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly.</p> + +<p id="id00040">“Is it true”—he turned again and glanced about—“is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?”</p> + +<p id="id00041">“Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it,” said Armitage, +meeting the old man’s eyes steadily.</p> + +<p id="id00042">“The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year.”</p> + +<p id="id00043">“I am aware of that,” replied John Armitage; “but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting—you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p id="id00044">“Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well,” growled Von +Stroebel.</p> + +<p id="id00045">“And the packet I gave you—”</p> + +<p id="id00046">The old man nodded.</p> + +<p id="id00047">“—that packet contained the Archduke Karl’s sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!”</p> + +<p id="id00048">“Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive—and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?”</p> + +<p id="id00049">“I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear,” said + +John Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00050">“Then you should give me the documents.”</p> + +<p id="id00051">“No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City.”</p> + +<p id="id00052">“I should have them; I <i>must</i> have them!” thundered the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00053">“In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00054">The palsy in the old man’s hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00055">“That packet is lost, I tell you!” he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. “It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That’s what I’m here for—my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id00056">Count von Stroebel’s bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion—a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit.</p> + +<p id="id00057">“The packet has been stolen,” he observed calmly; “whom do you suspect of +taking it?”</p> + +<p id="id00058">The old man leaned upon the table heavily.</p> + +<p id="id00059">“That amiable Francis—”</p> + +<p id="id00060">“The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered.”</p> + +<p id="id00061">“But his mother—she is the devil!” blurted the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00062">“Pray drop that,” said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. “I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,—am I to +understand that Francis has it?”</p> + +<p id="id00063">“Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves.”</p> + +<p id="id00064">“I don’t know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar.”</p> + +<p id="id00065">“He has a dozen names—one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He’s a blackmailer, who aims high—a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He’s a bad lot, I tell you. I’ve had my best +men after him, and they’ve just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do—” began the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00066">“Yes; that packet must be recovered,” answered Armitage. “If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it.”</p> + +<p id="id00067">His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister.</p> + +<p id="id00068">“You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire.”</p> + +<p id="id00069">John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence.</p> + +<p id="id00070">“Events! Events!” muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power.</p> + +<p id="id00071">“Events!” the young man murmured.</p> + +<p id="id00072">“Events!” repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. “A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people—and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!”</p> + +<p id="id00073">The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright.</p> + +<p id="id00074">“Why the devil don’t you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?” demanded the premier.</p> + +<p id="id00075">“Like a gentleman?” repeated Armitage. “It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I <i>am</i> dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead.”</p> + +<p id="id00076">“Francis is a troublesome blackguard,” declared the old man. “I wish to +God <i>he</i> would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don’t you +suppose he could go to Budapest to-morrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He’s as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you.”</p> + +<p id="id00077">Armitage nodded and smiled.</p> + +<p id="id00078">“I dare say,” he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: “No doubt you are speaking the truth.”</p> + +<p id="id00079">“Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00080">There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued:</p> + +<p id="id00081">“We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage—the commission—would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men.”</p> + +<p id="id00082">“I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name.”</p> + +<p id="id00083">“He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe.”</p> + +<p id="id00084">Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly.</p> + +<p id="id00085">“I will show you the gentleman’s pleasant countenance,” said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest.</p> + +<p id="id00086">“Rambaud!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p id="id00087">“That’s his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his <i>noms de guerre</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00088">“Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before.”</p> + +<p id="id00089">“That is possible,” remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances.</p> + +<p id="id00090">“I expect to see him here within a few days.”</p> + +<p id="id00091">Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva.</p> + +<p id="id00092">“He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so.”</p> + +<p id="id00093">“Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men,” said the +minister.</p> + +<p id="id00094">“You wish to arrest him?”</p> + +<p id="id00095">“You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can’t have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can’t advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers—Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there’s a woman, is there? I’ve +found that there usually is!”</p> + +<p id="id00096">“There’s a very charming young American girl, to be more exact.”</p> + +<p id="id00097">The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph.</p> + +<p id="id00098">“I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait—”</p> + +<p id="id00099">“Events!” and John Armitage laughed. “I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my <i>forte</i>. That’s what I like about America; they’re up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost.”</p> + +<p id="id00100">“They’re a lot of swine!” rumbled Von Stroebel’s heavy bass.</p> + +<p id="id00101">“I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don’t imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them—in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting—why not?”</p> + +<p id="id00102">“I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and—fairly clever—”</p> + +<p id="id00103">Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count’s praise.</p> + +<p id="id00104">“Thank you, with all my heart!”</p> + +<p id="id00105">“Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen—who can tell? Events—events—if a man will watch and wait and +study events—”</p> + +<p id="id00106">“Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events,” laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. “To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years—a pretty spectacle, too.”</p> + +<p id="id00107">“Carrion! Carrion!” almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +“Don’t mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But”—he gulped down more of the brandy—“where and how do +you live?”</p> + +<p id="id00108">“Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke’s death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died—and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch.”</p> + +<p id="id00109">“Washington!” snorted the count. “In due course it will be the storm +center of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00110">“You read the wrong American newspapers,” laughed Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00111">They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used:</p> + +<p id="id00112">“Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?”</p> + +<p id="id00113">“As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University.”</p> + +<p id="id00114">“What the devil did you do that for?” growled Von Stroebel.</p> + +<p id="id00115">“From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry—I am very sorry we can’t meet on +some common ground.”</p> + +<p id="id00116">“I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far—very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease.”</p> + +<p id="id00117">“What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks—it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor’s name you commit an anachronism.”</p> + +<p id="id00118">The count frowned and growled.</p> + +<p id="id00119">“Don’t talk to me like that. It is not amusing.”</p> + +<p id="id00120">“No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains—it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination.”</p> + +<p id="id00121">“You put it coarsely,” remarked the old man grimly. “I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone.”</p> + +<p id="id00122">“Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings.”</p> + +<p id="id00123">“I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere.”</p> + +<p id="id00124">“On the other hand, I should become king myself.”</p> + +<p id="id00125">“Don’t be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse.”</p> + +<p id="id00126">“My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping—by the Archduke’s own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor’s nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then—events, events!”</p> + +<p id="id00127">Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him.</p> + +<p id="id00128">“Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you.”</p> + +<p id="id00129">Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id00130">“I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more.”</p> + +<p id="id00131">“It is too late. The chasm is too deep.”</p> + +<p id="id00132">The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly.</p> + +<p id="id00133">The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner.</p> + +<p id="id00134">“I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service—to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly.”</p> + +<p id="id00135">“Your place is secure—no one can gainsay that,” broke in Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00136">“If you would do something for me—for me—do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don’t care what that service may be; I don’t care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. <i>Do something for Austria</i>—for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years—then take your name again—and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe70_25" id="illustration_pg18"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg18.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“Do something for Austria”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id00137">“For the Empire—something for the Empire?” murmured the young man, +wondering.</p> + +<p id="id00138">Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose.</p> + +<p id="id00139">“You will accept the commission—I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again.” As he took Armitage’s +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily.</p> + +<p id="id00140">“Good night; good-by!” he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00141" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER II</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00142">THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON</h3> + +<p id="id00143">—the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.—<i>The Naulahka</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00144" style="margin-top: 2em">The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention.</p> + +<p id="id00145">“’Tis he, the unknown, Dick.”</p> + +<p id="id00146">“I must say I like his persistence!” exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. “In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here—”</p> + +<p id="id00147">“Over here you have better manners,” replied the girl, laughing. “But why +trouble yourself? He doesn’t even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language.”</p> + +<p id="id00148">“But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater—he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It’s growing a trifle monotonous; it’s really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him.”</p> + +<p id="id00149">“You flatter yourself, Richard,” mocked the girl. “He’s fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost—yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is”—she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment—“light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I’m sure that he is an exemplary person—kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews’ and nieces’ Christmas trees.”</p> + +<p id="id00150">She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother’s growling disdain.</p> + +<p id="id00151">The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern.</p> + +<p id="id00152">“He has a sense of humor,” the girl resumed. “I saw him yesterday—”</p> + +<p id="id00153">“You’re always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”</p> + +<p id="id00154">“Don’t interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +<i>Fliegende Blätter</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00155">“But that’s no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn’t. I’m disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard’s eyes!”</p> + +<p id="id00156">He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00157">“I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all,” she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother’s impatience.</p> + +<p id="id00158">“Which doesn’t help the matter materially, that I can see!” exclaimed the +young man. “With a full beard he’d probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother.”</p> + +<p id="id00159">“It isn’t your fault, Dick,” laughed the girl. “You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him—that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It’s +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you’d find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together—the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible.”</p> + +<p id="id00160">“Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party—America for Americans and +only white men on guard!”</p> + +<p id="id00161">“Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they’d have more weight if +I hadn’t seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven’t forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We’ll call the incident closed, little brother.”</p> + +<p id="id00162">“Our friend Chauvenet, even,” continued Captain Claiborne, “is less +persistent—less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven’t seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat.”</p> + +<p id="id00163">“Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world,” declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00164">“He lives by his wits—and lives well.”</p> + +<p id="id00165">Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper.</p> + +<p id="id00166">“He’s reading the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i>,” remarked Dick, “by which token I +argue that he’s some sort of a Dutchman. He’s probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary.”</p> + +<p id="id00167">“You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction—that air of having been places and seen things and +known people—”</p> + +<p id="id00168">“Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that—even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It’s well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching.”</p> + +<p id="id00169">Shirley Claiborne’s eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the <i>Neue +Freie Presse</i>. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly—with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference.</p> + +<p id="id00170">“He has known real sorrow,” persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. “He’s traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief,” the girl continued with mock +sympathy.</p> + +<p id="id00171">“Then let us leave him in peace! We can’t decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow.”</p> + +<p id="id00172">Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business.</p> + +<p id="id00173">Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother’s school and were enjoying a late <i>déjeuner</i> +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip.</p> + +<p id="id00174">Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl’s +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight.</p> + +<p id="id00175">Much of Shirley’s girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens.</p> + +<p id="id00176">Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia’s reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth’s foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the <i>r</i> and <i>l</i> slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl—may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne’s pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking.</p> + +<p id="id00177">As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly.</p> + +<p id="id00178">“Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00179">The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attaché of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station.</p> + +<p id="id00180">The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked.</p> + +<p id="id00181">“Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There’s mystery in +the air—the great Stroebel is here—under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man—a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor—he’s only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way—what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;” and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties.</p> + +<p id="id00182">“We met him in Vienna,” said Shirley Claiborne, “when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear.”</p> + +<p id="id00183">“He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe—and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies—no post-mortem confidences from him!”</p> + +<p id="id00184">The reader of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i>, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attaché, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially.</p> + +<p id="id00185">“Why, Armitage, of all men!” and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance.</p> + +<p id="id00186">“Shirley—Miss Claiborne—allow me to present Mr. Armitage.” The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attaché, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone.</p> + +<p id="id00187">“One always meets Armitage!” declared Singleton. “He knows our America as +well as we do—and very well indeed—for an Englishman.”</p> + +<p id="id00188">Armitage bowed gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00189">“You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I’m really a fair sort of American—I +have sometimes told New York people all about—Colorado—Montana—New +Mexico!”</p> + +<p id="id00190">His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life.</p> + +<p id="id00191">“Of course you’re not English!” exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest.</p> + +<p id="id00192">“I’m really getting sensitive about it,” said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. “But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?”</p> + +<p id="id00193">The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley’s passingly, and she smiled at him—it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man’s dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper—and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair.</p> + +<p id="id00194">“Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here—in this +very house!” whispered Singleton impressively.</p> + +<p id="id00195">“Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you.” He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton’s promise to look him up later, and left them.</p> + +<p id="id00196">When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick<br> + +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> which +Armitage had cast aside at their table.</p> + +<p id="id00197">“Now we shall know!” he declared, unfolding the newspaper.</p> + +<p id="id00198">“Know what, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id00199">“At least what our friend without a country is so interested in.”</p> + +<p id="id00200">He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister.</p> + +<p id="id00201">“Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!” he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them.</p> + +<p id="id00202">“Isn’t that the worst!” exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully.</p> + +<p id="id00203">“He’s certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation.”</p> + +<p id="id00204">“He isn’t an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn.”</p> + +<p id="id00205">“Well, your Mr. Armitage didn’t seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!”</p> + +<p id="id00206">“Don’t be foolish, Dick. It’s unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again—”</p> + +<p id="id00207">“Yes—not if I see him <i>first</i>!” ejaculated Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00208">“Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing—and +satisfying—to know.”</p> + +<p id="id00209">Later in the day the old attaché fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked:</p> + +<p id="id00210">“Your friend Armitage seems a good sort.”</p> + +<p id="id00211">“Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id00212">“Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives—when +he’s at home?”</p> + +<p id="id00213">“Lord bless you, boy, I don’t know anything about Armitage!” spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions.</p> + +<p id="id00214">“But you introduced us to him—my sister and me. I assumed—”</p> + +<p id="id00215">“My dear Claiborne, I’m always introducing people! It’s my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He’s always around everywhere. +I’ve dined with him in Paris, and I’ve rarely seen a man order a better +dinner.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00216" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER III</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00217">DARK TIDINGS</h3> + +<p id="id00218">The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.—Shakespeare.</p> + +<p id="id00219" style="margin-top: 2em">The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler’s on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage’s voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed.</p> + +<p id="id00220">“Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren’t +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause—”</p> + +<p id="id00221">He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box.</p> + +<p id="id00222">“I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00223">“I’d like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything.”</p> + +<p id="id00224">“Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs.”</p> + +<p id="id00225">“Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home,” replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket.</p> + +<p id="id00226">“My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage,” +Shirley explained.</p> + +<p id="id00227">“These last errands are always trying—there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff.”</p> + +<p id="id00228">“There’s the wireless,” said Shirley. “In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again—that photographs don’t give.”</p> + +<p id="id00229">“Such as—?”</p> + +<p id="id00230">“Oh—the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter’s; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon’s tomb—the awfulness +of what he did and was—and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,”—and +she laughed lightly,—“I have made a most serious confession.”</p> + +<p id="id00231">“It is a new idea—that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance—a tremendous story.”</p> + +<p id="id00232">“That is what makes me sorry to go home,” said Shirley meditatively. “We +are so new—still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there’s a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost.”</p> + +<p id="id00233">“But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn’t do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don’t think of their past as much as of their +future—the future of the whole human race.”</p> + +<p id="id00234">Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother’s benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about.</p> + +<p id="id00235">Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy’s delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of “the spirit of place” that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat—as she often did—in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators’ gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times.</p> + +<p id="id00236">Armitage was aware that a jeweler’s shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl’s voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before <i>High Tide at Gettysburg</i>, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting—its ardor and fire—took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes.</p> + +<p id="id00237">His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel’s departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy.</p> + +<p id="id00238">He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00239">“But America—isn’t America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,—its discovery,—the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another’s armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior.”</p> + +<p id="id00240">“He could afford to say it; he was the victor,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00241">“Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions.”</p> + +<p id="id00242">The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00243">“There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning.”</p> + +<p id="id00244">“Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?”</p> + +<p id="id00245">It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00246">“There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn’t fair game for an +assassin,” said Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00247">“No; he deserved a better fate,” remarked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00248">“He was a grand old man,” said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. “Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered.”</p> + +<p id="id00249">“Yes; he was a wise and useful man,” observed Armitage, still grave. “He +was one of the great men of his time.”</p> + +<p id="id00250">His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further.</p> + +<p id="id00251">“And now we shall see—” began the young American.</p> + +<p id="id00252">“We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings.”</p> + +<p id="id00253">John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p id="id00254">“A queer devil,” observed Claiborne, as they drove away. “A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?”</p> + +<p id="id00255">“I found <i>him</i>, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure.”</p> + +<p id="id00256">“I shouldn’t have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far.”</p> + +<p id="id00257">“And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes.”</p> + +<p id="id00258">“Lord help us, he hasn’t been buying you a watch?”</p> + +<p id="id00259">“No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana.”</p> + +<p id="id00260">“Humph! you’re chaffing.”</p> + +<p id="id00261">“Not in the least. He paid—I couldn’t help being a witness to the +transaction—he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch—<i>his</i> ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?”</p> + +<p id="id00262">“I’m afraid it rather does for my theory. I’ll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn’t a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel’s death. You don’t suppose he knew him, +do you?”</p> + +<p id="id00263">“It’s possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he’s done for.”</p> + +<p id="id00264">“Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he’s out of +the way.”</p> + +<p id="id00265">Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel’s +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days.</p> + +<p id="id00266">It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa.</p> + +<p id="id00267">“We are running for the <i>King Edward</i>, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America,” +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister’s +benefit.</p> + +<p id="id00268">“That is possible; I am very fond of Washington,” responded Armitage +carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id00269">“Of course you will look us up,” persisted Dick. “I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while—and it will always be a pleasure—”</p> + +<p id="id00270">Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00271">“Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel’s assassin?” she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand.</p> + +<p id="id00272">“Nothing. It’s a very mysterious and puzzling affair.”</p> + +<p id="id00273">“It’s horrible to think such a thing possible—he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer.”</p> + +<p id="id00274">“Yes; undoubtedly.”</p> + +<p id="id00275">Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage’s back—a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door—Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother’s benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key.</p> + +<p id="id00276">“The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin,” she +observed.</p> + +<p id="id00277">“Yes,” replied Armitage gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00278">He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek—he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right—made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing.</p> + +<p id="id00279">“The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt,” said Shirley. “The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time.”</p> + +<p id="id00280">“That is quite likely,” said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. “In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself.”</p> + +<p id="id00281">He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00282">“Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of that fellow.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00283">Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage’s +last words. “I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself,” he had said.</p> + +<p id="id00284">She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door—his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage.</p> + +<p id="id00285">And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00286" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00287">JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER</h3> + +<p id="id00288">All things are bright in the track of the sun,<br> + + All things are fair I see;<br> + +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me.<br></p> + +<p id="id00289">And the world turns round and round and round,<br> + + And my thought sinks into the sea;<br> + +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery.<br></p> + +<p id="id00290">—S.W. Duffield.</p> + +<p id="id00291" style="margin-top: 2em">The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes’ departure.</p> + +<p id="id00292">While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes’ notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman’s death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage’s character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week.</p> + +<p id="id00293">He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear.</p> + +<p id="id00294">The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord.</p> + +<p id="id00295">Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet’s activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry.</p> + +<p id="id00296">It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms.</p> + +<p id="id00297">At about eight o’clock, as Armitage turned the pages of <i>Figaro</i> in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed.</p> + +<p id="id00298">It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvétique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of <i>pensions</i>. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed.</p> + +<p id="id00299">Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan <i>gendarmerie</i> have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet’s errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered.</p> + +<p id="id00300">Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint.</p> + +<p id="id00301">The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened.</p> + +<p id="id00302">Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear.</p> + +<p id="id00303">“It’s stifling in this hole,” said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. “If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat.”</p> + +<p id="id00304">He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness.</p> + +<p id="id00305">“You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it.”</p> + +<p id="id00306">The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva?</p> + +<p id="id00307">“The old man’s death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths.”</p> + +<p id="id00308">“We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel’s.”</p> + +<p id="id00309">“He was a beast. He is well dead.”</p> + +<p id="id00310">“That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools.”</p> + +<p id="id00311">The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses.</p> + +<p id="id00312">“I am going to America at once,” said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling.</p> + +<p id="id00313">“It is probably just as well,” said the other. “There’s work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues.”</p> + +<p id="id00314">“The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one’s self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington,” remarked Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00315">“Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy.”</p> + +<p id="id00316">There was a keen irony in the fellow’s tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table.</p> + +<p id="id00317">“Enough of that, if you please.”</p> + +<p id="id00318">“As you will, <i>carino</i>; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of <i>la belle Americaine</i>. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army.”</p> + +<p id="id00319">“Humph! He is an ass,” ejaculated Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00320">A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him.</p> + +<p id="id00321">Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +rôle of host, employed a Servian dialect.</p> + +<p id="id00322">“I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, <i>carino</i>. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules.”</p> + +<p id="id00323">“Don’t be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don’t believe +those fellows are over there. They’re probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,—that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and—”</p> + +<p id="id00324">“The heights—the heights!” And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily.<br></p> + +<p id="id00325">“Yes; the heights,” repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily.</p> + +<p id="id00326">“But that declaration—that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say.”</p> + +<p id="id00327">“There is no place—but one—that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend.”</p> + +<p id="id00328">“You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way.”</p> + +<p id="id00329">“Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel’s archives.”</p> + +<p id="id00330">“Do you say ‘risked much’? My valued neck, that is all!” said the other. +“You and Winkelried are without gratitude.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00331">“You will do well,” said Chauvenet, “to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days—! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen.”</p> + +<p id="id00332">He glanced at his watch.</p> + +<p id="id00333">“I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade.”</p> + +<p id="id00334">They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune.</p> + +<p id="id00335">His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat.</p> + +<p id="id00336">As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00337" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER V</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00338">A LOST CIGARETTE CASE</h3> + +<p id="id00339">To other woods the trail leads on,<br> + + To other worlds and new,<br> + +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too.<br></p> + +<p id="id00340">—Henry A. Beers.</p> + +<p id="id00341" style="margin-top: 2em">The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man’s +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage’s back.</p> + +<p id="id00342">The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German.</p> + +<p id="id00343">“Who are you and what do you want here?”</p> + +<p id="id00344">Armitage shook his head; and replied in English:</p> + +<p id="id00345">“I do not understand.”</p> + +<p id="id00346">The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive’s +face, then ran his hands over Armitage’s pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security.</p> + +<p id="id00347">Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant’s legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action.</p> + +<p id="id00348">“Get up,” he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage’s +head.</p> + +<p id="id00349">“I will shoot,” he said again in his halting German.</p> + +<p id="id00350">“Undoubtedly you will!” and something in the fellow’s manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation.</p> + +<p id="id00351">The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen.</p> + +<p id="id00352">“I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you,” admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door.</p> + +<p id="id00353">Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand.</p> + +<p id="id00354">The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done.</p> + +<p id="id00355">“You will go to that corner;” and the Servian translated for his +prisoner’s benefit with a gesture of the revolver.</p> + +<p id="id00356">“Anything to please you, worthy fellow,” replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man’s object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized.</p> + +<p id="id00357">Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care.</p> + +<p id="id00358">Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian’s caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage’s head.</p> + +<p id="id00359">He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm’s length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans.</p> + +<p id="id00360">“There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!” yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway:</p> + +<p id="id00361">“Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what’s the trouble.”</p> + +<p id="id00362">It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain.</p> + +<p id="id00363">As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian’s head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding.</p> + +<p id="id00364">It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came.</p> + +<p id="id00365">Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside.</p> + +<p id="id00366">Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words:</p> + +<p id="id00367">“Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00368">Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax.</p> + +<p id="id00369">Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight.</p> + +<p id="id00370">Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke—in French—in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand’s tone:</p> + +<p id="id00371">“A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!”</p> + +<p id="id00372">With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet’s legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing.</p> + +<p id="id00373">Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard.</p> + +<p id="id00374">The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself:</p> + +<p id="id00375">“A few murders, more or less!”</p> + +<p id="id00376">At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express.</p> + +<p id="id00377">As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found.</p> + +<p id="id00378">His annoyance at the loss was balanced—could he have known it—by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen—one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead—bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto <i>Fide non armis</i>. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters <i>F.A.</i></p> + +<p id="id00379">The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet.</p> + +<p id="id00380">“It isn’t possible!” gasped Durand.</p> + +<p id="id00381">“It is quite possible,” replied Chauvenet. “The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!”<br></p> + +<p id="id00382">The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet’s face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope.</p> + +<p id="id00383">“Who is he? Who is he?” whispered Durand, very white of face.</p> + +<p id="id00384">“It may be—it must be some one deeply concerned.”</p> + +<p id="id00385">Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand’s arm so tight that +the man flinched.</p> + +<p id="id00386">“There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He’s here—I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!”</p> + +<p id="id00387">He dropped his hand from Durand’s arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand.</p> + +<p id="id00388">“John Armitage—John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence.”</p> + +<p id="id00389">His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face.</p> + +<p id="id00390">“Who is John Armitage?” demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself:</p> + +<p id="id00391">“Is it possible? Is it possible?” and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case.</p> + +<p id="id00392">“My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00393">Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand’s ear:</p> + +<p id="id00394">“Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!”<br></p> + +<p id="id00395">“Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?” asked Durand +irritably.</p> + +<p id="id00396">“He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation.”</p> + +<p id="id00397">“Clearly so,” remarked Durand ironically. “But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here—”</p> + +<p id="id00398">Chauvenet again struck the table smartly.</p> + +<p id="id00399">“Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke’s friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them—”<br></p> + +<p id="id00400">“Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that,” said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00401">“Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him.”</p> + +<p id="id00402">“And quickly. There must be—”</p> + +<p id="id00403">“—another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna.”</p> + +<p id="id00404">They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00405" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00406">TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS</h3> + +<p id="id00407">Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star.<br></p> + +<p id="id00408">—<i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00409" style="margin-top: 2em">Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the <i>King Edward</i>, whereas he might have taken the <i>Touraine</i> +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the <i>King Edward</i> was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors.</p> + +<p id="id00410">Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel.</p> + +<p id="id00411">“I hope,” observed Dick, “that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I’m not wholly sure that we shan’t +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles.”</p> + +<p id="id00412">“Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the <i>Tecumseh</i>. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id00413">Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap.</p> + +<p id="id00414">“I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as <i>père et mère</i> get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility.”</p> + +<p id="id00415">“Thank you, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id00416">“And if there are any titled blackguards on board—”</p> + +<p id="id00417">“You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won’t you, little +brother?”</p> + +<p id="id00418">“Humph! Thank God, I’m an American!”</p> + +<p id="id00419">“That’s a worthy sentiment, Richard.”</p> + +<p id="id00420">“I’d like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we’d get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I’d like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don’t +count.”</p> + +<p id="id00421">“Yes, dearest,” mocked Shirley. “Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don’t indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room—”</p> + +<p id="id00422">“Probably from the Liverpool consul—he’s been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole.”</p> + +<p id="id00423">“Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They’re orchids—from London—but—with Mr. Armitage’s card. Wouldn’t +that excite you?”</p> + +<p id="id00424">“It makes me sick!” and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug.</p> + +<p id="id00425">“They are beautiful orchids. I don’t remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard—in such quantities. Now, you really didn’t +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn’t so bad; and he may be an American, after all.”</p> + +<p id="id00426">“A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again—”</p> + +<p id="id00427">“Yes, Richard, if you should meet again—”</p> + +<p id="id00428">“I’d ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up.”</p> + +<p id="id00429">“Yes; I’m sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard,” mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother’s stalwart shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id00430">“Don’t be silly,” observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them.</p> + +<p id="id00431">“I shan’t, but please don’t be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,”—and she took hold of his arm entreatingly—“for there he +is—as tall and mysterious as ever—and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!”</p> + +<p id="id00432">“This is good fortune, indeed,” said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. “I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am.”</p> + +<p id="id00433">He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne’s resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne’s +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day.</p> + +<p id="id00434">Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain’s +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down.</p> + +<p id="id00435">“You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn’t lay hold of +me in my sleep.”</p> + +<p id="id00436">He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar.<br></p> + +<p id="id00437">“This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune.”</p> + +<p id="id00438">“Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements,” replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass.</p> + +<p id="id00439">Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,—enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler’s hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man’s manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage’s belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man’s eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage’s strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet.</p> + +<p id="id00440">Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father’s fame made them conspicuous.</p> + +<p id="id00441">Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness.</p> + +<p id="id00442">“Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor”—John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again—“can I make any adequate apology for doing so.”</p> + +<p id="id00443">Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man’s attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say.</p> + +<p id="id00444">“A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed.”</p> + +<p id="id00445">Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter.</p> + +<p id="id00446">“I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the <i>King Edward</i> by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there.”</p> + +<p id="id00447">Claiborne smiled in spite of himself.</p> + +<p id="id00448">“But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don’t know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us—it’s altogether too unusual. It’s almost preposterous!”</p> + +<p id="id00449">And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00450">“It’s only decent for a man to give his references when it’s natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,—I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder—what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it,” and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it.</p> + +<p id="id00451">Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley’s sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley’s hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage?</p> + +<p id="id00452">The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious.</p> + +<p id="id00453">“Pardon me,” he asked, “but are you an Englishman?”</p> + +<p id="id00454">“I am not,” answered Armitage. “I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere—but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand—”</p> + +<p id="id00455">He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something.</p> + +<p id="id00456">“On the other hand,” Armitage repeated, “I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died—very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion—particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!” John Armitage laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00457">“It is, indeed, a real merit,” declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage’s wish to appear well in his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00458">“And now,” said Armitage, “I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself—and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again.”</p> + +<p id="id00459">“I have been interested,” remarked Dick; “and,” he added, “I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00460">Armitage began talking of the American army—its strength and +weaknesses—with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk.</p> + +<p id="id00461">The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00462" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00463">ON THE DARK DECK</h3> + +<p id="id00464">Ease, of all good gifts the best,<br> + + War and wave at last decree:<br> + +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea.<br></p> + +<p id="id00465">William Watson.</p> + +<p id="id00466" style="margin-top: 2em">“I am Columbus every time I cross,” said Shirley. “What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country.”</p> + +<p id="id00467">“Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we’re sure to get into trouble if we don’t turn +back.”</p> + +<p id="id00468">“You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land.”</p> + +<p id="id00469">“Don’t starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!”</p> + +<p id="id00470">“Choose a cheerfuller word!” pleaded Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00471">“I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down ‘full faddom five.’”</p> + +<p id="id00472">“I’m sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate’s business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis.”</p> + +<p id="id00473">They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides.</p> + +<p id="id00474">“Armitage isn’t a bad sort,” Dick admitted to Shirley. “He’s either an +awful liar, or he’s seen a lot of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00475">“Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware,” observed Shirley. +“I’m surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere ‘peddler,’—and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00476">“Well, if he’s a peddler he’s a high-class one—probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works.”</p> + +<p id="id00477">Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer’s interest.</p> + +<p id="id00478">“The glass-blower’s a deep one, all right,” remarked Dick to Shirley. “He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there’s no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you’d hold on to him +tight till we’re docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him—and I haven’t dared tell her he’s only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me—”</p> + +<p id="id00479">“It would, Richard. Be a generous foe—whether—whether you can afford to +be or not!”</p> + +<p id="id00480">“My sister—my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I’m going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00481">Shirley and Armitage talked—as people will on ship-board—of everything +under the sun. Shirley’s enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world’s larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background.</p> + +<p id="id00482">Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night.</p> + +<p id="id00483">“Time oughtn’t to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass.”</p> + +<p id="id00484">“I like the idea. Such people could become fishers—permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food.”</p> + +<p id="id00485">“They wouldn’t eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea—mine, please note—is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once—</p> + +<p id="id00486">“‘Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.’”<br></p> + +<p id="id00487">“But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn’t have +much show. And dreams passing over—the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures—” he said, and paused inquiringly.</p> + +<p id="id00488">She looked at him quickly.</p> + +<p id="id00489">“How do you know I do?”</p> + +<p id="id00490">“You like Detaille particularly.”</p> + +<p id="id00491">“Am I to defend my taste?—what’s the answer, if you don’t mind?”</p> + +<p id="id00492">“Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter.”</p> + +<p id="id00493">She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris—in cafés, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases.</p> + +<p id="id00494">“It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it.”</p> + +<p id="id00495">“No; there certainly was not!” He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley’s tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war.</p> + +<p id="id00496">“I was in Paris during the exhibition,” he said quietly. “Ormsby, the +American painter—the man who did the <i>High Tide at Gettysburg</i>—is an +acquaintance of mine.”</p> + +<p id="id00497">“Oh!”</p> + +<p id="id00498">It was Ormsby’s painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett’s charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject.</p> + +<p id="id00499">Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage’s remark at the +carriage door in Geneva—that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the <i>King Edward</i>; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity.</p> + +<p id="id00500">“We’re all imperialists at heart,” said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. “We Americans are hungry for empire; +we’re simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation.”</p> + +<p id="id00501">“And before he’d gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand.”</p> + +<p id="id00502">“No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick’s +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry’s for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id00503">“Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks—if the thing is bound +to be—I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne,” he exclaimed, as though with inspiration.</p> + +<p id="id00504">“Yes—you have an idea—”</p> + +<p id="id00505">“Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be—”</p> + +<p id="id00506">“Yes—the suspense is terrible!—what might I be, your Majesty?”</p> + +<p id="id00507">“Well, we should call you—”</p> + +<p id="id00508">He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense.</p> + +<p id="id00509">“I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn’t flattering,” +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him.</p> + +<p id="id00510">“Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title—you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress—that’s the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered.”</p> + +<p id="id00511">They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals—that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night—interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea.</p> + +<p id="id00512">“Accident to the dynamo—we shall have the lights on in a moment!” +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger.</p> + +<p id="id00513">“Shall we go in?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00514">“Yes, it is getting cold,” replied Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00515">For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand.</p> + +<p id="id00516">They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage’s arm tightened.</p> + +<p id="id00517">“What is that?—there is some one following us,” she said.</p> + +<p id="id00518">At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about.</p> + +<p id="id00519">“Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00520">He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley’s grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster.</p> + +<p id="id00521">“Are you hurt? What has happened?” she demanded.</p> + +<p id="id00522">“It must have been a sea-serpent,” he replied, laughing.</p> + +<p id="id00523">The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off.</p> + +<p id="id00524">“I guess it was a sea-serpent,” he said. “It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful.” Then in a lower tone to Shirley: “That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!”</p> + +<p id="id00525">“Oh, no,” she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; “it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I’m sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn’t feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you—it is no jesting +matter—”</p> + +<p id="id00526">“Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers.”</p> + +<p id="id00527">“Yes, it should be reported,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00528">“It was very strange. Why, the deck of the <i>King Edward</i> is the safest +place in the world; but it’s something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn’t caught his cloak—”</p> + +<p id="id00529">Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident.</p> + +<p id="id00530">Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies.</p> + +<p id="id00531">The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the <i>King Edward</i>. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider.</p> + +<p id="id00532">It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail.</p> + +<p id="id00533">“Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes—”</p> + +<p id="id00534">“That will do,” said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man.</p> + +<p id="id00535">“You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting—” said the purser.</p> + +<p id="id00536">“It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility.”</p> + +<p id="id00537">And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook:</p> + +<p id="id00538">“<i>Zmai</i>—; <i>travels as Peter Ludovic</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00539">Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers—some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk’s clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage’s hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister.</p> + +<p id="id00540">“Do something for Austria—something for the Empire.” These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00541" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00542">“THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING”</h3> + +<p id="id00543">Low he lies, yet high and great<br> + +Looms he, lying thus in state.—<br> + +How exalted o’er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen!<br></p> + +<p id="id00544">—James Whitcomb Riley.</p> + +<p id="id00545" style="margin-top: 2em">John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable.</p> + +<p id="id00546">Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the <i>King Edward</i> sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage’s mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage?</p> + +<p id="id00547">The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door.</p> + +<p id="id00548">“Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00549">“Jim Sanderson, come in!” Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice.</p> + +<p id="id00550">“It’s my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury.”</p> + +<p id="id00551">The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. “You’re a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?”</p> + +<p id="id00552">“Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two.”</p> + +<p id="id00553">“You’re getting soft,—that’s what’s the matter with you! You’re afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I’ll admit that it’s +rather more diverting here.”</p> + +<p id="id00554">“There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats.”</p> + +<p id="id00555">Sanderson winked prodigiously.</p> + +<p id="id00556">“The papers <i>have</i> rather skinned me; but on the whole, I’ll do very +well. They say it isn’t respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn’t to hold it up against a man that he’s rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it’s nothing +against me, is it?”</p> + +<p id="id00557">“Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it’s the +Lord’s hand again.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00558">“Why sure!” and the Senator from Montana winked once more. “But it’s +expensive. I’ve got to be elected again next winter—I’m only filling out +Billings’ term—and I’m not sure I can go up against it.”</p> + +<p id="id00559">“But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you’ll not falter, if I know you.”</p> + +<p id="id00560">“There’s hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I’m jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England—one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen—”</p> + +<p id="id00561">“My dear Sanderson, don’t call me English! I’ve told you a dozen times +that I’m not English.”</p> + +<p id="id00562">“So you did; so you did! I’d forgotten that you’re so damned sensitive +about it;” and Sanderson’s eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man’s nativity.</p> + +<p id="id00563">“I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once—three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess.”</p> + +<p id="id00564">Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection.</p> + +<p id="id00565">“The sprinkling cart for me! I’ve got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State’s push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You’re all right, and I guess +you’re about as good an American as they make—anywhere—John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00566">The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o’clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies.</p> + +<p id="id00567">Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attaché of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian’s +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attaché proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage’s eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man’s gaze.</p> + +<p id="id00568">It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attaché at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man’s +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00569">The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese.</p> + +<p id="id00570">“They must be crushed—crushed,” said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French.</p> + +<p id="id00571">“Yes, <i>he</i> must be crushed,” returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in<br> + +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun.<br></p> + +<p id="id00572">Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,—a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines.</p> + +<p id="id00573">“Welcome once more, constituent! We’re proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they’re hung out to-night for +the world to see.” She guided Armitage toward the Secretary’s gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste.</p> + +<p id="id00574">“It isn’t merely an art gallery; it’s the most beautiful room in +America,” murmured Mrs. Sanderson.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00575">“I can well believe it. There’s my favorite Vibert,—I wondered what had +become of it.”</p> + +<p id="id00576">“It isn’t surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It’s a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king’s coronation would +not be out of place,—in fact, there’s a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He’s a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago.”</p> + +<p id="id00577">“Ah, to be sure! I haven’t seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little.”</p> + +<p id="id00578">“Then you knew him,—in the old country?”</p> + +<p id="id00579">“Yes; I used to see him—when I was a boy,” remarked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00580">Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,—that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage’s antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him.</p> + +<p id="id00581">The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art.</p> + +<p id="id00582">“Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there’s the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her.”</p> + +<p id="id00583">“I am wholly agreeable,” laughed Armitage. “The sooner the better, and be +done with it.”</p> + +<p id="id00584">“Don’t be so frivolous. There—you can look safely now. She’s stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,—the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,—have a care!”</p> + +<p id="id00585">Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once.</p> + +<p id="id00586">“To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!” exclaimed +Shirley. “And you, Mr. Armitage,—”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00587">“Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne,” laughed John, taking her hand.</p> + +<p id="id00588">“But I haven’t introduced you yet”—began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled.</p> + +<p id="id00589">“No; the <i>King Edward</i> did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken.</p> + +<p id="id00590">The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze.</p> + +<p id="id00591">“Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day.”</p> + +<p id="id00592">“Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary,” declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration.</p> + +<p id="id00593">“The word seems to have been coined for her,” said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache.</p> + +<p id="id00594">“And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty,” +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy.</p> + +<p id="id00595">“How charming!” laughed Mrs. Sanderson. “And this lovely room is just the +place for it.”</p> + +<p id="id00596">They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure.</p> + +<p id="id00597">“Is Baron von Marhof in the room?” he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle.</p> + +<p id="id00598">The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching.<br></p> + +<p id="id00599">The attaché hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief.</p> + +<p id="id00600">The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room:</p> + +<p id="id00601">“His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna,” he said, and gave his arm to his chief.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00602">It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attaché’s words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone.</p> + +<p id="id00603">The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof’s +carriage in the court below.</p> + +<p id="id00604">“The King is dead; long live the King!” murmured Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00605">“Long live the King!” repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, “Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id00606">Then he turned to Shirley with a smile.</p> + +<p id="id00607">“It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well.”</p> + +<p id="id00608">“Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere.”</p> + +<p id="id00609">“And Captain Claiborne?”</p> + +<p id="id00610">“He’s probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00611">“Thank you; you are very kind,” he said gravely. “I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon.”</p> + +<p id="id00612">As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl’s praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied.</p> + +<p id="id00613">“The girl has gone to your head. Why didn’t you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00614">“I don’t remember that you gave me a chance; but I’ll say now that I +intend to know them better.”</p> + +<p id="id00615">She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm’s +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case.</p> + +<p id="id00616">“Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?”</p> + +<p id="id00617">He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage’s eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet’s lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose.</p> + +<p id="id00618">“You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host’s oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!”</p> + +<p id="id00619">He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,—all, as it seemed, at a single stroke.</p> + +<p id="id00620">“My dear sir,” began Chauvenet, white with rage.</p> + +<p id="id00621">“My dear Monsieur Chauvenet,” said Armitage, striking a match, “I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly.”</p> + +<p id="id00622">The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke.</p> + +<p id="id00623">“Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?” demanded Chauvenet +furiously.</p> + +<p id="id00624">“My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it—now I have it—wherefore it must be mine!”</p> + +<p id="id00625">Chauvenet’s rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id00626">“Between gentlemen—so small a matter!”</p> + +<p id="id00627">“To be sure—the merest trifle,” laughed Armitage with entire good humor.</p> + +<p id="id00628">“And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker—”</p> + +<p id="id00629">“Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets—”</p> + +<p id="id00630">“Come naturally—quite so!” and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction.</p> + +<p id="id00631">“But the genial art of assassination—there’s a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!”</p> + +<p id="id00632">Chauvenet’s hand went again to his lip.</p> + +<p id="id00633">“To be sure!” he ejaculated with zest.</p> + +<p id="id00634">“But alone—alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires—I should say—courageous associates. Now in my affairs—would +you believe me?—I am obliged to manage quite alone.”</p> + +<p id="id00635">“How melancholy!” exclaimed Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00636">“It is indeed very sad!” and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night.</p> + +<p id="id00637">“Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!”</p> + +<p id="id00638">“The thought does credit to a generous nature!” responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00639" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00640">“THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE”</h3> + +<p id="id00641">Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had<br> + + arisen,<br> + +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale;<br> + +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed<br> + + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail.<br></p> + +<p id="id00642">—L. Frank Tooker.</p> + +<p id="id00643" style="margin-top: 2em">Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington.</p> + +<p id="id00644">Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man’s hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart’s desire.</p> + +<p id="id00645">With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,—that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said:</p> + +<p id="id00646">“Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id00647">Emperors and kings! They were as impossible to-day as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador’s +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep.</p> + +<p id="id00648">Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary’s ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the <i>King Edward</i>, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention.</p> + +<p id="id00649">At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her.</p> + +<p id="id00650">“Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00651">“It is all of that!” she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet’s praise.</p> + +<p id="id00652">“I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!” he continued.</p> + +<p id="id00653">“No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!”</p> + +<p id="id00654">She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,—his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season.</p> + +<p id="id00655">“Poor Franzel is indeed <i>triste</i>. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!”</p> + +<p id="id00656">“Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!”</p> + +<p id="id00657">“Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself.”</p> + +<p id="id00658">“That is very sad, Monsieur,”—and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. “My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn—alone.”</p> + +<p id="id00659">He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture.</p> + +<p id="id00660">“There are sadder blows than losing one’s sovereign, Mademoiselle!” and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend.</p> + +<p id="id00661">She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley’s heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her.</p> + +<p id="id00662">The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl’s heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek.</p> + +<p id="id00663">Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley.</p> + +<p id="id00664">He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring.</p> + +<p id="id00665">Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff.</p> + +<p id="id00666">“Oh! Oh!” and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her.</p> + +<p id="id00667">“What is it, Miss? Did you call?”</p> + +<p id="id00668">“No; it was nothing, Thomas—nothing at all,” and she mounted and turned +toward home.</p> + +<p id="id00669">Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man’s life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her.</p> + +<p id="id00670">“Miss Claiborne!”</p> + +<p id="id00671">The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone:</p> + +<p id="id00672">“Mr. Armitage!” She laughed. “I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me.”</p> + +<p id="id00673">He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,—he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed.</p> + +<p id="id00674">“You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man’s life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me—”</p> + +<p id="id00675">“Please don’t speak of that! It was so terrible!”</p> + +<p id="id00676">“But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made—that +night on the <i>King Edward</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00677">“Yes; I have not forgotten.”</p> + +<p id="id00678">“And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me.”</p> + +<p id="id00679">“But this is America, Mr. Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00680">“That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,—it is unpardonable—indefensible!”</p> + +<p id="id00681">She saw that he was greatly troubled.</p> + +<p id="id00682">“But you couldn’t help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It’s a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man—”</p> + +<p id="id00683">“I know the man.”</p> + +<p id="id00684">“Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up.”</p> + +<p id="id00685">She was seeking to minimize the matter,—to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind.</p> + +<p id="id00686">Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm.</p> + +<p id="id00687">“Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can’t +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason—for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn’t presuming—”</p> + +<p id="id00688">He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English.</p> + +<p id="id00689">“How am I to know whether it would be presuming?” she asked.</p> + +<p id="id00690">“But I was going to say—”</p> + +<p id="id00691">“When rudely interrupted!” She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished.</p> + +<p id="id00692">“—that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice.”</p> + +<p id="id00693">She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits.</p> + +<p id="id00694">“How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past.”</p> + +<p id="id00695">“But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here—”</p> + +<p id="id00696">“Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected.”</p> + +<p id="id00697">She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter.</p> + +<p id="id00698">“It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can’t travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia.”</p> + +<p id="id00699">“You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting.”</p> + +<p id="id00700">“Yes; at Storm Springs. It’s really beautiful down there,” she said +simply.</p> + +<p id="id00701">It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth:</p> + +<p id="id00702">“I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills.”</p> + +<p id="id00703">“Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There’s a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer—up when it’s warm, down when it’s cold. +There’s the secret of our mercurial temperament.”</p> + +<p id="id00704">A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice.</p> + +<p id="id00705">“He’s just up from the farm and doesn’t like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon,” she said as they rode on.</p> + +<p id="id00706">“Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!” he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again!</p> + +<p id="id00707">“Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people’s names.”</p> + +<p id="id00708">“Then you reverse the usual fashionable process—you go south to meet the +rising mercury.”</p> + +<p id="id00709">“I hadn’t thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep—and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood’s golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?”</p> + +<p id="id00710">“Nothing, but my entire approval,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id00711">He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00712" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER X</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00713">JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED</h3> + +<p id="id00714">Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,<br> + +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.<br></p> + +<p id="id00715">—Walt Whitman.</p> + +<p id="id00716" style="margin-top: 2em">Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o’clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument’s gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm.</p> + +<p id="id00717">Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise.</p> + +<p id="id00718">The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage’s case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o’clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow’s steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him.</p> + +<p id="id00719">When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance.</p> + +<p id="id00720">“My friend,” he said, “there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you.”</p> + +<p id="id00721">“Pardon me—”</p> + +<p id="id00722">“You are watching me; and the thing won’t do.”</p> + +<p id="id00723">“Yes, I’m watching you; but—”</p> + +<p id="id00724">“But the thing won’t do! If you are hired—”</p> + +<p id="id00725">“<i>Nein! Nein!</i> You do me a wrong, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00726">“Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I’m going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00727">Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently.</p> + +<p id="id00728">Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away.</p> + +<p id="id00729">He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him.</p> + +<p id="id00730">He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,—an American soldier’s campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair.</p> + +<p id="id00731">“Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful—”</p> + +<p id="id00732">The man’s face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition.</p> + +<p id="id00733">“My dear fellow, you really become annoying,” and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. “I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far.”</p> + +<p id="id00734">The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him:</p> + +<p id="id00735">“Don’t you know me? I am Oscar—don’t you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are—”</p> + +<p id="id00736">He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood.</p> + +<p id="id00737">John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage’s manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller’s display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00738">Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness.</p> + +<p id="id00739">“Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come.”</p> + +<p id="id00740">The man’s hand went to his hat.</p> + +<p id="id00741">“None of that!”</p> + +<p id="id00742">Armitage arrested him with a gesture. “My name is Armitage,—John +Armitage,” he said. “I advise you to remember it. Now go!”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00743">The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed.</p> + +<p id="id00744">It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator.</p> + +<p id="id00745">Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully.</p> + +<p id="id00746">“What do you want?” he demanded bluntly.</p> + +<p id="id00747">He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow’s bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him.</p> + +<p id="id00748">“I want nothing, Mr. Armitage,” he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent.</p> + +<p id="id00749">“Then you will be easily satisfied,” said Armitage. “You said your name +was—?”</p> + +<p id="id00750">“Oscar—Oscar Breunig.”</p> + +<p id="id00751">Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity.</p> + +<p id="id00752">“You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?”</p> + +<p id="id00753">“I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00754">“What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00755">“I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government—yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution.”</p> + +<p id="id00756">He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,—eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier.</p> + +<p id="id00757">“Oscar!” he said; and repeated, very softly, “Oscar!”</p> + +<p id="id00758">The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm’s length.</p> + +<p id="id00759">“None of that nonsense! Sit down!” He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair.</p> + +<p id="id00760">“So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?”</p> + +<p id="id00761">“I served in the Philippines,—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00762">“Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id00763">“I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big<br> + +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay,” said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed.<br></p> + +<p id="id00764">“Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar.”</p> + +<p id="id00765">The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare.</p> + +<p id="id00766">“You are not dead,—Mr.—Armitage; but your father—?”</p> + +<p id="id00767">“My father is dead, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id00768">“He was a good man,” said the soldier.</p> + +<p id="id00769">“Yes; he was a good man,” repeated Armitage gravely. “I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now—”</p> + +<p id="id00770">The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee.<br></p> + +<p id="id00771">“You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00772">“There are enemies—yes?” and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation.</p> + +<p id="id00773">“I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants—you are not +married?”</p> + +<p id="id00774">“How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable,” declared Oscar solemnly.</p> + +<p id="id00775">“I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else—”</p> + +<p id="id00776">The man nodded his comprehension.</p> + +<p id="id00777">“That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00778">Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him.</p> + +<p id="id00779">“You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet—able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on.”</p> + +<p id="id00780">“You should remember—” began Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00781">“I remember nothing,” observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00782">“Do you think you could find that place?”</p> + +<p id="id00783">The man breathed hard over it for several minutes.</p> + +<p id="id00784">“Yes; it would be easy,” and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia’s +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered.</p> + +<p id="id00785">“It is a farm—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00786">“It is a wilderness, I fancy,” said Armitage. “I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there—going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There’s some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here’s a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle.”</p> + +<p id="id00787">“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00788">“And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores—plain military +necessities, you understand—and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it.”</p> + +<p id="id00789">“Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job,” said Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00790">“And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of—let me consider—a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We’ll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id00791">The man nodded gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00792">“And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here—”</p> + +<p id="id00793">“I have not been, here—is it not?”</p> + +<p id="id00794">“It is,” replied Armitage, smiling. “You read and write English?”</p> + +<p id="id00795">“Yes; one must, to serve in the army.”</p> + +<p id="id00796">“If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,—unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,—do you understand?”</p> + +<p id="id00797">“It is the custom of the country,” assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret.</p> + +<p id="id00798">“To be sure,” laughed Armitage; “and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated.”</p> + +<p id="id00799">He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table.</p> + +<p id="id00800">“It is much money,” observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously.</p> + +<p id="id00801">“It will be enough for your purposes. You can’t spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon—perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,—who can tell +without trying it? Don’t write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don’t hear from me again.”</p> + +<p id="id00802">He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00803" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00804">THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN</h3> + +<p id="id00805">As music and splendor<br> + + Survive not the lamp and the lute,<br> + +The heart’s echoes render<br> + + No song when the spirit is mute—<br> + +No songs but sad dirges,<br> + + Like the wind through a ruined cell,<br> + +Or the mournful surges<br> + + That ring the dead seaman’s knell. +—Shelley.<br></p> + +<p id="id00806" style="margin-top: 2em">Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attaché of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop.</p> + +<p id="id00807">“Here’s a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret,” laughed<br> + +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table.<br></p> + +<p id="id00808">With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attaché, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth’s +dominion.</p> + +<p id="id00809">Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness.</p> + +<p id="id00810">“He has not old Stroebel’s right hand to hold him up,” remarked a young +German officer.<br></p> + +<p id="id00811">“Thereby hangs a dark tale,” remarked Claiborne. “Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago—after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge.”</p> + +<p id="id00812">“Bah! Francis is not as dark as he’s painted. He’s the most lied-about +prince in Europe,” remarked Chauvenet. “He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!”</p> + +<p id="id00813">“Nothing can happen,” remarked the German sadly. “I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions.”</p> + +<p id="id00814">“That is quite true,” said Armitage quietly.</p> + +<p id="id00815">“But,” observed the Spaniard, “if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion—?”</p> + +<p id="id00816">“Such speculations are quite idle,” commented Chauvenet. “There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him.”</p> + +<p id="id00817">“Of course,” said the German. “If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00818">“The same applies to the boy he carried away with him—undoubtedly +dead—or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said—”</p> + +<p id="id00819">“A pretty tale it is!” commented the German—“that the child wasn’t +exactly Karl’s own. He took it quite hard—went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him.”</p> + +<p id="id00820">“He was surely mad,” remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. “He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well.”</p> + +<p id="id00821">They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses—and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries—and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention.</p> + +<p id="id00822">He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar.</p> + +<p id="id00823">“With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,”—and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,—“that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive.”</p> + +<p id="id00824">Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet’s recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened.</p> + +<p id="id00825">“It’s my experience,” continued Chauvenet, “that we never meet a person +once only—there’s always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall.”</p> + +<p id="id00826">“At his old tricks, I suppose,” observed some one.</p> + +<p id="id00827">“No; that was the strangest part of it. He’s struck a deeper game—though +I’m blessed if I can make it out—he’s dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself <i>Mister</i>—I’ve forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He’s made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American—his English is +excellent—and he hints at large American interests.”</p> + +<p id="id00828">“He probably has forged securities to sell,” commented the German. “I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly.”</p> + +<p id="id00829">“I dare say,” returned Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00830">“Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend,” remarked Claiborne +leadingly.</p> + +<p id="id00831">“No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way.”</p> + +<p id="id00832">All felt that they were now to hear the dénouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id00833">“Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest—the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, <i>Fide non armis</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00834">“The devil!” exclaimed the young German. “Why, that’s very like—”</p> + +<p id="id00835">“Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert—in Berlin, you know—I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up—I wanted to make sure—and +handed it to him, the imitation baron.”</p> + +<p id="id00836">“That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say,” remarked +the German.</p> + +<p id="id00837">“He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,”—continued Chauvenet,—“‘Allow me, Baron!’”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00838">“Well spoken!” exclaimed the Spanish officer.</p> + +<p id="id00839">“Not so well, either,” laughed Chauvenet. “He had the best of it—he’s a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said—” and Chauvenet’s mirth +stifled him for a moment.</p> + +<p id="id00840">“Yes; what was it?” demanded the German impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id00841">“He said: ‘Thank you, waiter!’ and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!”</p> + +<p id="id00842">They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne’s eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage’s cigarette case—on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely.</p> + +<p id="id00843">“Gentlemen,” he said, “if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we’ll have to run along.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00844">Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him.</p> + +<p id="id00845">“That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the <i>King Edward</i>—every word of it +is true.”</p> + +<p id="id00846">“You should face him—you must have it out with him!” exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer’s +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00847">“But the time hasn’t come for that—”</p> + +<p id="id00848">“Then if there is something between you,”—began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant.</p> + +<p id="id00849">“There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end.”</p> + +<p id="id00850">Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him.</p> + +<p id="id00851">“Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don’t like it, I tell you! You’ve got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don’t offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance—and the acquaintance of my family!”</p> + +<p id="id00852">Armitage’s face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick.</p> + +<p id="id00853">“I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters.”</p> + +<p id="id00854">“Then you need never take the trouble!”</p> + +<p id="id00855">“In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied,” said Armitage +quietly, and turned away.</p> + +<p id="id00856">He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers.</p> + +<p id="id00857">Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00858" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00859">A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS</h3> + +<p id="id00860">—Who climbed the blue Virginia hills<br> + + Against embattled foes;<br> + +And planted there, in valleys fair,<br> + + The lily and the rose;<br> + +Whose fragrance lives in many lands,<br> + + Whose beauty stars the earth,<br> + +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth.<br></p> + +<p id="id00861">—Francis O. Ticknor.</p> + +<p id="id00862" style="margin-top: 2em">The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places.</p> + +<p id="id00863">Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love.</p> + +<p id="id00864">He had wanted time to think—to ponder his affairs—to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage.</p> + +<p id="id00865">He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting.</p> + +<p id="id00866">“Good morning,” said Oscar, saluting.</p> + +<p id="id00867">“You are prompt, Sergeant,” and Armitage shook hands with him.</p> + +<p id="id00868">As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow.</p> + +<p id="id00869">“The place—what of it?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00870">“There may be worse—I have not decided.”</p> + +<p id="id00871">Armitage laughed aloud.</p> + +<p id="id00872">“Is it as bad as that?”</p> + +<p id="id00873">The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage’s +further questions with soldierlike brevity.</p> + +<p id="id00874">“You have been here—”</p> + +<p id="id00875">“Two weeks, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00876">“And nothing has happened? It is a good report.”</p> + +<p id="id00877">“It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal—yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place.”</p> + +<p id="id00878">The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn.</p> + +<p id="id00879">“I am quite ready, sir,” reported Oscar, touching his hat. “There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way.”</p> + +<p id="id00880">“Then let us be off,” said Armitage, swinging into the saddle.</p> + +<p id="id00881">Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood.</p> + +<p id="id00882">“It is good,” said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him.</p> + +<p id="id00883">“Yes, it is good,” repeated Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00884">A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage’s eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer’s cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence.</p> + +<p id="id00885">“This is Lamar post-office,” announced Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00886">“There must be some mail here for me,” said Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00887">Oscar handed him several long envelopes—they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket.</p> + +<p id="id00888">“You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable.”</p> + +<p id="id00889">“I take a Washington paper—it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world—yes? At the post-office +back there”—he jerked his head to indicate—“it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room.”</p> + +<p id="id00890">“To be sure,” laughed Armitage. “I hope it is a good article.”</p> + +<p id="id00891">“It is vile,” replied Oscar. “His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye.”</p> + +<p id="id00892">“Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days.”</p> + +<p id="id00893">It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet’s assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else—a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well.</p> + +<p id="id00894">On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him.</p> + +<p id="id00895">They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage’s property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas.</p> + +<p id="id00896">Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse.</p> + +<p id="id00897">“It is a fine valley—yes?” asked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00898">“It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!” replied Armitage. “There +is a white building with colonnades away over there—is it the house of +the reigning deity?”</p> + +<p id="id00899">“It is not, sir,” answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. “It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills—do you +see?—it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls—”</p> + +<p id="id00900">“Golf? Is it possible!”</p> + +<p id="id00901">“There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself—men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley.”</p> + +<p id="id00902">Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started.</p> + +<p id="id00903">“Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls.”</p> + +<p id="id00904">“I could not tell it better,” responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse.</p> + +<p id="id00905">“And our place—is it below there?” demanded Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00906">“It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen’s houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands.”</p> + +<p id="id00907">“Poor Oscar!” laughed Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00908">His mood had not often in his life been so high.</p> + +<p id="id00909">On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her—even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground.</p> + +<p id="id00910">“Let us go,” he said presently.</p> + +<p id="id00911">Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand.</p> + +<p id="id00912">“You will find it easier to walk,” he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge.</p> + +<p id="id00913">“This is the place, sir,” and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate.</p> + +<p id="id00914">The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared.</p> + +<p id="id00915">“There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty,” remarked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00916">He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice:</p> + +<p id="id00917">“It is different from our old hills and forests—yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick.”</p> + +<p id="id00918">“But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!”</p> + +<p id="id00919">“Here,” said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, “is what they call the Port of Missing Men.”</p> + +<p id="id00920">There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted “No Thoroughfare.” Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight.</p> + +<p id="id00921">“It is a bad place,” remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground.<br></p> + +<p id="id00922">The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry.</p> + +<p id="id00923">“Why the name?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00924">“There were gray soldiers of many battles—yes?—who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender—no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts,” and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion.</p> + +<p id="id00925">They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id00926">“Your house, sir,” and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases.</p> + +<p id="id00927">“There shall be breakfast,” said the man.</p> + +<p id="id00928">He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match.</p> + +<p id="id00929">“All one floor—plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir—a place to eat here—a +kitchen beyond—a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all.”</p> + +<p id="id00930">“It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established.”</p> + +<p id="id00931">“This is yours—the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but—you will require hot water for shaving—is it not so?”</p> + +<p id="id00932">“You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting.”</p> + +<p id="id00933">Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys.</p> + +<p id="id00934">“The place was built by fools,” declared Oscar gloomily.</p> + +<p id="id00935">“Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them—you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!”</p> + +<p id="id00936">He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered.</p> + +<p id="id00937">“You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast.” +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room.</p> + +<p id="id00938">A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said—that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him.</p> + +<p id="id00939">He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron’s escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington.</p> + +<p id="id00940">Armitage’s cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read:</p> + +<p id="id00941">“The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id00943">Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room.</p> + +<p id="id00944">“Shall we unpack—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00945">“It is a capital idea,” said John Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00946">“I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition—and his uniforms—yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse.”</p> + +<p id="id00947">“The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please.”</p> + +<p id="id00948">The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner’s taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth.</p> + +<p id="id00949">“You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn’t blend +well in our rainbow—put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud—drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable—give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned—I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well,” he added whimsically.</p> + +<p id="id00950">He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim:</p> + +<p id="id00951">“‘Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!’<br></p> + +<p id="id00952">“’Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet’s mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now—</p> + +<p id="id00953">“‘Nothing can we call our own but death,<br> + +And that small model of the barren earth<br> + +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.<br> + +For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.’”<br></p> + +<p id="id00954">Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought.</p> + +<p id="id00955">“Oscar,” he called abruptly, “how far is it down to Storm Springs?”</p> + +<p id="id00956">“A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00957" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00958">THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA</h3> + +<p id="id00959">April, April,<br> + +Laugh, thy girlish laughter;<br> + +Then, the moment after,<br> + +Weep thy girlish, tears!<br> + +April, that mine ears<br> + +Like a lover greetest,<br> + +If I tell thee, sweetest,<br> + +All my hopes and fears,<br> + +April, April,<br> + +Laugh thy golden laughter,<br> + +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears!<br></p> + +<p id="id00960">—William Watson.</p> + +<p id="id00961" style="margin-top: 2em">A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler’s writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf—a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry—and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams—made, in fact, some notes in regard to them—and wrote +replies. Then, at four o’clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses.</p> + +<p id="id00962">“It is spring, and in April a man’s blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air.”</p> + +<p id="id00963">He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him.</p> + +<p id="id00964">They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region.</p> + +<p id="id00965">“We shall go down into the valley, Oscar,” he said; and thereafter it was +he that led.</p> + +<p id="id00966">They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes.</p> + +<p id="id00967">Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted.</p> + +<p id="id00968">“You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don’t know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances.”</p> + +<p id="id00969">He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world—they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them.</p> + +<p id="id00970">At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop.</p> + +<p id="id00971">He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity.</p> + +<p id="id00972">“How near is Judge Claiborne’s place?” he asked.</p> + +<p id="id00973">The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on.<br></p> + +<p id="id00974">He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener’s shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day’s light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought.</p> + +<p id="id00975">It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him.</p> + +<p id="id00976">Her head went up with surprise and—he was sure—with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet.</p> + +<p id="id00977">“I am caught—<i>in flagrante delicto</i>! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy.”</p> + +<p id="id00978">“They said—they said you had gone to Mexico?” said Shirley +questioningly.</p> + +<p id="id00979">“Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!” he +laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00980">“Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother—”</p> + +<p id="id00981">“Yes, your brother—he is the best fellow in the world!”</p> + +<p id="id00982">She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00983">“Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box—”</p> + +<p id="id00984">“Oh, the cigarette case!” and he held it up. “It’s really mine—and I’m +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law.”</p> + +<p id="id00985">“Yes, I believe that is true.” And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest.</p> + +<p id="id00986">“But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00987">She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater:</p> + +<p id="id00988">“Why?”</p> + +<p id="id00989">“Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately—most +unfortunately—I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you—”</p> + +<p id="id00990">He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand.</p> + +<p id="id00991">“And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances,” said Shirley.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00992">“You are infinitely kind and generous—”</p> + +<p id="id00993">“No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things—of course +not!”</p> + +<p id="id00994">Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed.</p> + +<p id="id00995">“Then—”</p> + +<p id="id00996">“Then I will tell you—what I have not told any one else—that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel.”</p> + +<p id="id00997">“You know it—you are quite sure of it?” he asked blankly.</p> + +<p id="id00998">“Certainly. I saw that person—at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week—I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person.”</p> + +<p id="id00999">Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character.</p> + +<p id="id01000">“But Captain Claiborne—”</p> + +<p id="id01001">He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily:</p> + +<p id="id01002">“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so—”</p> + +<p id="id01003">“By Monsieur Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01004">“So he said.”</p> + +<p id="id01005">“And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s +entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily.</p> + +<p id="id01006">“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively. “I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.”</p> + +<p id="id01007">Armitage laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01008">“That is a little pointed.”</p> + +<p id="id01009">“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly. “It is”—she weighed the +word—“ridiculous that both of you should be here.”</p> + +<p id="id01010">“Thank you, for my half! I didn’t know he was here! But I am not exactly +<i>here</i>—I have a much, safer place,”—he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.”</p> + +<p id="id01011">He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley.</p> + +<p id="id01012">He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id01013">“Oh, this won’t do at all! I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—and she +indicated it by a nod of her head.</p> + +<p id="id01014">“Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility—you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear—I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates—particularly when I came over the fence! It’s a +long way around anyhow—and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn.”</p> + +<p id="id01015">“My brother—”</p> + +<p id="id01016">“Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.”</p> + +<p id="id01017">“But—there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself.”</p> + +<p id="id01018">They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment.</p> + +<p id="id01019">“I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it’s a whim—the merest whim, I assure you.”</p> + +<p><figure class="figcenter illowe67_3125" id="illustration_pg190"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg190.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>He delighted in the picture she made</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01020">He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat—(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)—her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley’s hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill.</p> + +<p id="id01021">Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit.</p> + +<p id="id01022">She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on.</p> + +<p id="id01023">“But when I wait for people they always come—even in a strange pergola!” +he added daringly. “Now, in Geneva, not long ago—”</p> + +<p id="id01024">He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times.</p> + +<p id="id01025">“In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear—it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate,” he concluded mournfully.</p> + +<p id="id01026">He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate.</p> + +<p id="id01027">He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone.</p> + +<p id="id01028">She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01029" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01030">AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW</h3> + +<p id="id01031"><i>En, garde, Messieurs</i>! And if my hand is hard,<br> + + Remember I’ve been buffeting at will;<br> + + I am a whit impatient, and ’tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. <i>Messieurs, en garde</i>.<br></p> + +<p id="id01032">—W. Lindsey.</p> + +<p id="id01033" style="margin-top: 2em">“Monsieur Chauvenet!”</p> + +<p id="id01034">Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage’s salutation.</p> + +<p id="id01035">“My dear Armitage!” he murmured.</p> + +<p id="id01036">“I didn’t go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn’t take the risk.”</p> + +<p id="id01037">“He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health,” replied the other.</p> + +<p id="id01038">“You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?” +mocked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01039">“My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life—such pleasures of late have +been denied me.”</p> + +<p id="id01040">“But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair.”</p> + +<p id="id01041">“Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass,” continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. “I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society.”</p> + +<p id="id01042">“But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy.”</p> + +<p id="id01043">Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage’s plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage’s courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion’s sterner tones +disconcerted him.</p> + +<p id="id01044">“I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game—it is +spectacular—it is picturesque—it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna—they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man’s common +ambitions.”</p> + +<p id="id01045">“Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?”</p> + +<p id="id01046">“It is both,” replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone:</p> + +<p id="id01047">“I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne’s +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana.”</p> + +<p id="id01048">Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance.</p> + +<p id="id01049">“Of course. The hour was chosen well!”</p> + +<p id="id01050">“More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He’s a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express.”</p> + +<p id="id01051">Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him.</p> + +<p id="id01052">“He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel’s life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!”</p> + +<p id="id01053">Chauvenet’s gloved fingers caught at his mustache.</p> + +<p id="id01054">“That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed—therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there’s a +difference between us—you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel’s +death.”</p> + +<p id="id01055">He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly.</p> + +<p id="id01056">“A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01057">“Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel’s death, it’s unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It’s a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman—you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01058">“You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count’s departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?”</p> + +<p id="id01059">Chauvenet’s hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony.</p> + +<p id="id01060">“To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01061">“Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you—”</p> + +<p id="id01062">The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled.<br></p> + +<p id="id01063">“You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer.”</p> + +<p id="id01064">“I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night,<br> + +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01065">“If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!”</p> + +<p id="id01066">“Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!”</p> + +<p id="id01067">“You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely.”</p> + +<p id="id01068">“You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!” laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor.</p> + +<p id="id01069">“Perhaps—perhaps—I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!”</p> + +<p id="id01070">“So you would sell out, would you?” laughed Armitage. “You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next—who +knows?”</p> + +<p id="id01071">“As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner.”</p> + +<p id="id01072">“All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you—I don’t! But remember—if there’s a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne’s, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch—forward!”</p> + +<p id="id01073">Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01074">He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01075" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01076">SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET</h3> + +<p id="id01077">Nightingales warble about it<br> + + All night under blossom and star;<br> + +The wild swan is dying without it,<br> + + And the eagle crieth afar;<br> + +The sun, he doth mount but to find it<br> + + Searching the green earth o’er;<br> + +But more doth a man’s heart mind it— + O more, more, more!<br></p> + +<p id="id01078">—G.E. Woodberry.</p> + +<p id="id01079" style="margin-top: 2em">Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother’s letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice:</p> + +<p id="id01080">“I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, <i>ma chérie</i>, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I’ll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,—or <i>was</i>! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,—after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He’s over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01082">“Dear old Dick!” and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01083">She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy’s zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony’s back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast’s fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable.</p> + +<p id="id01084">It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages.</p> + +<p id="id01085">Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,—the ability to forecast the enemy’s strategy and +then strike his weakest point,—that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops.</p> + +<p id="id01086">Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons.</p> + +<p id="id01087">Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,—not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,—received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens.</p> + +<p id="id01088">He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01089">The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf.</p> + +<p id="id01090">“A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away.”</p> + +<p id="id01091">Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01092">“Steady, Fanny! Don’t come near her, please—” this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse’s bridle. She had +the true horsewoman’s pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet’s proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley’s +hand.</p> + +<p id="id01093">“Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!”</p> + +<p id="id01094">“Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn’t run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home.”</p> + +<p id="id01095">She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet’s company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse.<br></p> + +<p id="id01096">“But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends.”</p> + +<p id="id01097">“You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?”</p> + +<p id="id01098">“What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper ‘Yes, Sister,’ ‘No, Sister,’ to everything they +hear.”</p> + +<p id="id01099">“Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01100">“No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,—you must know—”</p> + +<p id="id01101">The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley’s hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly.</p> + +<p id="id01102">Chauvenet went on rapidly in French:</p> + +<p id="id01103">“You must know why I am here—why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear—you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments—”</p> + +<p id="id01104">“Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur—”</p> + +<p id="id01105">Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man’s shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed.</p> + +<p id="id01106">“Monsieur!” cried Shirley in a low tone; “look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01107">Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id01108">“What is it, my dear fellow—my watch—my purse—my horse?” he said in +English.<br></p> + +<p id="id01109">“He wants none of those things,” said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. “The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?” she asked pleasantly.</p> + +<p id="id01110">“You cain’t do nothin’ for me,” drawled the man. “Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella’. I got a little business with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01111">“He is a foreigner—he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id01112">She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them.</p> + +<p id="id01113">“Miss, I have seen you befo’, and I reckon we ain’t got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella’ ain’t no business up hy’eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it’s all right +for you, Miss; but what’s yo’ frien’ ridin’ the hills for at night? He’s +lookin’ for some un’, and I reckon as how that some un’ air me!”</p> + +<p id="id01114">He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley’s +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French.</p> + +<p id="id01115">“Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life—that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01116">The rifle—a repeater of the newest type—went to the man’s shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet’s head.</p> + +<p id="id01117">“None o’ that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +’ere negotiations.”</p> + +<p id="id01118">Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly.</p> + +<p id="id01119">“The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else.”</p> + +<p id="id01120">As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet’s position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man’s reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying:</p> + +<p id="id01121">“Mountain folks air slow, and we don’t know much, but a stranger don’t +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he’s got to tell why; and the third time—well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella’ that there ain’t no third time.”</p> + +<p id="id01122">Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly:</p> + +<p id="id01123">“I have never been here before in my life.”</p> + +<p id="id01124">The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl:<br></p> + +<p id="id01125">“You air a liar, seh!”</p> + +<p id="id01126">Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed.</p> + +<p id="id01127">“This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend,” said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer’s interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe69_8125" id="illustration_pg211"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg211.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“You air a liar, seh!”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01128">“My friend,” she said, “I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father’s +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember.”</p> + +<p id="id01129">The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage.</p> + +<p id="id01130">“I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a—still, do you call it?—in his +life—” and she smiled upon him sweetly. “But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01131">Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone:</p> + +<p id="id01132">“We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don’t want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn’t that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him.”</p> + +<p id="id01133">She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor.</p> + +<p id="id01134">“Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me.”</p> + +<p id="id01135">“But it is growing dark—I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you—”</p> + +<p id="id01136">“Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman.”</p> + +<p id="id01137">The mountaineer took off his hat.</p> + +<p id="id01138">“Thank ye, Miss,” he said; and then to Chauvenet: “Get out!”</p> + +<p id="id01139">“Don’t trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet,” and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01140">“What is your name?”</p> + +<p id="id01141">“Tom Selfridge.”</p> + +<p id="id01142">“Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?” asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer’s bared tangle of tow.</p> + +<p id="id01143">“The name you called him ain’t it. It’s a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo’—it’s—it’s like the a’my—”</p> + +<p id="id01144">“Is it Armitage?” asked Shirley quickly.</p> + +<p id="id01145">“That’s it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +’im. He’s moved up hy’eh, and it ain’t fer no good. The word’s out that a +city man’s lookin’ for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man’s stayin’—”</p> + +<p id="id01146">“Where?”</p> + +<p id="id01147">“At the huntin’ club where folks don’t go no more. I ain’t seen him, but +th’ word’s passed. He’s a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella’ that’s been a soldier into th’ army stayin’ with ’im. I thought +yo’ furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did.”</p> + +<p id="id01148">The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had—and +the thing was funny—served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage’s whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01149">“I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you—will you believe me?”</p> + +<p id="id01150">“I reckon I got to, Miss.”</p> + +<p id="id01151">“Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road.”</p> + +<p id="id01152">“I’ll do it gladly, Miss.”</p> + +<p id="id01153">“Thank you; now let us be off.”</p> + +<p id="id01154">She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key.</p> + +<p id="id01155">“They are an odd and suspicious people, but they’re as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again—not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01156" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01157">NARROW MARGINS</h3> + +<p id="id01158">The black-caps pipe among the reeds,<br> + + And there’ll be rain to follow;<br> + +There is a murmur as of wind<br> + + In every coign and hollow;<br> + +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears.<br></p> + +<p id="id01159">—Amélie Rives.</p> + +<p id="id01160" style="margin-top: 2em">The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage’s life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01161">The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father’s, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth—but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01162">She had kept Dick’s letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl:</p> + +<p id="id01163">“What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars’ worth of +telegrams from Sanderson—wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it’s all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the <i>exposé</i> at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage’s) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and <i>who</i> is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present—even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again—he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!—and +sooner or later he’s bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is <i>he</i>! And why didn’t Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01165">Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick’s +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener’s work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor’s; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola.</p> + +<p id="id01166">Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime.</p> + +<p id="id01167">Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon.</p> + +<p id="id01168">Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again.</p> + +<p id="id01169">The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly.</p> + +<p id="id01170">“This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you.”</p> + +<p id="id01171">He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat.</p> + +<p id="id01172">“You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley coldly.</p> + +<p id="id01173">“I’m afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission.”</p> + +<p id="id01174">He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him.</p> + +<p id="id01175">“No! No! This is impossible—it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion.”</p> + +<p id="id01176">“In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn’t mean to apologize for coming”—and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. “But,” he went on, “it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium—geraniums are splendid for the +purpose—and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!”</p> + +<p id="id01177">“It must have hurt him,” said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe.</p> + +<p id="id01178">“I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn’t take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!”</p> + +<p id="id01179">“I suppose you didn’t think of us—all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!”</p> + +<p id="id01180">There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly.</p> + +<p id="id01181">“Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn’t know I was being followed—I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it.”</p> + +<p id="id01182">“You mustn’t try to see me! You mustn’t come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently—at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain.”</p> + +<p id="id01183">“I know that! I realize all that!”</p> + +<p id="id01184">“Then you must not come! You must leave instantly.”</p> + +<p id="id01185">She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly.</p> + +<p id="id01186">“You have been hurt—why did you not tell me that?”</p> + +<p id="id01187">“It is nothing—the fellow had a knife, and he—but it’s only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!”</p> + +<p id="id01188">The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda.</p> + +<p id="id01189">As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochère.</p> + +<p id="id01190">“I’m off—please believe in me—a little.”</p> + +<p id="id01191">“You must not go if you are hurt—and you can’t run away now—my father +and mother are at the door.”</p> + +<p id="id01192">There was an instant’s respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01193">“You can’t go now; come in and wait.”</p> + +<p id="id01194">There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture—through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings.</p> + +<p id="id01195">She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda.</p> + +<p id="id01196">“Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers.”</p> + +<p id="id01197">And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01198" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01199">A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING</h3> + +<p id="id01200">Oh, sweetly fall the April days!<br> + + My love was made of frost and light,<br> + + Of light to warm and frost to blight<br> + +The sweet, strange April of her ways.<br> + +Eyes like a dream of changing skies,<br> + +And every frown and blush I prize.<br> + + With cloud and flush the spring comes in,<br> + + With frown and blush maids’ loves begin; +For love is rare like April days.<br></p> + +<p id="id01201">—L. Frank Tooker.</p> + +<p id="id01202" style="margin-top: 2em">Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage’s plight—his +injuries and the dangers that beset him—that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her.</p> + +<p id="id01203">The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna.</p> + +<p id="id01204">“The trouble is,” said the Ambassador, “that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy—a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together.”</p> + +<p id="id01205">“And a weak hand,” suggested Judge Claiborne, “might easily lose or +scatter them.”</p> + +<p id="id01206">“Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice—and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow—”</p> + +<p id="id01207">The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers.</p> + +<p id="id01208">“Yes; after him, what?”</p> + +<p id="id01209">“After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the <i>disjecta membra</i> of the Empire +together.”</p> + +<p id="id01210">“But there are shadows on the screen,” remarked Judge Claiborne. “There +was Karl—the mad prince.”</p> + +<p id="id01211">“Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion.”</p> + +<p id="id01212">Judge Claiborne laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01213">“I don’t like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger.”</p> + +<p id="id01214">“No; you are a miracle—that is the only explanation,” replied Marhof.</p> + +<p id="id01215">“But a man like Karl—what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem.”</p> + +<p id="id01216">“No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die.”</p> + +<p id="id01217">“But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father’s exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son—”</p> + +<p id="id01218">“In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information.”</p> + +<p id="id01219">“I have heard as much,” and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne’s tone.<br></p> + +<p id="id01220">The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel’s name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions.</p> + +<p id="id01221">“Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate,” she said. “He +believed in the divine right and all that.”</p> + +<p id="id01222">“So do I, Miss Claiborne. It’s all we’ve got to stand on!”</p> + +<p id="id01223">“But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely—”</p> + +<p id="id01224">“He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week,” declared the Baron vigorously.</p> + +<p id="id01225">They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home.</p> + +<p id="id01226">“I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter,” remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den.<br></p> + +<p id="id01227">“You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley.”</p> + +<p id="id01228">“Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I’ll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house.”</p> + +<p id="id01229">“I have a few notes to write; they’ll take only a minute, and I’ll write +them here.”</p> + +<p id="id01230">She heard her father’s door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library.</p> + +<p id="id01231">“You must go—you must go!” she whispered with deep tensity.</p> + +<p id="id01232">“Yes; I must go. You have been kind—you are most generous—”</p> + +<p id="id01233">But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about.</p> + +<p id="id01234">“I shall go home,” he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak.</p> + +<p id="id01235">“Come! Come! This is all very dreadful—you must go to a physician at +once.”</p> + +<p id="id01236">“My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing.” But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk.</p> + +<p id="id01237">“I do not need the doctor—not now. My man will care for me.”</p> + +<p id="id01238">He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength.</p> + +<p id="id01239">“It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion—it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you—”</p> + +<p id="id01240">“Please say nothing at all—but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again—you must leave the valley!”</p> + +<p id="id01241">“I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01242">“You must leave the bungalow—I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there—the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them—”</p> + +<p id="id01243">“Yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01244">“—that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go.”</p> + +<p id="id01245">He bent and kissed her hand.</p> + +<p id="id01246">“You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world.” His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him.</p> + +<p id="id01247">“Do not let them hurt you again—” she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out.</p> + +<p id="id01248">Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01249" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01250">AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES</h3> + +<p id="id01251">When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate,<br> + + And time seemed but the vassal of my will,<br> + +I entertained certain guests of state—<br> + + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made.<br></p> + +<p id="id01252">—S. Weir Mitchell.</p> + +<p id="id01253" style="margin-top: 2em">“Who am I?” asked John Armitage soberly.</p> + +<p id="id01254">He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage’s arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention.</p> + +<p id="id01255">“Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man’s name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country.”</p> + +<p id="id01256">“Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor.”</p> + +<p id="id01257">“First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover—yes?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01258">“Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble.”</p> + +<p id="id01259">“It would be better on the fifth—”</p> + +<p id="id01260">“The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is—mark, My Majesty—pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms.”</p> + +<p id="id01261">“Yes, sire.”</p> + +<p id="id01262">And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence.</p> + +<p id="id01263">“If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01264">“He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money.”</p> + +<p id="id01265">“You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I’ll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business—” and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot.</p> + +<p id="id01266">Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk.</p> + +<p id="id01267">“They killed the great prime minister—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01268">“They undoubtedly did, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01269">“He was a good man—he was a very great man,” said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him.</p> + +<p id="id01270">The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage’s life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one’s dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar’s care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence.</p> + +<p id="id01271">“To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world—to +do something for Austria—such things are to the soul’s credit, Oscar,” +and then Armitage’s mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar’s comprehension.</p> + +<p id="id01272">The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage’s mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin’s trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears.</p> + +<p id="id01273">At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse’s flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods.</p> + +<p id="id01274">Oscar’s whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse’s flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable.</p> + +<p id="id01275">A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar’s lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other’s faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant’s ear:</p> + +<p id="id01276">“You are a Servian: it is an ugly race.”</p> + +<p id="id01277">And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl.</p> + +<p id="id01278">“We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife,” grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian’s grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand.</p> + +<p id="id01279">“Throw up your hands,” he yelled.</p> + +<p id="id01280">The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily.</p> + +<p id="id01281">Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, “Oscar!” and repeated the name several times.</p> + +<p id="id01282">Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English:</p> + +<p id="id01283">“All steady, sir!”</p> + +<p id="id01284">The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian’s bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01285">“Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman’s gun and be sure to find his +knife.”</p> + +<p id="id01286">The task was to Oscar’s taste, and he made quick work of the Servian’s +pockets.</p> + +<p id="id01287">“Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id01288">“Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives—” the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up.</p> + +<p id="id01289">“Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow.”</p> + +<p id="id01290">They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors.</p> + +<p id="id01291">When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room.<br></p> + +<p id="id01292">Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman.</p> + +<p id="id01293">“Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him.”</p> + +<p id="id01294">He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian’s small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner’s knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head.</p> + +<p id="id01295">“He is a large devil,” commented Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01296">“He is large, certainly,” remarked Armitage. “Give him a chair. Now,” he +said to the man in deliberate German, “I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian.”</p> + +<p id="id01297">The man nodded.</p> + +<p id="id01298">“Your name is Zmai Miletich.”</p> + +<p id="id01299">The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01300">“Your name,” repeated Armitage, “is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand—do you follow me?”</p> + +<p id="id01301">The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily.</p> + +<p id="id01302">“I ask you again,” repeated Armitage, “whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake.”</p> + +<p id="id01303">Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head.</p> + +<p id="id01304">“There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March.”</p> + +<p id="id01305">The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01306">“Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done—”</p> + +<p id="id01307">The blood suffused the man’s dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him.</p> + +<p id="id01308">“That will do. You tried to kill me on the <i>King Edward</i>; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne’s garden; and you came up +here to-night with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01309">He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write.</p> + +<p id="id01310">“Don’t shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings.”</p> + +<p id="id01311">Armitage wrote:</p> + +<hr> + +<h3 id="id01313">“MONSIEUR:</h3> + +<p id="id01314">“Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you—is +even now aboard the <i>Tacoma</i>, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned.</p> + +<p id="id01315">“You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity—which I am sure interests you greatly—before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01317">Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F.</p> + +<p id="id01318">“Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?”</p> + +<p id="id01319">“He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof.”</p> + +<p id="id01320">“You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master.”</p> + +<p id="id01321">“It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass.”</p> + +<p id="id01322">“Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!” he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet.</p> + +<p id="id01323">“You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night—or any other old night, as we say +in America—if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you—buzzard meat!”</p> + +<p id="id01324">“The orders are understood,” said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant’s ribs.</p> + +<p id="id01325">“Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur’s receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p id="id01326">It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms.</p> + +<p id="id01327">Again through the moonlight strode the three—out of Armitage’s land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01328">There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt.</p> + +<p id="id01329">It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage’s hands at the +bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id01330">“Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man,” Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French:</p> + +<p id="id01331">“You are young to die, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01332">“A man more or less!” and Oscar shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id01333">“You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder.”</p> + +<p id="id01334">“One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also.”</p> + +<p id="id01335">“That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills.”</p> + +<p id="id01336">Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01337" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01338">CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY</h3> + +<p id="id01339">When he came where the trees were thin,<br> + +The moon sat waiting there to see;<br> + +On her worn palm she laid her chin,<br> + +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been.<br></p> + +<p id="id01340">—William Vaughn Moody.</p> + +<p id="id01341" style="margin-top: 2em">In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus:</p> + +<p id="id01342">Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy’s counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs.</p> + +<p id="id01343">They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof’s business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters.</p> + +<p id="id01344">The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words:</p> + +<p id="id01345">“You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel—we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson’s knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date—going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him.”</p> + +<p id="id01346">“He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics,” +said Judge Claiborne. “I talked with him a number of times on the <i>King +Edward</i> and must say that I liked him.”</p> + +<p id="id01347">“Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy,” said Dick.</p> + +<p id="id01348">“It might be explained—” began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. “Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01349">“We met them abroad,” said Dick; “and they both turned up again in +Washington.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01350">“One of them is here, or has been here in the valley—why not the other?” +asked Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01351">“But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage’s whereabouts,” Dick +protested.</p> + +<p id="id01352">“Certainly not,” declared his father.</p> + +<p id="id01353">“How did you make Armitage’s acquaintance?” asked the Ambassador. “Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him—if you can remember.”</p> + +<p id="id01354">Dick laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01355">“It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking <i>déjeuner</i> at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton—the ubiquitous—was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attaché.”</p> + +<p id="id01356">“And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions,” declared Judge +Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01357">They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage’s whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there.</p> + +<p id="id01358">“We must find him—there must be no mistake about it,” said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. “They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities.”</p> + +<p id="id01359">“And when we have young Armitage—” the Judge began.</p> + +<p id="id01360">“Then we shall know the truth.”</p> + +<p id="id01361">“But suppose—suppose,” and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +“suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die—to-night—to-morrow—”</p> + +<p id="id01362">“We will assume nothing of the kind!” ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +“It is impossible.” Then to Captain Claiborne: “You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01363">And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once.<br></p> + +<p id="id01364">Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him.</p> + +<p id="id01365">“Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting—and after a long leave, too.”</p> + +<p id="id01366">“I am on duty. Don’t forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat.”</p> + +<p id="id01367">“Humph! It doesn’t follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!”</p> + +<p id="id01368">“You couldn’t be that, Shirley, dear.”</p> + +<p id="id01369">“Thank you, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id01370">They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance:</p> + +<p id="id01371">“Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times.”</p> + +<p id="id01372">“Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it’s rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron.”</p> + +<p id="id01373">“Which he wasn’t—”</p> + +<p id="id01374">“Well, Sanderson says he couldn’t have been, and the rogues’ gallery +pictures don’t resemble our friend at all.”</p> + +<p id="id01375">“Ugh; don’t speak of it!” and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01376">“What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?” she asked.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id01377">“Guess again!” exclaimed Dick hurriedly. “Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow.”</p> + +<p id="id01378">He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair.</p> + +<p id="id01379">“Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?”</p> + +<p id="id01380">“Impertinent! How dare you?”</p> + +<p id="id01381">“But Shirley, the question is fair!”</p> + +<p id="id01382">“Is it, Richard?”</p> + +<p id="id01383">“And I want you to answer me.”</p> + +<p id="id01384">“That’s different.”</p> + +<p id="id01385">He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back.</p> + +<p id="id01386">“Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn’t do +<i>this</i>—”</p> + +<p id="id01387">“This what, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id01388">“You know what I mean. I ask you again—have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01389">He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self.</p> + +<p id="id01390">“Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p id="id01391">“He’s a regular old brick,” declared Dick solemnly.</p> + +<p id="id01392">“It’s a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor—about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself.”</p> + +<p id="id01393">“I am proud to be his son,” declared Dick, meeting Shirley’s eyes +unflinchingly.</p> + +<p id="id01394">Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz.</p> + +<p id="id01395">“A captain—a mere captain of the line—is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing—after a long leave for foreign +travel—and sent away to visit his parents—and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador.”</p> + +<p id="id01396">“Thanks for the ‘mere captain,’ dearest. You needn’t rub it in.”</p> + +<p id="id01397">“I wouldn’t. But you are fair game—for your sister only! And you’re +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attaché. It rather directed attention to you, didn’t it, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id01398">Dick colored.</p> + +<p id="id01399">“It certainly did.”</p> + +<p id="id01400">“And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble—”</p> + +<p id="id01401">“I have every intention of meeting him!”</p> + +<p id="id01402">“Oh!”</p> + +<p id="id01403">“Of course, I shall meet him—some time, somewhere. He’s at the Springs, +isn’t he?”</p> + +<p id="id01404">“Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven’t seen him for several +days.”</p> + +<p id="id01405">“What I should like to see,” said Dick, “is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor.”</p> + +<p id="id01406">He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains.</p> + +<p id="id01407">“Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me.”</p> + +<p id="id01408">“That doesn’t answer my question. You don’t know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer—”</p> + +<p id="id01409">“Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven’t said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven’t exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare.”</p> + +<p id="id01410">“When I find Mr. Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01411">“You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas.”</p> + +<p id="id01412">“I shall find him there—or here!”</p> + +<p id="id01413">“Good luck to you, Captain!”</p> + +<p id="id01414">There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01415" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01416">THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER</h3> + +<p id="id01417">My mistress bent that brow of hers;<br> + +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs<br> + +When pity would be softening through,<br> + +Fixed me a breathing-while or two<br> + + With life or death in the balance: right!<br> + +The blood replenished me again;<br> + +My last thought was at least not vain:<br> + +I and my mistress, side by side<br> + +Shall be together, breathe and ride,<br> + +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night?<br></p> + +<p id="id01418">—R. Browning.</p> + +<p id="id01419" style="margin-top: 2em">“We shall be leaving soon,” said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. “It is not safe to wait much longer.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01420">He tossed a copy of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April.</p> + +<p id="id01421">“Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave.”</p> + +<p id="id01422">“I enlisted for the campaign—yes?—I shall wait until I am discharged.” +And the little man buttoned his coat.<br></p> + +<p id="id01423">“Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There’s another man coming to get into the game—he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills to-night. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say.”</p> + +<p id="id01424">The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id01425">“If I should die unshriven during the next week, here’s a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him—tell him—”</p> + +<p id="id01426">He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on.</p> + +<p id="id01427">“—tell him, Oscar, that there’s a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King.”</p> + +<p id="id01428">Oscar stared at Armitage blankly.</p> + +<p id="id01429">“That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron’s hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in.”</p> + +<p id="id01430">“You should not go out alone—”</p> + +<p id="id01431">“Don’t trouble about me; I shan’t go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,—I feel it in +my bones.”</p> + +<p id="id01432">He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01433">At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon—perhaps in a few hours—he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them.</p> + +<p id="id01434">He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose.</p> + +<p id="id01435">“God said, ‘I am tired of kings,’” he muttered. “But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service,” he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. “To think that it may be for me to say!” And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge.</p> + +<p id="id01436">“I shall soon be free,” he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills.</p> + +<p id="id01437">Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step—a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman’s figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening.</p> + +<p id="id01438">When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman’s security, died on his lips.</p> + +<p id="id01439">“Shirley!” he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground.</p> + +<p id="id01440">A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight.</p> + +<p id="id01441">“I did not know that dreams really came true,” he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind.</p> + +<p id="id01442">She began abruptly, not heeding his words.</p> + +<p id="id01443">“You must go away—at once—I came to tell you that you can not stay +here.”</p> + +<p id="id01444">“But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,”—he began.</p> + +<p id="id01445">“It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you—it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go—you must seek the law’s +aid—”</p> + +<p id="id01446">“How do you know I dare—”</p> + +<p id="id01447">“I don’t know—that you dare!”</p> + +<p id="id01448">“I know that you have a great heart and that I love you,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id01449">She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps.</p> + +<p id="id01450">“I can’t be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came—”<br></p> + +<p id="id01451">“If I dared think or believe or hope—”</p> + +<p id="id01452">“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me.”</p> + +<p id="id01453">“How do you classify me, please—with friends or acquaintances?”</p> + +<p id="id01454">He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.</p> + +<p id="id01455">“I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?”</p> + +<p id="id01456">“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.”</p> + +<p id="id01457">“You are explicit!” he laughed. “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do.”</p> + +<p id="id01458">“That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of—of—what might be called the Armitage riddle.”</p> + +<p id="id01459">“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?”</p> + +<p id="id01460">“Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one’s enmity, +and there’s something about murder that is—that isn’t exactly nice! It’s +positively unesthetic.”</p> + +<p id="id01461">She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words.</p> + +<p id="id01462">“You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man’s life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be.”</p> + +<p id="id01463">“You put it rather flatly, but that’s about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid—”</p> + +<p id="id01464">“Not of me, I hope—”</p> + +<p id="id01465">“Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity.”</p> + +<p id="id01466">“That is unkind,—that is unkind,” and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence.</p> + +<p id="id01467">He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her.</p> + +<p id="id01468">“You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you—it will take but a +moment—why and what—”</p> + +<p id="id01469">“Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can’t +allow you to tell me; I really don’t want to know!”</p> + +<p id="id01470">“I am willing that every one should know—to-morrow—or the day +after—not later.”</p> + +<p id="id01471">She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought.</p> + +<p id="id01472">“The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done—”</p> + +<p id="id01473">“I have done nothing to be ashamed of,—I swear I have not!”</p> + +<p id="id01474">“Whatever it is,—and I don’t care what it is,”—she said deliberately, +“—it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother—”</p> + +<p id="id01475">She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly.</p> + +<p id="id01476">“My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01477">“But <i>he</i> doesn’t understand—”</p> + +<p id="id01478">“My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand.”</p> + +<p id="id01479">“And you have done this—you have come to warn me—”</p> + +<p id="id01480">“It does look pretty bad,” she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. “But my brother and I—we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case.”</p> + +<p id="id01481">“Oh, I’m a case, am I?” and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. “But I’d really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id01482">“Then you will have to ask him.”</p> + +<p id="id01483">“To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet’s request. I swear to you +that I’m as much in the dark as you are.”</p> + +<p id="id01484">“I’m quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,—perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof.”</p> + +<p id="id01485">“Good Lord!”</p> + +<p id="id01486">Armitage laughed aloud.</p> + +<p id="id01487">“I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?”</p> + +<p id="id01488">“I don’t know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I’m only a traitor and not a +spy.”</p> + +<p id="id01489">“You are the noblest woman in the world,” he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. “You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man—for a man she +did not know! And my life—whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow—or the day after—I shall justify these +great kindnesses—this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!”</p> + +<p id="id01490">As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away.</p> + +<p id="id01491">“I must go back,” said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight.</p> + +<p id="id01492">“You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again.”</p> + +<p id="id01493">She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once.</p> + +<p id="id01494">“Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,—I +should have gone back instantly.”</p> + +<p id="id01495">“But not across that spider’s web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley.”</p> + +<p id="id01496">“It is much nearer by the bridge,—and I have my horse over there.”</p> + +<p id="id01497">“We shall get the horse without trouble,” he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said:</p> + +<p id="id01498">“This is the Port of Missing Men.”</p> + +<p id="id01499">“Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It’s a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself.”</p> + +<p id="id01500">“I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I’ll wait here. Fetch the horse,” she said, “and hurry, please.”</p> + +<p id="id01501">“If there are explanations to make,” he began, looking at her gravely.</p> + +<p id="id01502">“I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate.”</p> + +<p id="id01503">As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him.</p> + +<p id="id01504">“Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar,” Armitage commanded.</p> + +<p id="id01505">They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01506">“You are not to come with me, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01507">“A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01508">“It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne’s stables; and ask and answer no +questions.”</p> + +<p id="id01509">A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following.</p> + +<p id="id01510">He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road.</p> + +<p id="id01511">“The bridge would have been simpler and quicker,” said Shirley; “as it +is, I shall be late to the ball.”</p> + +<p id="id01512">“I am contrite enough; but you don’t make explanations.”</p> + +<p id="id01513">“No; I don’t explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point,” she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible.</p> + +<p id="id01514">Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile.</p> + +<p id="id01515">He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living.</p> + +<p id="id01516">Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her.</p> + +<p id="id01517">“You ride wonderfully,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id01518">“The horse is a joy. He’s a Pendragon—I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I’m +sure.”</p> + +<p id="id01519">“You are quite right. He’s a Virginia horse. You are incomparable—no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It’s a brave woman who isn’t +a slave to her hair-pins—I don’t believe you spilled one.”</p> + +<p id="id01520">She drew rein at the cross-roads.</p> + +<p id="id01521">“We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?”</p> + +<p id="id01522">“Let me go to your own gate, please!”</p> + +<p id="id01523">“Not at all!” she said with decision.</p> + +<p id="id01524">“Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don’t see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks—for oh, so many things!” he pleaded.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id01525">“To-morrow—or the day after—or never!”</p> + +<p id="id01526">She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01527">Near her father’s estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier.</p> + +<p id="id01528">It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road.</p> + +<p id="id01529">“It is my captain’s horse—yes?” he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. “I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01530">A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father’s house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01531">“Where have you been, Shirley?”</p> + +<p id="id01532">“Walking.”</p> + +<p id="id01533">“But you went for a ride—the stable-men told me.”</p> + +<p id="id01534">“I believe that is true, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id01535">“And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English.”</p> + +<p id="id01536">“Well, they do say English isn’t very well taught at West Point, +Captain,” she replied, pulling off her gloves. “You oughtn’t to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy.”</p> + +<p id="id01537">“I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01538">“Captain!”</p> + +<p id="id01539">“Bah! What are you going to do now?”</p> + +<p id="id01540">“I’m going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone.”</p> + +<p id="id01541">“They have—for which you should be grateful!”</p> + +<p id="id01542">Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01543" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01544">THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD</h3> + +<p id="id01545">A glance, a word—and joy or pain<br> + + Befalls; what was no more shall be.<br> + +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny!<br></p> + +<p id="id01546">—T.B. Aldrich.</p> + +<p id="id01547" style="margin-top: 2em">Oscar’s eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched.</p> + +<p id="id01548">“It is the big fellow—yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known.”</p> + +<p id="id01549">Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road.</p> + +<p id="id01550">“It is mischief that brings him from the hills—yes?” Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly—very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones:</p> + +<p id="id01551">“Good evening, my friend; it’s a fine evening for a walk.”</p> + +<p id="id01552">Zmai drew back and growled.</p> + +<p id="id01553">“Let me pass,” he said in his difficult German.</p> + +<p id="id01554">“It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia—yes?” and Oscar’s tone was pleasantly +conversational.</p> + +<p id="id01555">Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault.</p> + +<p id="id01556">“A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01557">“I have no time for you,” snarled the Servian. “Be gone!” and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall.</p> + +<p id="id01558">“One should not be in too much haste, comrade;” and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips.</p> + +<p id="id01559">The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back.</p> + +<p id="id01560">“It is a message—yes?” asked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01561">“It is my affair,” blurted the big fellow. “I mean no harm to you.”</p> + +<p id="id01562">“It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01563">The little soldier whipped out his revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01564">“In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words—Ah!”</p> + +<p id="id01565">Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture.</p> + +<p id="id01566">The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar’s feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels.</p> + +<p id="id01567">Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening.</p> + +<p id="id01568">Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar’s revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report.</p> + +<p id="id01569">At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head.</p> + +<p id="id01570">“Stop; I want the letter!” shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels.</p> + +<p id="id01571">Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow’s broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar’s +hands slipped on the fellow’s hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head.</p> + +<p id="id01572">As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep.</p> + +<p id="id01573">“The letter—give me the letter!” commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian’s. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar’s hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man’s gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades.</p> + +<p id="id01574">Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.</p> + +<p id="id01575">“Damn the sheep!” roared Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01576">“It is sheep—yes?” and Oscar started to bolt.</p> + +<p id="id01577">“Halt!”</p> + +<p id="id01578">The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar’s ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer.</p> + +<p id="id01579">“What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?”</p> + +<p id="id01580">Oscar saluted and summoned his best English.</p> + +<p id="id01581">“It was an accident, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01582">“Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable.”</p> + +<p id="id01583">“There was a sheep-stealer—yes? He is yonder by the pens—and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead—no?”</p> + +<p id="id01584">At that moment Claiborne’s eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door.</p> + +<p id="id01585">“That is the sheep-stealer,” said Oscar. “We shall catch him—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01586">Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back.</p> + +<p id="id01587">“One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What’s that you have there? Give it to me—quick!”<br></p> + +<p id="id01588">“It’s a piece of wool—”</p> + +<p id="id01589">But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar’s hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever.</p> + +<p id="id01590">He blinked under Claiborne’s sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library.</p> + +<p id="id01591">“You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago.”</p> + +<p id="id01592">“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01593">“You have been a soldier.”</p> + +<p id="id01594">“In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home.”</p> + +<p id="id01595">“Where do you live?”</p> + +<p id="id01596">“I work as teamster in the coal mines—yes?—they are by Lamar, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01597">Claiborne studied Oscar’s erect figure carefully.</p> + +<p id="id01598">“Let me see your hands,” he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms.</p> + +<p id="id01599">“You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn’t go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt.”</p> + +<p id="id01600">Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written:</p> + +<p id="id01601">CABLEGRAM<br> + +WINKELRIED, VIENNA.<br> + +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET.<br></p> + +<p id="id01602">Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar.<br></p> + +<p id="id01603">“Where did you get this?”</p> + +<p id="id01604">“From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder.”</p> + +<p id="id01605">“Who is he and where did he get it?”</p> + +<p id="id01606">“I don’t know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01607">“What were you going to do with the paper?”</p> + +<p id="id01608">Oscar grinned.</p> + +<p id="id01609">“If I could read it—yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?”</p> + +<p id="id01610">Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar’s tranquil eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01611">“Dick!” called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01612">“Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?”</p> + +<p id="id01613">“I think not, Dick.”</p> + +<p id="id01614">“It was he that brought your horse home.”</p> + +<p id="id01615">“To be sure it is! I hadn’t recognized him. Thank you very much;” and she +smiled at Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01616">Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper.</p> + +<p id="id01617">“Where is Monsieur Chauvenet—have you any idea?”</p> + +<p id="id01618">“If he isn’t at the hotel or in Washington, I’m sure I don’t know. If we +are going to the dance—”</p> + +<p id="id01619">“Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away.”</p> + +<p id="id01620">“I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;” and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness.</p> + +<p id="id01621">Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read.</p> + +<p id="id01622">“Don’t touch it!” he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly:</p> + +<p id="id01623">“I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?”</p> + +<p id="id01624">“Don’t you know what <i>you</i> are doing here?” she asked, and he flushed.</p> + +<p id="id01625">“I know what, but not <i>why</i>!” he blurted irritably; “but that’s enough!”</p> + +<p id="id01626">“You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don’t know why.”</p> + +<p id="id01627">“I have my orders and I’m going to find him, if it takes ten years.”</p> + +<p id="id01628">Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id01629">“There’s no doubt of that being Chauvenet’s writing, is there?”</p> + +<p id="id01630">“I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01631">The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain.</p> + +<p id="id01632">Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01633">“Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer—an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It’s most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I’m going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!”</p> + +<p id="id01634">Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id01635">“Do it, Dick! He’s undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character.”</p> + +<p id="id01636">“I tell you I’ll find him,” he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers.</p> + +<p id="id01637">“I’ll help you, Dick,” she said, buttoning her glove.</p> + +<p id="id01638">“That’s like you, Shirley.”</p> + +<p id="id01639">“If you want to find Mr. Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01640">“Of course I want to find him—” His voice rose to a roar.</p> + +<p id="id01641">“Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!”</p> + +<p id="id01642">“Yes; I needed my man for other business,” said Armitage, folding his +arms, “and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01643">Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face.</p> + +<p id="id01644">“You are worse than I thought—eavesdropper, housebreaker!”</p> + +<p id="id01645">“Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?”</p> + +<p id="id01646">“You are a rogue, an impostor—”</p> + +<p id="id01647">“We will grant that,” said Armitage quietly. “Where is your warrant for +my arrest?”</p> + +<p id="id01648">“That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you.”</p> + +<p id="id01649">“It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p id="id01650">Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land’s commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The <i>coup de théâtre</i> by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house.</p> + +<p id="id01651">“You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here,” said +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id01652">“In America—in free Virginia—without legal process?” asked Armitage, +laughing.</p> + +<p id="id01653">“You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!”</p> + +<p id="id01654">“You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you—day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now—that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me.”</p> + +<p id="id01655">“No!” shouted Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01656">Armitage drew a step nearer.</p> + +<p id="id01657">“You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is.”</p> + +<p id="id01658">“You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01659">“Do so!—but <i>I</i> must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn’t understand it, and it is clear you +don’t. Give me the message!”</p> + +<p id="id01660">He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides.</p> + +<p id="id01661">“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01662">“I don’t like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01663">Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words:</p> + +<p id="id01664">“Winkelried—Vienna—not later than Friday—Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01665">“Shirley!” roared Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01666">John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited.</p> + +<p id="id01667">Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills.<br></p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01668" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01669">THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW</h3> + +<p id="id01670">So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of<br> + + battle,<br> + +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled<br> + + were many.<br> + +E’en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh<br> + + in splendor,<br> + +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin<br> + + is breathless,<br> + +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and<br> + + the valleys,<br> + +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless<br> + + ether<br> + +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd—<br> + +Such and so many the fires ’twixt the ships and the streams<br> + + of the Xanthus<br> + +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city.<br> + +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside<br> + + them<br> + +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses,<br> + +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for<br> + + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning.<br></p> + +<p id="id01671"><i>The Iliad</i>: Translation of Prentiss Cummings.</p> + +<p id="id01672" style="margin-top: 2em">“In Vienna, Friday!”</p> + +<p id="id01673">“There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;” and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar.</p> + +<p id="id01674">“Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do.”</p> + +<p id="id01675">“Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands—”</p> + +<p id="id01676">“<i>Our</i> own hands, if you would be accurate!”</p> + +<p id="id01677">“You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart’s desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn’t the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it.”</p> + +<p id="id01678">“You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation.”</p> + +<p id="id01679">“But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,—what +becomes of her in these transactions?”</p> + +<p id="id01680">“That is none of your affair,” replied Chauvenet, frowning. “I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01681">“Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there—ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be.”</p> + +<p id="id01682">“Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul.”</p> + +<p id="id01683">“The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage’s house.”</p> + +<p id="id01684">“Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit.”</p> + +<p id="id01685">The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand’s eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. “I do not require watching, my dear +Durand,” he had said.</p> + +<p id="id01686">“A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;” but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet’s mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere.</p> + +<p id="id01687">While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar’s +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage’s bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited.</p> + +<p id="id01688">Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face.</p> + +<p id="id01689">“The letters!” snapped Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01690">“Is the message safe?” demanded Durand.</p> + +<p id="id01691">“Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,—the +little soldier,—as I crossed a strange field.”</p> + +<p id="id01692">When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper.</p> + +<p id="id01693">“Horses; saddle our two horses quick—and get another if you have to +steal it,” he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow’s +head and cleanse his face.</p> + +<p id="id01694">“So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?”</p> + +<p id="id01695">The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet’s rapid German.</p> + +<p id="id01696">In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning.</p> + +<p id="id01697">The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies.</p> + +<p id="id01698">“We have no time to lose. That message must go to-night. You may be sure<br> + +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we’ve got to go down to +Storm Springs.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01699">They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed.</p> + +<p id="id01700">“He is not so big a fool, this Armitage,” remarked Durand. “He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna.”</p> + +<p id="id01701">“I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward.”</p> + +<p id="id01702">“Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation.”</p> + +<p id="id01703">“If we fail—” began Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01704">“You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?”</p> + +<p id="id01705">“We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,—and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,—he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01706">“And the fair daughter of the valley—”</p> + +<p id="id01707">“Pish! We are not discussing the young lady.”</p> + +<p id="id01708">“I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine <i>she</i> knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him.”</p> + +<p id="id01709">“His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular.”</p> + +<p id="id01710">Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly.</p> + +<p id="id01711">“Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way—a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!”</p> + +<p id="id01712">An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o’clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai’s laggard beast permitted.</p> + +<p id="id01713">The beat of a horse’s hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal’s walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse’s quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly.</p> + +<p id="id01714">In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian’s +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse.</p> + +<p id="id01715">“Wait!” said the Servian.</p> + +<p id="id01716">The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man’s deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet’s party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them.</p> + +<p id="id01717">“Who goes there?”</p> + +<p id="id01718">The stranger’s horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast’s up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined.</p> + +<p id="id01719">“Who goes there?” shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger’s horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai’s great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack.</p> + +<p id="id01720">“The knife?” bawled the Servian.</p> + +<p id="id01721">“No!” answered Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01722">“The devil!” yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast’s +flanks.</p> + +<p id="id01723">Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse’s head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips.</p> + +<p id="id01724">The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner.</p> + +<p id="id01725">“Tie him,” said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man’s arms +and bound them tight.</p> + +<p id="id01726">The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive’s horse.</p> + +<p id="id01727">“The fellow takes it pretty coolly,” remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. “What are you going to do with him ?”</p> + +<p id="id01728">“We will take him to his own place—it is near—and coax the papers out +of him; then we’ll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01729">Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse.</p> + +<p id="id01730">“I am ready,” he reported.</p> + +<p id="id01731">“Go ahead; we follow;” and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask:</p> + +<p id="id01732">“Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?”</p> + +<p id="id01733">“Undoubtedly. I didn’t get a square look at him, but he’s a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he’s riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago.”</p> + +<p id="id01734">“Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!”</p> + +<p id="id01735">“The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack.”</p> + +<p id="id01736">Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai.</p> + +<p id="id01737">“The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it.”</p> + +<p id="id01738">They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway.</p> + +<p id="id01739">Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh.</p> + +<p id="id01740">“You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?”</p> + +<p id="id01741">“Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There’s the house.”</p> + +<p id="id01742">He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet’s courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage’s +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others.</p> + +<p id="id01743">“Bring him in!” he said, without taking his eyes from the room.</p> + +<p id="id01744">A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail.</p> + +<p id="id01745">Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them.</p> + +<p id="id01746">“Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;” and as Durand turned into Armitage’s room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner.</p> + +<p id="id01747">“Take off the bag,” he commanded.</p> + +<p id="id01748">Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access.</p> + +<p id="id01749">“Mr. John Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01750">Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01751">The perspiration on Claiborne’s face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men.</p> + +<p id="id01752">The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage’s room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor.</p> + +<p id="id01753">“It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!” muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne’s face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor.</p> + +<p id="id01754">Durand stepped forward with an oath.</p> + +<p id="id01755">“Who is the man?” he demanded.</p> + +<p id="id01756">“It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology—” +Chauvenet began.<br></p> + +<p id="id01757">“You put it mildly,” cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. “I don’t +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur—”</p> + +<p id="id01758">“It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation—anything you ask,” stammered Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01759">“You are looking for John Armitage, are you?” demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet’s words. “Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o’clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you.”</p> + +<p id="id01760">“You are violent, my dear sir—” began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet’s.</p> + +<p id="id01761">“I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!”</p> + +<p id="id01762">Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm’s length.</p> + +<p id="id01763">“You know too much!”</p> + +<p id="id01764">“I don’t know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War.”</p> + +<p id="id01765">Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation.</p> + +<p id="id01766">“You don’t understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance.”</p> + +<p id="id01767">It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness.</p> + +<p id="id01768">“You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear,” said Claiborne. “What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id01769">“He is a menace to a great throne—an impostor—a—”</p> + +<p id="id01770">Chauvenet’s eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man’s gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him.</p> + +<p id="id01771">“Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles—are not +for these free hills.”</p> + +<p id="id01772">“<i>Where is John Armitage</i>?”</p> + +<p id="id01773">Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed.</p> + +<p id="id01774">Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf.</p> + +<p id="id01775">“I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father’s, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!”</p> + +<p id="id01776">“Come; we waste time,” said Durand in French. “It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!”</p> + +<p id="id01777">“Yes; you’d better go,” said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. “I don’t believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I’ll go to bed. I’m sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can’t just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice.”</p> + +<p id="id01778">He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them.</p> + +<p id="id01779">“Good night, and clear out,” and he waved his arm in dismissal.</p> + +<p id="id01780">“Come!” said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door.</p> + +<p id="id01781">As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight.</p> + +<p id="id01782">As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01783" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01784">THE VERGE OF MORNING</h3> + +<p id="id01785">O to mount again where erst I haunted;<br> + +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,<br> + + And the low green meadows<br> + + Bright with sward;<br> + +And when even dies, the million-tinted,<br> + +And the night has come, and planets glinted,<br> + + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr’d.<br></p> + +<h3 id="id01786">—R.L.S.</h3> + +<p id="id01787" style="margin-top: 2em">“I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!”</p> + +<p id="id01788">Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar’s arm to check the +rush of the little man.</p> + +<p id="id01789">Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms.</p> + +<p id="id01790">“Yes; they are very interesting.”</p> + +<p id="id01791">“And those ribbons and that cloak,—I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman’s horse. Then make some +coffee and wait.”</p> + +<p id="id01792">As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01793">“I didn’t expect this of you; I really didn’t expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?”</p> + +<p id="id01794">“I don’t know—I’ll be <i>damned</i> if I know!” and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage’s +slumbering wrath.</p> + +<p id="id01795">“You’d better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can’t explain yourself I’m going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?”</p> + +<p id="id01796">“I didn’t <i>come</i> here, Armitage; I was brought—with a potato sack over +my head. There’s the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn’t on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs.”</p> + +<p id="id01797">“What are you doing up here in the mountains—why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!”</p> + +<p id="id01798">“Armitage”—as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it—“Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now—”</p> + +<p id="id01799">“Damn my cigarette case!” bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it.</p> + +<p id="id01800">“That’s what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,—you must admit +that.”</p> + +<p id="id01801">“It was, indeed!”</p> + +<p id="id01802">“It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!”</p> + +<p id="id01803">“No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01804">Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01805">“And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!”</p> + +<p id="id01806">“What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don’t know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can’t get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I’m going to chuck you back into the sack.”</p> + +<p id="id01807">“I came up here in the hills to look for you—you—you—! Do you +understand?” began Claiborne angrily. “And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they’ve +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody’s eye. And there’s all +there is of the story, and I don’t care a damn whether you believe it or +not.”</p> + +<p id="id01808">Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage’s tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud.</p> + +<p id="id01809">“Your face—your face, Claiborne; it’s funny. It’s too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it’s something ghastly. For God’s sake go in there +and wash your face!”</p> + +<p id="id01810">He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave.</p> + +<p id="id01811">“Claiborne—”</p> + +<p id="id01812">Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp.</p> + +<p id="id01813">“You don’t know who I am or what I am; and I haven’t got time to tell +you now. It’s a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what’s going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain—or—must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?”</p> + +<p id="id01814">“Marhof may go to the devil! He’s a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof’s cause.”</p> + +<p id="id01815">“They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye.”</p> + +<p id="id01816">“I believe you, Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id01817">“Thank you. Now your horse is at the door—run along like a good fellow.”</p> + +<p id="id01818">Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on.</p> + +<p id="id01819">“Oscar!” he yelled, “bring in that coffee—with cups for two.”</p> + +<p id="id01820">He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings.</p> + +<p id="id01821">“Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle.”</p> + +<p id="id01822">He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes.</p> + +<p id="id01823">“Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There’s a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you’d like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs,” he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank.</p> + +<p id="id01824">“I’m taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods.”</p> + +<p id="id01825">There was a great color in Armitage’s face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor.</p> + +<p id="id01826">“Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise—isn’t that so, Claiborne?—and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag—original package, you understand. And see if +you can’t find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar—”</p> + +<p id="id01827">With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. “If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe70_25" id="illustration_p320_2"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_p320.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne.”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01828">He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click.</p> + +<p id="id01829">Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id01830">Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty.</p> + +<p id="id01831">“Lord, man! I didn’t mean to throw you into the road! There’s a clean bed +in there that you’re welcome to—go in and get some sleep.”</p> + +<p id="id01832">“I’m not going into the valley,” roared Claiborne, “and I’m not going to +bed; I’m going with you, damn you!”</p> + +<p id="id01833">“But bless your soul, man, you can’t go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I’m terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances—”</p> + +<p id="id01834">“I repeat that I’m going with you. I don’t know why I’m in this row, and +I don’t know what it’s all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can’t be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there.”</p> + +<p id="id01835">“But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again,” said Armitage earnestly. “Take your horse +and go.”</p> + +<p id="id01836">“I’m going back to the valley when you do.”</p> + +<p id="id01837">“Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice.”</p> + +<p id="id01838">He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with:</p> + +<p id="id01839">“I do not think a braver gentleman,<br> + +More active-valiant or more valiant-young,<br> + +More daring or more bold, is now alive<br> + +To grace this latter age with noble deeds.<br> + +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;—<br></p> + +<p id="id01840">“Lord, Claiborne, you don’t know what’s ahead of us! It’s the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this—not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we’ll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We’re off!”</p> + +<p id="id01841">“All ready, sir;” said Oscar briskly.</p> + +<p id="id01842">“It’s half-past two. They didn’t get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They’ve probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven’t got me!”</p> + +<p id="id01843">“They had me and didn’t want me,” said Claiborne, mounting his own horse.</p> + +<p id="id01844">“They’ll have a good many things they don’t want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn’t enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it’s been a great old lark. And now to catch them!”</p> + +<p id="id01845">Outside the preserve they paused for an instant.</p> + +<p id="id01846">“They’re not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven’t studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven’t followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There’s a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I’m guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land.”</p> + +<p id="id01847">“To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business,” said +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id01848">“Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I’ll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses.”</p> + +<p id="id01849">Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses—two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again.</p> + +<p id="id01850">“Come! We’re on the verge of morning,” said Armitage, “and there’s no +time to lose.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01851" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01852">THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD</h3> + +<p id="id01853">Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,<br> + +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.<br></p> + +<p id="id01854">—Louise Imogen Guiney.</p> + +<p id="id01855" style="margin-top: 2em">“There’s an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I’m not mistaken, and if +we’ve made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad.”</p> + +<p id="id01856">Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter.</p> + +<p id="id01857">“It’s a strange business,” Claiborne muttered half-aloud.</p> + +<p id="id01858">The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas.</p> + +<p id="id01859">He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance.</p> + +<p id="id01860">“It’s all right; they haven’t passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they’re handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don’t forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I’m afraid we’re going to have a wet +morning.”</p> + +<p id="id01861">They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches.</p> + +<p id="id01862">“Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic,” said +Armitage; “but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I’ve done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it.”</p> + +<p id="id01863">Claiborne groaned mockingly.</p> + +<p id="id01864">“I suppose I’ll know what it’s all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I’m fighting for.”</p> + +<p id="id01865">“You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you’ve got to take +the consequences. You’ve done what you set out to do—you’ve found me; +and you’re traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I’m going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor—I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build—and in the +dark—on horseback—”</p> + +<p id="id01866">“That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they’d plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion.”</p> + +<p id="id01867">“Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01868">The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot.</p> + +<p id="id01869">Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted.</p> + +<p id="id01870">“Bully for us! We’ve cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01871">“There are three horses all right enough, and they’re forcing the beasts. +What’s the word?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01872">“Drive them back! Ready—here we go!” roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard.</p> + +<p id="id01873">They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop.</p> + +<p id="id01874">“‘Not later than Friday’—back you go!” shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy’s rout. One of the horses—it seemed from its rider’s +yells to be Chauvenet’s—turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come.</p> + +<p id="id01875">Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them.</p> + +<p id="id01876">“They’re rattled,” said Claiborne, “and the fog isn’t helping them any.”</p> + +<p id="id01877">“We’re getting close to my place,” said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses.</p> + +<p id="id01878">“It’s Oscar! He’s a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right.”</p> + +<p id="id01879">“If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment,” +observed Claiborne. “The fog muffles sounds. The road’s pretty level in +here.”</p> + +<p id="id01880">“We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We’re +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!”</p> + +<p id="id01881">The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again.</p> + +<p id="id01882">“By George! They’re coming—here we go!”</p> + +<p id="id01883">They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice.</p> + +<p id="id01884">“Oscar has them on the run—bully for Oscar! They’re getting close—thank +the Lord for this level stretch—now howl and let ’er go!”</p> + +<p id="id01885">They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses’ hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground.</p> + +<p id="id01886">“They’re terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed,” shouted +Claiborne. “Now for it!”<br></p> + +<p id="id01887">They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist.</p> + +<p id="id01888">There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant’s glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand’s impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right.</p> + +<p id="id01889">With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon<br> + +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then<br> + +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet’s frightened horse, panic-stricken at the<br> + +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed.<br></p> + +<p id="id01890">The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses.</p> + +<p id="id01891">“That was too close for fun—are you all there?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01892">“Still in it; but Chauvenet’s friend won’t miss every time. There’s +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse.”</p> + +<p id="id01893">“Oh, he’s a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun.”</p> + +<p id="id01894">They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light.</p> + +<p id="id01895">“This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you’d get out of this +and go home. You see they’re an ugly lot and don’t use toy pistols.”</p> + +<p id="id01896">“Remember the potato sack! That’s my watchword,” laughed Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01897">They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade.</p> + +<p id="id01898">“I should value a change of raiment,” observed Armitage. “There was an +advantage in armor—your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn’t stick to your hide.”</p> + +<p id="id01899">“Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again.”</p> + +<p id="id01900">They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage’s bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs.</p> + +<p id="id01901">“Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!” And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01902">The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage’s +shots.</p> + +<p id="id01903">“Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!”</p> + +<p id="id01904">“There!”</p> + +<p id="id01905">Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe.</p> + +<p id="id01906">“He’s crazy—he’s gone clean out of his head!” muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. “What do you make of it?”</p> + +<p id="id01907">“He’s having fun with them. He’s just rattling them to warm himself +up—the little beggar. I didn’t know it was in him.”</p> + +<p id="id01908">Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop.</p> + +<p id="id01909">Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar’s wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01910">“Oh, for a saber now!” growled Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01911">But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand’s horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business.</p> + +<p id="id01912">The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear.</p> + +<p id="id01913">“My horse got it that time!” shouted Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01914">“So did I,” replied Armitage; “but never you mind, old man, we’ve got +them cornered now.”</p> + +<p id="id01915" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id01916">“Much damage?”</p> + +<p id="id01917">“It struck a hard place, but I am still fit.”</p> + +<p id="id01918">The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne’s horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace.</p> + +<p id="id01919">“Poor devil! We’ll have a reckoning pretty soon,” cried Armitage +cheerily. “No kingdom is worth a good horse!”</p> + +<p id="id01920">They advanced at a trot toward the Port.</p> + +<p id="id01921">“You’ll be afoot any minute now, but we’re in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won’t care to drop +into! I’m off for the gate—you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer.”</p> + +<p id="id01922">Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01923" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01924">THE PORT OF MISSING MEN</h3> + +<p id="id01925">Fast they come, fast they come;<br> + + See how they gather!<br> + +Wide waves the eagle plume,<br> + + Blended with heather.<br> + +Cast your plaids, draw your blades,<br> + + Forward each man set!<br> + +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset!<br></p> + +<p id="id01926">—Sir Walter Scott.</p> + +<p id="id01927" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left.</p> + +<p id="id01928">“It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man—yes?” was the little +sergeant’s comment. “We shall come back for the saddle and bridle.”</p> + +<p id="id01929">“Humph! Where do you think those men are?”</p> + +<p id="id01930">“Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position.”</p> + +<p id="id01931">“I’m not sure of that. They’ll escape across the old bridge.”</p> + +<p id="id01932">“<i>Nein</i>. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once—they would not +need our bullets!”</p> + +<p id="id01933">Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage.<br></p> + +<p id="id01934">“It’s the signal that he’s got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you.”</p> + +<p id="id01935">“You will have my horse—yes?” Oscar began to dismount.</p> + +<p id="id01936">“No; I do well enough this way. Forward!—the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them.”</p> + +<p id="id01937">The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol.</p> + +<p id="id01938">The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him!</p> + +<p id="id01939">As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet’s party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines.</p> + +<p id="id01940">“They’re really not so bad—bad luck to them!” he muttered. “I’ll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;” and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage’s slow advance out into the open.</p> + +<p id="id01941">The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne’s +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure.</p> + +<p id="id01942">Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target’s elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing.</p> + +<p id="id01943">“I’ve never been the same since that fever,” growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance.</p> + +<p id="id01944">Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage’s advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading.</p> + +<p id="id01945">“They are all together again, are they?” asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne’s rock, his eyes upon the barricade.</p> + +<p id="id01946">“The gentleman with the curly hair—I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01947">Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences.<br></p> + +<p id="id01948">“Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I’d like to try hunger on +them,” said Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01949">“They’ll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they’ll break it down, and we’ll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them—alive?”</p> + +<p id="id01950">“I certainly do!” Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider.</p> + +<p id="id01951">The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth.</p> + +<p id="id01952">“For God’s sake, get off that horse, Armitage!” bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. “There’s no use in wasting yourself that way.”</p> + +<p id="id01953">“My arm aches and I’ve got to do something. Let’s try storming them just +for fun. It’s a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that’s supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we’ll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn’t as stiff as it looks from this side—know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can’t be seen from this side.”</p> + +<p id="id01954">“Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You’ve got a +hole in you now! Get down!”</p> + +<p id="id01955">“You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them.”</p> + +<p id="id01956">His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert.</p> + +<p id="id01957">Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering:</p> + +<p id="id01958">“For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!”</p> + +<p id="id01959">Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them.</p> + +<p id="id01960">“They can’t jump this—they’ll veer off before they get here,” shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. “Wait till they check their horses for the +turn.”</p> + +<p id="id01961">“We are fools. They have got us trapped;” and Durand’s hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai’s scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne’s voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts.</p> + +<p id="id01962">But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure.</p> + +<p id="id01963">Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood:</p> + +<p id="id01964">“It is in the blood; he is like a king.”</p> + +<p id="id01965">But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field:</p> + +<p id="id01966">“He bade me do something for Austria—for Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id01967">“He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him,” said Zmai.</p> + +<p id="id01968">Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar’s horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him.</p> + +<p id="id01969">“Take him first,” cried Chauvenet. “Then be ready for Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01970">Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage’s +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause—not heeding Armitage’s cries—on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared.</p> + +<p id="id01971">Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse’s forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet’s curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels.</p> + +<p id="id01972">Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage’s face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud:</p> + +<p id="id01973">“Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried’s in +jail and the jig’s up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!”</p> + +<p id="id01974">He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage’s head.</p> + +<p id="id01975">“Drop that gun—drop it damned quick!” and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet’s head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01976">It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight.</p> + +<p id="id01977">“It’s all over but the shouting—what’s next?” demanded Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01978">“Tie him up—and tie the other one up,” said Armitage, staring about +queerly. “Where the devil is Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id01979">“He’s after the big fellow. You’re badly fussed, old man. We’ve got to +get out of this and fix you up.”</p> + +<p id="id01980">“I’m all right. I’ve got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we’ve got them nailed, and it’s all right, old +man!”</p> + +<p id="id01981">Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01982">“If you start to run I’ll certainly kill you, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01983">“We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings.”</p> + +<p id="id01984">Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01985">“Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing.”</p> + +<p id="id01986">“But, Messieurs,” began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure—“this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions.”</p> + +<p id="id01987">“I don’t question it,” laughed Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01988">“But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country.”</p> + +<p id="id01989">“It will, indeed,” and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage’s hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. “In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01990">“I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01991">Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously.</p> + +<p id="id01992">“You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I’ll choke you!”</p> + +<p id="id01993">Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand:<br></p> + +<p id="id01994">“Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?”</p> + +<p id="id01995">Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand’s pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01996">“We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions.”</p> + +<p id="id01997">A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave.</p> + +<p id="id01998">“Where is the Servian?” demanded Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01999">The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02000">“He will not come back,” said the sergeant quietly.</p> + +<p id="id02001">“That is bad,” remarked Armitage. “Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage’s house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately.”</p> + +<p id="id02002">“But Armitage—not Marhof—for God’s sake, not Marhof.” Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +“Not Marhof!”</p> + +<p id="id02003">“We can fix this among ourselves—just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs,” protested Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02004">“That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored,” said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision.</p> + +<p id="id02005">“Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?”</p> + +<p id="id02006">Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage’s tone.<br></p> + +<p id="id02007">“It’s a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn’t take as much time as +you thought it would.”</p> + +<p id="id02008">Oscar had mounted Armitage’s horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road.</p> + +<p id="id02009">“After you deliver Mr. Armitage’s message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here.”</p> + +<p id="id02010">“No!” began Armitage. “Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don’t propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!”</p> + +<p id="id02011">“Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He’s +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!”</p> + +<p id="id02012">The conspirators’ horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them.</p> + +<p id="id02013">“Don’t treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we’ll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!”</p> + +<p id="id02014">Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern.</p> + +<p id="id02015">“Wait a few hours, Armitage—let us sit down and talk it all over. We’re +not as black as your imagination paints us!”</p> + +<p id="id02016">“Save your breath! You’ve had your fun so far, and now I’m going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you’re not made for work in the open. Forward!”</p> + +<p id="id02017">They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02018" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02019">“WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?”</h3> + +<p id="id02020">“<i>Morbleu, Monsieur</i>, you give me too much majesty,” said +the Prince.—<i>The History of Henry Esmond</i>.</p> + +<p id="id02021" style="margin-top: 2em">“These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer—let them sequester +themselves!” and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. “I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about—he may wish to explore my trunks again,” and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd.</p> + +<p id="id02022">“Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we’ll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,—but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time.”</p> + +<p id="id02023">He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat.</p> + +<p id="id02024">“I’d like to hold a little private execution for this,” growled the +officer. “A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart.”</p> + +<p id="id02025">“Don’t be spiteful! I’m as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that.”</p> + +<p id="id02026">“You’re not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can’t do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he’ll fix you up in a +jiffy.”</p> + +<p id="id02027">“That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve—yes, I guess we’ll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir.”</p> + +<p id="id02028">“Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id02029">“I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry’s the Baron will be +glad to let me off.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe63_6875" id="illustration_p356"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_p356.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>With their wrists tied behind them, they looked the +least bit absurd</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id02030">He laughed softly and began repeating:</p> + +<p id="id02031">“‘Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.’”</p> + +<p id="id02032">Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh:</p> + +<p id="id02033">“I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I’ll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival—but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown—it’s in the leather-covered trunk in my room—the one with +the most steamer labels on it—go bring it, Claiborne, and we’ll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick—they ought to be here by this +time!”</p> + +<p id="id02034">He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air.</p> + +<p id="id02035">“The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there’s no treason in hauling up an alien flag,” and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner.</p> + +<p id="id02036">“Here they are,” called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions.</p> + +<p id="id02037">“Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but”—and he looked at Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id02038">“If you will do me the honor to enter—all of you!” and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them.</p> + +<p id="id02039">“We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man,” said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand.</p> + +<p id="id02040">“What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?” demanded Judge +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id02041">“There was a battle,” replied Dick, grinning, “and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet.”</p> + +<p id="id02042">Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley’s cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly.</p> + +<p id="id02043">Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o’clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her.</p> + +<p id="id02044">“You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear.”</p> + +<p id="id02045">“Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together,” said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly.</p> + +<p id="id02046">Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02047">“Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage,” said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand.</p> + +<p id="id02048">“Won’t you please come in?” said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began:</p> + +<p id="id02049">“Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual—they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne’s advice.”</p> + +<p id="id02050">“Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy,” said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage’s face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees.</p> + +<p id="id02051">“You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests.”</p> + +<p id="id02052">The Baron nodded.</p> + +<p id="id02053">“Yes, I dare say,” he remarked dryly.</p> + +<p id="id02054">“And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them—one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question.”</p> + +<p id="id02055">Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily:</p> + +<p id="id02056">“This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!”</p> + +<p id="id02057">“Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question—just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me—a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work—and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the <i>King Edward</i>. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne’s table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one—some one in +particular.”</p> + +<p id="id02058">Armitage’s eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded:</p> + +<p id="id02059">“Who am I, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p id="id02060">Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly:</p> + +<p id="id02061">“You are the devil—an impostor, a liar, a thief!”</p> + +<p id="id02062">Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English:</p> + +<p id="id02063">“Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?”</p> + +<p id="id02064">“Answer and be quick about it!” snapped Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02065">“I tell you”—began Chauvenet fiercely.</p> + +<p id="id02066">“<i>Who am I</i>?” asked Armitage again.</p> + +<p id="id02067">“I don’t know who you are—”</p> + +<p id="id02068">“You do not! You certainly do not!” laughed Armitage; “but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p id="id02069">“I thought—”</p> + +<p id="id02070">“Yes; you thought—”</p> + +<p id="id02071">“I thought—there seemed reasons to believe—”</p> + +<p id="id02072">“Yes; and you believe it; go on!”</p> + +<p id="id02073">Chauvenet’s eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German:</p> + +<p id="id02074">“This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation—he is +a menace to the throne—”</p> + +<p id="id02075">“Who is he?” demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02076">“I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away—drove him here to watch him. See these things—that +sword—those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death—one death—at Vienna—and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!”</p> + +<p id="id02077">The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador’s +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered:</p> + +<p id="id02078">“He would be king; he would be king!”</p> + +<p id="id02079">Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02080">“That will do. The gentleman may retire now.”</p> + +<p id="id02081">As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling.</p> + +<p id="id02082">“I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl,” he said +quietly; “nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne’s supper-party belongs to me. Here it is.”</p> + +<p id="id02083">The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly.</p> + +<p id="id02084">“This device—the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id02085">“It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl’s son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder—all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly.”</p> + +<p id="id02086">The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold—the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors—the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador’s fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus.</p> + +<p id="id02087">The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02088">“Where is he, Monsieur?” he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows.</p> + +<p id="id02089">“The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be—he, too, is dead.”</p> + +<p id="id02090">“You are quite sure—you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02091">“I am quite sure.”</p> + +<p id="id02092">“That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!”</p> + +<p id="id02093">“No, it is not enough,” replied Armitage quietly. “Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke—his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago.”</p> + +<p id="id02094">“Yes; he was mad—quite mad,” blurted the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02095">“That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year.”</p> + +<p id="id02096">Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused.</p> + +<p id="id02097">“What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02098">“I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key.”</p> + +<p id="id02099">As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down.</p> + +<p id="id02100">“Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?” said the Baron kindly.</p> + +<p id="id02101">“No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons—for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, <i>is not his son</i>!”</p> + +<p id="id02102">“What!” roared the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02103">“It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance.”</p> + +<p id="id02104">The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword.</p> + +<p id="id02105">“It is a marvelous story—it is wonderful! Can it be true—can it be +true?” murmured the Ambassador.</p> + +<p id="id02106">“The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours,” said Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02107">“You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir,” said the Baron, “but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners—”</p> + +<p id="id02108">“They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus,” and Armitage smiled. “I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case—it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me—and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl’s reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne.”</p> + +<p id="id02109">“Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I—”</p> + +<p id="id02110">“And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl’s repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house.”</p> + +<p id="id02111">The Ambassador’s eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage’s lips; but Armitage went on:</p> + +<p id="id02112">“I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the <i>George W. Custis</i>, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan’s wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn’t my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +<i>Sophia Margaret</i>, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive.”</p> + +<p id="id02113">He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id02114">Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all.</p> + +<p id="id02115">“Who are <i>you</i>, John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02116">And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout:</p> + +<p id="id02117">“I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke’s son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father’s place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short—I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies.”</p> + +<p id="id02118">“Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father—you +never went to him?”</p> + +<p id="id02119">“I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria—Austria, always +Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id02120">“Yes; that was quite like him,” said the Ambassador. “He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America—he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you—that you should have chosen to live here.”</p> + +<p id="id02121">“Then when I saw him at Geneva—that last interview—he told me that +Karl’s statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again—never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now—”</p> + +<p id="id02122">He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened.</p> + +<p id="id02123">“It was not my fault—it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I’ve got them in the room there where they can’t do any +harm!—and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I’m sick—yes, I’m sick—and sleepy—and you’d better haul +down that flag over the door—it’s treason, I tell you!—and if you see +Shirley, tell her I’m John Armitage—tell her I’m John Armitage, John +Arm—”</p> + +<p id="id02124">The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02125" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02126">DECENT BURIAL</h3> + +<p id="id02127">To-morrow? ’Tis not ours to know<br> + + That we again shall see the flowers.<br> + +To-morrow is the gods’—but, oh! + To day is ours.<br></p> + +<p id="id02128">—C.E. Merrill, Jr.</p> + +<p id="id02129" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador’s demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne’s bag, and all was now in readiness for the night.</p> + +<p id="id02130">Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars.</p> + +<p id="id02131">“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id02132">“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?”</p> + +<p id="id02133">“But the men should be hanged—for they shot our captain, and he may +die.”</p> + +<p id="id02134">The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02135">“He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.”</p> + +<p id="id02136">Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper.</p> + +<p id="id02137">“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic—no?”</p> + +<p id="id02138">“You need not tell me how—or anything about it—but you are sure he is +quite dead?”</p> + +<p id="id02139">“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. “I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it +not so?”</p> + +<p id="id02140">“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.”</p> + +<p id="id02141">“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner—yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them—though I had not touched them—and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down—God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.”</p> + +<p id="id02142">And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars.</p> + +<p id="id02143">“Yes, it must have been terrible,” said Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02144">“But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him.”</p> + +<p id="id02145">“But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law’s aid at once.”</p> + +<p id="id02146">“Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station.”</p> + +<p id="id02147">Claiborne looked at his watch.</p> + +<p id="id02148">“I will go with you,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id02149">They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see.</p> + +<p id="id02150">“He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes.”</p> + +<p id="id02151">When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks.</p> + +<p id="id02152"><i>“From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!”</i></p> + +<p id="id02153">Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian’s soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying:</p> + +<p id="id02154"><i>“—That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys.”</i></p> + +<p id="id02155">He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat.</p> + +<p id="id02156">“He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him.”</p> + +<p id="id02157">“Yes, we were spared murder,” said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne’s side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar’s shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning.</p> + +<p id="id02158">“You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?” asked Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02159">“Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father’s place—the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain’s mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition—no?”</p> + +<p id="id02160">The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne’s direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily:</p> + +<p id="id02161">“If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they’re put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the <i>George W. Custis</i>, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender.”</p> + +<p id="id02162">Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears.</p> + +<p id="id02163">“We will waive our right to a writ of <i>habeas corpus</i>,” remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. “Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne’s courteous treatment of us.”</p> + +<p id="id02164">“Shut up!” snapped Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id02165">“You will both of you do well to hold your tongues,” remarked Claiborne +dryly. “One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back.”</p> + +<p id="id02166">“You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne,” drawled Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02167">“There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?” demanded +Chauvenet.<br></p> + +<p id="id02168">“I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision—”</p> + +<p id="id02169">Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern.</p> + +<p id="id02170">“We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!” said Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02171">“Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding—kidnapping us this way—without opportunity for +counsel.”</p> + +<p id="id02172">“And without benefit of clergy,” laughed Claiborne. “Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm.”</p> + +<p id="id02173">“Drive on!” ejaculated Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id02174">As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles.</p> + +<p id="id02175">“That’s the end of one chapter,” remarked Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02176">“They’re glad enough to go,” said Dick. “What’s the latest word from +Vienna?”<br></p> + +<p id="id02177">“The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly—thanks to +Mr. John Armitage,” and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id02178">When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage’s condition was satisfactory.</p> + +<p id="id02179">“He is a hardy plant,” said the surgeon, “and will pull through.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02180" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02181">JOHN ARMITAGE</h3> + +<p id="id02182">If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.—Marius the Epicurean.</p> + +<p id="id02183" style="margin-top: 2em">June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof’s cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily.</p> + +<p id="id02184">“He’s as obstinate as a mule!”</p> + +<p id="id02185">Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron’s vehemence.</p> + +<p id="id02186">“He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances.”</p> + +<p id="id02187">“What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!”</p> + +<p id="id02188">“I suppose there is; but he’s of age; he’s a grown man. I don’t see what +you’re going to do about it.”</p> + +<p id="id02189">“Neither do I! But think what he’s putting aside. The boy’s clever—he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position—the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father’s memory and reputation behind him—”</p> + +<p id="id02190">“But the idea of reward doesn’t appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night.”</p> + +<p id="id02191">“There’s one thing I haven’t dared to ask him: to take his own name—to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn’t want his +father’s money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too.”</p> + +<p id="id02192">“It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id02193">“It’s simply providential that he hasn’t become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!”</p> + +<p id="id02194">They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by.</p> + +<p id="id02195">“Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger.”</p> + +<p id="id02196">He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligée shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free.</p> + +<p id="id02197">“Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can’t be sure of you long,” said the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02198">“You have spoiled me,—I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true.”</p> + +<p id="id02199">“Something must be done about your father’s estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready.”</p> + +<p id="id02200">The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously.</p> + +<p id="id02201">Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees.</p> + +<p id="id02202">“No,—no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country—something that we may hope pleases him if he knows.”</p> + +<p id="id02203">The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request.</p> + +<p id="id02204">“But the name—the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known—a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe—surely +you can at least accept that.”</p> + +<p id="id02205">The Ambassador’s tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw—or thought he saw—the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02206">“How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?” he asked, +sitting down.</p> + +<p id="id02207">“Nothing,—absolutely nothing. The presence of the <i>Sophia Margaret</i> off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,—please do not forget that!—and +you are a friend of my family,—a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness.”</p> + +<p id="id02208">The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still +unanswered.</p> + +<p id="id02209">“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.”</p> + +<p id="id02210">“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him.</p> + +<p id="id02211">“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. “I read in the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id02212">“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.”</p> + +<p id="id02213">“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge +Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them.”</p> + +<p id="id02214">“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02215">Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id02216">“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody.”</p> + +<p id="id02217">A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read.</p> + +<p id="id02218">“It’s from the commander of the <i>Sophia Margaret</i>, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health.”</p> + +<p id="id02219">“It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But”—and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously—“as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That’s what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense.”</p> + +<p id="id02220">Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,—before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man’s desire.</p> + +<p id="id02221">The Baron’s next words broke harshly upon his mood.</p> + +<p id="id02222">“The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to<br> + +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,—you could make yourself the younger—the great Stroebel—”<br></p> + +<p id="id02223">The mention of his name brought back the Baron’s still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling.</p> + +<p id="id02224">“I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,—if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,—that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me.”</p> + +<p id="id02225">He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses.</p> + +<p id="id02226">Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron’s +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim.</p> + +<p id="id02227">At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +<i>vestigia</i> that interested him deeply,—a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her.</p> + +<p id="id02228">“They told me you wouldn’t dare venture out for a week,” she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand.</p> + +<p id="id02229">“That was what they told me,” he said, laughing; “but I escaped from my +keepers.”</p> + +<p id="id02230">“You will undoubtedly take cold,—without your hat!”</p> + +<p id="id02231">“Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances.”</p> + +<p id="id02232">“You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero.”</p> + +<p id="id02233">“Please!” He held up his hand. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”</p> + +<p id="id02234">“About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow.”</p> + +<p id="id02235">She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy’s whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,—an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,—not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him.</p> + +<p id="id02236">“I didn’t know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn’t have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn’t +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall.”</p> + +<p id="id02237">“Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It’s hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven’t your hat—”</p> + +<p id="id02238">“Neither have you; you shan’t outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,—the loot of the pergola!”</p> + +<p id="id02239">“There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can’t be responsible +for you.”</p> + +<p id="id02240">“The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that’s what I +have come to ask you about.”</p> + +<p id="id02241">“Then I should say that you oughtn’t to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he’s your uncle.”<br></p> + +<p id="id02242">“No! No! I don’t want him to be my uncle! I don’t need any uncle!”</p> + +<p id="id02243">He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh.</p> + +<p id="id02244">“I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don’t worry; the sheep won’t +tell—and I won’t.”</p> + +<p id="id02245">He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them.</p> + +<p id="id02246">“Shirley!”</p> + +<p id="id02247">He touched her hand.</p> + +<p id="id02248">“Shirley!” and his fingers closed upon hers.</p> + +<p id="id02249">“I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,—before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood—I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;—but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father’s eyes,—his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,—they wish me to take that.”</p> + +<p id="id02250">She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills.</p> + +<p id="id02251">“The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,—in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,—it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man’s right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,—unless you tell me I must, Shirley!”</p> + +<p id="id02252">There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips.</p> + +<p id="id02253">“It was that way,—you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes.”</p> + +<p id="id02254">He caught her hand and kissed it,—bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face.</p> + +<p id="id02255">“I do not know,”—and he scarcely heard the whispered words,—“I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,—but I love—John Armitage,” she +said.</p> + +<p id="id02256">Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron’s +question.</p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/13913-h/images/cover.jpg b/13913-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f48595 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e213189 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg b/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85a67ff --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg b/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..54a180c --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e70e8b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..829d690 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg diff --git a/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a50e27 --- /dev/null +++ b/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c0abf4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13913 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13913) diff --git a/old/13913-0.txt b/old/13913-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ed5e8f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9705 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 *** +[Illustration: Shirley Claiborne] + + + + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + + +by + +MEREDITH NICHOLSON + +Author of _The House of a Thousand Candles_, _The Main Chance_, +_Zelda Dameron_, etc. + + +With Illustrations by +CLARENCE F. RUTHERFORD + + +Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.—Malory. + + +INDIANAPOLIS +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1907 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +JANUARY + + + + +To the Memory of +Herman Kountze + + + + +THE SHINING ROAD + + +Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city’s bound, +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found. +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn, +And there are happy highways leading on and always on; +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance. + +Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds, +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds; +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine, +E’en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day. + +Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace; +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release! +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town. +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I’ll break a lance for you! + +O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear! +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day. +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried +As o’er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride! + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + I “Events, Events” + II The Claibornes, of Washington + III Dark Tidings + IV John Armitage a Prisoner + V A Lost Cigarette Case + VI Toward the Western Stars + VII On the Dark Deck + VIII “The King Is Dead; Long Live the King” + IX “This Is America, Mr. Armitage” + X John Armitage Is Shadowed + XI The Toss of a Napkin + XII A Camp in the Mountains + XIII The Lady of the Pergola + XIV An Enforced Interview + XV Shirley Learns a Secret + XVI Narrow Margins + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding + XVIII An Exchange of Messages + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty + XX The First Ride Together + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow + XXIII The Verge of Morning + XXIV The Attack in the Road + XXV The Port of Missing Men + XXVI “Who Are You, John Armitage?” + XXVII Decent Burial +XXVIII John Armitage + + + + +CHAPTER I + +“EVENTS, EVENTS” + +Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +—_Troilus and Cressida._ + + +“The knowledge that you’re alive gives me no pleasure,” growled the grim +old Austrian premier. + +“Thank you!” laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. “You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you—I believe you admitted it—a slight service.” + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair. + +He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies. + +It was not often that the light in the old man’s eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor. + +The card was a gentleman’s _carte de visite_, and bore the name John +Armitage. + +“I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris. +Where did you get it?” demanded the minister. + +“I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made,” replied the +young man. “Besides, it’s English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it.” + +“Which is not particularly creditable; but it’s probably just as well +so.” + +He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy. + +“I hope you are quite well,” said Armitage kindly. + +“I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years.” + +“It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria’s good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read—only +to-day, in the _Contemporary Review_—an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest.” + +The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated. + +“But you are here for rest—one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else.” + +“What brings you here?” asked the old man with sudden energy. “If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting—” + +“Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?” + +“If you are waiting for events—for events! If you expect something to +happen!” + +Armitage laughed at the old gentleman’s earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette. + +“Waiting doesn’t suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands—and my wits are—let +us say—average!” + +Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly. + +“Is it true”—he turned again and glanced about—“is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?” + +“Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it,” said Armitage, +meeting the old man’s eyes steadily. + +“The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year.” + +“I am aware of that,” replied John Armitage; “but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting—you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing.” + +“Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well,” growled Von +Stroebel. + +“And the packet I gave you—” + +The old man nodded. + +“—that packet contained the Archduke Karl’s sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!” + +“Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive—and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?” + +“I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear,” said +John Armitage. + +“Then you should give me the documents.” + +“No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City.” + +“I should have them; I _must_ have them!” thundered the old man. + +“In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir.” + +The palsy in the old man’s hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage. + +“That packet is lost, I tell you!” he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. “It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That’s what I’m here for—my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?” + +Count von Stroebel’s bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion—a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit. + +“The packet has been stolen,” he observed calmly; “whom do you suspect of +taking it?” + +The old man leaned upon the table heavily. + +“That amiable Francis—” + +“The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered.” + +“But his mother—she is the devil!” blurted the old man. + +“Pray drop that,” said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. “I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,—am I to +understand that Francis has it?” + +“Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves.” + +“I don’t know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar.” + +“He has a dozen names—one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He’s a blackmailer, who aims high—a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He’s a bad lot, I tell you. I’ve had my best +men after him, and they’ve just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do—” began the old man. + +“Yes; that packet must be recovered,” answered Armitage. “If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it.” + +His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister. + +“You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire.” + +John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence. + +“Events! Events!” muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power. + +“Events!” the young man murmured. + +“Events!” repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. “A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people—and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!” + +The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright. + +“Why the devil don’t you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?” demanded the premier. + +“Like a gentleman?” repeated Armitage. “It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I _am_ dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead.” + +“Francis is a troublesome blackguard,” declared the old man. “I wish to +God _he_ would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don’t you +suppose he could go to Budapest to-morrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He’s as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you.” + +Armitage nodded and smiled. + +“I dare say,” he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: “No doubt you are speaking the truth.” + +“Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!” + +There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued: + +“We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage—the commission—would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men.” + +“I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name.” + +“He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe.” + +Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly. + +“I will show you the gentleman’s pleasant countenance,” said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest. + +“Rambaud!” he exclaimed. + +“That’s his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his _noms de guerre_.” + +“Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before.” + +“That is possible,” remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances. + +“I expect to see him here within a few days.” + +Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva. + +“He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so.” + +“Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men,” said the +minister. + +“You wish to arrest him?” + +“You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can’t have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can’t advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers—Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there’s a woman, is there? I’ve +found that there usually is!” + +“There’s a very charming young American girl, to be more exact.” + +The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph. + +“I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait—” + +“Events!” and John Armitage laughed. “I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my _forte_. That’s what I like about America; they’re up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost.” + +“They’re a lot of swine!” rumbled Von Stroebel’s heavy bass. + +“I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don’t imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them—in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting—why not?” + +“I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and—fairly clever—” + +Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count’s praise. + +“Thank you, with all my heart!” + +“Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen—who can tell? Events—events—if a man will watch and wait and +study events—” + +“Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events,” laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. “To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years—a pretty spectacle, too.” + +“Carrion! Carrion!” almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +“Don’t mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But”—he gulped down more of the brandy—“where and how do +you live?” + +“Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke’s death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died—and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch.” + +“Washington!” snorted the count. “In due course it will be the storm +center of the world.” + +“You read the wrong American newspapers,” laughed Armitage. + +They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used: + +“Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?” + +“As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University.” + +“What the devil did you do that for?” growled Von Stroebel. + +“From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry—I am very sorry we can’t meet on +some common ground.” + +“I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far—very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease.” + +“What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks—it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor’s name you commit an anachronism.” + +The count frowned and growled. + +“Don’t talk to me like that. It is not amusing.” + +“No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains—it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination.” + +“You put it coarsely,” remarked the old man grimly. “I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone.” + +“Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings.” + +“I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere.” + +“On the other hand, I should become king myself.” + +“Don’t be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse.” + +“My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping—by the Archduke’s own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor’s nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then—events, events!” + +Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him. + +“Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you.” + +Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly. + +“I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more.” + +“It is too late. The chasm is too deep.” + +The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly. + +The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner. + +“I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service—to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly.” + +“Your place is secure—no one can gainsay that,” broke in Armitage. + +“If you would do something for me—for me—do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don’t care what that service may be; I don’t care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. _Do something for Austria_—for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years—then take your name again—and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs.” + +[Illustration: “Do something for Austria”] + +“For the Empire—something for the Empire?” murmured the young man, +wondering. + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose. + +“You will accept the commission—I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again.” As he took Armitage’s +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily. + +“Good night; good-by!” he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON + +—the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.—_The Naulahka_. + + +The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention. + +“’Tis he, the unknown, Dick.” + +“I must say I like his persistence!” exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. “In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here—” + +“Over here you have better manners,” replied the girl, laughing. “But why +trouble yourself? He doesn’t even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language.” + +“But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater—he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It’s growing a trifle monotonous; it’s really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him.” + +“You flatter yourself, Richard,” mocked the girl. “He’s fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost—yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is”—she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment—“light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I’m sure that he is an exemplary person—kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews’ and nieces’ Christmas trees.” + +She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother’s growling disdain. + +The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern. + +“He has a sense of humor,” the girl resumed. “I saw him yesterday—” + +“You’re always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” + +“Don’t interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +_Fliegende Blätter_.” + +“But that’s no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn’t. I’m disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard’s eyes!” + +He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed. + +“I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all,” she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother’s impatience. + +“Which doesn’t help the matter materially, that I can see!” exclaimed the +young man. “With a full beard he’d probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother.” + +“It isn’t your fault, Dick,” laughed the girl. “You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him—that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It’s +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you’d find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together—the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible.” + +“Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party—America for Americans and +only white men on guard!” + +“Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they’d have more weight if +I hadn’t seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven’t forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We’ll call the incident closed, little brother.” + +“Our friend Chauvenet, even,” continued Captain Claiborne, “is less +persistent—less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven’t seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat.” + +“Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world,” declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes. + +“He lives by his wits—and lives well.” + +Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper. + +“He’s reading the _Neue Freie Presse_,” remarked Dick, “by which token I +argue that he’s some sort of a Dutchman. He’s probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary.” + +“You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction—that air of having been places and seen things and +known people—” + +“Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that—even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It’s well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching.” + +Shirley Claiborne’s eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the _Neue +Freie Presse_. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly—with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference. + +“He has known real sorrow,” persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. “He’s traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief,” the girl continued with mock +sympathy. + +“Then let us leave him in peace! We can’t decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow.” + +Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business. + +Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother’s school and were enjoying a late _déjeuner_ +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip. + +Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl’s +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight. + +Much of Shirley’s girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens. + +Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia’s reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth’s foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the _r_ and _l_ slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl—may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne’s pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking. + +As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly. + +“Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world.” + +The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attaché of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station. + +The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked. + +“Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There’s mystery in +the air—the great Stroebel is here—under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man—a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor—he’s only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way—what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;” and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties. + +“We met him in Vienna,” said Shirley Claiborne, “when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear.” + +“He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe—and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies—no post-mortem confidences from him!” + +The reader of the _Neue Freie Presse_, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attaché, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially. + +“Why, Armitage, of all men!” and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance. + +“Shirley—Miss Claiborne—allow me to present Mr. Armitage.” The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attaché, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone. + +“One always meets Armitage!” declared Singleton. “He knows our America as +well as we do—and very well indeed—for an Englishman.” + +Armitage bowed gravely. + +“You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I’m really a fair sort of American—I +have sometimes told New York people all about—Colorado—Montana—New +Mexico!” + +His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life. + +“Of course you’re not English!” exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest. + +“I’m really getting sensitive about it,” said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. “But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?” + +The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley’s passingly, and she smiled at him—it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man’s dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper—and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair. + +“Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here—in this +very house!” whispered Singleton impressively. + +“Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you.” He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton’s promise to look him up later, and left them. + +When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ which +Armitage had cast aside at their table. + +“Now we shall know!” he declared, unfolding the newspaper. + +“Know what, Dick?” + +“At least what our friend without a country is so interested in.” + +He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister. + +“Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!” he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them. + +“Isn’t that the worst!” exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully. + +“He’s certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation.” + +“He isn’t an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn.” + +“Well, your Mr. Armitage didn’t seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!” + +“Don’t be foolish, Dick. It’s unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again—” + +“Yes—not if I see him _first_!” ejaculated Claiborne. + +“Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing—and +satisfying—to know.” + +Later in the day the old attaché fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked: + +“Your friend Armitage seems a good sort.” + +“Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs.” + +“Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives—when +he’s at home?” + +“Lord bless you, boy, I don’t know anything about Armitage!” spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions. + +“But you introduced us to him—my sister and me. I assumed—” + +“My dear Claiborne, I’m always introducing people! It’s my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He’s always around everywhere. +I’ve dined with him in Paris, and I’ve rarely seen a man order a better +dinner.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARK TIDINGS + +The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.—Shakespeare. + + +The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler’s on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage’s voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed. + +“Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren’t +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause—” + +He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box. + +“I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne.” + +“I’d like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything.” + +“Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs.” + +“Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home,” replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket. + +“My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage,” +Shirley explained. + +“These last errands are always trying—there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff.” + +“There’s the wireless,” said Shirley. “In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again—that photographs don’t give.” + +“Such as—?” + +“Oh—the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter’s; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon’s tomb—the awfulness +of what he did and was—and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,”—and +she laughed lightly,—“I have made a most serious confession.” + +“It is a new idea—that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance—a tremendous story.” + +“That is what makes me sorry to go home,” said Shirley meditatively. “We +are so new—still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there’s a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost.” + +“But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn’t do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don’t think of their past as much as of their +future—the future of the whole human race.” + +Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother’s benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about. + +Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy’s delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of “the spirit of place” that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat—as she often did—in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators’ gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times. + +Armitage was aware that a jeweler’s shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl’s voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before _High Tide at Gettysburg_, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting—its ardor and fire—took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes. + +His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel’s departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy. + +He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage. + +“But America—isn’t America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,—its discovery,—the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another’s armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior.” + +“He could afford to say it; he was the victor,” said Shirley. + +“Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions.” + +The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage. + +“There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning.” + +“Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?” + +It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes. + +“There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn’t fair game for an +assassin,” said Claiborne. + +“No; he deserved a better fate,” remarked Armitage. + +“He was a grand old man,” said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. “Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered.” + +“Yes; he was a wise and useful man,” observed Armitage, still grave. “He +was one of the great men of his time.” + +His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further. + +“And now we shall see—” began the young American. + +“We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings.” + +John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat. + +“A queer devil,” observed Claiborne, as they drove away. “A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?” + +“I found _him_, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure.” + +“I shouldn’t have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far.” + +“And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes.” + +“Lord help us, he hasn’t been buying you a watch?” + +“No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana.” + +“Humph! you’re chaffing.” + +“Not in the least. He paid—I couldn’t help being a witness to the +transaction—he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch—_his_ ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?” + +“I’m afraid it rather does for my theory. I’ll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn’t a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel’s death. You don’t suppose he knew him, +do you?” + +“It’s possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he’s done for.” + +“Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he’s out of +the way.” + +Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel’s +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days. + +It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa. + +“We are running for the _King Edward_, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America,” +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister’s +benefit. + +“That is possible; I am very fond of Washington,” responded Armitage +carelessly. + +“Of course you will look us up,” persisted Dick. “I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while—and it will always be a pleasure—” + +Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage. + +“Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel’s assassin?” she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand. + +“Nothing. It’s a very mysterious and puzzling affair.” + +“It’s horrible to think such a thing possible—he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer.” + +“Yes; undoubtedly.” + +Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage’s back—a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door—Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother’s benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key. + +“The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin,” she +observed. + +“Yes,” replied Armitage gravely. + +He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek—he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right—made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing. + +“The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt,” said Shirley. “The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time.” + +“That is quite likely,” said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. “In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself.” + +He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage. + +“Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of that fellow.” + +Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage’s +last words. “I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself,” he had said. + +She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door—his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage. + +And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER + +All things are bright in the track of the sun, + All things are fair I see; +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me. + +And the world turns round and round and round, + And my thought sinks into the sea; +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery. + +—S.W. Duffield. + + +The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes’ departure. + +While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes’ notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman’s death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage’s character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week. + +He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear. + +The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord. + +Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet’s activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry. + +It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms. + +At about eight o’clock, as Armitage turned the pages of _Figaro_ in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed. + +It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvétique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of _pensions_. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed. + +Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan _gendarmerie_ have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet’s errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered. + +Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint. + +The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened. + +Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear. + +“It’s stifling in this hole,” said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. “If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat.” + +He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness. + +“You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it.” + +The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva? + +“The old man’s death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths.” + +“We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel’s.” + +“He was a beast. He is well dead.” + +“That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools.” + +The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses. + +“I am going to America at once,” said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling. + +“It is probably just as well,” said the other. “There’s work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues.” + +“The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one’s self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington,” remarked Chauvenet. + +“Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy.” + +There was a keen irony in the fellow’s tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table. + +“Enough of that, if you please.” + +“As you will, _carino_; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of _la belle Americaine_. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army.” + +“Humph! He is an ass,” ejaculated Chauvenet. + +A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him. + +Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +rôle of host, employed a Servian dialect. + +“I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, _carino_. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules.” + +“Don’t be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don’t believe +those fellows are over there. They’re probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,—that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and—” + +“The heights—the heights!” And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily. + +“Yes; the heights,” repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily. + +“But that declaration—that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say.” + +“There is no place—but one—that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend.” + +“You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way.” + +“Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel’s archives.” + +“Do you say ‘risked much’? My valued neck, that is all!” said the other. +“You and Winkelried are without gratitude.” + +“You will do well,” said Chauvenet, “to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days—! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen.” + +He glanced at his watch. + +“I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade.” + +They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune. + +His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat. + +As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A LOST CIGARETTE CASE + +To other woods the trail leads on, + To other worlds and new, +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too. + +—Henry A. Beers. + + +The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man’s +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage’s back. + +The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German. + +“Who are you and what do you want here?” + +Armitage shook his head; and replied in English: + +“I do not understand.” + +The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive’s +face, then ran his hands over Armitage’s pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security. + +Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant’s legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action. + +“Get up,” he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage’s +head. + +“I will shoot,” he said again in his halting German. + +“Undoubtedly you will!” and something in the fellow’s manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation. + +The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen. + +“I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you,” admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door. + +Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand. + +The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done. + +“You will go to that corner;” and the Servian translated for his +prisoner’s benefit with a gesture of the revolver. + +“Anything to please you, worthy fellow,” replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man’s object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized. + +Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care. + +Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian’s caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage’s head. + +He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm’s length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans. + +“There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!” yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway: + +“Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what’s the trouble.” + +It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain. + +As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian’s head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding. + +It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came. + +Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside. + +Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words: + +“Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand.” + +Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax. + +Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight. + +Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke—in French—in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand’s tone: + +“A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!” + +With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet’s legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing. + +Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard. + +The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself: + +“A few murders, more or less!” + +At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express. + +As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found. + +His annoyance at the loss was balanced—could he have known it—by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen—one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead—bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto _Fide non armis_. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters _F.A._ + +The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet. + +“It isn’t possible!” gasped Durand. + +“It is quite possible,” replied Chauvenet. “The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!” + +The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet’s face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope. + +“Who is he? Who is he?” whispered Durand, very white of face. + +“It may be—it must be some one deeply concerned.” + +Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand’s arm so tight that +the man flinched. + +“There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He’s here—I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!” + +He dropped his hand from Durand’s arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand. + +“John Armitage—John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence.” + +His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face. + +“Who is John Armitage?” demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself: + +“Is it possible? Is it possible?” and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case. + +“My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?” + +Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand’s ear: + +“Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!” + +“Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?” asked Durand +irritably. + +“He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation.” + +“Clearly so,” remarked Durand ironically. “But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here—” + +Chauvenet again struck the table smartly. + +“Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke’s friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them—” + +“Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that,” said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes. + +“Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him.” + +“And quickly. There must be—” + +“—another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna.” + +They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS + +Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star. + +—_Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + + +Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the _King Edward_, whereas he might have taken the _Touraine_ +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the _King Edward_ was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors. + +Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel. + +“I hope,” observed Dick, “that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I’m not wholly sure that we shan’t +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles.” + +“Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the _Tecumseh_. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?” + +Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap. + +“I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as _père et mère_ get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility.” + +“Thank you, Captain.” + +“And if there are any titled blackguards on board—” + +“You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won’t you, little +brother?” + +“Humph! Thank God, I’m an American!” + +“That’s a worthy sentiment, Richard.” + +“I’d like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we’d get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I’d like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don’t +count.” + +“Yes, dearest,” mocked Shirley. “Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don’t indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room—” + +“Probably from the Liverpool consul—he’s been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole.” + +“Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They’re orchids—from London—but—with Mr. Armitage’s card. Wouldn’t +that excite you?” + +“It makes me sick!” and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug. + +“They are beautiful orchids. I don’t remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard—in such quantities. Now, you really didn’t +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn’t so bad; and he may be an American, after all.” + +“A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again—” + +“Yes, Richard, if you should meet again—” + +“I’d ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up.” + +“Yes; I’m sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard,” mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother’s stalwart shoulders. + +“Don’t be silly,” observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them. + +“I shan’t, but please don’t be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,”—and she took hold of his arm entreatingly—“for there he +is—as tall and mysterious as ever—and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!” + +“This is good fortune, indeed,” said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. “I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am.” + +He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne’s resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne’s +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day. + +Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain’s +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down. + +“You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn’t lay hold of +me in my sleep.” + +He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar. + +“This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune.” + +“Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements,” replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass. + +Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,—enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler’s hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man’s manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage’s belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man’s eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage’s strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet. + +Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father’s fame made them conspicuous. + +Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness. + +“Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor”—John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again—“can I make any adequate apology for doing so.” + +Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man’s attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say. + +“A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed.” + +Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter. + +“I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the _King Edward_ by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there.” + +Claiborne smiled in spite of himself. + +“But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don’t know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us—it’s altogether too unusual. It’s almost preposterous!” + +And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely. + +“It’s only decent for a man to give his references when it’s natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,—I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder—what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it,” and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it. + +Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley’s sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley’s hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage? + +The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious. + +“Pardon me,” he asked, “but are you an Englishman?” + +“I am not,” answered Armitage. “I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere—but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand—” + +He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something. + +“On the other hand,” Armitage repeated, “I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died—very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion—particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!” John Armitage laughed. + +“It is, indeed, a real merit,” declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage’s wish to appear well in his +eyes. + +“And now,” said Armitage, “I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself—and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again.” + +“I have been interested,” remarked Dick; “and,” he added, “I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage.” + +Armitage began talking of the American army—its strength and +weaknesses—with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk. + +The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON THE DARK DECK + +Ease, of all good gifts the best, + War and wave at last decree: +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea. + +William Watson. + + +“I am Columbus every time I cross,” said Shirley. “What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country.” + +“Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we’re sure to get into trouble if we don’t turn +back.” + +“You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land.” + +“Don’t starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!” + +“Choose a cheerfuller word!” pleaded Shirley. + +“I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down ‘full faddom five.’” + +“I’m sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate’s business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis.” + +They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides. + +“Armitage isn’t a bad sort,” Dick admitted to Shirley. “He’s either an +awful liar, or he’s seen a lot of the world.” + +“Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware,” observed Shirley. +“I’m surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere ‘peddler,’—and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world.” + +“Well, if he’s a peddler he’s a high-class one—probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works.” + +Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer’s interest. + +“The glass-blower’s a deep one, all right,” remarked Dick to Shirley. “He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there’s no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you’d hold on to him +tight till we’re docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him—and I haven’t dared tell her he’s only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me—” + +“It would, Richard. Be a generous foe—whether—whether you can afford to +be or not!” + +“My sister—my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I’m going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once.” + +Shirley and Armitage talked—as people will on ship-board—of everything +under the sun. Shirley’s enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world’s larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background. + +Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night. + +“Time oughtn’t to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass.” + +“I like the idea. Such people could become fishers—permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food.” + +“They wouldn’t eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea—mine, please note—is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once— + +“‘Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.’” + +“But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn’t have +much show. And dreams passing over—the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures—” he said, and paused inquiringly. + +She looked at him quickly. + +“How do you know I do?” + +“You like Detaille particularly.” + +“Am I to defend my taste?—what’s the answer, if you don’t mind?” + +“Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter.” + +She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris—in cafés, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases. + +“It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it.” + +“No; there certainly was not!” He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley’s tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war. + +“I was in Paris during the exhibition,” he said quietly. “Ormsby, the +American painter—the man who did the _High Tide at Gettysburg_—is an +acquaintance of mine.” + +“Oh!” + +It was Ormsby’s painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett’s charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject. + +Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage’s remark at the +carriage door in Geneva—that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the _King Edward_; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity. + +“We’re all imperialists at heart,” said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. “We Americans are hungry for empire; +we’re simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation.” + +“And before he’d gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand.” + +“No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick’s +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry’s for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?” + +“Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks—if the thing is bound +to be—I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne,” he exclaimed, as though with inspiration. + +“Yes—you have an idea—” + +“Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be—” + +“Yes—the suspense is terrible!—what might I be, your Majesty?” + +“Well, we should call you—” + +He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense. + +“I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn’t flattering,” +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him. + +“Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title—you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress—that’s the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered.” + +They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals—that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night—interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea. + +“Accident to the dynamo—we shall have the lights on in a moment!” +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger. + +“Shall we go in?” asked Armitage. + +“Yes, it is getting cold,” replied Shirley. + +For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand. + +They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage’s arm tightened. + +“What is that?—there is some one following us,” she said. + +At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about. + +“Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne.” + +He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley’s grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster. + +“Are you hurt? What has happened?” she demanded. + +“It must have been a sea-serpent,” he replied, laughing. + +The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off. + +“I guess it was a sea-serpent,” he said. “It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful.” Then in a lower tone to Shirley: “That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!” + +“Oh, no,” she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; “it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I’m sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn’t feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you—it is no jesting +matter—” + +“Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers.” + +“Yes, it should be reported,” said Shirley. + +“It was very strange. Why, the deck of the _King Edward_ is the safest +place in the world; but it’s something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn’t caught his cloak—” + +Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident. + +Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies. + +The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the _King Edward_. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider. + +It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail. + +“Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes—” + +“That will do,” said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man. + +“You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting—” said the purser. + +“It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility.” + +And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook: + +“_Zmai_—; _travels as Peter Ludovic_.” + +Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers—some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk’s clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage’s hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister. + +“Do something for Austria—something for the Empire.” These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +“THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING” + +Low he lies, yet high and great +Looms he, lying thus in state.— +How exalted o’er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen! + +—James Whitcomb Riley. + + +John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable. + +Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the _King Edward_ sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage’s mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage? + +The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door. + +“Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!” + +“Jim Sanderson, come in!” Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice. + +“It’s my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury.” + +The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. “You’re a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?” + +“Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two.” + +“You’re getting soft,—that’s what’s the matter with you! You’re afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I’ll admit that it’s +rather more diverting here.” + +“There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats.” + +Sanderson winked prodigiously. + +“The papers _have_ rather skinned me; but on the whole, I’ll do very +well. They say it isn’t respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn’t to hold it up against a man that he’s rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it’s nothing +against me, is it?” + +“Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it’s the +Lord’s hand again.” + +“Why sure!” and the Senator from Montana winked once more. “But it’s +expensive. I’ve got to be elected again next winter—I’m only filling out +Billings’ term—and I’m not sure I can go up against it.” + +“But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you’ll not falter, if I know you.” + +“There’s hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I’m jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England—one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen—” + +“My dear Sanderson, don’t call me English! I’ve told you a dozen times +that I’m not English.” + +“So you did; so you did! I’d forgotten that you’re so damned sensitive +about it;” and Sanderson’s eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man’s nativity. + +“I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once—three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess.” + +Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection. + +“The sprinkling cart for me! I’ve got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State’s push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You’re all right, and I guess +you’re about as good an American as they make—anywhere—John Armitage!” + +The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o’clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies. + +Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attaché of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian’s +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attaché proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage’s eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man’s gaze. + +It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attaché at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man’s +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne. + +The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese. + +“They must be crushed—crushed,” said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French. + +“Yes, _he_ must be crushed,” returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun. + +Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,—a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines. + +“Welcome once more, constituent! We’re proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they’re hung out to-night for +the world to see.” She guided Armitage toward the Secretary’s gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste. + +“It isn’t merely an art gallery; it’s the most beautiful room in +America,” murmured Mrs. Sanderson. + +“I can well believe it. There’s my favorite Vibert,—I wondered what had +become of it.” + +“It isn’t surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It’s a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king’s coronation would +not be out of place,—in fact, there’s a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He’s a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago.” + +“Ah, to be sure! I haven’t seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little.” + +“Then you knew him,—in the old country?” + +“Yes; I used to see him—when I was a boy,” remarked Armitage. + +Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,—that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage’s antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him. + +The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art. + +“Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there’s the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her.” + +“I am wholly agreeable,” laughed Armitage. “The sooner the better, and be +done with it.” + +“Don’t be so frivolous. There—you can look safely now. She’s stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,—the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,—have a care!” + +Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once. + +“To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!” exclaimed +Shirley. “And you, Mr. Armitage,—” + +“Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne,” laughed John, taking her hand. + +“But I haven’t introduced you yet”—began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled. + +“No; the _King Edward_ did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken. + +The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze. + +“Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day.” + +“Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary,” declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration. + +“The word seems to have been coined for her,” said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache. + +“And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty,” +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy. + +“How charming!” laughed Mrs. Sanderson. “And this lovely room is just the +place for it.” + +They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure. + +“Is Baron von Marhof in the room?” he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle. + +The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching. + +The attaché hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief. + +The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room: + +“His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna,” he said, and gave his arm to his chief. + +It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attaché’s words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone. + +The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof’s +carriage in the court below. + +“The King is dead; long live the King!” murmured Shirley. + +“Long live the King!” repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, “Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!” + +Then he turned to Shirley with a smile. + +“It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well.” + +“Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere.” + +“And Captain Claiborne?” + +“He’s probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage.” + +“Thank you; you are very kind,” he said gravely. “I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon.” + +As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl’s praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied. + +“The girl has gone to your head. Why didn’t you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?” + +“I don’t remember that you gave me a chance; but I’ll say now that I +intend to know them better.” + +She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm’s +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case. + +“Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?” + +He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage’s eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet’s lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose. + +“You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host’s oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!” + +He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,—all, as it seemed, at a single stroke. + +“My dear sir,” began Chauvenet, white with rage. + +“My dear Monsieur Chauvenet,” said Armitage, striking a match, “I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly.” + +The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke. + +“Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?” demanded Chauvenet +furiously. + +“My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it—now I have it—wherefore it must be mine!” + +Chauvenet’s rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly. + +“Between gentlemen—so small a matter!” + +“To be sure—the merest trifle,” laughed Armitage with entire good humor. + +“And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker—” + +“Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets—” + +“Come naturally—quite so!” and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction. + +“But the genial art of assassination—there’s a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!” + +Chauvenet’s hand went again to his lip. + +“To be sure!” he ejaculated with zest. + +“But alone—alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires—I should say—courageous associates. Now in my affairs—would +you believe me?—I am obliged to manage quite alone.” + +“How melancholy!” exclaimed Chauvenet. + +“It is indeed very sad!” and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night. + +“Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!” + +“The thought does credit to a generous nature!” responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +“THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE” + +Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had + arisen, +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale; +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail. + +—L. Frank Tooker. + + +Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington. + +Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man’s hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart’s desire. + +With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,—that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said: + +“Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!” + +Emperors and kings! They were as impossible to-day as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador’s +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep. + +Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary’s ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the _King Edward_, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention. + +At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her. + +“Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?” + +“It is all of that!” she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet’s praise. + +“I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!” he continued. + +“No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!” + +She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,—his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season. + +“Poor Franzel is indeed _triste_. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!” + +“Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!” + +“Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself.” + +“That is very sad, Monsieur,”—and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. “My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn—alone.” + +He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture. + +“There are sadder blows than losing one’s sovereign, Mademoiselle!” and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend. + +She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley’s heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her. + +The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl’s heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek. + +Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley. + +He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring. + +Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff. + +“Oh! Oh!” and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her. + +“What is it, Miss? Did you call?” + +“No; it was nothing, Thomas—nothing at all,” and she mounted and turned +toward home. + +Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man’s life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her. + +“Miss Claiborne!” + +The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone: + +“Mr. Armitage!” She laughed. “I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me.” + +He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,—he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed. + +“You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man’s life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me—” + +“Please don’t speak of that! It was so terrible!” + +“But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made—that +night on the _King Edward_.” + +“Yes; I have not forgotten.” + +“And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me.” + +“But this is America, Mr. Armitage!” + +“That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,—it is unpardonable—indefensible!” + +She saw that he was greatly troubled. + +“But you couldn’t help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It’s a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man—” + +“I know the man.” + +“Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up.” + +She was seeking to minimize the matter,—to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind. + +Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm. + +“Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can’t +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason—for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn’t presuming—” + +He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English. + +“How am I to know whether it would be presuming?” she asked. + +“But I was going to say—” + +“When rudely interrupted!” She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished. + +“—that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice.” + +She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits. + +“How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past.” + +“But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here—” + +“Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected.” + +She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter. + +“It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can’t travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia.” + +“You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting.” + +“Yes; at Storm Springs. It’s really beautiful down there,” she said +simply. + +It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth: + +“I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills.” + +“Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There’s a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer—up when it’s warm, down when it’s cold. +There’s the secret of our mercurial temperament.” + +A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice. + +“He’s just up from the farm and doesn’t like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon,” she said as they rode on. + +“Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!” he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again! + +“Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people’s names.” + +“Then you reverse the usual fashionable process—you go south to meet the +rising mercury.” + +“I hadn’t thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep—and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood’s golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?” + +“Nothing, but my entire approval,” he said. + +He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED + +Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + +—Walt Whitman. + + +Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o’clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument’s gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm. + +Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise. + +The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage’s case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o’clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow’s steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him. + +When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance. + +“My friend,” he said, “there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you.” + +“Pardon me—” + +“You are watching me; and the thing won’t do.” + +“Yes, I’m watching you; but—” + +“But the thing won’t do! If you are hired—” + +“_Nein! Nein!_ You do me a wrong, sir.” + +“Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I’m going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir.” + +Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently. + +Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away. + +He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him. + +He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,—an American soldier’s campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair. + +“Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful—” + +The man’s face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition. + +“My dear fellow, you really become annoying,” and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. “I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far.” + +The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him: + +“Don’t you know me? I am Oscar—don’t you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are—” + +He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood. + +John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage’s manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller’s display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes. + +Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness. + +“Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come.” + +The man’s hand went to his hat. + +“None of that!” + +Armitage arrested him with a gesture. “My name is Armitage,—John +Armitage,” he said. “I advise you to remember it. Now go!” + +The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed. + +It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator. + +Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully. + +“What do you want?” he demanded bluntly. + +He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow’s bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him. + +“I want nothing, Mr. Armitage,” he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent. + +“Then you will be easily satisfied,” said Armitage. “You said your name +was—?” + +“Oscar—Oscar Breunig.” + +Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity. + +“You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?” + +“I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek—yes?” + +“What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?” asked Armitage. + +“I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government—yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution.” + +He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,—eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier. + +“Oscar!” he said; and repeated, very softly, “Oscar!” + +The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm’s length. + +“None of that nonsense! Sit down!” He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair. + +“So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?” + +“I served in the Philippines,—yes?” + +“Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?” + +“I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay,” said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed. + +“Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar.” + +The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare. + +“You are not dead,—Mr.—Armitage; but your father—?” + +“My father is dead, Oscar.” + +“He was a good man,” said the soldier. + +“Yes; he was a good man,” repeated Armitage gravely. “I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now—” + +The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee. + +“You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers.” + +“There are enemies—yes?” and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation. + +“I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants—you are not +married?” + +“How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable,” declared Oscar solemnly. + +“I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else—” + +The man nodded his comprehension. + +“That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage.” + +Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him. + +“You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet—able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on.” + +“You should remember—” began Oscar. + +“I remember nothing,” observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar. + +“Do you think you could find that place?” + +The man breathed hard over it for several minutes. + +“Yes; it would be easy,” and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia’s +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered. + +“It is a farm—yes?” + +“It is a wilderness, I fancy,” said Armitage. “I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there—going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There’s some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here’s a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores—plain military +necessities, you understand—and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it.” + +“Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job,” said Oscar. + +“And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of—let me consider—a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We’ll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar.” + +The man nodded gravely. + +“And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here—” + +“I have not been, here—is it not?” + +“It is,” replied Armitage, smiling. “You read and write English?” + +“Yes; one must, to serve in the army.” + +“If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,—unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,—do you understand?” + +“It is the custom of the country,” assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret. + +“To be sure,” laughed Armitage; “and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated.” + +He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table. + +“It is much money,” observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously. + +“It will be enough for your purposes. You can’t spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon—perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,—who can tell +without trying it? Don’t write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don’t hear from me again.” + +He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN + +As music and splendor + Survive not the lamp and the lute, +The heart’s echoes render + No song when the spirit is mute— +No songs but sad dirges, + Like the wind through a ruined cell, +Or the mournful surges + That ring the dead seaman’s knell. +—Shelley. + + +Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attaché of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop. + +“Here’s a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret,” laughed +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table. + +With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attaché, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth’s +dominion. + +Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness. + +“He has not old Stroebel’s right hand to hold him up,” remarked a young +German officer. + +“Thereby hangs a dark tale,” remarked Claiborne. “Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago—after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge.” + +“Bah! Francis is not as dark as he’s painted. He’s the most lied-about +prince in Europe,” remarked Chauvenet. “He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!” + +“Nothing can happen,” remarked the German sadly. “I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions.” + +“That is quite true,” said Armitage quietly. + +“But,” observed the Spaniard, “if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion—?” + +“Such speculations are quite idle,” commented Chauvenet. “There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him.” + +“Of course,” said the German. “If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again.” + +“The same applies to the boy he carried away with him—undoubtedly +dead—or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said—” + +“A pretty tale it is!” commented the German—“that the child wasn’t +exactly Karl’s own. He took it quite hard—went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him.” + +“He was surely mad,” remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. “He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well.” + +They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses—and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries—and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention. + +He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar. + +“With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,”—and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,—“that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive.” + +Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet’s recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened. + +“It’s my experience,” continued Chauvenet, “that we never meet a person +once only—there’s always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall.” + +“At his old tricks, I suppose,” observed some one. + +“No; that was the strangest part of it. He’s struck a deeper game—though +I’m blessed if I can make it out—he’s dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself _Mister_—I’ve forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He’s made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American—his English is +excellent—and he hints at large American interests.” + +“He probably has forged securities to sell,” commented the German. “I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly.” + +“I dare say,” returned Chauvenet. + +“Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend,” remarked Claiborne +leadingly. + +“No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way.” + +All felt that they were now to hear the dénouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders. + +“Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest—the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, _Fide non armis_.” + +“The devil!” exclaimed the young German. “Why, that’s very like—” + +“Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert—in Berlin, you know—I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up—I wanted to make sure—and +handed it to him, the imitation baron.” + +“That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say,” remarked +the German. + +“He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,”—continued Chauvenet,—“‘Allow me, Baron!’” + +“Well spoken!” exclaimed the Spanish officer. + +“Not so well, either,” laughed Chauvenet. “He had the best of it—he’s a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said—” and Chauvenet’s mirth +stifled him for a moment. + +“Yes; what was it?” demanded the German impatiently. + +“He said: ‘Thank you, waiter!’ and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!” + +They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne’s eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage’s cigarette case—on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, “if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we’ll have to run along.” + +Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him. + +“That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the _King Edward_—every word of it +is true.” + +“You should face him—you must have it out with him!” exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer’s +eyes. + +“But the time hasn’t come for that—” + +“Then if there is something between you,”—began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant. + +“There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end.” + +Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him. + +“Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don’t like it, I tell you! You’ve got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don’t offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance—and the acquaintance of my family!” + +Armitage’s face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick. + +“I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters.” + +“Then you need never take the trouble!” + +“In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied,” said Armitage +quietly, and turned away. + +He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers. + +Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS + +—Who climbed the blue Virginia hills + Against embattled foes; +And planted there, in valleys fair, + The lily and the rose; +Whose fragrance lives in many lands, + Whose beauty stars the earth, +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth. + +—Francis O. Ticknor. + + +The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places. + +Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love. + +He had wanted time to think—to ponder his affairs—to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage. + +He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting. + +“Good morning,” said Oscar, saluting. + +“You are prompt, Sergeant,” and Armitage shook hands with him. + +As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow. + +“The place—what of it?” asked Armitage. + +“There may be worse—I have not decided.” + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +“Is it as bad as that?” + +The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage’s +further questions with soldierlike brevity. + +“You have been here—” + +“Two weeks, sir.” + +“And nothing has happened? It is a good report.” + +“It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal—yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place.” + +The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn. + +“I am quite ready, sir,” reported Oscar, touching his hat. “There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way.” + +“Then let us be off,” said Armitage, swinging into the saddle. + +Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood. + +“It is good,” said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him. + +“Yes, it is good,” repeated Armitage. + +A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage’s eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer’s cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence. + +“This is Lamar post-office,” announced Oscar. + +“There must be some mail here for me,” said Armitage. + +Oscar handed him several long envelopes—they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket. + +“You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable.” + +“I take a Washington paper—it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world—yes? At the post-office +back there”—he jerked his head to indicate—“it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room.” + +“To be sure,” laughed Armitage. “I hope it is a good article.” + +“It is vile,” replied Oscar. “His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye.” + +“Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days.” + +It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet’s assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else—a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well. + +On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him. + +They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage’s property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas. + +Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse. + +“It is a fine valley—yes?” asked Oscar. + +“It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!” replied Armitage. “There +is a white building with colonnades away over there—is it the house of +the reigning deity?” + +“It is not, sir,” answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. “It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills—do you +see?—it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls—” + +“Golf? Is it possible!” + +“There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself—men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley.” + +Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started. + +“Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls.” + +“I could not tell it better,” responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse. + +“And our place—is it below there?” demanded Armitage. + +“It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen’s houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands.” + +“Poor Oscar!” laughed Armitage. + +His mood had not often in his life been so high. + +On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her—even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground. + +“Let us go,” he said presently. + +Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand. + +“You will find it easier to walk,” he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge. + +“This is the place, sir,” and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate. + +The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared. + +“There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty,” remarked Oscar. + +He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice: + +“It is different from our old hills and forests—yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick.” + +“But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!” + +“Here,” said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, “is what they call the Port of Missing Men.” + +There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted “No Thoroughfare.” Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight. + +“It is a bad place,” remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground. + +The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry. + +“Why the name?” asked Armitage. + +“There were gray soldiers of many battles—yes?—who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender—no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts,” and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion. + +They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow. + +“Your house, sir,” and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases. + +“There shall be breakfast,” said the man. + +He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match. + +“All one floor—plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir—a place to eat here—a +kitchen beyond—a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all.” + +“It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established.” + +“This is yours—the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but—you will require hot water for shaving—is it not so?” + +“You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting.” + +Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys. + +“The place was built by fools,” declared Oscar gloomily. + +“Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them—you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!” + +He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered. + +“You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast.” +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room. + +A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said—that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him. + +He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron’s escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington. + +Armitage’s cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read: + +“The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel.” + + * * * * * + +Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room. + +“Shall we unpack—yes?” + +“It is a capital idea,” said John Armitage. + +“I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition—and his uniforms—yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse.” + +“The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please.” + +The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner’s taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth. + +“You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn’t blend +well in our rainbow—put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud—drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable—give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned—I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well,” he added whimsically. + +He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim: + +“‘Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!’ + +“’Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet’s mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now— + +“‘Nothing can we call our own but death, +And that small model of the barren earth +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. +For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.’” + +Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought. + +“Oscar,” he called abruptly, “how far is it down to Storm Springs?” + +“A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA + +April, April, +Laugh, thy girlish laughter; +Then, the moment after, +Weep thy girlish, tears! +April, that mine ears +Like a lover greetest, +If I tell thee, sweetest, +All my hopes and fears, +April, April, +Laugh thy golden laughter, +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears! + +—William Watson. + + +A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler’s writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf—a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry—and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams—made, in fact, some notes in regard to them—and wrote +replies. Then, at four o’clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses. + +“It is spring, and in April a man’s blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air.” + +He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him. + +They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region. + +“We shall go down into the valley, Oscar,” he said; and thereafter it was +he that led. + +They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes. + +Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted. + +“You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don’t know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances.” + +He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world—they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them. + +At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop. + +He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity. + +“How near is Judge Claiborne’s place?” he asked. + +The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on. + +He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener’s shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day’s light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought. + +It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him. + +Her head went up with surprise and—he was sure—with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet. + +“I am caught—_in flagrante delicto_! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy.” + +“They said—they said you had gone to Mexico?” said Shirley +questioningly. + +“Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!” he +laughed. + +“Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother—” + +“Yes, your brother—he is the best fellow in the world!” + +She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes. + +“Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box—” + +“Oh, the cigarette case!” and he held it up. “It’s really mine—and I’m +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law.” + +“Yes, I believe that is true.” And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest. + +“But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne.” + +She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater: + +“Why?” + +“Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately—most +unfortunately—I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you—” + +He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand. + +“And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances,” said Shirley. + +“You are infinitely kind and generous—” + +“No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things—of course +not!” + +Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed. + +“Then—” + +“Then I will tell you—what I have not told any one else—that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel.” + +“You know it—you are quite sure of it?” he asked blankly. + +“Certainly. I saw that person—at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week—I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person.” + +Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character. + +“But Captain Claiborne—” + +He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily: + +“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so—” + +“By Monsieur Chauvenet.” + +“So he said.” + +“And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s +entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily. + +“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively. “I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.” + +Armitage laughed. + +“That is a little pointed.” + +“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly. “It is”—she weighed the +word—“ridiculous that both of you should be here.” + +“Thank you, for my half! I didn’t know he was here! But I am not exactly +_here_—I have a much, safer place,”—he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.” + +He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley. + +He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly. + +“Oh, this won’t do at all! I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—and she +indicated it by a nod of her head. + +“Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility—you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear—I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates—particularly when I came over the fence! It’s a +long way around anyhow—and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn.” + +“My brother—” + +“Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.” + +“But—there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself.” + +They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment. + +“I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it’s a whim—the merest whim, I assure you.” + +[Illustration: He delighted in the picture she made] + +He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat—(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)—her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley’s hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill. + +Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit. + +She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on. + +“But when I wait for people they always come—even in a strange pergola!” +he added daringly. “Now, in Geneva, not long ago—” + +He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times. + +“In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear—it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate,” he concluded mournfully. + +He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate. + +He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone. + +She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW + +_En, garde, Messieurs_! And if my hand is hard, + Remember I’ve been buffeting at will; + I am a whit impatient, and ’tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. _Messieurs, en garde_. + +—W. Lindsey. + + +“Monsieur Chauvenet!” + +Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage’s salutation. + +“My dear Armitage!” he murmured. + +“I didn’t go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn’t take the risk.” + +“He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health,” replied the other. + +“You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?” +mocked Armitage. + +“My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life—such pleasures of late have +been denied me.” + +“But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair.” + +“Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass,” continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. “I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society.” + +“But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy.” + +Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage’s plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage’s courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion’s sterner tones +disconcerted him. + +“I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game—it is +spectacular—it is picturesque—it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna—they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man’s common +ambitions.” + +“Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?” + +“It is both,” replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone: + +“I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne’s +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana.” + +Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance. + +“Of course. The hour was chosen well!” + +“More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He’s a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express.” + +Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him. + +“He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel’s life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!” + +Chauvenet’s gloved fingers caught at his mustache. + +“That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed—therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there’s a +difference between us—you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel’s +death.” + +He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly. + +“A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur.” + +“Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel’s death, it’s unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It’s a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman—you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!” + +“You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count’s departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?” + +Chauvenet’s hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony. + +“To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter.” + +“Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you—” + +The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled. + +“You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer.” + +“I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night, +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet.” + +“If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!” + +“Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!” + +“You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely.” + +“You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!” laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor. + +“Perhaps—perhaps—I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!” + +“So you would sell out, would you?” laughed Armitage. “You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next—who +knows?” + +“As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner.” + +“All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you—I don’t! But remember—if there’s a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne’s, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch—forward!” + +Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses. + +He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET + +Nightingales warble about it + All night under blossom and star; +The wild swan is dying without it, + And the eagle crieth afar; +The sun, he doth mount but to find it + Searching the green earth o’er; +But more doth a man’s heart mind it— + O more, more, more! + +—G.E. Woodberry. + + +Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother’s letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice: + +“I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, _ma chérie_, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I’ll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,—or _was_! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,—after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He’s over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!” + + * * * * * + +“Dear old Dick!” and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills. + +She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy’s zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony’s back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast’s fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable. + +It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages. + +Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,—the ability to forecast the enemy’s strategy and +then strike his weakest point,—that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops. + +Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons. + +Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,—not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,—received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens. + +He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne. + +The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf. + +“A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away.” + +Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet. + +“Steady, Fanny! Don’t come near her, please—” this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse’s bridle. She had +the true horsewoman’s pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet’s proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley’s +hand. + +“Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!” + +“Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn’t run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home.” + +She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet’s company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse. + +“But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends.” + +“You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?” + +“What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper ‘Yes, Sister,’ ‘No, Sister,’ to everything they +hear.” + +“Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet.” + +“No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,—you must know—” + +The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley’s hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly. + +Chauvenet went on rapidly in French: + +“You must know why I am here—why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear—you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments—” + +“Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur—” + +Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man’s shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed. + +“Monsieur!” cried Shirley in a low tone; “look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me.” + +Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly. + +“What is it, my dear fellow—my watch—my purse—my horse?” he said in +English. + +“He wants none of those things,” said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. “The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?” she asked pleasantly. + +“You cain’t do nothin’ for me,” drawled the man. “Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella’. I got a little business with him.” + +“He is a foreigner—he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay,” said Shirley. + +She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them. + +“Miss, I have seen you befo’, and I reckon we ain’t got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella’ ain’t no business up hy’eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it’s all right +for you, Miss; but what’s yo’ frien’ ridin’ the hills for at night? He’s +lookin’ for some un’, and I reckon as how that some un’ air me!” + +He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley’s +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French. + +“Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life—that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me.” + +The rifle—a repeater of the newest type—went to the man’s shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet’s head. + +“None o’ that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +’ere negotiations.” + +Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly. + +“The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else.” + +As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet’s position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man’s reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying: + +“Mountain folks air slow, and we don’t know much, but a stranger don’t +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he’s got to tell why; and the third time—well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella’ that there ain’t no third time.” + +Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly: + +“I have never been here before in my life.” + +The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl: + +“You air a liar, seh!” + +Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed. + +“This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend,” said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer’s interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her. + +[Illustration: “You air a liar, seh!”] + +“My friend,” she said, “I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father’s +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember.” + +The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage. + +“I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a—still, do you call it?—in his +life—” and she smiled upon him sweetly. “But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter.” + +Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone: + +“We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don’t want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn’t that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him.” + +She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor. + +“Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me.” + +“But it is growing dark—I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you—” + +“Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman.” + +The mountaineer took off his hat. + +“Thank ye, Miss,” he said; and then to Chauvenet: “Get out!” + +“Don’t trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet,” and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer. + +“What is your name?” + +“Tom Selfridge.” + +“Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?” asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer’s bared tangle of tow. + +“The name you called him ain’t it. It’s a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo’—it’s—it’s like the a’my—” + +“Is it Armitage?” asked Shirley quickly. + +“That’s it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +’im. He’s moved up hy’eh, and it ain’t fer no good. The word’s out that a +city man’s lookin’ for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man’s stayin’—” + +“Where?” + +“At the huntin’ club where folks don’t go no more. I ain’t seen him, but +th’ word’s passed. He’s a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella’ that’s been a soldier into th’ army stayin’ with ’im. I thought +yo’ furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did.” + +The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had—and +the thing was funny—served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage’s whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer. + +“I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you—will you believe me?” + +“I reckon I got to, Miss.” + +“Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road.” + +“I’ll do it gladly, Miss.” + +“Thank you; now let us be off.” + +She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key. + +“They are an odd and suspicious people, but they’re as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again—not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +NARROW MARGINS + +The black-caps pipe among the reeds, + And there’ll be rain to follow; +There is a murmur as of wind + In every coign and hollow; +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears. + +—Amélie Rives. + + +The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage’s life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet. + +The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father’s, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth—but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes. + +She had kept Dick’s letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl: + +“What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars’ worth of +telegrams from Sanderson—wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it’s all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the _exposé_ at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage’s) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and _who_ is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present—even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again—he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!—and +sooner or later he’s bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is _he_! And why didn’t Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse.” + + * * * * * + +Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick’s +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener’s work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor’s; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola. + +Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime. + +Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon. + +Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again. + +The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly. + +“This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you.” + +He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat. + +“You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley coldly. + +“I’m afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission.” + +He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him. + +“No! No! This is impossible—it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion.” + +“In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn’t mean to apologize for coming”—and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. “But,” he went on, “it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium—geraniums are splendid for the +purpose—and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!” + +“It must have hurt him,” said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe. + +“I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn’t take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!” + +“I suppose you didn’t think of us—all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!” + +There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly. + +“Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn’t know I was being followed—I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it.” + +“You mustn’t try to see me! You mustn’t come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently—at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain.” + +“I know that! I realize all that!” + +“Then you must not come! You must leave instantly.” + +She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly. + +“You have been hurt—why did you not tell me that?” + +“It is nothing—the fellow had a knife, and he—but it’s only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!” + +The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda. + +As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochère. + +“I’m off—please believe in me—a little.” + +“You must not go if you are hurt—and you can’t run away now—my father +and mother are at the door.” + +There was an instant’s respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses. + +“You can’t go now; come in and wait.” + +There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture—through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings. + +She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda. + +“Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers.” + +And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING + +Oh, sweetly fall the April days! + My love was made of frost and light, + Of light to warm and frost to blight +The sweet, strange April of her ways. +Eyes like a dream of changing skies, +And every frown and blush I prize. + With cloud and flush the spring comes in, + With frown and blush maids’ loves begin; +For love is rare like April days. + +—L. Frank Tooker. + + +Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage’s plight—his +injuries and the dangers that beset him—that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her. + +The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna. + +“The trouble is,” said the Ambassador, “that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy—a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together.” + +“And a weak hand,” suggested Judge Claiborne, “might easily lose or +scatter them.” + +“Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice—and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow—” + +The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers. + +“Yes; after him, what?” + +“After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the _disjecta membra_ of the Empire +together.” + +“But there are shadows on the screen,” remarked Judge Claiborne. “There +was Karl—the mad prince.” + +“Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion.” + +Judge Claiborne laughed. + +“I don’t like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger.” + +“No; you are a miracle—that is the only explanation,” replied Marhof. + +“But a man like Karl—what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem.” + +“No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die.” + +“But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father’s exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son—” + +“In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information.” + +“I have heard as much,” and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne’s tone. + +The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel’s name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions. + +“Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate,” she said. “He +believed in the divine right and all that.” + +“So do I, Miss Claiborne. It’s all we’ve got to stand on!” + +“But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely—” + +“He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week,” declared the Baron vigorously. + +They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home. + +“I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter,” remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den. + +“You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley.” + +“Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I’ll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house.” + +“I have a few notes to write; they’ll take only a minute, and I’ll write +them here.” + +She heard her father’s door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library. + +“You must go—you must go!” she whispered with deep tensity. + +“Yes; I must go. You have been kind—you are most generous—” + +But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about. + +“I shall go home,” he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak. + +“Come! Come! This is all very dreadful—you must go to a physician at +once.” + +“My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing.” But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk. + +“I do not need the doctor—not now. My man will care for me.” + +He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength. + +“It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion—it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you—” + +“Please say nothing at all—but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again—you must leave the valley!” + +“I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me.” + +“You must leave the bungalow—I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there—the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them—” + +“Yes?” + +“—that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go.” + +He bent and kissed her hand. + +“You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world.” His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him. + +“Do not let them hurt you again—” she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out. + +Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES + +When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate, + And time seemed but the vassal of my will, +I entertained certain guests of state— + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made. + +—S. Weir Mitchell. + + +“Who am I?” asked John Armitage soberly. + +He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage’s arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention. + +“Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man’s name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country.” + +“Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor.” + +“First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover—yes?” + +“Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble.” + +“It would be better on the fifth—” + +“The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is—mark, My Majesty—pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms.” + +“Yes, sire.” + +And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence. + +“If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar.” + +“He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money.” + +“You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I’ll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business—” and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot. + +Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk. + +“They killed the great prime minister—yes?” + +“They undoubtedly did, Oscar.” + +“He was a good man—he was a very great man,” said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him. + +The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage’s life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one’s dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar’s care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence. + +“To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world—to +do something for Austria—such things are to the soul’s credit, Oscar,” +and then Armitage’s mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar’s comprehension. + +The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage’s mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin’s trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears. + +At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse’s flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods. + +Oscar’s whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse’s flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable. + +A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar’s lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other’s faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant’s ear: + +“You are a Servian: it is an ugly race.” + +And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl. + +“We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife,” grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian’s grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand. + +“Throw up your hands,” he yelled. + +The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily. + +Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, “Oscar!” and repeated the name several times. + +Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English: + +“All steady, sir!” + +The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian’s bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver. + +“Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman’s gun and be sure to find his +knife.” + +The task was to Oscar’s taste, and he made quick work of the Servian’s +pockets. + +“Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?” + +“Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives—” the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up. + +“Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow.” + +They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors. + +When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room. + +Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman. + +“Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him.” + +He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian’s small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner’s knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head. + +“He is a large devil,” commented Oscar. + +“He is large, certainly,” remarked Armitage. “Give him a chair. Now,” he +said to the man in deliberate German, “I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian.” + +The man nodded. + +“Your name is Zmai Miletich.” + +The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage. + +“Your name,” repeated Armitage, “is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand—do you follow me?” + +The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily. + +“I ask you again,” repeated Armitage, “whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake.” + +Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head. + +“There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March.” + +The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed. + +“Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done—” + +The blood suffused the man’s dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him. + +“That will do. You tried to kill me on the _King Edward_; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne’s garden; and you came up +here to-night with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar.” + +He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write. + +“Don’t shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings.” + +Armitage wrote: + + * * * * * + +“MONSIEUR: + +“Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you—is +even now aboard the _Tacoma_, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned. + +“You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity—which I am sure interests you greatly—before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps.” + + * * * * * + +Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F. + +“Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?” + +“He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof.” + +“You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master.” + +“It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass.” + +“Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!” he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet. + +“You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night—or any other old night, as we say +in America—if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you—buzzard meat!” + +“The orders are understood,” said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant’s ribs. + +“Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur’s receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?” + +It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms. + +Again through the moonlight strode the three—out of Armitage’s land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer. + +There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt. + +It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage’s hands at the +bungalow. + +“Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man,” Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French: + +“You are young to die, Monsieur.” + +“A man more or less!” and Oscar shrugged his shoulders. + +“You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder.” + +“One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also.” + +“That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills.” + +Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY + +When he came where the trees were thin, +The moon sat waiting there to see; +On her worn palm she laid her chin, +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been. + +—William Vaughn Moody. + + +In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus: + +Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy’s counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs. + +They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof’s business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters. + +The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words: + +“You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel—we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson’s knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date—going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him.” + +“He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics,” +said Judge Claiborne. “I talked with him a number of times on the _King +Edward_ and must say that I liked him.” + +“Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy,” said Dick. + +“It might be explained—” began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. “Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne.” + +“We met them abroad,” said Dick; “and they both turned up again in +Washington.” + +“One of them is here, or has been here in the valley—why not the other?” +asked Judge Claiborne. + +“But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage’s whereabouts,” Dick +protested. + +“Certainly not,” declared his father. + +“How did you make Armitage’s acquaintance?” asked the Ambassador. “Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him—if you can remember.” + +Dick laughed. + +“It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking _déjeuner_ at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton—the ubiquitous—was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attaché.” + +“And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions,” declared Judge +Claiborne. + +They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage’s whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there. + +“We must find him—there must be no mistake about it,” said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. “They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities.” + +“And when we have young Armitage—” the Judge began. + +“Then we shall know the truth.” + +“But suppose—suppose,” and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +“suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die—to-night—to-morrow—” + +“We will assume nothing of the kind!” ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +“It is impossible.” Then to Captain Claiborne: “You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him.” + +And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once. + +Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him. + +“Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting—and after a long leave, too.” + +“I am on duty. Don’t forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat.” + +“Humph! It doesn’t follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!” + +“You couldn’t be that, Shirley, dear.” + +“Thank you, Captain.” + +They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance: + +“Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times.” + +“Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it’s rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron.” + +“Which he wasn’t—” + +“Well, Sanderson says he couldn’t have been, and the rogues’ gallery +pictures don’t resemble our friend at all.” + +“Ugh; don’t speak of it!” and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed. + +“What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?” she asked. + +“Guess again!” exclaimed Dick hurriedly. “Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow.” + +He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair. + +“Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?” + +“Impertinent! How dare you?” + +“But Shirley, the question is fair!” + +“Is it, Richard?” + +“And I want you to answer me.” + +“That’s different.” + +He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back. + +“Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn’t do +_this_—” + +“This what, Dick?” + +“You know what I mean. I ask you again—have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?” + +He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self. + +“Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn’t he?” + +“He’s a regular old brick,” declared Dick solemnly. + +“It’s a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor—about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself.” + +“I am proud to be his son,” declared Dick, meeting Shirley’s eyes +unflinchingly. + +Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz. + +“A captain—a mere captain of the line—is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing—after a long leave for foreign +travel—and sent away to visit his parents—and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador.” + +“Thanks for the ‘mere captain,’ dearest. You needn’t rub it in.” + +“I wouldn’t. But you are fair game—for your sister only! And you’re +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attaché. It rather directed attention to you, didn’t it, Dick?” + +Dick colored. + +“It certainly did.” + +“And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble—” + +“I have every intention of meeting him!” + +“Oh!” + +“Of course, I shall meet him—some time, somewhere. He’s at the Springs, +isn’t he?” + +“Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven’t seen him for several +days.” + +“What I should like to see,” said Dick, “is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor.” + +He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains. + +“Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me.” + +“That doesn’t answer my question. You don’t know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer—” + +“Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven’t said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven’t exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare.” + +“When I find Mr. Armitage—” + +“You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas.” + +“I shall find him there—or here!” + +“Good luck to you, Captain!” + +There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER + +My mistress bent that brow of hers; +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs +When pity would be softening through, +Fixed me a breathing-while or two + With life or death in the balance: right! +The blood replenished me again; +My last thought was at least not vain: +I and my mistress, side by side +Shall be together, breathe and ride, +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night? + +—R. Browning. + + +“We shall be leaving soon,” said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. “It is not safe to wait much longer.” + +He tossed a copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April. + +“Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave.” + +“I enlisted for the campaign—yes?—I shall wait until I am discharged.” +And the little man buttoned his coat. + +“Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There’s another man coming to get into the game—he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills to-night. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say.” + +The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow. + +“If I should die unshriven during the next week, here’s a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him—tell him—” + +He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on. + +“—tell him, Oscar, that there’s a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King.” + +Oscar stared at Armitage blankly. + +“That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron’s hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in.” + +“You should not go out alone—” + +“Don’t trouble about me; I shan’t go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,—I feel it in +my bones.” + +He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills. + +At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon—perhaps in a few hours—he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them. + +He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose. + +“God said, ‘I am tired of kings,’” he muttered. “But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service,” he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. “To think that it may be for me to say!” And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge. + +“I shall soon be free,” he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills. + +Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step—a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman’s figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening. + +When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman’s security, died on his lips. + +“Shirley!” he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground. + +A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight. + +“I did not know that dreams really came true,” he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind. + +She began abruptly, not heeding his words. + +“You must go away—at once—I came to tell you that you can not stay +here.” + +“But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,”—he began. + +“It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you—it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go—you must seek the law’s +aid—” + +“How do you know I dare—” + +“I don’t know—that you dare!” + +“I know that you have a great heart and that I love you,” he said. + +She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps. + +“I can’t be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came—” + +“If I dared think or believe or hope—” + +“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me.” + +“How do you classify me, please—with friends or acquaintances?” + +He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone. + +“I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?” + +“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.” + +“You are explicit!” he laughed. “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do.” + +“That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of—of—what might be called the Armitage riddle.” + +“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?” + +“Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one’s enmity, +and there’s something about murder that is—that isn’t exactly nice! It’s +positively unesthetic.” + +She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words. + +“You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man’s life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be.” + +“You put it rather flatly, but that’s about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid—” + +“Not of me, I hope—” + +“Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity.” + +“That is unkind,—that is unkind,” and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence. + +He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her. + +“You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you—it will take but a +moment—why and what—” + +“Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can’t +allow you to tell me; I really don’t want to know!” + +“I am willing that every one should know—to-morrow—or the day +after—not later.” + +She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought. + +“The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done—” + +“I have done nothing to be ashamed of,—I swear I have not!” + +“Whatever it is,—and I don’t care what it is,”—she said deliberately, +“—it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother—” + +She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly. + +“My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now.” + +“But _he_ doesn’t understand—” + +“My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand.” + +“And you have done this—you have come to warn me—” + +“It does look pretty bad,” she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. “But my brother and I—we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case.” + +“Oh, I’m a case, am I?” and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. “But I’d really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs.” + +“Then you will have to ask him.” + +“To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet’s request. I swear to you +that I’m as much in the dark as you are.” + +“I’m quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,—perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof.” + +“Good Lord!” + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +“I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?” + +“I don’t know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I’m only a traitor and not a +spy.” + +“You are the noblest woman in the world,” he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. “You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man—for a man she +did not know! And my life—whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow—or the day after—I shall justify these +great kindnesses—this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!” + +As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away. + +“I must go back,” said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight. + +“You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again.” + +She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once. + +“Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,—I +should have gone back instantly.” + +“But not across that spider’s web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley.” + +“It is much nearer by the bridge,—and I have my horse over there.” + +“We shall get the horse without trouble,” he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said: + +“This is the Port of Missing Men.” + +“Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It’s a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself.” + +“I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I’ll wait here. Fetch the horse,” she said, “and hurry, please.” + +“If there are explanations to make,” he began, looking at her gravely. + +“I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate.” + +As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him. + +“Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar,” Armitage commanded. + +They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses. + +“You are not to come with me, Oscar.” + +“A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent—yes?” + +“It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne’s stables; and ask and answer no +questions.” + +A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following. + +He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road. + +“The bridge would have been simpler and quicker,” said Shirley; “as it +is, I shall be late to the ball.” + +“I am contrite enough; but you don’t make explanations.” + +“No; I don’t explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point,” she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible. + +Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile. + +He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living. + +Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her. + +“You ride wonderfully,” he said. + +“The horse is a joy. He’s a Pendragon—I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I’m +sure.” + +“You are quite right. He’s a Virginia horse. You are incomparable—no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It’s a brave woman who isn’t +a slave to her hair-pins—I don’t believe you spilled one.” + +She drew rein at the cross-roads. + +“We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?” + +“Let me go to your own gate, please!” + +“Not at all!” she said with decision. + +“Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don’t see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks—for oh, so many things!” he pleaded. + +“To-morrow—or the day after—or never!” + +She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills. + +Near her father’s estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier. + +It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road. + +“It is my captain’s horse—yes?” he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. “I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable—yes?” + +A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father’s house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently. + +“Where have you been, Shirley?” + +“Walking.” + +“But you went for a ride—the stable-men told me.” + +“I believe that is true, Captain.” + +“And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English.” + +“Well, they do say English isn’t very well taught at West Point, +Captain,” she replied, pulling off her gloves. “You oughtn’t to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy.” + +“I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage—” + +“Captain!” + +“Bah! What are you going to do now?” + +“I’m going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone.” + +“They have—for which you should be grateful!” + +Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD + +A glance, a word—and joy or pain + Befalls; what was no more shall be. +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny! + +—T.B. Aldrich. + + +Oscar’s eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched. + +“It is the big fellow—yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known.” + +Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road. + +“It is mischief that brings him from the hills—yes?” Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly—very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones: + +“Good evening, my friend; it’s a fine evening for a walk.” + +Zmai drew back and growled. + +“Let me pass,” he said in his difficult German. + +“It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia—yes?” and Oscar’s tone was pleasantly +conversational. + +Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault. + +“A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains—yes?” + +“I have no time for you,” snarled the Servian. “Be gone!” and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall. + +“One should not be in too much haste, comrade;” and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips. + +The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back. + +“It is a message—yes?” asked Oscar. + +“It is my affair,” blurted the big fellow. “I mean no harm to you.” + +“It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife—yes?” + +The little soldier whipped out his revolver. + +“In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words—Ah!” + +Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture. + +The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar’s feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels. + +Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening. + +Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar’s revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report. + +At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head. + +“Stop; I want the letter!” shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels. + +Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow’s broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar’s +hands slipped on the fellow’s hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head. + +As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep. + +“The letter—give me the letter!” commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian’s. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar’s hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man’s gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades. + +Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. + +“Damn the sheep!” roared Claiborne. + +“It is sheep—yes?” and Oscar started to bolt. + +“Halt!” + +The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar’s ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer. + +“What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?” + +Oscar saluted and summoned his best English. + +“It was an accident, sir.” + +“Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable.” + +“There was a sheep-stealer—yes? He is yonder by the pens—and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead—no?” + +At that moment Claiborne’s eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door. + +“That is the sheep-stealer,” said Oscar. “We shall catch him—yes?” + +Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back. + +“One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What’s that you have there? Give it to me—quick!” + +“It’s a piece of wool—” + +But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar’s hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever. + +He blinked under Claiborne’s sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library. + +“You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You have been a soldier.” + +“In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home.” + +“Where do you live?” + +“I work as teamster in the coal mines—yes?—they are by Lamar, sir.” + +Claiborne studied Oscar’s erect figure carefully. + +“Let me see your hands,” he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms. + +“You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn’t go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt.” + +Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written: + +CABLEGRAM +WINKELRIED, VIENNA. +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET. + +Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar. + +“Where did you get this?” + +“From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder.” + +“Who is he and where did he get it?” + +“I don’t know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race—yes?” + +“What were you going to do with the paper?” + +Oscar grinned. + +“If I could read it—yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?” + +Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar’s tranquil eyes. + +“Dick!” called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar. + +“Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?” + +“I think not, Dick.” + +“It was he that brought your horse home.” + +“To be sure it is! I hadn’t recognized him. Thank you very much;” and she +smiled at Oscar. + +Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper. + +“Where is Monsieur Chauvenet—have you any idea?” + +“If he isn’t at the hotel or in Washington, I’m sure I don’t know. If we +are going to the dance—” + +“Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away.” + +“I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;” and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness. + +Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read. + +“Don’t touch it!” he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly: + +“I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?” + +“Don’t you know what _you_ are doing here?” she asked, and he flushed. + +“I know what, but not _why_!” he blurted irritably; “but that’s enough!” + +“You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don’t know why.” + +“I have my orders and I’m going to find him, if it takes ten years.” + +Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley. + +“There’s no doubt of that being Chauvenet’s writing, is there?” + +“I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness.” + +The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain. + +Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently. + +“Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer—an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It’s most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I’m going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!” + +Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders. + +“Do it, Dick! He’s undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character.” + +“I tell you I’ll find him,” he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers. + +“I’ll help you, Dick,” she said, buttoning her glove. + +“That’s like you, Shirley.” + +“If you want to find Mr. Armitage—” + +“Of course I want to find him—” His voice rose to a roar. + +“Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!” + +“Yes; I needed my man for other business,” said Armitage, folding his +arms, “and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him.” + +Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face. + +“You are worse than I thought—eavesdropper, housebreaker!” + +“Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?” + +“You are a rogue, an impostor—” + +“We will grant that,” said Armitage quietly. “Where is your warrant for +my arrest?” + +“That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you.” + +“It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow.” + +Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land’s commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The _coup de théâtre_ by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house. + +“You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here,” said +Claiborne. + +“In America—in free Virginia—without legal process?” asked Armitage, +laughing. + +“You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!” + +“You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you—day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now—that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me.” + +“No!” shouted Claiborne. + +Armitage drew a step nearer. + +“You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is.” + +“You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once.” + +“Do so!—but _I_ must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn’t understand it, and it is clear you +don’t. Give me the message!” + +He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides. + +“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Armitage!” + +“I don’t like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne.” + +Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words: + +“Winkelried—Vienna—not later than Friday—Chauvenet.” + +“Shirley!” roared Claiborne. + +John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited. + +Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW + +So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of + battle, +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled + were many. +E’en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh + in splendor, +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin + is breathless, +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and + the valleys, +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless + ether +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd— +Such and so many the fires ’twixt the ships and the streams + of the Xanthus +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city. +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside + them +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses, +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning. + +_The Iliad_: Translation of Prentiss Cummings. + + +“In Vienna, Friday!” + +“There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;” and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar. + +“Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do.” + +“Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands—” + +“_Our_ own hands, if you would be accurate!” + +“You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart’s desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn’t the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it.” + +“You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation.” + +“But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,—what +becomes of her in these transactions?” + +“That is none of your affair,” replied Chauvenet, frowning. “I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter.” + +“Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there—ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be.” + +“Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul.” + +“The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage’s house.” + +“Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit.” + +The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand’s eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. “I do not require watching, my dear +Durand,” he had said. + +“A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;” but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet’s mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere. + +While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar’s +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage’s bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited. + +Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face. + +“The letters!” snapped Chauvenet. + +“Is the message safe?” demanded Durand. + +“Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,—the +little soldier,—as I crossed a strange field.” + +When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper. + +“Horses; saddle our two horses quick—and get another if you have to +steal it,” he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow’s +head and cleanse his face. + +“So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?” + +The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet’s rapid German. + +In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning. + +The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies. + +“We have no time to lose. That message must go to-night. You may be sure +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we’ve got to go down to +Storm Springs.” + +They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed. + +“He is not so big a fool, this Armitage,” remarked Durand. “He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna.” + +“I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward.” + +“Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation.” + +“If we fail—” began Chauvenet. + +“You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?” + +“We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,—and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,—he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him.” + +“And the fair daughter of the valley—” + +“Pish! We are not discussing the young lady.” + +“I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine _she_ knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him.” + +“His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular.” + +Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly. + +“Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way—a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!” + +An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o’clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai’s laggard beast permitted. + +The beat of a horse’s hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal’s walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse’s quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly. + +In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian’s +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse. + +“Wait!” said the Servian. + +The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man’s deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet’s party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them. + +“Who goes there?” + +The stranger’s horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast’s up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined. + +“Who goes there?” shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger’s horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai’s great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack. + +“The knife?” bawled the Servian. + +“No!” answered Chauvenet. + +“The devil!” yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast’s +flanks. + +Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse’s head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips. + +The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner. + +“Tie him,” said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man’s arms +and bound them tight. + +The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive’s horse. + +“The fellow takes it pretty coolly,” remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. “What are you going to do with him?” + +“We will take him to his own place—it is near—and coax the papers out +of him; then we’ll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter.” + +Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse. + +“I am ready,” he reported. + +“Go ahead; we follow;” and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask: + +“Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?” + +“Undoubtedly. I didn’t get a square look at him, but he’s a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he’s riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago.” + +“Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!” + +“The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack.” + +Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai. + +“The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it.” + +They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway. + +Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh. + +“You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?” + +“Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There’s the house.” + +He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet’s courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage’s +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others. + +“Bring him in!” he said, without taking his eyes from the room. + +A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail. + +Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them. + +“Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;” and as Durand turned into Armitage’s room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner. + +“Take off the bag,” he commanded. + +Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access. + +“Mr. John Armitage—” + +Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne. + +The perspiration on Claiborne’s face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men. + +The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage’s room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor. + +“It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!” muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne’s face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor. + +Durand stepped forward with an oath. + +“Who is the man?” he demanded. + +“It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology—” +Chauvenet began. + +“You put it mildly,” cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. “I don’t +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur—” + +“It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation—anything you ask,” stammered Chauvenet. + +“You are looking for John Armitage, are you?” demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet’s words. “Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o’clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you.” + +“You are violent, my dear sir—” began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet’s. + +“I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!” + +Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm’s length. + +“You know too much!” + +“I don’t know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War.” + +Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation. + +“You don’t understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance.” + +It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness. + +“You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear,” said Claiborne. “What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?” + +“He is a menace to a great throne—an impostor—a—” + +Chauvenet’s eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man’s gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him. + +“Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles—are not +for these free hills.” + +“_Where is John Armitage_?” + +Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed. + +Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf. + +“I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father’s, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!” + +“Come; we waste time,” said Durand in French. “It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!” + +“Yes; you’d better go,” said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. “I don’t believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I’ll go to bed. I’m sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can’t just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice.” + +He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them. + +“Good night, and clear out,” and he waved his arm in dismissal. + +“Come!” said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. + +As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight. + +As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VERGE OF MORNING + +O to mount again where erst I haunted; +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, + And the low green meadows + Bright with sward; +And when even dies, the million-tinted, +And the night has come, and planets glinted, + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr’d. + +—R.L.S. + + +“I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!” + +Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar’s arm to check the +rush of the little man. + +Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms. + +“Yes; they are very interesting.” + +“And those ribbons and that cloak,—I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman’s horse. Then make some +coffee and wait.” + +As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne. + +“I didn’t expect this of you; I really didn’t expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?” + +“I don’t know—I’ll be _damned_ if I know!” and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage’s +slumbering wrath. + +“You’d better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can’t explain yourself I’m going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?” + +“I didn’t _come_ here, Armitage; I was brought—with a potato sack over +my head. There’s the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn’t on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs.” + +“What are you doing up here in the mountains—why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!” + +“Armitage”—as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it—“Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now—” + +“Damn my cigarette case!” bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it. + +“That’s what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,—you must admit +that.” + +“It was, indeed!” + +“It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!” + +“No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne.” + +Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently. + +“And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!” + +“What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don’t know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can’t get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I’m going to chuck you back into the sack.” + +“I came up here in the hills to look for you—you—you—! Do you +understand?” began Claiborne angrily. “And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they’ve +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody’s eye. And there’s all +there is of the story, and I don’t care a damn whether you believe it or +not.” + +Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage’s tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud. + +“Your face—your face, Claiborne; it’s funny. It’s too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it’s something ghastly. For God’s sake go in there +and wash your face!” + +He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave. + +“Claiborne—” + +Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp. + +“You don’t know who I am or what I am; and I haven’t got time to tell +you now. It’s a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what’s going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain—or—must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?” + +“Marhof may go to the devil! He’s a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof’s cause.” + +“They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye.” + +“I believe you, Armitage.” + +“Thank you. Now your horse is at the door—run along like a good fellow.” + +Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on. + +“Oscar!” he yelled, “bring in that coffee—with cups for two.” + +He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings. + +“Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle.” + +He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes. + +“Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There’s a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you’d like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs,” he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank. + +“I’m taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods.” + +There was a great color in Armitage’s face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor. + +“Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise—isn’t that so, Claiborne?—and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag—original package, you understand. And see if +you can’t find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar—” + +With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. “If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!” + +[Illustration: “Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne.”] + +He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click. + +Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage’s +shoulder. + +Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty. + +“Lord, man! I didn’t mean to throw you into the road! There’s a clean bed +in there that you’re welcome to—go in and get some sleep.” + +“I’m not going into the valley,” roared Claiborne, “and I’m not going to +bed; I’m going with you, damn you!” + +“But bless your soul, man, you can’t go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I’m terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances—” + +“I repeat that I’m going with you. I don’t know why I’m in this row, and +I don’t know what it’s all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can’t be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there.” + +“But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again,” said Armitage earnestly. “Take your horse +and go.” + +“I’m going back to the valley when you do.” + +“Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice.” + +He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with: + +“I do not think a braver gentleman, +More active-valiant or more valiant-young, +More daring or more bold, is now alive +To grace this latter age with noble deeds. +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;— + +“Lord, Claiborne, you don’t know what’s ahead of us! It’s the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this—not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we’ll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We’re off!” + +“All ready, sir;” said Oscar briskly. + +“It’s half-past two. They didn’t get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They’ve probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven’t got me!” + +“They had me and didn’t want me,” said Claiborne, mounting his own horse. + +“They’ll have a good many things they don’t want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn’t enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it’s been a great old lark. And now to catch them!” + +Outside the preserve they paused for an instant. + +“They’re not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven’t studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven’t followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There’s a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I’m guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land.” + +“To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business,” said +Claiborne. + +“Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I’ll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses.” + +Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses—two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again. + +“Come! We’re on the verge of morning,” said Armitage, “and there’s no +time to lose.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD + +Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him. + +—Louise Imogen Guiney. + + +“There’s an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I’m not mistaken, and if +we’ve made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad.” + +Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter. + +“It’s a strange business,” Claiborne muttered half-aloud. + +The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas. + +He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance. + +“It’s all right; they haven’t passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they’re handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don’t forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I’m afraid we’re going to have a wet +morning.” + +They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches. + +“Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic,” said +Armitage; “but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I’ve done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it.” + +Claiborne groaned mockingly. + +“I suppose I’ll know what it’s all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I’m fighting for.” + +“You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you’ve got to take +the consequences. You’ve done what you set out to do—you’ve found me; +and you’re traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I’m going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor—I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build—and in the +dark—on horseback—” + +“That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they’d plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion.” + +“Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours.” + +The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot. + +Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted. + +“Bully for us! We’ve cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?” + +“There are three horses all right enough, and they’re forcing the beasts. +What’s the word?” + +“Drive them back! Ready—here we go!” roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard. + +They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop. + +“‘Not later than Friday’—back you go!” shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy’s rout. One of the horses—it seemed from its rider’s +yells to be Chauvenet’s—turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come. + +Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them. + +“They’re rattled,” said Claiborne, “and the fog isn’t helping them any.” + +“We’re getting close to my place,” said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses. + +“It’s Oscar! He’s a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right.” + +“If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment,” +observed Claiborne. “The fog muffles sounds. The road’s pretty level in +here.” + +“We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We’re +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!” + +The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again. + +“By George! They’re coming—here we go!” + +They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice. + +“Oscar has them on the run—bully for Oscar! They’re getting close—thank +the Lord for this level stretch—now howl and let ’er go!” + +They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses’ hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground. + +“They’re terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed,” shouted +Claiborne. “Now for it!” + +They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist. + +There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant’s glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand’s impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right. + +With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet’s frightened horse, panic-stricken at the +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed. + +The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses. + +“That was too close for fun—are you all there?” asked Armitage. + +“Still in it; but Chauvenet’s friend won’t miss every time. There’s +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse.” + +“Oh, he’s a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun.” + +They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light. + +“This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you’d get out of this +and go home. You see they’re an ugly lot and don’t use toy pistols.” + +“Remember the potato sack! That’s my watchword,” laughed Claiborne. + +They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade. + +“I should value a change of raiment,” observed Armitage. “There was an +advantage in armor—your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn’t stick to your hide.” + +“Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again.” + +They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage’s bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs. + +“Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!” And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar. + +The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage’s +shots. + +“Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!” + +“There!” + +Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe. + +“He’s crazy—he’s gone clean out of his head!” muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. “What do you make of it?” + +“He’s having fun with them. He’s just rattling them to warm himself +up—the little beggar. I didn’t know it was in him.” + +Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop. + +Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar’s wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver. + +“Oh, for a saber now!” growled Claiborne. + +But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand’s horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business. + +The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear. + +“My horse got it that time!” shouted Claiborne. + +“So did I,” replied Armitage; “but never you mind, old man, we’ve got +them cornered now.” + + +Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder. + +“Much damage?” + +“It struck a hard place, but I am still fit.” + +The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne’s horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace. + +“Poor devil! We’ll have a reckoning pretty soon,” cried Armitage +cheerily. “No kingdom is worth a good horse!” + +They advanced at a trot toward the Port. + +“You’ll be afoot any minute now, but we’re in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won’t care to drop +into! I’m off for the gate—you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer.” + +Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +Fast they come, fast they come; + See how they gather! +Wide waves the eagle plume, + Blended with heather. +Cast your plaids, draw your blades, + Forward each man set! +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset! + +—Sir Walter Scott. + + +Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left. + +“It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man—yes?” was the little +sergeant’s comment. “We shall come back for the saddle and bridle.” + +“Humph! Where do you think those men are?” + +“Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position.” + +“I’m not sure of that. They’ll escape across the old bridge.” + +“_Nein_. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once—they would not +need our bullets!” + +Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage. + +“It’s the signal that he’s got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you.” + +“You will have my horse—yes?” Oscar began to dismount. + +“No; I do well enough this way. Forward!—the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them.” + +The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol. + +The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him! + +As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet’s party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines. + +“They’re really not so bad—bad luck to them!” he muttered. “I’ll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;” and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage’s slow advance out into the open. + +The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne’s +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure. + +Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target’s elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing. + +“I’ve never been the same since that fever,” growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance. + +Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage’s advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading. + +“They are all together again, are they?” asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne’s rock, his eyes upon the barricade. + +“The gentleman with the curly hair—I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot—yes?” + +Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences. + +“Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I’d like to try hunger on +them,” said Armitage. + +“They’ll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they’ll break it down, and we’ll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them—alive?” + +“I certainly do!” Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider. + +The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth. + +“For God’s sake, get off that horse, Armitage!” bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. “There’s no use in wasting yourself that way.” + +“My arm aches and I’ve got to do something. Let’s try storming them just +for fun. It’s a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that’s supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we’ll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn’t as stiff as it looks from this side—know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can’t be seen from this side.” + +“Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You’ve got a +hole in you now! Get down!” + +“You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them.” + +His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert. + +Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering: + +“For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!” + +Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them. + +“They can’t jump this—they’ll veer off before they get here,” shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. “Wait till they check their horses for the +turn.” + +“We are fools. They have got us trapped;” and Durand’s hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai’s scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne’s voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts. + +But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure. + +Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood: + +“It is in the blood; he is like a king.” + +But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field: + +“He bade me do something for Austria—for Austria!” + +“He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him,” said Zmai. + +Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar’s horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him. + +“Take him first,” cried Chauvenet. “Then be ready for Armitage!” + +Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage’s +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause—not heeding Armitage’s cries—on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared. + +Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse’s forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet’s curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels. + +Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage’s face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud: + +“Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried’s in +jail and the jig’s up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!” + +He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage’s head. + +“Drop that gun—drop it damned quick!” and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet’s head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed. + +It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight. + +“It’s all over but the shouting—what’s next?” demanded Claiborne. + +“Tie him up—and tie the other one up,” said Armitage, staring about +queerly. “Where the devil is Oscar?” + +“He’s after the big fellow. You’re badly fussed, old man. We’ve got to +get out of this and fix you up.” + +“I’m all right. I’ve got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we’ve got them nailed, and it’s all right, old +man!” + +Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently. + +“If you start to run I’ll certainly kill you, Monsieur.” + +“We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings.” + +Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes. + +“Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing.” + +“But, Messieurs,” began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure—“this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions.” + +“I don’t question it,” laughed Claiborne. + +“But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country.” + +“It will, indeed,” and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage’s hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. “In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur.” + +“I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage—” + +Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously. + +“You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I’ll choke you!” + +Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand: + +“Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?” + +Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand’s pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage. + +“We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions.” + +A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave. + +“Where is the Servian?” demanded Armitage. + +The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage. + +“He will not come back,” said the sergeant quietly. + +“That is bad,” remarked Armitage. “Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage’s house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately.” + +“But Armitage—not Marhof—for God’s sake, not Marhof.” Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +“Not Marhof!” + +“We can fix this among ourselves—just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs,” protested Durand. + +“That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored,” said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision. + +“Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?” + +Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage’s tone. + +“It’s a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn’t take as much time as +you thought it would.” + +Oscar had mounted Armitage’s horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road. + +“After you deliver Mr. Armitage’s message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here.” + +“No!” began Armitage. “Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don’t propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!” + +“Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He’s +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!” + +The conspirators’ horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them. + +“Don’t treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we’ll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!” + +Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern. + +“Wait a few hours, Armitage—let us sit down and talk it all over. We’re +not as black as your imagination paints us!” + +“Save your breath! You’ve had your fun so far, and now I’m going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you’re not made for work in the open. Forward!” + +They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +“WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?” + +“_Morbleu, Monsieur_, you give me too much majesty,” said +the Prince.—_The History of Henry Esmond_. + + +“These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer—let them sequester +themselves!” and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. “I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about—he may wish to explore my trunks again,” and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd. + +“Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we’ll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,—but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time.” + +He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat. + +“I’d like to hold a little private execution for this,” growled the +officer. “A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart.” + +“Don’t be spiteful! I’m as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that.” + +“You’re not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can’t do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he’ll fix you up in a +jiffy.” + +“That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve—yes, I guess we’ll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir.” + +“Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage.” + +“I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry’s the Baron will be +glad to let me off.” + +[Illustration: With their wrists tied behind them, they looked the +least bit absurd] + +He laughed softly and began repeating: + +“‘Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.’” + +Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh: + +“I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I’ll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival—but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown—it’s in the leather-covered trunk in my room—the one with +the most steamer labels on it—go bring it, Claiborne, and we’ll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick—they ought to be here by this +time!” + +He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air. + +“The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there’s no treason in hauling up an alien flag,” and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner. + +“Here they are,” called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions. + +“Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but”—and he looked at Shirley. + +“If you will do me the honor to enter—all of you!” and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them. + +“We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man,” said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand. + +“What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?” demanded Judge +Claiborne. + +“There was a battle,” replied Dick, grinning, “and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet.” + +Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley’s cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly. + +Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o’clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her. + +“You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear.” + +“Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together,” said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly. + +Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne. + +“Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage,” said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand. + +“Won’t you please come in?” said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began: + +“Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual—they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne’s advice.” + +“Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy,” said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage’s face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees. + +“You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests.” + +The Baron nodded. + +“Yes, I dare say,” he remarked dryly. + +“And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them—one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question.” + +Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily: + +“This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!” + +“Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question—just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me—a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work—and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the _King Edward_. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne’s table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one—some one in +particular.” + +Armitage’s eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded: + +“Who am I, Monsieur?” + +Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly: + +“You are the devil—an impostor, a liar, a thief!” + +Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English: + +“Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?” + +“Answer and be quick about it!” snapped Claiborne. + +“I tell you”—began Chauvenet fiercely. + +“_Who am I_?” asked Armitage again. + +“I don’t know who you are—” + +“You do not! You certainly do not!” laughed Armitage; “but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?” + +“I thought—” + +“Yes; you thought—” + +“I thought—there seemed reasons to believe—” + +“Yes; and you believe it; go on!” + +Chauvenet’s eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German: + +“This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation—he is +a menace to the throne—” + +“Who is he?” demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage. + +“I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away—drove him here to watch him. See these things—that +sword—those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death—one death—at Vienna—and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!” + +The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador’s +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered: + +“He would be king; he would be king!” + +Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne. + +“That will do. The gentleman may retire now.” + +As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling. + +“I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl,” he said +quietly; “nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne’s supper-party belongs to me. Here it is.” + +The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly. + +“This device—the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur.” + +“It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl’s son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder—all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly.” + +The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold—the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors—the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador’s fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus. + +The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage. + +“Where is he, Monsieur?” he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows. + +“The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be—he, too, is dead.” + +“You are quite sure—you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?” + +“I am quite sure.” + +“That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!” + +“No, it is not enough,” replied Armitage quietly. “Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke—his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago.” + +“Yes; he was mad—quite mad,” blurted the Baron. + +“That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year.” + +Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused. + +“What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?” + +“I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key.” + +As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down. + +“Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?” said the Baron kindly. + +“No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons—for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, _is not his son_!” + +“What!” roared the Baron. + +“It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance.” + +The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword. + +“It is a marvelous story—it is wonderful! Can it be true—can it be +true?” murmured the Ambassador. + +“The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours,” said Judge Claiborne. + +“You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir,” said the Baron, “but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners—” + +“They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus,” and Armitage smiled. “I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case—it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me—and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl’s reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne.” + +“Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I—” + +“And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl’s repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house.” + +The Ambassador’s eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage’s lips; but Armitage went on: + +“I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the _George W. Custis_, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan’s wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn’t my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +_Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive.” + +He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne. + +Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all. + +“Who are _you_, John Armitage?” + +And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout: + +“I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke’s son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father’s place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short—I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies.” + +“Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father—you +never went to him?” + +“I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria—Austria, always +Austria!” + +“Yes; that was quite like him,” said the Ambassador. “He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America—he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you—that you should have chosen to live here.” + +“Then when I saw him at Geneva—that last interview—he told me that +Karl’s statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again—never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now—” + +He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened. + +“It was not my fault—it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I’ve got them in the room there where they can’t do any +harm!—and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I’m sick—yes, I’m sick—and sleepy—and you’d better haul +down that flag over the door—it’s treason, I tell you!—and if you see +Shirley, tell her I’m John Armitage—tell her I’m John Armitage, John +Arm—” + +The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +DECENT BURIAL + +To-morrow? ’Tis not ours to know + That we again shall see the flowers. +To-morrow is the gods’—but, oh! + To day is ours. + +—C.E. Merrill, Jr. + + +Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador’s demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne’s bag, and all was now in readiness for the night. + +Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars. + +“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—yes?” + +“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?” + +“But the men should be hanged—for they shot our captain, and he may +die.” + +The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne. + +“He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.” + +Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper. + +“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic—no?” + +“You need not tell me how—or anything about it—but you are sure he is +quite dead?” + +“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. “I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it +not so?” + +“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.” + +“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner—yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them—though I had not touched them—and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down—God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.” + +And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars. + +“Yes, it must have been terrible,” said Claiborne. + +“But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him.” + +“But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law’s aid at once.” + +“Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station.” + +Claiborne looked at his watch. + +“I will go with you,” he said. + +They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see. + +“He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes.” + +When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks. + +_“From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!”_ + +Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian’s soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying: + +_“—That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys.”_ + +He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat. + +“He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him.” + +“Yes, we were spared murder,” said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne’s side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar’s shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning. + +“You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?” asked Claiborne. + +“Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father’s place—the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain’s mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition—no?” + +The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne’s direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily: + +“If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they’re put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the _George W. Custis_, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender.” + +Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears. + +“We will waive our right to a writ of _habeas corpus_,” remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. “Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne’s courteous treatment of us.” + +“Shut up!” snapped Chauvenet. + +“You will both of you do well to hold your tongues,” remarked Claiborne +dryly. “One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back.” + +“You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne,” drawled Durand. + +“There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?” demanded +Chauvenet. + +“I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision—” + +Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern. + +“We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!” said Durand. + +“Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding—kidnapping us this way—without opportunity for +counsel.” + +“And without benefit of clergy,” laughed Claiborne. “Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm.” + +“Drive on!” ejaculated Chauvenet. + +As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles. + +“That’s the end of one chapter,” remarked Judge Claiborne. + +“They’re glad enough to go,” said Dick. “What’s the latest word from +Vienna?” + +“The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly—thanks to +Mr. John Armitage,” and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow. + +When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage’s condition was satisfactory. + +“He is a hardy plant,” said the surgeon, “and will pull through.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +JOHN ARMITAGE + +If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.—Marius the Epicurean. + + +June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof’s cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily. + +“He’s as obstinate as a mule!” + +Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron’s vehemence. + +“He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances.” + +“What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!” + +“I suppose there is; but he’s of age; he’s a grown man. I don’t see what +you’re going to do about it.” + +“Neither do I! But think what he’s putting aside. The boy’s clever—he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position—the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father’s memory and reputation behind him—” + +“But the idea of reward doesn’t appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night.” + +“There’s one thing I haven’t dared to ask him: to take his own name—to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn’t want his +father’s money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too.” + +“It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage.” + +“It’s simply providential that he hasn’t become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!” + +They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by. + +“Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger.” + +He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligée shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free. + +“Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can’t be sure of you long,” said the Baron. + +“You have spoiled me,—I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true.” + +“Something must be done about your father’s estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready.” + +The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously. + +Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees. + +“No,—no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country—something that we may hope pleases him if he knows.” + +The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request. + +“But the name—the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known—a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe—surely +you can at least accept that.” + +The Ambassador’s tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw—or thought he saw—the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron. + +“How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?” he asked, +sitting down. + +“Nothing,—absolutely nothing. The presence of the _Sophia Margaret_ off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,—please do not forget that!—and +you are a friend of my family,—a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness.” + +The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still +unanswered. + +“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.” + +“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him. + +“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. “I read in the _Neue Freie Presse_ a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.” + +“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.” + +“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge +Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them.” + +“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron. + +Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed. + +“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody.” + +A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read. + +“It’s from the commander of the _Sophia Margaret_, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health.” + +“It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But”—and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously—“as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That’s what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense.” + +Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,—before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man’s desire. + +The Baron’s next words broke harshly upon his mood. + +“The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,—you could make yourself the younger—the great Stroebel—” + +The mention of his name brought back the Baron’s still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling. + +“I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,—if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,—that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me.” + +He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses. + +Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron’s +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim. + +At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +_vestigia_ that interested him deeply,—a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her. + +“They told me you wouldn’t dare venture out for a week,” she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand. + +“That was what they told me,” he said, laughing; “but I escaped from my +keepers.” + +“You will undoubtedly take cold,—without your hat!” + +“Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances.” + +“You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero.” + +“Please!” He held up his hand. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” + +“About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow.” + +She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy’s whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,—an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,—not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him. + +“I didn’t know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn’t have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn’t +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall.” + +“Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It’s hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven’t your hat—” + +“Neither have you; you shan’t outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,—the loot of the pergola!” + +“There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can’t be responsible +for you.” + +“The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that’s what I +have come to ask you about.” + +“Then I should say that you oughtn’t to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he’s your uncle.” + +“No! No! I don’t want him to be my uncle! I don’t need any uncle!” + +He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh. + +“I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don’t worry; the sheep won’t +tell—and I won’t.” + +He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them. + +“Shirley!” + +He touched her hand. + +“Shirley!” and his fingers closed upon hers. + +“I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,—before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood—I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;—but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father’s eyes,—his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,—they wish me to take that.” + +She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills. + +“The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,—in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,—it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man’s right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,—unless you tell me I must, Shirley!” + +There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips. + +“It was that way,—you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes.” + +He caught her hand and kissed it,—bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face. + +“I do not know,”—and he scarcely heard the whispered words,—“I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,—but I love—John Armitage,” she +said. + +Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron’s +question. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 *** diff --git a/old/13913-h/13913-h.htm b/old/13913-h/13913-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7611aa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/13913-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9941 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>The Port of Missing Men | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> +#pg-header div, #pg-footer div { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 2em; +} +#pg-footer div.agate { + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-footer li { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + text-indent: -0.6em; +} +#pg-footer div.secthead { + font-size: 110%; + font-weight: bold; +} +#pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license { + font-size: 110%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-header-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight:bold; +} +#pg-footer-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight: normal; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header p { + text-indent: -4em; + margin-left: 4em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0; + font-size: medium +} +#pg-header #pg-header-authlist { + all: initial; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header strong { + font-weight: normal; +} +#pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator { + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: 0; + margin-right: auto; + margin-top: 2em; + text-align: center +} + + .xhtml_center {text-align: center; display: block;} + .xhtml_center table { + display: table; + text-align: left; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe63_6875 {width: 63.6875em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe70_25 {width: 70.25em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe69_8125 {width: 69.8125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe69_8125 {width: 69.8125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe67_3125 {width: 67.3125em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe70_25 {width: 70.25em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe57 {width: 57em;} + +body { + margin-left: 8%; + width: 85%; + /* == margin-left:7% */ + } + +p { + /* all paragraphs unless overridden */ + margin-top: 1em; + /* inter-paragraph space */ + margin-bottom: 0; + /* use only top-margin for spacing */ + line-height: 1.4em; + /* interline spacing (“leading”) */ + } +body > p { + /* paras at <body> level - not in <div> or <table> */ + text-align: justify; + /* or left?? */ + text-indent: 1em; + /* first-line indent */ + } +/* suppress indentation on paragraphs following heads */ +h2 + p, h3 + p, h4 + p { + text-indent: 0 + } +/* tighter spacing for list item paragraphs */ +dd, li { + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0; + line-height: 1.2em; + /* a bit closer than p’s */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Head 2 is for chapter heads. + * ********************************************************************** */ +h2 { + /* text-align:center; left-aligned by default. */ + margin-top: 3em; + /* extra space above.. */ + margin-bottom: 2em; + /* ..and below */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars overlap */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Head 3 is for main-topic heads. + * ********************************************************************** */ +h3 { + /* text-align:center; left-aligned by default. */ + margin-top: 2em; + /* extra space above but not below */ + font-weight: normal; + /* override default of bold */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars overlap */ + } +/* ************************************************************************ + * Styling the default HR and some special-purpose ones. + * Default rule centered and clear of floats; sized for thought-breaks + * ********************************************************************** */ +hr { + width: 45%; + /* adjust to ape original work */ + margin-top: 1em; + /* space above & below */ + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: auto; + /* these two ensure a.. */ + margin-right: auto; + /* ..centered rule */ + clear: both; + /* don’t let sidebars & floats overlap rule */ + } + +img {border: 1px solid black; padding: 6px;} + +.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +.caption {font-weight: bold;} +.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%;} +.w100 {width: 100%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe57" id="frontispiece"> + <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>Shirley Claiborne</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<h1 id="id00002" style="margin-top: 3em">THE PORT OF MISSING MEN</h1> + +<p id="id00003">by</p> + +<h3 id="id00004">MEREDITH NICHOLSON</h3> + +<p id="id00005">Author of <i>The House of a Thousand Candles</i>, <i>The Main Chance</i>, +<i>Zelda Dameron</i>, etc.</p> + +<p>With Illustrations by<br> +CLARENCE F. RUTHERFORD</p> + +<p id="id00007" style="margin-top: 7em">Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.—Malory.</p> + +<p>INDIANAPOLIS<br> +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br> +PUBLISHERS</p> + + + + +<p>COPYRIGHT 1907<br> +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br> +JANUARY</p> + +<p id="id00008" style="margin-top: 2em">To the Memory of Herman Kountze</p> + +<h3 id="id00009" style="margin-top: 4em">THE SHINING ROAD</h3> + +<p id="id00010">Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city’s bound,<br> + +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found.<br> + +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn,<br> + +And there are happy highways leading on and always on;<br> + +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance.<br></p> + +<p id="id00011">Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds,<br> + +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds;<br> + +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine,<br> + +E’en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine!<br> + +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day.<br></p> + +<p id="id00012">Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace;<br> + +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release!<br> + +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down<br> + +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town.<br> + +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I’ll break a lance for you!<br></p> + +<p id="id00013">O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear!<br> + +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear!<br> + +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away<br> + +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day.<br> + +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried<br> + +As o’er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride!</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00014" style="margin-top: 4em">CONTENTS</h2></div> + +<p id="id00015" style="margin-top: 2em">CHAPTER<br> + I “Events, Events”<br> + II The Claibornes, of Washington<br> + III Dark Tidings<br> + IV John Armitage a Prisoner<br> + V A Lost Cigarette Case<br> + VI Toward the Western Stars<br> + VII On the Dark Deck<br> + VIII “The King Is Dead; Long Live the King”<br> + IX “This Is America, Mr. Armitage”<br> + X John Armitage Is Shadowed<br> + XI The Toss of a Napkin<br> + XII A Camp in the Mountains<br> + XIII The Lady of the Pergola<br> + XIV An Enforced Interview<br> + XV Shirley Learns a Secret<br> + XVI Narrow Margins<br> + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding<br> + XVIII An Exchange of Messages<br> + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty<br> + XX The First Ride Together<br> + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold<br> + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow<br> + XXIII The Verge of Morning<br> + XXIV The Attack in the Road<br> + XXV The Port of Missing Men<br> + XXVI “Who Are You, John Armitage?”<br> + XXVII Decent Burial<br> +XXVIII John Armitage</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00016" style="margin-top: 5em">CHAPTER I</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00017">“EVENTS, EVENTS”</h3> + +<p id="id00018">Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +—<i>Troilus and Cressida.</i></p> + +<p id="id00019" style="margin-top: 2em">“The knowledge that you’re alive gives me no pleasure,” growled the grim +old Austrian premier.</p> + +<p id="id00020">“Thank you!” laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. “You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you—I believe you admitted it—a slight service.”</p> + +<p id="id00021">Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair.</p> + +<p id="id00022">He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies.</p> + +<p id="id00023">It was not often that the light in the old man’s eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor.</p> + +<p id="id00024">The card was a gentleman’s <i>carte de visite</i>, and bore the name John +Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00025">“I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris.<br> +Where did you get it?” demanded the minister.</p> + +<p id="id00026">“I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made,” replied the +young man. “Besides, it’s English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it.”</p> + +<p id="id00027">“Which is not particularly creditable; but it’s probably just as well +so.”</p> + +<p id="id00028">He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy.</p> + +<p id="id00029">“I hope you are quite well,” said Armitage kindly.</p> + +<p id="id00030">“I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years.”</p> + +<p id="id00031">“It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria’s good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read—only +to-day, in the <i>Contemporary Review</i>—an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest.”</p> + +<p id="id00032">The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated.</p> + +<p id="id00033">“But you are here for rest—one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else.”</p> + +<p id="id00034">“What brings you here?” asked the old man with sudden energy. “If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting—”</p> + +<p id="id00035">“Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?”</p> + +<p id="id00036">“If you are waiting for events—for events! If you expect something to +happen!”</p> + +<p id="id00037">Armitage laughed at the old gentleman’s earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette.</p> + +<p id="id00038">“Waiting doesn’t suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands—and my wits are—let +us say—average!”</p> + +<p id="id00039">Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly.</p> + +<p id="id00040">“Is it true”—he turned again and glanced about—“is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?”</p> + +<p id="id00041">“Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it,” said Armitage, +meeting the old man’s eyes steadily.</p> + +<p id="id00042">“The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year.”</p> + +<p id="id00043">“I am aware of that,” replied John Armitage; “but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting—you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p id="id00044">“Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well,” growled Von +Stroebel.</p> + +<p id="id00045">“And the packet I gave you—”</p> + +<p id="id00046">The old man nodded.</p> + +<p id="id00047">“—that packet contained the Archduke Karl’s sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!”</p> + +<p id="id00048">“Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive—and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?”</p> + +<p id="id00049">“I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear,” said + +John Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00050">“Then you should give me the documents.”</p> + +<p id="id00051">“No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City.”</p> + +<p id="id00052">“I should have them; I <i>must</i> have them!” thundered the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00053">“In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00054">The palsy in the old man’s hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00055">“That packet is lost, I tell you!” he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. “It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That’s what I’m here for—my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id00056">Count von Stroebel’s bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion—a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit.</p> + +<p id="id00057">“The packet has been stolen,” he observed calmly; “whom do you suspect of +taking it?”</p> + +<p id="id00058">The old man leaned upon the table heavily.</p> + +<p id="id00059">“That amiable Francis—”</p> + +<p id="id00060">“The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered.”</p> + +<p id="id00061">“But his mother—she is the devil!” blurted the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00062">“Pray drop that,” said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. “I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,—am I to +understand that Francis has it?”</p> + +<p id="id00063">“Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves.”</p> + +<p id="id00064">“I don’t know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar.”</p> + +<p id="id00065">“He has a dozen names—one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He’s a blackmailer, who aims high—a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He’s a bad lot, I tell you. I’ve had my best +men after him, and they’ve just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do—” began the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00066">“Yes; that packet must be recovered,” answered Armitage. “If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it.”</p> + +<p id="id00067">His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister.</p> + +<p id="id00068">“You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire.”</p> + +<p id="id00069">John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence.</p> + +<p id="id00070">“Events! Events!” muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power.</p> + +<p id="id00071">“Events!” the young man murmured.</p> + +<p id="id00072">“Events!” repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. “A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people—and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!”</p> + +<p id="id00073">The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright.</p> + +<p id="id00074">“Why the devil don’t you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?” demanded the premier.</p> + +<p id="id00075">“Like a gentleman?” repeated Armitage. “It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I <i>am</i> dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead.”</p> + +<p id="id00076">“Francis is a troublesome blackguard,” declared the old man. “I wish to +God <i>he</i> would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don’t you +suppose he could go to Budapest to-morrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He’s as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you.”</p> + +<p id="id00077">Armitage nodded and smiled.</p> + +<p id="id00078">“I dare say,” he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: “No doubt you are speaking the truth.”</p> + +<p id="id00079">“Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00080">There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued:</p> + +<p id="id00081">“We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage—the commission—would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men.”</p> + +<p id="id00082">“I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name.”</p> + +<p id="id00083">“He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe.”</p> + +<p id="id00084">Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly.</p> + +<p id="id00085">“I will show you the gentleman’s pleasant countenance,” said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest.</p> + +<p id="id00086">“Rambaud!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p id="id00087">“That’s his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his <i>noms de guerre</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00088">“Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before.”</p> + +<p id="id00089">“That is possible,” remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances.</p> + +<p id="id00090">“I expect to see him here within a few days.”</p> + +<p id="id00091">Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva.</p> + +<p id="id00092">“He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so.”</p> + +<p id="id00093">“Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men,” said the +minister.</p> + +<p id="id00094">“You wish to arrest him?”</p> + +<p id="id00095">“You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can’t have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can’t advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers—Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there’s a woman, is there? I’ve +found that there usually is!”</p> + +<p id="id00096">“There’s a very charming young American girl, to be more exact.”</p> + +<p id="id00097">The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph.</p> + +<p id="id00098">“I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait—”</p> + +<p id="id00099">“Events!” and John Armitage laughed. “I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my <i>forte</i>. That’s what I like about America; they’re up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost.”</p> + +<p id="id00100">“They’re a lot of swine!” rumbled Von Stroebel’s heavy bass.</p> + +<p id="id00101">“I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don’t imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them—in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting—why not?”</p> + +<p id="id00102">“I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and—fairly clever—”</p> + +<p id="id00103">Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count’s praise.</p> + +<p id="id00104">“Thank you, with all my heart!”</p> + +<p id="id00105">“Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen—who can tell? Events—events—if a man will watch and wait and +study events—”</p> + +<p id="id00106">“Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events,” laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. “To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years—a pretty spectacle, too.”</p> + +<p id="id00107">“Carrion! Carrion!” almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +“Don’t mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But”—he gulped down more of the brandy—“where and how do +you live?”</p> + +<p id="id00108">“Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke’s death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died—and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch.”</p> + +<p id="id00109">“Washington!” snorted the count. “In due course it will be the storm +center of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00110">“You read the wrong American newspapers,” laughed Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00111">They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used:</p> + +<p id="id00112">“Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?”</p> + +<p id="id00113">“As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University.”</p> + +<p id="id00114">“What the devil did you do that for?” growled Von Stroebel.</p> + +<p id="id00115">“From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry—I am very sorry we can’t meet on +some common ground.”</p> + +<p id="id00116">“I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far—very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease.”</p> + +<p id="id00117">“What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks—it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor’s name you commit an anachronism.”</p> + +<p id="id00118">The count frowned and growled.</p> + +<p id="id00119">“Don’t talk to me like that. It is not amusing.”</p> + +<p id="id00120">“No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains—it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination.”</p> + +<p id="id00121">“You put it coarsely,” remarked the old man grimly. “I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone.”</p> + +<p id="id00122">“Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings.”</p> + +<p id="id00123">“I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere.”</p> + +<p id="id00124">“On the other hand, I should become king myself.”</p> + +<p id="id00125">“Don’t be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse.”</p> + +<p id="id00126">“My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping—by the Archduke’s own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor’s nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then—events, events!”</p> + +<p id="id00127">Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him.</p> + +<p id="id00128">“Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you.”</p> + +<p id="id00129">Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id00130">“I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more.”</p> + +<p id="id00131">“It is too late. The chasm is too deep.”</p> + +<p id="id00132">The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly.</p> + +<p id="id00133">The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner.</p> + +<p id="id00134">“I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service—to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly.”</p> + +<p id="id00135">“Your place is secure—no one can gainsay that,” broke in Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00136">“If you would do something for me—for me—do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don’t care what that service may be; I don’t care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. <i>Do something for Austria</i>—for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years—then take your name again—and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe70_25" id="illustration_pg18"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg18.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“Do something for Austria”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id00137">“For the Empire—something for the Empire?” murmured the young man, +wondering.</p> + +<p id="id00138">Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose.</p> + +<p id="id00139">“You will accept the commission—I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again.” As he took Armitage’s +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily.</p> + +<p id="id00140">“Good night; good-by!” he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00141" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER II</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00142">THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON</h3> + +<p id="id00143">—the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.—<i>The Naulahka</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00144" style="margin-top: 2em">The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention.</p> + +<p id="id00145">“’Tis he, the unknown, Dick.”</p> + +<p id="id00146">“I must say I like his persistence!” exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. “In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here—”</p> + +<p id="id00147">“Over here you have better manners,” replied the girl, laughing. “But why +trouble yourself? He doesn’t even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language.”</p> + +<p id="id00148">“But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater—he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It’s growing a trifle monotonous; it’s really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him.”</p> + +<p id="id00149">“You flatter yourself, Richard,” mocked the girl. “He’s fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost—yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is”—she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment—“light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I’m sure that he is an exemplary person—kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews’ and nieces’ Christmas trees.”</p> + +<p id="id00150">She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother’s growling disdain.</p> + +<p id="id00151">The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern.</p> + +<p id="id00152">“He has a sense of humor,” the girl resumed. “I saw him yesterday—”</p> + +<p id="id00153">“You’re always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”</p> + +<p id="id00154">“Don’t interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +<i>Fliegende Blätter</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00155">“But that’s no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn’t. I’m disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard’s eyes!”</p> + +<p id="id00156">He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00157">“I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all,” she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother’s impatience.</p> + +<p id="id00158">“Which doesn’t help the matter materially, that I can see!” exclaimed the +young man. “With a full beard he’d probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother.”</p> + +<p id="id00159">“It isn’t your fault, Dick,” laughed the girl. “You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him—that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It’s +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you’d find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together—the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible.”</p> + +<p id="id00160">“Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party—America for Americans and +only white men on guard!”</p> + +<p id="id00161">“Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they’d have more weight if +I hadn’t seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven’t forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We’ll call the incident closed, little brother.”</p> + +<p id="id00162">“Our friend Chauvenet, even,” continued Captain Claiborne, “is less +persistent—less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven’t seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat.”</p> + +<p id="id00163">“Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world,” declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00164">“He lives by his wits—and lives well.”</p> + +<p id="id00165">Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper.</p> + +<p id="id00166">“He’s reading the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i>,” remarked Dick, “by which token I +argue that he’s some sort of a Dutchman. He’s probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary.”</p> + +<p id="id00167">“You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction—that air of having been places and seen things and +known people—”</p> + +<p id="id00168">“Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that—even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It’s well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching.”</p> + +<p id="id00169">Shirley Claiborne’s eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the <i>Neue +Freie Presse</i>. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly—with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference.</p> + +<p id="id00170">“He has known real sorrow,” persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. “He’s traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief,” the girl continued with mock +sympathy.</p> + +<p id="id00171">“Then let us leave him in peace! We can’t decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow.”</p> + +<p id="id00172">Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business.</p> + +<p id="id00173">Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother’s school and were enjoying a late <i>déjeuner</i> +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip.</p> + +<p id="id00174">Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl’s +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight.</p> + +<p id="id00175">Much of Shirley’s girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens.</p> + +<p id="id00176">Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia’s reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth’s foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the <i>r</i> and <i>l</i> slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl—may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne’s pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking.</p> + +<p id="id00177">As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly.</p> + +<p id="id00178">“Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00179">The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attaché of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station.</p> + +<p id="id00180">The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked.</p> + +<p id="id00181">“Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There’s mystery in +the air—the great Stroebel is here—under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man—a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor—he’s only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way—what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;” and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties.</p> + +<p id="id00182">“We met him in Vienna,” said Shirley Claiborne, “when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear.”</p> + +<p id="id00183">“He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe—and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies—no post-mortem confidences from him!”</p> + +<p id="id00184">The reader of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i>, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attaché, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially.</p> + +<p id="id00185">“Why, Armitage, of all men!” and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance.</p> + +<p id="id00186">“Shirley—Miss Claiborne—allow me to present Mr. Armitage.” The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attaché, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone.</p> + +<p id="id00187">“One always meets Armitage!” declared Singleton. “He knows our America as +well as we do—and very well indeed—for an Englishman.”</p> + +<p id="id00188">Armitage bowed gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00189">“You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I’m really a fair sort of American—I +have sometimes told New York people all about—Colorado—Montana—New +Mexico!”</p> + +<p id="id00190">His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life.</p> + +<p id="id00191">“Of course you’re not English!” exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest.</p> + +<p id="id00192">“I’m really getting sensitive about it,” said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. “But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?”</p> + +<p id="id00193">The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley’s passingly, and she smiled at him—it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man’s dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper—and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair.</p> + +<p id="id00194">“Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here—in this +very house!” whispered Singleton impressively.</p> + +<p id="id00195">“Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you.” He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton’s promise to look him up later, and left them.</p> + +<p id="id00196">When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick<br> + +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> which +Armitage had cast aside at their table.</p> + +<p id="id00197">“Now we shall know!” he declared, unfolding the newspaper.</p> + +<p id="id00198">“Know what, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id00199">“At least what our friend without a country is so interested in.”</p> + +<p id="id00200">He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister.</p> + +<p id="id00201">“Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!” he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them.</p> + +<p id="id00202">“Isn’t that the worst!” exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully.</p> + +<p id="id00203">“He’s certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation.”</p> + +<p id="id00204">“He isn’t an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn.”</p> + +<p id="id00205">“Well, your Mr. Armitage didn’t seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!”</p> + +<p id="id00206">“Don’t be foolish, Dick. It’s unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again—”</p> + +<p id="id00207">“Yes—not if I see him <i>first</i>!” ejaculated Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00208">“Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing—and +satisfying—to know.”</p> + +<p id="id00209">Later in the day the old attaché fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked:</p> + +<p id="id00210">“Your friend Armitage seems a good sort.”</p> + +<p id="id00211">“Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id00212">“Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives—when +he’s at home?”</p> + +<p id="id00213">“Lord bless you, boy, I don’t know anything about Armitage!” spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions.</p> + +<p id="id00214">“But you introduced us to him—my sister and me. I assumed—”</p> + +<p id="id00215">“My dear Claiborne, I’m always introducing people! It’s my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He’s always around everywhere. +I’ve dined with him in Paris, and I’ve rarely seen a man order a better +dinner.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00216" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER III</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00217">DARK TIDINGS</h3> + +<p id="id00218">The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.—Shakespeare.</p> + +<p id="id00219" style="margin-top: 2em">The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler’s on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage’s voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed.</p> + +<p id="id00220">“Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren’t +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause—”</p> + +<p id="id00221">He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box.</p> + +<p id="id00222">“I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00223">“I’d like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything.”</p> + +<p id="id00224">“Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs.”</p> + +<p id="id00225">“Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home,” replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket.</p> + +<p id="id00226">“My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage,” +Shirley explained.</p> + +<p id="id00227">“These last errands are always trying—there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff.”</p> + +<p id="id00228">“There’s the wireless,” said Shirley. “In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again—that photographs don’t give.”</p> + +<p id="id00229">“Such as—?”</p> + +<p id="id00230">“Oh—the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter’s; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon’s tomb—the awfulness +of what he did and was—and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,”—and +she laughed lightly,—“I have made a most serious confession.”</p> + +<p id="id00231">“It is a new idea—that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance—a tremendous story.”</p> + +<p id="id00232">“That is what makes me sorry to go home,” said Shirley meditatively. “We +are so new—still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there’s a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost.”</p> + +<p id="id00233">“But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn’t do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don’t think of their past as much as of their +future—the future of the whole human race.”</p> + +<p id="id00234">Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother’s benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about.</p> + +<p id="id00235">Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy’s delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of “the spirit of place” that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat—as she often did—in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators’ gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times.</p> + +<p id="id00236">Armitage was aware that a jeweler’s shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl’s voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before <i>High Tide at Gettysburg</i>, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting—its ardor and fire—took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes.</p> + +<p id="id00237">His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel’s departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy.</p> + +<p id="id00238">He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00239">“But America—isn’t America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,—its discovery,—the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another’s armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior.”</p> + +<p id="id00240">“He could afford to say it; he was the victor,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00241">“Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions.”</p> + +<p id="id00242">The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00243">“There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning.”</p> + +<p id="id00244">“Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?”</p> + +<p id="id00245">It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00246">“There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn’t fair game for an +assassin,” said Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00247">“No; he deserved a better fate,” remarked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00248">“He was a grand old man,” said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. “Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered.”</p> + +<p id="id00249">“Yes; he was a wise and useful man,” observed Armitage, still grave. “He +was one of the great men of his time.”</p> + +<p id="id00250">His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further.</p> + +<p id="id00251">“And now we shall see—” began the young American.</p> + +<p id="id00252">“We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings.”</p> + +<p id="id00253">John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p id="id00254">“A queer devil,” observed Claiborne, as they drove away. “A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?”</p> + +<p id="id00255">“I found <i>him</i>, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure.”</p> + +<p id="id00256">“I shouldn’t have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far.”</p> + +<p id="id00257">“And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes.”</p> + +<p id="id00258">“Lord help us, he hasn’t been buying you a watch?”</p> + +<p id="id00259">“No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana.”</p> + +<p id="id00260">“Humph! you’re chaffing.”</p> + +<p id="id00261">“Not in the least. He paid—I couldn’t help being a witness to the +transaction—he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch—<i>his</i> ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?”</p> + +<p id="id00262">“I’m afraid it rather does for my theory. I’ll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn’t a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel’s death. You don’t suppose he knew him, +do you?”</p> + +<p id="id00263">“It’s possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he’s done for.”</p> + +<p id="id00264">“Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he’s out of +the way.”</p> + +<p id="id00265">Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel’s +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days.</p> + +<p id="id00266">It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa.</p> + +<p id="id00267">“We are running for the <i>King Edward</i>, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America,” +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister’s +benefit.</p> + +<p id="id00268">“That is possible; I am very fond of Washington,” responded Armitage +carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id00269">“Of course you will look us up,” persisted Dick. “I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while—and it will always be a pleasure—”</p> + +<p id="id00270">Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00271">“Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel’s assassin?” she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand.</p> + +<p id="id00272">“Nothing. It’s a very mysterious and puzzling affair.”</p> + +<p id="id00273">“It’s horrible to think such a thing possible—he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer.”</p> + +<p id="id00274">“Yes; undoubtedly.”</p> + +<p id="id00275">Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage’s back—a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door—Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother’s benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key.</p> + +<p id="id00276">“The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin,” she +observed.</p> + +<p id="id00277">“Yes,” replied Armitage gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00278">He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek—he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right—made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing.</p> + +<p id="id00279">“The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt,” said Shirley. “The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time.”</p> + +<p id="id00280">“That is quite likely,” said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. “In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself.”</p> + +<p id="id00281">He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage.</p> + +<p id="id00282">“Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of that fellow.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00283">Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage’s +last words. “I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself,” he had said.</p> + +<p id="id00284">She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door—his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage.</p> + +<p id="id00285">And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00286" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00287">JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER</h3> + +<p id="id00288">All things are bright in the track of the sun,<br> + + All things are fair I see;<br> + +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me.<br></p> + +<p id="id00289">And the world turns round and round and round,<br> + + And my thought sinks into the sea;<br> + +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery.<br></p> + +<p id="id00290">—S.W. Duffield.</p> + +<p id="id00291" style="margin-top: 2em">The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes’ departure.</p> + +<p id="id00292">While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes’ notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman’s death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage’s character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week.</p> + +<p id="id00293">He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear.</p> + +<p id="id00294">The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord.</p> + +<p id="id00295">Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet’s activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry.</p> + +<p id="id00296">It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms.</p> + +<p id="id00297">At about eight o’clock, as Armitage turned the pages of <i>Figaro</i> in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed.</p> + +<p id="id00298">It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvétique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of <i>pensions</i>. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed.</p> + +<p id="id00299">Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan <i>gendarmerie</i> have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet’s errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered.</p> + +<p id="id00300">Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint.</p> + +<p id="id00301">The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened.</p> + +<p id="id00302">Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear.</p> + +<p id="id00303">“It’s stifling in this hole,” said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. “If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat.”</p> + +<p id="id00304">He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness.</p> + +<p id="id00305">“You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it.”</p> + +<p id="id00306">The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva?</p> + +<p id="id00307">“The old man’s death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths.”</p> + +<p id="id00308">“We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel’s.”</p> + +<p id="id00309">“He was a beast. He is well dead.”</p> + +<p id="id00310">“That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools.”</p> + +<p id="id00311">The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses.</p> + +<p id="id00312">“I am going to America at once,” said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling.</p> + +<p id="id00313">“It is probably just as well,” said the other. “There’s work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues.”</p> + +<p id="id00314">“The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one’s self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington,” remarked Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00315">“Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy.”</p> + +<p id="id00316">There was a keen irony in the fellow’s tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table.</p> + +<p id="id00317">“Enough of that, if you please.”</p> + +<p id="id00318">“As you will, <i>carino</i>; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of <i>la belle Americaine</i>. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army.”</p> + +<p id="id00319">“Humph! He is an ass,” ejaculated Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00320">A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him.</p> + +<p id="id00321">Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +rôle of host, employed a Servian dialect.</p> + +<p id="id00322">“I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, <i>carino</i>. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules.”</p> + +<p id="id00323">“Don’t be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don’t believe +those fellows are over there. They’re probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,—that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and—”</p> + +<p id="id00324">“The heights—the heights!” And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily.<br></p> + +<p id="id00325">“Yes; the heights,” repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily.</p> + +<p id="id00326">“But that declaration—that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say.”</p> + +<p id="id00327">“There is no place—but one—that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend.”</p> + +<p id="id00328">“You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way.”</p> + +<p id="id00329">“Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel’s archives.”</p> + +<p id="id00330">“Do you say ‘risked much’? My valued neck, that is all!” said the other. +“You and Winkelried are without gratitude.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00331">“You will do well,” said Chauvenet, “to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days—! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen.”</p> + +<p id="id00332">He glanced at his watch.</p> + +<p id="id00333">“I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade.”</p> + +<p id="id00334">They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune.</p> + +<p id="id00335">His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat.</p> + +<p id="id00336">As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00337" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER V</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00338">A LOST CIGARETTE CASE</h3> + +<p id="id00339">To other woods the trail leads on,<br> + + To other worlds and new,<br> + +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too.<br></p> + +<p id="id00340">—Henry A. Beers.</p> + +<p id="id00341" style="margin-top: 2em">The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man’s +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage’s back.</p> + +<p id="id00342">The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German.</p> + +<p id="id00343">“Who are you and what do you want here?”</p> + +<p id="id00344">Armitage shook his head; and replied in English:</p> + +<p id="id00345">“I do not understand.”</p> + +<p id="id00346">The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive’s +face, then ran his hands over Armitage’s pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security.</p> + +<p id="id00347">Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant’s legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action.</p> + +<p id="id00348">“Get up,” he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage’s +head.</p> + +<p id="id00349">“I will shoot,” he said again in his halting German.</p> + +<p id="id00350">“Undoubtedly you will!” and something in the fellow’s manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation.</p> + +<p id="id00351">The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen.</p> + +<p id="id00352">“I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you,” admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door.</p> + +<p id="id00353">Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand.</p> + +<p id="id00354">The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done.</p> + +<p id="id00355">“You will go to that corner;” and the Servian translated for his +prisoner’s benefit with a gesture of the revolver.</p> + +<p id="id00356">“Anything to please you, worthy fellow,” replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man’s object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized.</p> + +<p id="id00357">Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care.</p> + +<p id="id00358">Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian’s caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage’s head.</p> + +<p id="id00359">He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm’s length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans.</p> + +<p id="id00360">“There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!” yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway:</p> + +<p id="id00361">“Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what’s the trouble.”</p> + +<p id="id00362">It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain.</p> + +<p id="id00363">As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian’s head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding.</p> + +<p id="id00364">It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came.</p> + +<p id="id00365">Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside.</p> + +<p id="id00366">Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words:</p> + +<p id="id00367">“Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00368">Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax.</p> + +<p id="id00369">Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight.</p> + +<p id="id00370">Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke—in French—in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand’s tone:</p> + +<p id="id00371">“A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!”</p> + +<p id="id00372">With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet’s legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing.</p> + +<p id="id00373">Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard.</p> + +<p id="id00374">The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself:</p> + +<p id="id00375">“A few murders, more or less!”</p> + +<p id="id00376">At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express.</p> + +<p id="id00377">As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found.</p> + +<p id="id00378">His annoyance at the loss was balanced—could he have known it—by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen—one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead—bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto <i>Fide non armis</i>. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters <i>F.A.</i></p> + +<p id="id00379">The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet.</p> + +<p id="id00380">“It isn’t possible!” gasped Durand.</p> + +<p id="id00381">“It is quite possible,” replied Chauvenet. “The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!”<br></p> + +<p id="id00382">The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet’s face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope.</p> + +<p id="id00383">“Who is he? Who is he?” whispered Durand, very white of face.</p> + +<p id="id00384">“It may be—it must be some one deeply concerned.”</p> + +<p id="id00385">Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand’s arm so tight that +the man flinched.</p> + +<p id="id00386">“There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He’s here—I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!”</p> + +<p id="id00387">He dropped his hand from Durand’s arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand.</p> + +<p id="id00388">“John Armitage—John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence.”</p> + +<p id="id00389">His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face.</p> + +<p id="id00390">“Who is John Armitage?” demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself:</p> + +<p id="id00391">“Is it possible? Is it possible?” and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case.</p> + +<p id="id00392">“My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00393">Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand’s ear:</p> + +<p id="id00394">“Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!”<br></p> + +<p id="id00395">“Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?” asked Durand +irritably.</p> + +<p id="id00396">“He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation.”</p> + +<p id="id00397">“Clearly so,” remarked Durand ironically. “But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here—”</p> + +<p id="id00398">Chauvenet again struck the table smartly.</p> + +<p id="id00399">“Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke’s friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them—”<br></p> + +<p id="id00400">“Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that,” said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00401">“Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him.”</p> + +<p id="id00402">“And quickly. There must be—”</p> + +<p id="id00403">“—another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna.”</p> + +<p id="id00404">They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00405" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00406">TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS</h3> + +<p id="id00407">Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star.<br></p> + +<p id="id00408">—<i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00409" style="margin-top: 2em">Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the <i>King Edward</i>, whereas he might have taken the <i>Touraine</i> +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the <i>King Edward</i> was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors.</p> + +<p id="id00410">Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel.</p> + +<p id="id00411">“I hope,” observed Dick, “that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I’m not wholly sure that we shan’t +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles.”</p> + +<p id="id00412">“Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the <i>Tecumseh</i>. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id00413">Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap.</p> + +<p id="id00414">“I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as <i>père et mère</i> get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility.”</p> + +<p id="id00415">“Thank you, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id00416">“And if there are any titled blackguards on board—”</p> + +<p id="id00417">“You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won’t you, little +brother?”</p> + +<p id="id00418">“Humph! Thank God, I’m an American!”</p> + +<p id="id00419">“That’s a worthy sentiment, Richard.”</p> + +<p id="id00420">“I’d like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we’d get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I’d like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don’t +count.”</p> + +<p id="id00421">“Yes, dearest,” mocked Shirley. “Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don’t indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room—”</p> + +<p id="id00422">“Probably from the Liverpool consul—he’s been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole.”</p> + +<p id="id00423">“Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They’re orchids—from London—but—with Mr. Armitage’s card. Wouldn’t +that excite you?”</p> + +<p id="id00424">“It makes me sick!” and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug.</p> + +<p id="id00425">“They are beautiful orchids. I don’t remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard—in such quantities. Now, you really didn’t +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn’t so bad; and he may be an American, after all.”</p> + +<p id="id00426">“A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again—”</p> + +<p id="id00427">“Yes, Richard, if you should meet again—”</p> + +<p id="id00428">“I’d ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up.”</p> + +<p id="id00429">“Yes; I’m sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard,” mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother’s stalwart shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id00430">“Don’t be silly,” observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them.</p> + +<p id="id00431">“I shan’t, but please don’t be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,”—and she took hold of his arm entreatingly—“for there he +is—as tall and mysterious as ever—and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!”</p> + +<p id="id00432">“This is good fortune, indeed,” said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. “I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am.”</p> + +<p id="id00433">He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne’s resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne’s +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day.</p> + +<p id="id00434">Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain’s +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down.</p> + +<p id="id00435">“You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn’t lay hold of +me in my sleep.”</p> + +<p id="id00436">He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar.<br></p> + +<p id="id00437">“This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune.”</p> + +<p id="id00438">“Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements,” replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass.</p> + +<p id="id00439">Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,—enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler’s hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man’s manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage’s belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man’s eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage’s strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet.</p> + +<p id="id00440">Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father’s fame made them conspicuous.</p> + +<p id="id00441">Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness.</p> + +<p id="id00442">“Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor”—John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again—“can I make any adequate apology for doing so.”</p> + +<p id="id00443">Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man’s attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say.</p> + +<p id="id00444">“A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed.”</p> + +<p id="id00445">Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter.</p> + +<p id="id00446">“I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the <i>King Edward</i> by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there.”</p> + +<p id="id00447">Claiborne smiled in spite of himself.</p> + +<p id="id00448">“But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don’t know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us—it’s altogether too unusual. It’s almost preposterous!”</p> + +<p id="id00449">And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00450">“It’s only decent for a man to give his references when it’s natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,—I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder—what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it,” and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it.</p> + +<p id="id00451">Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley’s sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley’s hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage?</p> + +<p id="id00452">The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious.</p> + +<p id="id00453">“Pardon me,” he asked, “but are you an Englishman?”</p> + +<p id="id00454">“I am not,” answered Armitage. “I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere—but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand—”</p> + +<p id="id00455">He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something.</p> + +<p id="id00456">“On the other hand,” Armitage repeated, “I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died—very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion—particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!” John Armitage laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00457">“It is, indeed, a real merit,” declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage’s wish to appear well in his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00458">“And now,” said Armitage, “I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself—and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again.”</p> + +<p id="id00459">“I have been interested,” remarked Dick; “and,” he added, “I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00460">Armitage began talking of the American army—its strength and +weaknesses—with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk.</p> + +<p id="id00461">The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00462" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00463">ON THE DARK DECK</h3> + +<p id="id00464">Ease, of all good gifts the best,<br> + + War and wave at last decree:<br> + +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea.<br></p> + +<p id="id00465">William Watson.</p> + +<p id="id00466" style="margin-top: 2em">“I am Columbus every time I cross,” said Shirley. “What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country.”</p> + +<p id="id00467">“Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we’re sure to get into trouble if we don’t turn +back.”</p> + +<p id="id00468">“You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land.”</p> + +<p id="id00469">“Don’t starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!”</p> + +<p id="id00470">“Choose a cheerfuller word!” pleaded Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00471">“I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down ‘full faddom five.’”</p> + +<p id="id00472">“I’m sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate’s business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis.”</p> + +<p id="id00473">They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides.</p> + +<p id="id00474">“Armitage isn’t a bad sort,” Dick admitted to Shirley. “He’s either an +awful liar, or he’s seen a lot of the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00475">“Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware,” observed Shirley. +“I’m surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere ‘peddler,’—and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world.”</p> + +<p id="id00476">“Well, if he’s a peddler he’s a high-class one—probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works.”</p> + +<p id="id00477">Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer’s interest.</p> + +<p id="id00478">“The glass-blower’s a deep one, all right,” remarked Dick to Shirley. “He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there’s no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you’d hold on to him +tight till we’re docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him—and I haven’t dared tell her he’s only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me—”</p> + +<p id="id00479">“It would, Richard. Be a generous foe—whether—whether you can afford to +be or not!”</p> + +<p id="id00480">“My sister—my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I’m going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00481">Shirley and Armitage talked—as people will on ship-board—of everything +under the sun. Shirley’s enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world’s larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background.</p> + +<p id="id00482">Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night.</p> + +<p id="id00483">“Time oughtn’t to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass.”</p> + +<p id="id00484">“I like the idea. Such people could become fishers—permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food.”</p> + +<p id="id00485">“They wouldn’t eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea—mine, please note—is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once—</p> + +<p id="id00486">“‘Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.’”<br></p> + +<p id="id00487">“But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn’t have +much show. And dreams passing over—the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures—” he said, and paused inquiringly.</p> + +<p id="id00488">She looked at him quickly.</p> + +<p id="id00489">“How do you know I do?”</p> + +<p id="id00490">“You like Detaille particularly.”</p> + +<p id="id00491">“Am I to defend my taste?—what’s the answer, if you don’t mind?”</p> + +<p id="id00492">“Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter.”</p> + +<p id="id00493">She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris—in cafés, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases.</p> + +<p id="id00494">“It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it.”</p> + +<p id="id00495">“No; there certainly was not!” He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley’s tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war.</p> + +<p id="id00496">“I was in Paris during the exhibition,” he said quietly. “Ormsby, the +American painter—the man who did the <i>High Tide at Gettysburg</i>—is an +acquaintance of mine.”</p> + +<p id="id00497">“Oh!”</p> + +<p id="id00498">It was Ormsby’s painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett’s charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject.</p> + +<p id="id00499">Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage’s remark at the +carriage door in Geneva—that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the <i>King Edward</i>; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity.</p> + +<p id="id00500">“We’re all imperialists at heart,” said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. “We Americans are hungry for empire; +we’re simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation.”</p> + +<p id="id00501">“And before he’d gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand.”</p> + +<p id="id00502">“No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick’s +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry’s for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id00503">“Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks—if the thing is bound +to be—I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne,” he exclaimed, as though with inspiration.</p> + +<p id="id00504">“Yes—you have an idea—”</p> + +<p id="id00505">“Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be—”</p> + +<p id="id00506">“Yes—the suspense is terrible!—what might I be, your Majesty?”</p> + +<p id="id00507">“Well, we should call you—”</p> + +<p id="id00508">He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense.</p> + +<p id="id00509">“I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn’t flattering,” +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him.</p> + +<p id="id00510">“Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title—you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress—that’s the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered.”</p> + +<p id="id00511">They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals—that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night—interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea.</p> + +<p id="id00512">“Accident to the dynamo—we shall have the lights on in a moment!” +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger.</p> + +<p id="id00513">“Shall we go in?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00514">“Yes, it is getting cold,” replied Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00515">For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand.</p> + +<p id="id00516">They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage’s arm tightened.</p> + +<p id="id00517">“What is that?—there is some one following us,” she said.</p> + +<p id="id00518">At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about.</p> + +<p id="id00519">“Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00520">He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley’s grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster.</p> + +<p id="id00521">“Are you hurt? What has happened?” she demanded.</p> + +<p id="id00522">“It must have been a sea-serpent,” he replied, laughing.</p> + +<p id="id00523">The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off.</p> + +<p id="id00524">“I guess it was a sea-serpent,” he said. “It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful.” Then in a lower tone to Shirley: “That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!”</p> + +<p id="id00525">“Oh, no,” she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; “it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I’m sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn’t feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you—it is no jesting +matter—”</p> + +<p id="id00526">“Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers.”</p> + +<p id="id00527">“Yes, it should be reported,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00528">“It was very strange. Why, the deck of the <i>King Edward</i> is the safest +place in the world; but it’s something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn’t caught his cloak—”</p> + +<p id="id00529">Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident.</p> + +<p id="id00530">Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies.</p> + +<p id="id00531">The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the <i>King Edward</i>. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider.</p> + +<p id="id00532">It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail.</p> + +<p id="id00533">“Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes—”</p> + +<p id="id00534">“That will do,” said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man.</p> + +<p id="id00535">“You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting—” said the purser.</p> + +<p id="id00536">“It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility.”</p> + +<p id="id00537">And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook:</p> + +<p id="id00538">“<i>Zmai</i>—; <i>travels as Peter Ludovic</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00539">Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers—some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk’s clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage’s hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister.</p> + +<p id="id00540">“Do something for Austria—something for the Empire.” These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00541" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00542">“THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING”</h3> + +<p id="id00543">Low he lies, yet high and great<br> + +Looms he, lying thus in state.—<br> + +How exalted o’er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen!<br></p> + +<p id="id00544">—James Whitcomb Riley.</p> + +<p id="id00545" style="margin-top: 2em">John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable.</p> + +<p id="id00546">Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the <i>King Edward</i> sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage’s mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage?</p> + +<p id="id00547">The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door.</p> + +<p id="id00548">“Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00549">“Jim Sanderson, come in!” Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice.</p> + +<p id="id00550">“It’s my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury.”</p> + +<p id="id00551">The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. “You’re a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?”</p> + +<p id="id00552">“Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two.”</p> + +<p id="id00553">“You’re getting soft,—that’s what’s the matter with you! You’re afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I’ll admit that it’s +rather more diverting here.”</p> + +<p id="id00554">“There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats.”</p> + +<p id="id00555">Sanderson winked prodigiously.</p> + +<p id="id00556">“The papers <i>have</i> rather skinned me; but on the whole, I’ll do very +well. They say it isn’t respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn’t to hold it up against a man that he’s rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it’s nothing +against me, is it?”</p> + +<p id="id00557">“Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it’s the +Lord’s hand again.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00558">“Why sure!” and the Senator from Montana winked once more. “But it’s +expensive. I’ve got to be elected again next winter—I’m only filling out +Billings’ term—and I’m not sure I can go up against it.”</p> + +<p id="id00559">“But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you’ll not falter, if I know you.”</p> + +<p id="id00560">“There’s hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I’m jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England—one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen—”</p> + +<p id="id00561">“My dear Sanderson, don’t call me English! I’ve told you a dozen times +that I’m not English.”</p> + +<p id="id00562">“So you did; so you did! I’d forgotten that you’re so damned sensitive +about it;” and Sanderson’s eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man’s nativity.</p> + +<p id="id00563">“I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once—three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess.”</p> + +<p id="id00564">Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection.</p> + +<p id="id00565">“The sprinkling cart for me! I’ve got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State’s push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You’re all right, and I guess +you’re about as good an American as they make—anywhere—John Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00566">The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o’clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies.</p> + +<p id="id00567">Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attaché of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian’s +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attaché proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage’s eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man’s gaze.</p> + +<p id="id00568">It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attaché at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man’s +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id00569">The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese.</p> + +<p id="id00570">“They must be crushed—crushed,” said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French.</p> + +<p id="id00571">“Yes, <i>he</i> must be crushed,” returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in<br> + +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun.<br></p> + +<p id="id00572">Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,—a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines.</p> + +<p id="id00573">“Welcome once more, constituent! We’re proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they’re hung out to-night for +the world to see.” She guided Armitage toward the Secretary’s gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste.</p> + +<p id="id00574">“It isn’t merely an art gallery; it’s the most beautiful room in +America,” murmured Mrs. Sanderson.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00575">“I can well believe it. There’s my favorite Vibert,—I wondered what had +become of it.”</p> + +<p id="id00576">“It isn’t surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It’s a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king’s coronation would +not be out of place,—in fact, there’s a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He’s a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago.”</p> + +<p id="id00577">“Ah, to be sure! I haven’t seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little.”</p> + +<p id="id00578">“Then you knew him,—in the old country?”</p> + +<p id="id00579">“Yes; I used to see him—when I was a boy,” remarked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00580">Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,—that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage’s antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him.</p> + +<p id="id00581">The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art.</p> + +<p id="id00582">“Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there’s the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her.”</p> + +<p id="id00583">“I am wholly agreeable,” laughed Armitage. “The sooner the better, and be +done with it.”</p> + +<p id="id00584">“Don’t be so frivolous. There—you can look safely now. She’s stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,—the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,—have a care!”</p> + +<p id="id00585">Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once.</p> + +<p id="id00586">“To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!” exclaimed +Shirley. “And you, Mr. Armitage,—”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00587">“Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne,” laughed John, taking her hand.</p> + +<p id="id00588">“But I haven’t introduced you yet”—began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled.</p> + +<p id="id00589">“No; the <i>King Edward</i> did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken.</p> + +<p id="id00590">The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze.</p> + +<p id="id00591">“Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day.”</p> + +<p id="id00592">“Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary,” declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration.</p> + +<p id="id00593">“The word seems to have been coined for her,” said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache.</p> + +<p id="id00594">“And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty,” +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy.</p> + +<p id="id00595">“How charming!” laughed Mrs. Sanderson. “And this lovely room is just the +place for it.”</p> + +<p id="id00596">They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure.</p> + +<p id="id00597">“Is Baron von Marhof in the room?” he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle.</p> + +<p id="id00598">The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching.<br></p> + +<p id="id00599">The attaché hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief.</p> + +<p id="id00600">The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room:</p> + +<p id="id00601">“His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna,” he said, and gave his arm to his chief.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00602">It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attaché’s words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone.</p> + +<p id="id00603">The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof’s +carriage in the court below.</p> + +<p id="id00604">“The King is dead; long live the King!” murmured Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id00605">“Long live the King!” repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, “Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id00606">Then he turned to Shirley with a smile.</p> + +<p id="id00607">“It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well.”</p> + +<p id="id00608">“Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere.”</p> + +<p id="id00609">“And Captain Claiborne?”</p> + +<p id="id00610">“He’s probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00611">“Thank you; you are very kind,” he said gravely. “I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon.”</p> + +<p id="id00612">As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl’s praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied.</p> + +<p id="id00613">“The girl has gone to your head. Why didn’t you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00614">“I don’t remember that you gave me a chance; but I’ll say now that I +intend to know them better.”</p> + +<p id="id00615">She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm’s +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case.</p> + +<p id="id00616">“Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?”</p> + +<p id="id00617">He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage’s eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet’s lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose.</p> + +<p id="id00618">“You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host’s oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!”</p> + +<p id="id00619">He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,—all, as it seemed, at a single stroke.</p> + +<p id="id00620">“My dear sir,” began Chauvenet, white with rage.</p> + +<p id="id00621">“My dear Monsieur Chauvenet,” said Armitage, striking a match, “I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly.”</p> + +<p id="id00622">The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke.</p> + +<p id="id00623">“Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?” demanded Chauvenet +furiously.</p> + +<p id="id00624">“My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it—now I have it—wherefore it must be mine!”</p> + +<p id="id00625">Chauvenet’s rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id00626">“Between gentlemen—so small a matter!”</p> + +<p id="id00627">“To be sure—the merest trifle,” laughed Armitage with entire good humor.</p> + +<p id="id00628">“And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker—”</p> + +<p id="id00629">“Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets—”</p> + +<p id="id00630">“Come naturally—quite so!” and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction.</p> + +<p id="id00631">“But the genial art of assassination—there’s a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!”</p> + +<p id="id00632">Chauvenet’s hand went again to his lip.</p> + +<p id="id00633">“To be sure!” he ejaculated with zest.</p> + +<p id="id00634">“But alone—alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires—I should say—courageous associates. Now in my affairs—would +you believe me?—I am obliged to manage quite alone.”</p> + +<p id="id00635">“How melancholy!” exclaimed Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00636">“It is indeed very sad!” and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night.</p> + +<p id="id00637">“Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!”</p> + +<p id="id00638">“The thought does credit to a generous nature!” responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00639" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00640">“THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE”</h3> + +<p id="id00641">Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had<br> + + arisen,<br> + +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale;<br> + +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed<br> + + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail.<br></p> + +<p id="id00642">—L. Frank Tooker.</p> + +<p id="id00643" style="margin-top: 2em">Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington.</p> + +<p id="id00644">Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man’s hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart’s desire.</p> + +<p id="id00645">With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,—that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said:</p> + +<p id="id00646">“Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id00647">Emperors and kings! They were as impossible to-day as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador’s +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep.</p> + +<p id="id00648">Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary’s ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the <i>King Edward</i>, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention.</p> + +<p id="id00649">At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her.</p> + +<p id="id00650">“Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?”<br></p> + +<p id="id00651">“It is all of that!” she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet’s praise.</p> + +<p id="id00652">“I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!” he continued.</p> + +<p id="id00653">“No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!”</p> + +<p id="id00654">She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,—his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season.</p> + +<p id="id00655">“Poor Franzel is indeed <i>triste</i>. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!”</p> + +<p id="id00656">“Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!”</p> + +<p id="id00657">“Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself.”</p> + +<p id="id00658">“That is very sad, Monsieur,”—and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. “My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn—alone.”</p> + +<p id="id00659">He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture.</p> + +<p id="id00660">“There are sadder blows than losing one’s sovereign, Mademoiselle!” and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend.</p> + +<p id="id00661">She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley’s heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her.</p> + +<p id="id00662">The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl’s heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek.</p> + +<p id="id00663">Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley.</p> + +<p id="id00664">He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring.</p> + +<p id="id00665">Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff.</p> + +<p id="id00666">“Oh! Oh!” and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her.</p> + +<p id="id00667">“What is it, Miss? Did you call?”</p> + +<p id="id00668">“No; it was nothing, Thomas—nothing at all,” and she mounted and turned +toward home.</p> + +<p id="id00669">Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man’s life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her.</p> + +<p id="id00670">“Miss Claiborne!”</p> + +<p id="id00671">The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone:</p> + +<p id="id00672">“Mr. Armitage!” She laughed. “I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me.”</p> + +<p id="id00673">He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,—he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed.</p> + +<p id="id00674">“You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man’s life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me—”</p> + +<p id="id00675">“Please don’t speak of that! It was so terrible!”</p> + +<p id="id00676">“But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made—that +night on the <i>King Edward</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00677">“Yes; I have not forgotten.”</p> + +<p id="id00678">“And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me.”</p> + +<p id="id00679">“But this is America, Mr. Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id00680">“That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,—it is unpardonable—indefensible!”</p> + +<p id="id00681">She saw that he was greatly troubled.</p> + +<p id="id00682">“But you couldn’t help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It’s a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man—”</p> + +<p id="id00683">“I know the man.”</p> + +<p id="id00684">“Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up.”</p> + +<p id="id00685">She was seeking to minimize the matter,—to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind.</p> + +<p id="id00686">Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm.</p> + +<p id="id00687">“Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can’t +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason—for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn’t presuming—”</p> + +<p id="id00688">He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English.</p> + +<p id="id00689">“How am I to know whether it would be presuming?” she asked.</p> + +<p id="id00690">“But I was going to say—”</p> + +<p id="id00691">“When rudely interrupted!” She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished.</p> + +<p id="id00692">“—that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice.”</p> + +<p id="id00693">She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits.</p> + +<p id="id00694">“How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past.”</p> + +<p id="id00695">“But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here—”</p> + +<p id="id00696">“Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected.”</p> + +<p id="id00697">She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter.</p> + +<p id="id00698">“It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can’t travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia.”</p> + +<p id="id00699">“You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting.”</p> + +<p id="id00700">“Yes; at Storm Springs. It’s really beautiful down there,” she said +simply.</p> + +<p id="id00701">It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth:</p> + +<p id="id00702">“I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills.”</p> + +<p id="id00703">“Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There’s a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer—up when it’s warm, down when it’s cold. +There’s the secret of our mercurial temperament.”</p> + +<p id="id00704">A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice.</p> + +<p id="id00705">“He’s just up from the farm and doesn’t like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon,” she said as they rode on.</p> + +<p id="id00706">“Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!” he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again!</p> + +<p id="id00707">“Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people’s names.”</p> + +<p id="id00708">“Then you reverse the usual fashionable process—you go south to meet the +rising mercury.”</p> + +<p id="id00709">“I hadn’t thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep—and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood’s golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?”</p> + +<p id="id00710">“Nothing, but my entire approval,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id00711">He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00712" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER X</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00713">JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED</h3> + +<p id="id00714">Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,<br> + +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.<br></p> + +<p id="id00715">—Walt Whitman.</p> + +<p id="id00716" style="margin-top: 2em">Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o’clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument’s gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm.</p> + +<p id="id00717">Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise.</p> + +<p id="id00718">The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage’s case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o’clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow’s steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him.</p> + +<p id="id00719">When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance.</p> + +<p id="id00720">“My friend,” he said, “there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you.”</p> + +<p id="id00721">“Pardon me—”</p> + +<p id="id00722">“You are watching me; and the thing won’t do.”</p> + +<p id="id00723">“Yes, I’m watching you; but—”</p> + +<p id="id00724">“But the thing won’t do! If you are hired—”</p> + +<p id="id00725">“<i>Nein! Nein!</i> You do me a wrong, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00726">“Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I’m going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00727">Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently.</p> + +<p id="id00728">Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away.</p> + +<p id="id00729">He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him.</p> + +<p id="id00730">He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,—an American soldier’s campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair.</p> + +<p id="id00731">“Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful—”</p> + +<p id="id00732">The man’s face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition.</p> + +<p id="id00733">“My dear fellow, you really become annoying,” and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. “I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far.”</p> + +<p id="id00734">The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him:</p> + +<p id="id00735">“Don’t you know me? I am Oscar—don’t you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are—”</p> + +<p id="id00736">He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood.</p> + +<p id="id00737">John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage’s manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller’s display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00738">Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness.</p> + +<p id="id00739">“Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come.”</p> + +<p id="id00740">The man’s hand went to his hat.</p> + +<p id="id00741">“None of that!”</p> + +<p id="id00742">Armitage arrested him with a gesture. “My name is Armitage,—John +Armitage,” he said. “I advise you to remember it. Now go!”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00743">The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed.</p> + +<p id="id00744">It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator.</p> + +<p id="id00745">Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully.</p> + +<p id="id00746">“What do you want?” he demanded bluntly.</p> + +<p id="id00747">He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow’s bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him.</p> + +<p id="id00748">“I want nothing, Mr. Armitage,” he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent.</p> + +<p id="id00749">“Then you will be easily satisfied,” said Armitage. “You said your name +was—?”</p> + +<p id="id00750">“Oscar—Oscar Breunig.”</p> + +<p id="id00751">Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity.</p> + +<p id="id00752">“You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?”</p> + +<p id="id00753">“I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00754">“What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00755">“I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government—yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution.”</p> + +<p id="id00756">He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,—eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier.</p> + +<p id="id00757">“Oscar!” he said; and repeated, very softly, “Oscar!”</p> + +<p id="id00758">The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm’s length.</p> + +<p id="id00759">“None of that nonsense! Sit down!” He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair.</p> + +<p id="id00760">“So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?”</p> + +<p id="id00761">“I served in the Philippines,—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00762">“Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id00763">“I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big<br> + +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay,” said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed.<br></p> + +<p id="id00764">“Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar.”</p> + +<p id="id00765">The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare.</p> + +<p id="id00766">“You are not dead,—Mr.—Armitage; but your father—?”</p> + +<p id="id00767">“My father is dead, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id00768">“He was a good man,” said the soldier.</p> + +<p id="id00769">“Yes; he was a good man,” repeated Armitage gravely. “I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now—”</p> + +<p id="id00770">The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee.<br></p> + +<p id="id00771">“You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00772">“There are enemies—yes?” and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation.</p> + +<p id="id00773">“I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants—you are not +married?”</p> + +<p id="id00774">“How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable,” declared Oscar solemnly.</p> + +<p id="id00775">“I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else—”</p> + +<p id="id00776">The man nodded his comprehension.</p> + +<p id="id00777">“That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id00778">Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him.</p> + +<p id="id00779">“You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet—able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on.”</p> + +<p id="id00780">“You should remember—” began Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00781">“I remember nothing,” observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00782">“Do you think you could find that place?”</p> + +<p id="id00783">The man breathed hard over it for several minutes.</p> + +<p id="id00784">“Yes; it would be easy,” and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia’s +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered.</p> + +<p id="id00785">“It is a farm—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00786">“It is a wilderness, I fancy,” said Armitage. “I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there—going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There’s some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here’s a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle.”</p> + +<p id="id00787">“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00788">“And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores—plain military +necessities, you understand—and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it.”</p> + +<p id="id00789">“Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job,” said Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00790">“And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of—let me consider—a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We’ll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id00791">The man nodded gravely.</p> + +<p id="id00792">“And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here—”</p> + +<p id="id00793">“I have not been, here—is it not?”</p> + +<p id="id00794">“It is,” replied Armitage, smiling. “You read and write English?”</p> + +<p id="id00795">“Yes; one must, to serve in the army.”</p> + +<p id="id00796">“If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,—unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,—do you understand?”</p> + +<p id="id00797">“It is the custom of the country,” assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret.</p> + +<p id="id00798">“To be sure,” laughed Armitage; “and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated.”</p> + +<p id="id00799">He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table.</p> + +<p id="id00800">“It is much money,” observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously.</p> + +<p id="id00801">“It will be enough for your purposes. You can’t spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon—perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,—who can tell +without trying it? Don’t write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don’t hear from me again.”</p> + +<p id="id00802">He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00803" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00804">THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN</h3> + +<p id="id00805">As music and splendor<br> + + Survive not the lamp and the lute,<br> + +The heart’s echoes render<br> + + No song when the spirit is mute—<br> + +No songs but sad dirges,<br> + + Like the wind through a ruined cell,<br> + +Or the mournful surges<br> + + That ring the dead seaman’s knell. +—Shelley.<br></p> + +<p id="id00806" style="margin-top: 2em">Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attaché of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop.</p> + +<p id="id00807">“Here’s a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret,” laughed<br> + +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table.<br></p> + +<p id="id00808">With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attaché, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth’s +dominion.</p> + +<p id="id00809">Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness.</p> + +<p id="id00810">“He has not old Stroebel’s right hand to hold him up,” remarked a young +German officer.<br></p> + +<p id="id00811">“Thereby hangs a dark tale,” remarked Claiborne. “Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago—after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge.”</p> + +<p id="id00812">“Bah! Francis is not as dark as he’s painted. He’s the most lied-about +prince in Europe,” remarked Chauvenet. “He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!”</p> + +<p id="id00813">“Nothing can happen,” remarked the German sadly. “I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions.”</p> + +<p id="id00814">“That is quite true,” said Armitage quietly.</p> + +<p id="id00815">“But,” observed the Spaniard, “if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion—?”</p> + +<p id="id00816">“Such speculations are quite idle,” commented Chauvenet. “There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him.”</p> + +<p id="id00817">“Of course,” said the German. “If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00818">“The same applies to the boy he carried away with him—undoubtedly +dead—or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said—”</p> + +<p id="id00819">“A pretty tale it is!” commented the German—“that the child wasn’t +exactly Karl’s own. He took it quite hard—went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him.”</p> + +<p id="id00820">“He was surely mad,” remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. “He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well.”</p> + +<p id="id00821">They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses—and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries—and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention.</p> + +<p id="id00822">He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar.</p> + +<p id="id00823">“With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,”—and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,—“that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive.”</p> + +<p id="id00824">Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet’s recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened.</p> + +<p id="id00825">“It’s my experience,” continued Chauvenet, “that we never meet a person +once only—there’s always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall.”</p> + +<p id="id00826">“At his old tricks, I suppose,” observed some one.</p> + +<p id="id00827">“No; that was the strangest part of it. He’s struck a deeper game—though +I’m blessed if I can make it out—he’s dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself <i>Mister</i>—I’ve forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He’s made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American—his English is +excellent—and he hints at large American interests.”</p> + +<p id="id00828">“He probably has forged securities to sell,” commented the German. “I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly.”</p> + +<p id="id00829">“I dare say,” returned Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id00830">“Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend,” remarked Claiborne +leadingly.</p> + +<p id="id00831">“No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way.”</p> + +<p id="id00832">All felt that they were now to hear the dénouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id00833">“Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest—the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, <i>Fide non armis</i>.”</p> + +<p id="id00834">“The devil!” exclaimed the young German. “Why, that’s very like—”</p> + +<p id="id00835">“Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert—in Berlin, you know—I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up—I wanted to make sure—and +handed it to him, the imitation baron.”</p> + +<p id="id00836">“That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say,” remarked +the German.</p> + +<p id="id00837">“He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,”—continued Chauvenet,—“‘Allow me, Baron!’”<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00838">“Well spoken!” exclaimed the Spanish officer.</p> + +<p id="id00839">“Not so well, either,” laughed Chauvenet. “He had the best of it—he’s a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said—” and Chauvenet’s mirth +stifled him for a moment.</p> + +<p id="id00840">“Yes; what was it?” demanded the German impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id00841">“He said: ‘Thank you, waiter!’ and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!”</p> + +<p id="id00842">They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne’s eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage’s cigarette case—on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely.</p> + +<p id="id00843">“Gentlemen,” he said, “if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we’ll have to run along.”<br></p> + +<p id="id00844">Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him.</p> + +<p id="id00845">“That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the <i>King Edward</i>—every word of it +is true.”</p> + +<p id="id00846">“You should face him—you must have it out with him!” exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer’s +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00847">“But the time hasn’t come for that—”</p> + +<p id="id00848">“Then if there is something between you,”—began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant.</p> + +<p id="id00849">“There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end.”</p> + +<p id="id00850">Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him.</p> + +<p id="id00851">“Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don’t like it, I tell you! You’ve got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don’t offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance—and the acquaintance of my family!”</p> + +<p id="id00852">Armitage’s face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick.</p> + +<p id="id00853">“I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters.”</p> + +<p id="id00854">“Then you need never take the trouble!”</p> + +<p id="id00855">“In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied,” said Armitage +quietly, and turned away.</p> + +<p id="id00856">He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers.</p> + +<p id="id00857">Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00858" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00859">A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS</h3> + +<p id="id00860">—Who climbed the blue Virginia hills<br> + + Against embattled foes;<br> + +And planted there, in valleys fair,<br> + + The lily and the rose;<br> + +Whose fragrance lives in many lands,<br> + + Whose beauty stars the earth,<br> + +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth.<br></p> + +<p id="id00861">—Francis O. Ticknor.</p> + +<p id="id00862" style="margin-top: 2em">The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places.</p> + +<p id="id00863">Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love.</p> + +<p id="id00864">He had wanted time to think—to ponder his affairs—to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage.</p> + +<p id="id00865">He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting.</p> + +<p id="id00866">“Good morning,” said Oscar, saluting.</p> + +<p id="id00867">“You are prompt, Sergeant,” and Armitage shook hands with him.</p> + +<p id="id00868">As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow.</p> + +<p id="id00869">“The place—what of it?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00870">“There may be worse—I have not decided.”</p> + +<p id="id00871">Armitage laughed aloud.</p> + +<p id="id00872">“Is it as bad as that?”</p> + +<p id="id00873">The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage’s +further questions with soldierlike brevity.</p> + +<p id="id00874">“You have been here—”</p> + +<p id="id00875">“Two weeks, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id00876">“And nothing has happened? It is a good report.”</p> + +<p id="id00877">“It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal—yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place.”</p> + +<p id="id00878">The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn.</p> + +<p id="id00879">“I am quite ready, sir,” reported Oscar, touching his hat. “There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way.”</p> + +<p id="id00880">“Then let us be off,” said Armitage, swinging into the saddle.</p> + +<p id="id00881">Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood.</p> + +<p id="id00882">“It is good,” said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him.</p> + +<p id="id00883">“Yes, it is good,” repeated Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00884">A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage’s eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer’s cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence.</p> + +<p id="id00885">“This is Lamar post-office,” announced Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00886">“There must be some mail here for me,” said Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00887">Oscar handed him several long envelopes—they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket.</p> + +<p id="id00888">“You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable.”</p> + +<p id="id00889">“I take a Washington paper—it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world—yes? At the post-office +back there”—he jerked his head to indicate—“it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room.”</p> + +<p id="id00890">“To be sure,” laughed Armitage. “I hope it is a good article.”</p> + +<p id="id00891">“It is vile,” replied Oscar. “His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye.”</p> + +<p id="id00892">“Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days.”</p> + +<p id="id00893">It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet’s assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else—a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well.</p> + +<p id="id00894">On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him.</p> + +<p id="id00895">They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage’s property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas.</p> + +<p id="id00896">Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse.</p> + +<p id="id00897">“It is a fine valley—yes?” asked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00898">“It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!” replied Armitage. “There +is a white building with colonnades away over there—is it the house of +the reigning deity?”</p> + +<p id="id00899">“It is not, sir,” answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. “It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills—do you +see?—it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls—”</p> + +<p id="id00900">“Golf? Is it possible!”</p> + +<p id="id00901">“There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself—men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley.”</p> + +<p id="id00902">Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started.</p> + +<p id="id00903">“Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls.”</p> + +<p id="id00904">“I could not tell it better,” responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse.</p> + +<p id="id00905">“And our place—is it below there?” demanded Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00906">“It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen’s houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands.”</p> + +<p id="id00907">“Poor Oscar!” laughed Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00908">His mood had not often in his life been so high.</p> + +<p id="id00909">On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her—even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground.</p> + +<p id="id00910">“Let us go,” he said presently.</p> + +<p id="id00911">Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand.</p> + +<p id="id00912">“You will find it easier to walk,” he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge.</p> + +<p id="id00913">“This is the place, sir,” and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate.</p> + +<p id="id00914">The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared.</p> + +<p id="id00915">“There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty,” remarked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id00916">He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice:</p> + +<p id="id00917">“It is different from our old hills and forests—yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick.”</p> + +<p id="id00918">“But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!”</p> + +<p id="id00919">“Here,” said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, “is what they call the Port of Missing Men.”</p> + +<p id="id00920">There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted “No Thoroughfare.” Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight.</p> + +<p id="id00921">“It is a bad place,” remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground.<br></p> + +<p id="id00922">The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry.</p> + +<p id="id00923">“Why the name?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00924">“There were gray soldiers of many battles—yes?—who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender—no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts,” and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion.</p> + +<p id="id00925">They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id00926">“Your house, sir,” and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases.</p> + +<p id="id00927">“There shall be breakfast,” said the man.</p> + +<p id="id00928">He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match.</p> + +<p id="id00929">“All one floor—plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir—a place to eat here—a +kitchen beyond—a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all.”</p> + +<p id="id00930">“It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established.”</p> + +<p id="id00931">“This is yours—the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but—you will require hot water for shaving—is it not so?”</p> + +<p id="id00932">“You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting.”</p> + +<p id="id00933">Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys.</p> + +<p id="id00934">“The place was built by fools,” declared Oscar gloomily.</p> + +<p id="id00935">“Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them—you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!”</p> + +<p id="id00936">He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered.</p> + +<p id="id00937">“You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast.” +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room.</p> + +<p id="id00938">A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said—that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him.</p> + +<p id="id00939">He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron’s escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington.</p> + +<p id="id00940">Armitage’s cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read:</p> + +<p id="id00941">“The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id00943">Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room.</p> + +<p id="id00944">“Shall we unpack—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id00945">“It is a capital idea,” said John Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id00946">“I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition—and his uniforms—yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse.”</p> + +<p id="id00947">“The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please.”</p> + +<p id="id00948">The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner’s taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth.</p> + +<p id="id00949">“You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn’t blend +well in our rainbow—put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud—drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable—give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned—I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well,” he added whimsically.</p> + +<p id="id00950">He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim:</p> + +<p id="id00951">“‘Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!’<br></p> + +<p id="id00952">“’Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet’s mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now—</p> + +<p id="id00953">“‘Nothing can we call our own but death,<br> + +And that small model of the barren earth<br> + +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.<br> + +For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.’”<br></p> + +<p id="id00954">Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought.</p> + +<p id="id00955">“Oscar,” he called abruptly, “how far is it down to Storm Springs?”</p> + +<p id="id00956">“A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id00957" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id00958">THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA</h3> + +<p id="id00959">April, April,<br> + +Laugh, thy girlish laughter;<br> + +Then, the moment after,<br> + +Weep thy girlish, tears!<br> + +April, that mine ears<br> + +Like a lover greetest,<br> + +If I tell thee, sweetest,<br> + +All my hopes and fears,<br> + +April, April,<br> + +Laugh thy golden laughter,<br> + +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears!<br></p> + +<p id="id00960">—William Watson.</p> + +<p id="id00961" style="margin-top: 2em">A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler’s writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf—a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry—and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams—made, in fact, some notes in regard to them—and wrote +replies. Then, at four o’clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses.</p> + +<p id="id00962">“It is spring, and in April a man’s blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air.”</p> + +<p id="id00963">He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him.</p> + +<p id="id00964">They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region.</p> + +<p id="id00965">“We shall go down into the valley, Oscar,” he said; and thereafter it was +he that led.</p> + +<p id="id00966">They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes.</p> + +<p id="id00967">Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted.</p> + +<p id="id00968">“You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don’t know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances.”</p> + +<p id="id00969">He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world—they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them.</p> + +<p id="id00970">At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop.</p> + +<p id="id00971">He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity.</p> + +<p id="id00972">“How near is Judge Claiborne’s place?” he asked.</p> + +<p id="id00973">The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on.<br></p> + +<p id="id00974">He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener’s shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day’s light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought.</p> + +<p id="id00975">It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him.</p> + +<p id="id00976">Her head went up with surprise and—he was sure—with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet.</p> + +<p id="id00977">“I am caught—<i>in flagrante delicto</i>! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy.”</p> + +<p id="id00978">“They said—they said you had gone to Mexico?” said Shirley +questioningly.</p> + +<p id="id00979">“Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!” he +laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00980">“Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother—”</p> + +<p id="id00981">“Yes, your brother—he is the best fellow in the world!”</p> + +<p id="id00982">She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00983">“Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box—”</p> + +<p id="id00984">“Oh, the cigarette case!” and he held it up. “It’s really mine—and I’m +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law.”</p> + +<p id="id00985">“Yes, I believe that is true.” And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest.</p> + +<p id="id00986">“But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id00987">She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater:</p> + +<p id="id00988">“Why?”</p> + +<p id="id00989">“Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately—most +unfortunately—I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you—”</p> + +<p id="id00990">He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand.</p> + +<p id="id00991">“And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances,” said Shirley.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id00992">“You are infinitely kind and generous—”</p> + +<p id="id00993">“No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things—of course +not!”</p> + +<p id="id00994">Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed.</p> + +<p id="id00995">“Then—”</p> + +<p id="id00996">“Then I will tell you—what I have not told any one else—that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel.”</p> + +<p id="id00997">“You know it—you are quite sure of it?” he asked blankly.</p> + +<p id="id00998">“Certainly. I saw that person—at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week—I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person.”</p> + +<p id="id00999">Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character.</p> + +<p id="id01000">“But Captain Claiborne—”</p> + +<p id="id01001">He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily:</p> + +<p id="id01002">“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so—”</p> + +<p id="id01003">“By Monsieur Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01004">“So he said.”</p> + +<p id="id01005">“And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s +entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily.</p> + +<p id="id01006">“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively. “I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.”</p> + +<p id="id01007">Armitage laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01008">“That is a little pointed.”</p> + +<p id="id01009">“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly. “It is”—she weighed the +word—“ridiculous that both of you should be here.”</p> + +<p id="id01010">“Thank you, for my half! I didn’t know he was here! But I am not exactly +<i>here</i>—I have a much, safer place,”—he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.”</p> + +<p id="id01011">He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley.</p> + +<p id="id01012">He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id01013">“Oh, this won’t do at all! I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—and she +indicated it by a nod of her head.</p> + +<p id="id01014">“Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility—you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear—I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates—particularly when I came over the fence! It’s a +long way around anyhow—and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn.”</p> + +<p id="id01015">“My brother—”</p> + +<p id="id01016">“Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.”</p> + +<p id="id01017">“But—there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself.”</p> + +<p id="id01018">They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment.</p> + +<p id="id01019">“I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it’s a whim—the merest whim, I assure you.”</p> + +<p><figure class="figcenter illowe67_3125" id="illustration_pg190"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg190.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>He delighted in the picture she made</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01020">He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat—(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)—her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley’s hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill.</p> + +<p id="id01021">Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit.</p> + +<p id="id01022">She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on.</p> + +<p id="id01023">“But when I wait for people they always come—even in a strange pergola!” +he added daringly. “Now, in Geneva, not long ago—”</p> + +<p id="id01024">He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times.</p> + +<p id="id01025">“In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear—it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate,” he concluded mournfully.</p> + +<p id="id01026">He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate.</p> + +<p id="id01027">He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone.</p> + +<p id="id01028">She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01029" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01030">AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW</h3> + +<p id="id01031"><i>En, garde, Messieurs</i>! And if my hand is hard,<br> + + Remember I’ve been buffeting at will;<br> + + I am a whit impatient, and ’tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. <i>Messieurs, en garde</i>.<br></p> + +<p id="id01032">—W. Lindsey.</p> + +<p id="id01033" style="margin-top: 2em">“Monsieur Chauvenet!”</p> + +<p id="id01034">Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage’s salutation.</p> + +<p id="id01035">“My dear Armitage!” he murmured.</p> + +<p id="id01036">“I didn’t go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn’t take the risk.”</p> + +<p id="id01037">“He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health,” replied the other.</p> + +<p id="id01038">“You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?” +mocked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01039">“My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life—such pleasures of late have +been denied me.”</p> + +<p id="id01040">“But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair.”</p> + +<p id="id01041">“Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass,” continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. “I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society.”</p> + +<p id="id01042">“But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy.”</p> + +<p id="id01043">Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage’s plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage’s courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion’s sterner tones +disconcerted him.</p> + +<p id="id01044">“I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game—it is +spectacular—it is picturesque—it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna—they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man’s common +ambitions.”</p> + +<p id="id01045">“Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?”</p> + +<p id="id01046">“It is both,” replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone:</p> + +<p id="id01047">“I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne’s +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana.”</p> + +<p id="id01048">Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance.</p> + +<p id="id01049">“Of course. The hour was chosen well!”</p> + +<p id="id01050">“More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He’s a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express.”</p> + +<p id="id01051">Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him.</p> + +<p id="id01052">“He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel’s life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!”</p> + +<p id="id01053">Chauvenet’s gloved fingers caught at his mustache.</p> + +<p id="id01054">“That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed—therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there’s a +difference between us—you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel’s +death.”</p> + +<p id="id01055">He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly.</p> + +<p id="id01056">“A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01057">“Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel’s death, it’s unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It’s a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman—you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01058">“You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count’s departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?”</p> + +<p id="id01059">Chauvenet’s hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony.</p> + +<p id="id01060">“To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01061">“Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you—”</p> + +<p id="id01062">The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled.<br></p> + +<p id="id01063">“You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer.”</p> + +<p id="id01064">“I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night,<br> + +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01065">“If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!”</p> + +<p id="id01066">“Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!”</p> + +<p id="id01067">“You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely.”</p> + +<p id="id01068">“You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!” laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor.</p> + +<p id="id01069">“Perhaps—perhaps—I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!”</p> + +<p id="id01070">“So you would sell out, would you?” laughed Armitage. “You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next—who +knows?”</p> + +<p id="id01071">“As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner.”</p> + +<p id="id01072">“All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you—I don’t! But remember—if there’s a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne’s, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch—forward!”</p> + +<p id="id01073">Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01074">He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01075" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01076">SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET</h3> + +<p id="id01077">Nightingales warble about it<br> + + All night under blossom and star;<br> + +The wild swan is dying without it,<br> + + And the eagle crieth afar;<br> + +The sun, he doth mount but to find it<br> + + Searching the green earth o’er;<br> + +But more doth a man’s heart mind it— + O more, more, more!<br></p> + +<p id="id01078">—G.E. Woodberry.</p> + +<p id="id01079" style="margin-top: 2em">Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother’s letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice:</p> + +<p id="id01080">“I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, <i>ma chérie</i>, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I’ll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,—or <i>was</i>! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,—after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He’s over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01082">“Dear old Dick!” and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01083">She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy’s zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony’s back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast’s fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable.</p> + +<p id="id01084">It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages.</p> + +<p id="id01085">Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,—the ability to forecast the enemy’s strategy and +then strike his weakest point,—that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops.</p> + +<p id="id01086">Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons.</p> + +<p id="id01087">Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,—not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,—received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens.</p> + +<p id="id01088">He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01089">The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf.</p> + +<p id="id01090">“A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away.”</p> + +<p id="id01091">Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01092">“Steady, Fanny! Don’t come near her, please—” this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse’s bridle. She had +the true horsewoman’s pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet’s proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley’s +hand.</p> + +<p id="id01093">“Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!”</p> + +<p id="id01094">“Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn’t run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home.”</p> + +<p id="id01095">She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet’s company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse.<br></p> + +<p id="id01096">“But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends.”</p> + +<p id="id01097">“You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?”</p> + +<p id="id01098">“What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper ‘Yes, Sister,’ ‘No, Sister,’ to everything they +hear.”</p> + +<p id="id01099">“Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01100">“No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,—you must know—”</p> + +<p id="id01101">The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley’s hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly.</p> + +<p id="id01102">Chauvenet went on rapidly in French:</p> + +<p id="id01103">“You must know why I am here—why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear—you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments—”</p> + +<p id="id01104">“Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur—”</p> + +<p id="id01105">Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man’s shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed.</p> + +<p id="id01106">“Monsieur!” cried Shirley in a low tone; “look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01107">Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id01108">“What is it, my dear fellow—my watch—my purse—my horse?” he said in +English.<br></p> + +<p id="id01109">“He wants none of those things,” said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. “The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?” she asked pleasantly.</p> + +<p id="id01110">“You cain’t do nothin’ for me,” drawled the man. “Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella’. I got a little business with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01111">“He is a foreigner—he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay,” said Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id01112">She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them.</p> + +<p id="id01113">“Miss, I have seen you befo’, and I reckon we ain’t got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella’ ain’t no business up hy’eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it’s all right +for you, Miss; but what’s yo’ frien’ ridin’ the hills for at night? He’s +lookin’ for some un’, and I reckon as how that some un’ air me!”</p> + +<p id="id01114">He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley’s +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French.</p> + +<p id="id01115">“Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life—that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01116">The rifle—a repeater of the newest type—went to the man’s shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet’s head.</p> + +<p id="id01117">“None o’ that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +’ere negotiations.”</p> + +<p id="id01118">Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly.</p> + +<p id="id01119">“The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else.”</p> + +<p id="id01120">As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet’s position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man’s reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying:</p> + +<p id="id01121">“Mountain folks air slow, and we don’t know much, but a stranger don’t +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he’s got to tell why; and the third time—well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella’ that there ain’t no third time.”</p> + +<p id="id01122">Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly:</p> + +<p id="id01123">“I have never been here before in my life.”</p> + +<p id="id01124">The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl:<br></p> + +<p id="id01125">“You air a liar, seh!”</p> + +<p id="id01126">Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed.</p> + +<p id="id01127">“This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend,” said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer’s interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe69_8125" id="illustration_pg211"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_pg211.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“You air a liar, seh!”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01128">“My friend,” she said, “I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father’s +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember.”</p> + +<p id="id01129">The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage.</p> + +<p id="id01130">“I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a—still, do you call it?—in his +life—” and she smiled upon him sweetly. “But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01131">Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone:</p> + +<p id="id01132">“We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don’t want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn’t that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him.”</p> + +<p id="id01133">She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor.</p> + +<p id="id01134">“Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me.”</p> + +<p id="id01135">“But it is growing dark—I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you—”</p> + +<p id="id01136">“Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman.”</p> + +<p id="id01137">The mountaineer took off his hat.</p> + +<p id="id01138">“Thank ye, Miss,” he said; and then to Chauvenet: “Get out!”</p> + +<p id="id01139">“Don’t trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet,” and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01140">“What is your name?”</p> + +<p id="id01141">“Tom Selfridge.”</p> + +<p id="id01142">“Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?” asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer’s bared tangle of tow.</p> + +<p id="id01143">“The name you called him ain’t it. It’s a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo’—it’s—it’s like the a’my—”</p> + +<p id="id01144">“Is it Armitage?” asked Shirley quickly.</p> + +<p id="id01145">“That’s it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +’im. He’s moved up hy’eh, and it ain’t fer no good. The word’s out that a +city man’s lookin’ for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man’s stayin’—”</p> + +<p id="id01146">“Where?”</p> + +<p id="id01147">“At the huntin’ club where folks don’t go no more. I ain’t seen him, but +th’ word’s passed. He’s a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella’ that’s been a soldier into th’ army stayin’ with ’im. I thought +yo’ furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did.”</p> + +<p id="id01148">The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had—and +the thing was funny—served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage’s whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01149">“I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you—will you believe me?”</p> + +<p id="id01150">“I reckon I got to, Miss.”</p> + +<p id="id01151">“Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road.”</p> + +<p id="id01152">“I’ll do it gladly, Miss.”</p> + +<p id="id01153">“Thank you; now let us be off.”</p> + +<p id="id01154">She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key.</p> + +<p id="id01155">“They are an odd and suspicious people, but they’re as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again—not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01156" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01157">NARROW MARGINS</h3> + +<p id="id01158">The black-caps pipe among the reeds,<br> + + And there’ll be rain to follow;<br> + +There is a murmur as of wind<br> + + In every coign and hollow;<br> + +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears.<br></p> + +<p id="id01159">—Amélie Rives.</p> + +<p id="id01160" style="margin-top: 2em">The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage’s life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01161">The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father’s, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth—but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01162">She had kept Dick’s letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl:</p> + +<p id="id01163">“What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars’ worth of +telegrams from Sanderson—wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it’s all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the <i>exposé</i> at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage’s) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and <i>who</i> is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present—even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again—he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!—and +sooner or later he’s bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is <i>he</i>! And why didn’t Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01165">Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick’s +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener’s work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor’s; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola.</p> + +<p id="id01166">Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime.</p> + +<p id="id01167">Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon.</p> + +<p id="id01168">Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again.</p> + +<p id="id01169">The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly.</p> + +<p id="id01170">“This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you.”</p> + +<p id="id01171">He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat.</p> + +<p id="id01172">“You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage,” said Shirley coldly.</p> + +<p id="id01173">“I’m afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission.”</p> + +<p id="id01174">He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him.</p> + +<p id="id01175">“No! No! This is impossible—it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion.”</p> + +<p id="id01176">“In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn’t mean to apologize for coming”—and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. “But,” he went on, “it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium—geraniums are splendid for the +purpose—and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!”</p> + +<p id="id01177">“It must have hurt him,” said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe.</p> + +<p id="id01178">“I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn’t take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!”</p> + +<p id="id01179">“I suppose you didn’t think of us—all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!”</p> + +<p id="id01180">There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly.</p> + +<p id="id01181">“Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn’t know I was being followed—I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it.”</p> + +<p id="id01182">“You mustn’t try to see me! You mustn’t come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently—at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain.”</p> + +<p id="id01183">“I know that! I realize all that!”</p> + +<p id="id01184">“Then you must not come! You must leave instantly.”</p> + +<p id="id01185">She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly.</p> + +<p id="id01186">“You have been hurt—why did you not tell me that?”</p> + +<p id="id01187">“It is nothing—the fellow had a knife, and he—but it’s only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!”</p> + +<p id="id01188">The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda.</p> + +<p id="id01189">As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochère.</p> + +<p id="id01190">“I’m off—please believe in me—a little.”</p> + +<p id="id01191">“You must not go if you are hurt—and you can’t run away now—my father +and mother are at the door.”</p> + +<p id="id01192">There was an instant’s respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01193">“You can’t go now; come in and wait.”</p> + +<p id="id01194">There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture—through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings.</p> + +<p id="id01195">She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda.</p> + +<p id="id01196">“Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers.”</p> + +<p id="id01197">And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01198" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01199">A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING</h3> + +<p id="id01200">Oh, sweetly fall the April days!<br> + + My love was made of frost and light,<br> + + Of light to warm and frost to blight<br> + +The sweet, strange April of her ways.<br> + +Eyes like a dream of changing skies,<br> + +And every frown and blush I prize.<br> + + With cloud and flush the spring comes in,<br> + + With frown and blush maids’ loves begin; +For love is rare like April days.<br></p> + +<p id="id01201">—L. Frank Tooker.</p> + +<p id="id01202" style="margin-top: 2em">Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage’s plight—his +injuries and the dangers that beset him—that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her.</p> + +<p id="id01203">The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna.</p> + +<p id="id01204">“The trouble is,” said the Ambassador, “that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy—a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together.”</p> + +<p id="id01205">“And a weak hand,” suggested Judge Claiborne, “might easily lose or +scatter them.”</p> + +<p id="id01206">“Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice—and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow—”</p> + +<p id="id01207">The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers.</p> + +<p id="id01208">“Yes; after him, what?”</p> + +<p id="id01209">“After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the <i>disjecta membra</i> of the Empire +together.”</p> + +<p id="id01210">“But there are shadows on the screen,” remarked Judge Claiborne. “There +was Karl—the mad prince.”</p> + +<p id="id01211">“Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion.”</p> + +<p id="id01212">Judge Claiborne laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01213">“I don’t like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger.”</p> + +<p id="id01214">“No; you are a miracle—that is the only explanation,” replied Marhof.</p> + +<p id="id01215">“But a man like Karl—what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem.”</p> + +<p id="id01216">“No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die.”</p> + +<p id="id01217">“But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father’s exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son—”</p> + +<p id="id01218">“In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information.”</p> + +<p id="id01219">“I have heard as much,” and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne’s tone.<br></p> + +<p id="id01220">The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel’s name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions.</p> + +<p id="id01221">“Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate,” she said. “He +believed in the divine right and all that.”</p> + +<p id="id01222">“So do I, Miss Claiborne. It’s all we’ve got to stand on!”</p> + +<p id="id01223">“But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely—”</p> + +<p id="id01224">“He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week,” declared the Baron vigorously.</p> + +<p id="id01225">They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home.</p> + +<p id="id01226">“I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter,” remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den.<br></p> + +<p id="id01227">“You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley.”</p> + +<p id="id01228">“Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I’ll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house.”</p> + +<p id="id01229">“I have a few notes to write; they’ll take only a minute, and I’ll write +them here.”</p> + +<p id="id01230">She heard her father’s door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library.</p> + +<p id="id01231">“You must go—you must go!” she whispered with deep tensity.</p> + +<p id="id01232">“Yes; I must go. You have been kind—you are most generous—”</p> + +<p id="id01233">But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about.</p> + +<p id="id01234">“I shall go home,” he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak.</p> + +<p id="id01235">“Come! Come! This is all very dreadful—you must go to a physician at +once.”</p> + +<p id="id01236">“My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing.” But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk.</p> + +<p id="id01237">“I do not need the doctor—not now. My man will care for me.”</p> + +<p id="id01238">He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength.</p> + +<p id="id01239">“It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion—it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you—”</p> + +<p id="id01240">“Please say nothing at all—but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again—you must leave the valley!”</p> + +<p id="id01241">“I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me.”</p> + +<p id="id01242">“You must leave the bungalow—I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there—the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them—”</p> + +<p id="id01243">“Yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01244">“—that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go.”</p> + +<p id="id01245">He bent and kissed her hand.</p> + +<p id="id01246">“You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world.” His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him.</p> + +<p id="id01247">“Do not let them hurt you again—” she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out.</p> + +<p id="id01248">Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01249" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01250">AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES</h3> + +<p id="id01251">When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate,<br> + + And time seemed but the vassal of my will,<br> + +I entertained certain guests of state—<br> + + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made.<br></p> + +<p id="id01252">—S. Weir Mitchell.</p> + +<p id="id01253" style="margin-top: 2em">“Who am I?” asked John Armitage soberly.</p> + +<p id="id01254">He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage’s arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention.</p> + +<p id="id01255">“Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man’s name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country.”</p> + +<p id="id01256">“Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor.”</p> + +<p id="id01257">“First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover—yes?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01258">“Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble.”</p> + +<p id="id01259">“It would be better on the fifth—”</p> + +<p id="id01260">“The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is—mark, My Majesty—pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms.”</p> + +<p id="id01261">“Yes, sire.”</p> + +<p id="id01262">And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence.</p> + +<p id="id01263">“If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01264">“He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money.”</p> + +<p id="id01265">“You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I’ll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business—” and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot.</p> + +<p id="id01266">Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk.</p> + +<p id="id01267">“They killed the great prime minister—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01268">“They undoubtedly did, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01269">“He was a good man—he was a very great man,” said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him.</p> + +<p id="id01270">The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage’s life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one’s dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar’s care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence.</p> + +<p id="id01271">“To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world—to +do something for Austria—such things are to the soul’s credit, Oscar,” +and then Armitage’s mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar’s comprehension.</p> + +<p id="id01272">The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage’s mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin’s trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears.</p> + +<p id="id01273">At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse’s flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods.</p> + +<p id="id01274">Oscar’s whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse’s flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable.</p> + +<p id="id01275">A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar’s lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other’s faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant’s ear:</p> + +<p id="id01276">“You are a Servian: it is an ugly race.”</p> + +<p id="id01277">And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl.</p> + +<p id="id01278">“We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife,” grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian’s grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand.</p> + +<p id="id01279">“Throw up your hands,” he yelled.</p> + +<p id="id01280">The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily.</p> + +<p id="id01281">Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, “Oscar!” and repeated the name several times.</p> + +<p id="id01282">Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English:</p> + +<p id="id01283">“All steady, sir!”</p> + +<p id="id01284">The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian’s bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01285">“Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman’s gun and be sure to find his +knife.”</p> + +<p id="id01286">The task was to Oscar’s taste, and he made quick work of the Servian’s +pockets.</p> + +<p id="id01287">“Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id01288">“Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives—” the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up.</p> + +<p id="id01289">“Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow.”</p> + +<p id="id01290">They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors.</p> + +<p id="id01291">When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room.<br></p> + +<p id="id01292">Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman.</p> + +<p id="id01293">“Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him.”</p> + +<p id="id01294">He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian’s small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner’s knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head.</p> + +<p id="id01295">“He is a large devil,” commented Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01296">“He is large, certainly,” remarked Armitage. “Give him a chair. Now,” he +said to the man in deliberate German, “I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian.”</p> + +<p id="id01297">The man nodded.</p> + +<p id="id01298">“Your name is Zmai Miletich.”</p> + +<p id="id01299">The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01300">“Your name,” repeated Armitage, “is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand—do you follow me?”</p> + +<p id="id01301">The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily.</p> + +<p id="id01302">“I ask you again,” repeated Armitage, “whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake.”</p> + +<p id="id01303">Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head.</p> + +<p id="id01304">“There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March.”</p> + +<p id="id01305">The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01306">“Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done—”</p> + +<p id="id01307">The blood suffused the man’s dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him.</p> + +<p id="id01308">“That will do. You tried to kill me on the <i>King Edward</i>; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne’s garden; and you came up +here to-night with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01309">He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write.</p> + +<p id="id01310">“Don’t shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings.”</p> + +<p id="id01311">Armitage wrote:</p> + +<hr> + +<h3 id="id01313">“MONSIEUR:</h3> + +<p id="id01314">“Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you—is +even now aboard the <i>Tacoma</i>, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned.</p> + +<p id="id01315">“You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity—which I am sure interests you greatly—before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p id="id01317">Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F.</p> + +<p id="id01318">“Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?”</p> + +<p id="id01319">“He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof.”</p> + +<p id="id01320">“You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master.”</p> + +<p id="id01321">“It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass.”</p> + +<p id="id01322">“Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!” he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet.</p> + +<p id="id01323">“You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night—or any other old night, as we say +in America—if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you—buzzard meat!”</p> + +<p id="id01324">“The orders are understood,” said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant’s ribs.</p> + +<p id="id01325">“Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur’s receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p id="id01326">It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms.</p> + +<p id="id01327">Again through the moonlight strode the three—out of Armitage’s land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer.</p> + +<p id="id01328">There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt.</p> + +<p id="id01329">It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage’s hands at the +bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id01330">“Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man,” Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French:</p> + +<p id="id01331">“You are young to die, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01332">“A man more or less!” and Oscar shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id01333">“You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder.”</p> + +<p id="id01334">“One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also.”</p> + +<p id="id01335">“That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills.”</p> + +<p id="id01336">Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01337" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01338">CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY</h3> + +<p id="id01339">When he came where the trees were thin,<br> + +The moon sat waiting there to see;<br> + +On her worn palm she laid her chin,<br> + +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been.<br></p> + +<p id="id01340">—William Vaughn Moody.</p> + +<p id="id01341" style="margin-top: 2em">In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus:</p> + +<p id="id01342">Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy’s counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs.</p> + +<p id="id01343">They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof’s business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters.</p> + +<p id="id01344">The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words:</p> + +<p id="id01345">“You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel—we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson’s knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date—going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him.”</p> + +<p id="id01346">“He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics,” +said Judge Claiborne. “I talked with him a number of times on the <i>King +Edward</i> and must say that I liked him.”</p> + +<p id="id01347">“Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy,” said Dick.</p> + +<p id="id01348">“It might be explained—” began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. “Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01349">“We met them abroad,” said Dick; “and they both turned up again in +Washington.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01350">“One of them is here, or has been here in the valley—why not the other?” +asked Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01351">“But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage’s whereabouts,” Dick +protested.</p> + +<p id="id01352">“Certainly not,” declared his father.</p> + +<p id="id01353">“How did you make Armitage’s acquaintance?” asked the Ambassador. “Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him—if you can remember.”</p> + +<p id="id01354">Dick laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01355">“It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking <i>déjeuner</i> at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton—the ubiquitous—was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attaché.”</p> + +<p id="id01356">“And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions,” declared Judge +Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01357">They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage’s whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there.</p> + +<p id="id01358">“We must find him—there must be no mistake about it,” said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. “They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities.”</p> + +<p id="id01359">“And when we have young Armitage—” the Judge began.</p> + +<p id="id01360">“Then we shall know the truth.”</p> + +<p id="id01361">“But suppose—suppose,” and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +“suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die—to-night—to-morrow—”</p> + +<p id="id01362">“We will assume nothing of the kind!” ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +“It is impossible.” Then to Captain Claiborne: “You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01363">And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once.<br></p> + +<p id="id01364">Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him.</p> + +<p id="id01365">“Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting—and after a long leave, too.”</p> + +<p id="id01366">“I am on duty. Don’t forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat.”</p> + +<p id="id01367">“Humph! It doesn’t follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!”</p> + +<p id="id01368">“You couldn’t be that, Shirley, dear.”</p> + +<p id="id01369">“Thank you, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id01370">They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance:</p> + +<p id="id01371">“Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times.”</p> + +<p id="id01372">“Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it’s rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron.”</p> + +<p id="id01373">“Which he wasn’t—”</p> + +<p id="id01374">“Well, Sanderson says he couldn’t have been, and the rogues’ gallery +pictures don’t resemble our friend at all.”</p> + +<p id="id01375">“Ugh; don’t speak of it!” and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01376">“What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?” she asked.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id01377">“Guess again!” exclaimed Dick hurriedly. “Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow.”</p> + +<p id="id01378">He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair.</p> + +<p id="id01379">“Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?”</p> + +<p id="id01380">“Impertinent! How dare you?”</p> + +<p id="id01381">“But Shirley, the question is fair!”</p> + +<p id="id01382">“Is it, Richard?”</p> + +<p id="id01383">“And I want you to answer me.”</p> + +<p id="id01384">“That’s different.”</p> + +<p id="id01385">He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back.</p> + +<p id="id01386">“Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn’t do +<i>this</i>—”</p> + +<p id="id01387">“This what, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id01388">“You know what I mean. I ask you again—have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01389">He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self.</p> + +<p id="id01390">“Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p id="id01391">“He’s a regular old brick,” declared Dick solemnly.</p> + +<p id="id01392">“It’s a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor—about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself.”</p> + +<p id="id01393">“I am proud to be his son,” declared Dick, meeting Shirley’s eyes +unflinchingly.</p> + +<p id="id01394">Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz.</p> + +<p id="id01395">“A captain—a mere captain of the line—is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing—after a long leave for foreign +travel—and sent away to visit his parents—and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador.”</p> + +<p id="id01396">“Thanks for the ‘mere captain,’ dearest. You needn’t rub it in.”</p> + +<p id="id01397">“I wouldn’t. But you are fair game—for your sister only! And you’re +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attaché. It rather directed attention to you, didn’t it, Dick?”</p> + +<p id="id01398">Dick colored.</p> + +<p id="id01399">“It certainly did.”</p> + +<p id="id01400">“And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble—”</p> + +<p id="id01401">“I have every intention of meeting him!”</p> + +<p id="id01402">“Oh!”</p> + +<p id="id01403">“Of course, I shall meet him—some time, somewhere. He’s at the Springs, +isn’t he?”</p> + +<p id="id01404">“Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven’t seen him for several +days.”</p> + +<p id="id01405">“What I should like to see,” said Dick, “is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor.”</p> + +<p id="id01406">He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains.</p> + +<p id="id01407">“Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me.”</p> + +<p id="id01408">“That doesn’t answer my question. You don’t know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer—”</p> + +<p id="id01409">“Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven’t said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven’t exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare.”</p> + +<p id="id01410">“When I find Mr. Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01411">“You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas.”</p> + +<p id="id01412">“I shall find him there—or here!”</p> + +<p id="id01413">“Good luck to you, Captain!”</p> + +<p id="id01414">There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01415" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XX</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01416">THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER</h3> + +<p id="id01417">My mistress bent that brow of hers;<br> + +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs<br> + +When pity would be softening through,<br> + +Fixed me a breathing-while or two<br> + + With life or death in the balance: right!<br> + +The blood replenished me again;<br> + +My last thought was at least not vain:<br> + +I and my mistress, side by side<br> + +Shall be together, breathe and ride,<br> + +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night?<br></p> + +<p id="id01418">—R. Browning.</p> + +<p id="id01419" style="margin-top: 2em">“We shall be leaving soon,” said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. “It is not safe to wait much longer.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01420">He tossed a copy of the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April.</p> + +<p id="id01421">“Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave.”</p> + +<p id="id01422">“I enlisted for the campaign—yes?—I shall wait until I am discharged.” +And the little man buttoned his coat.<br></p> + +<p id="id01423">“Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There’s another man coming to get into the game—he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills to-night. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say.”</p> + +<p id="id01424">The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id01425">“If I should die unshriven during the next week, here’s a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him—tell him—”</p> + +<p id="id01426">He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on.</p> + +<p id="id01427">“—tell him, Oscar, that there’s a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King.”</p> + +<p id="id01428">Oscar stared at Armitage blankly.</p> + +<p id="id01429">“That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron’s hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in.”</p> + +<p id="id01430">“You should not go out alone—”</p> + +<p id="id01431">“Don’t trouble about me; I shan’t go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,—I feel it in +my bones.”</p> + +<p id="id01432">He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01433">At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon—perhaps in a few hours—he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them.</p> + +<p id="id01434">He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose.</p> + +<p id="id01435">“God said, ‘I am tired of kings,’” he muttered. “But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service,” he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. “To think that it may be for me to say!” And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge.</p> + +<p id="id01436">“I shall soon be free,” he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills.</p> + +<p id="id01437">Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step—a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman’s figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening.</p> + +<p id="id01438">When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman’s security, died on his lips.</p> + +<p id="id01439">“Shirley!” he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground.</p> + +<p id="id01440">A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight.</p> + +<p id="id01441">“I did not know that dreams really came true,” he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind.</p> + +<p id="id01442">She began abruptly, not heeding his words.</p> + +<p id="id01443">“You must go away—at once—I came to tell you that you can not stay +here.”</p> + +<p id="id01444">“But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,”—he began.</p> + +<p id="id01445">“It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you—it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go—you must seek the law’s +aid—”</p> + +<p id="id01446">“How do you know I dare—”</p> + +<p id="id01447">“I don’t know—that you dare!”</p> + +<p id="id01448">“I know that you have a great heart and that I love you,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id01449">She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps.</p> + +<p id="id01450">“I can’t be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came—”<br></p> + +<p id="id01451">“If I dared think or believe or hope—”</p> + +<p id="id01452">“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me.”</p> + +<p id="id01453">“How do you classify me, please—with friends or acquaintances?”</p> + +<p id="id01454">He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.</p> + +<p id="id01455">“I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?”</p> + +<p id="id01456">“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.”</p> + +<p id="id01457">“You are explicit!” he laughed. “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do.”</p> + +<p id="id01458">“That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of—of—what might be called the Armitage riddle.”</p> + +<p id="id01459">“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?”</p> + +<p id="id01460">“Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one’s enmity, +and there’s something about murder that is—that isn’t exactly nice! It’s +positively unesthetic.”</p> + +<p id="id01461">She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words.</p> + +<p id="id01462">“You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man’s life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be.”</p> + +<p id="id01463">“You put it rather flatly, but that’s about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid—”</p> + +<p id="id01464">“Not of me, I hope—”</p> + +<p id="id01465">“Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity.”</p> + +<p id="id01466">“That is unkind,—that is unkind,” and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence.</p> + +<p id="id01467">He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her.</p> + +<p id="id01468">“You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you—it will take but a +moment—why and what—”</p> + +<p id="id01469">“Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can’t +allow you to tell me; I really don’t want to know!”</p> + +<p id="id01470">“I am willing that every one should know—to-morrow—or the day +after—not later.”</p> + +<p id="id01471">She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought.</p> + +<p id="id01472">“The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done—”</p> + +<p id="id01473">“I have done nothing to be ashamed of,—I swear I have not!”</p> + +<p id="id01474">“Whatever it is,—and I don’t care what it is,”—she said deliberately, +“—it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother—”</p> + +<p id="id01475">She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly.</p> + +<p id="id01476">“My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01477">“But <i>he</i> doesn’t understand—”</p> + +<p id="id01478">“My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand.”</p> + +<p id="id01479">“And you have done this—you have come to warn me—”</p> + +<p id="id01480">“It does look pretty bad,” she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. “But my brother and I—we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case.”</p> + +<p id="id01481">“Oh, I’m a case, am I?” and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. “But I’d really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id01482">“Then you will have to ask him.”</p> + +<p id="id01483">“To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet’s request. I swear to you +that I’m as much in the dark as you are.”</p> + +<p id="id01484">“I’m quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,—perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof.”</p> + +<p id="id01485">“Good Lord!”</p> + +<p id="id01486">Armitage laughed aloud.</p> + +<p id="id01487">“I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?”</p> + +<p id="id01488">“I don’t know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I’m only a traitor and not a +spy.”</p> + +<p id="id01489">“You are the noblest woman in the world,” he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. “You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man—for a man she +did not know! And my life—whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow—or the day after—I shall justify these +great kindnesses—this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!”</p> + +<p id="id01490">As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away.</p> + +<p id="id01491">“I must go back,” said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight.</p> + +<p id="id01492">“You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again.”</p> + +<p id="id01493">She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once.</p> + +<p id="id01494">“Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,—I +should have gone back instantly.”</p> + +<p id="id01495">“But not across that spider’s web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley.”</p> + +<p id="id01496">“It is much nearer by the bridge,—and I have my horse over there.”</p> + +<p id="id01497">“We shall get the horse without trouble,” he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said:</p> + +<p id="id01498">“This is the Port of Missing Men.”</p> + +<p id="id01499">“Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It’s a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself.”</p> + +<p id="id01500">“I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I’ll wait here. Fetch the horse,” she said, “and hurry, please.”</p> + +<p id="id01501">“If there are explanations to make,” he began, looking at her gravely.</p> + +<p id="id01502">“I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate.”</p> + +<p id="id01503">As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him.</p> + +<p id="id01504">“Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar,” Armitage commanded.</p> + +<p id="id01505">They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses.</p> + +<p id="id01506">“You are not to come with me, Oscar.”</p> + +<p id="id01507">“A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01508">“It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne’s stables; and ask and answer no +questions.”</p> + +<p id="id01509">A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following.</p> + +<p id="id01510">He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road.</p> + +<p id="id01511">“The bridge would have been simpler and quicker,” said Shirley; “as it +is, I shall be late to the ball.”</p> + +<p id="id01512">“I am contrite enough; but you don’t make explanations.”</p> + +<p id="id01513">“No; I don’t explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point,” she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible.</p> + +<p id="id01514">Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile.</p> + +<p id="id01515">He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living.</p> + +<p id="id01516">Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her.</p> + +<p id="id01517">“You ride wonderfully,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id01518">“The horse is a joy. He’s a Pendragon—I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I’m +sure.”</p> + +<p id="id01519">“You are quite right. He’s a Virginia horse. You are incomparable—no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It’s a brave woman who isn’t +a slave to her hair-pins—I don’t believe you spilled one.”</p> + +<p id="id01520">She drew rein at the cross-roads.</p> + +<p id="id01521">“We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?”</p> + +<p id="id01522">“Let me go to your own gate, please!”</p> + +<p id="id01523">“Not at all!” she said with decision.</p> + +<p id="id01524">“Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don’t see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks—for oh, so many things!” he pleaded.<br> +</p> + +<p id="id01525">“To-morrow—or the day after—or never!”</p> + +<p id="id01526">She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills.</p> + +<p id="id01527">Near her father’s estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier.</p> + +<p id="id01528">It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road.</p> + +<p id="id01529">“It is my captain’s horse—yes?” he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. “I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01530">A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father’s house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01531">“Where have you been, Shirley?”</p> + +<p id="id01532">“Walking.”</p> + +<p id="id01533">“But you went for a ride—the stable-men told me.”</p> + +<p id="id01534">“I believe that is true, Captain.”</p> + +<p id="id01535">“And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English.”</p> + +<p id="id01536">“Well, they do say English isn’t very well taught at West Point, +Captain,” she replied, pulling off her gloves. “You oughtn’t to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy.”</p> + +<p id="id01537">“I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01538">“Captain!”</p> + +<p id="id01539">“Bah! What are you going to do now?”</p> + +<p id="id01540">“I’m going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone.”</p> + +<p id="id01541">“They have—for which you should be grateful!”</p> + +<p id="id01542">Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01543" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01544">THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD</h3> + +<p id="id01545">A glance, a word—and joy or pain<br> + + Befalls; what was no more shall be.<br> + +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny!<br></p> + +<p id="id01546">—T.B. Aldrich.</p> + +<p id="id01547" style="margin-top: 2em">Oscar’s eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched.</p> + +<p id="id01548">“It is the big fellow—yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known.”</p> + +<p id="id01549">Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road.</p> + +<p id="id01550">“It is mischief that brings him from the hills—yes?” Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly—very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones:</p> + +<p id="id01551">“Good evening, my friend; it’s a fine evening for a walk.”</p> + +<p id="id01552">Zmai drew back and growled.</p> + +<p id="id01553">“Let me pass,” he said in his difficult German.</p> + +<p id="id01554">“It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia—yes?” and Oscar’s tone was pleasantly +conversational.</p> + +<p id="id01555">Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault.</p> + +<p id="id01556">“A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01557">“I have no time for you,” snarled the Servian. “Be gone!” and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall.</p> + +<p id="id01558">“One should not be in too much haste, comrade;” and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips.</p> + +<p id="id01559">The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back.</p> + +<p id="id01560">“It is a message—yes?” asked Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01561">“It is my affair,” blurted the big fellow. “I mean no harm to you.”</p> + +<p id="id01562">“It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01563">The little soldier whipped out his revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01564">“In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words—Ah!”</p> + +<p id="id01565">Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture.</p> + +<p id="id01566">The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar’s feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels.</p> + +<p id="id01567">Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening.</p> + +<p id="id01568">Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar’s revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report.</p> + +<p id="id01569">At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head.</p> + +<p id="id01570">“Stop; I want the letter!” shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels.</p> + +<p id="id01571">Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow’s broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar’s +hands slipped on the fellow’s hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head.</p> + +<p id="id01572">As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep.</p> + +<p id="id01573">“The letter—give me the letter!” commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian’s. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar’s hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man’s gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades.</p> + +<p id="id01574">Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.</p> + +<p id="id01575">“Damn the sheep!” roared Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01576">“It is sheep—yes?” and Oscar started to bolt.</p> + +<p id="id01577">“Halt!”</p> + +<p id="id01578">The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar’s ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer.</p> + +<p id="id01579">“What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?”</p> + +<p id="id01580">Oscar saluted and summoned his best English.</p> + +<p id="id01581">“It was an accident, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01582">“Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable.”</p> + +<p id="id01583">“There was a sheep-stealer—yes? He is yonder by the pens—and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead—no?”</p> + +<p id="id01584">At that moment Claiborne’s eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door.</p> + +<p id="id01585">“That is the sheep-stealer,” said Oscar. “We shall catch him—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01586">Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back.</p> + +<p id="id01587">“One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What’s that you have there? Give it to me—quick!”<br></p> + +<p id="id01588">“It’s a piece of wool—”</p> + +<p id="id01589">But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar’s hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever.</p> + +<p id="id01590">He blinked under Claiborne’s sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library.</p> + +<p id="id01591">“You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago.”</p> + +<p id="id01592">“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01593">“You have been a soldier.”</p> + +<p id="id01594">“In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home.”</p> + +<p id="id01595">“Where do you live?”</p> + +<p id="id01596">“I work as teamster in the coal mines—yes?—they are by Lamar, sir.”</p> + +<p id="id01597">Claiborne studied Oscar’s erect figure carefully.</p> + +<p id="id01598">“Let me see your hands,” he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms.</p> + +<p id="id01599">“You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn’t go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt.”</p> + +<p id="id01600">Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written:</p> + +<p id="id01601">CABLEGRAM<br> + +WINKELRIED, VIENNA.<br> + +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET.<br></p> + +<p id="id01602">Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar.<br></p> + +<p id="id01603">“Where did you get this?”</p> + +<p id="id01604">“From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder.”</p> + +<p id="id01605">“Who is he and where did he get it?”</p> + +<p id="id01606">“I don’t know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01607">“What were you going to do with the paper?”</p> + +<p id="id01608">Oscar grinned.</p> + +<p id="id01609">“If I could read it—yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?”</p> + +<p id="id01610">Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar’s tranquil eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01611">“Dick!” called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01612">“Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?”</p> + +<p id="id01613">“I think not, Dick.”</p> + +<p id="id01614">“It was he that brought your horse home.”</p> + +<p id="id01615">“To be sure it is! I hadn’t recognized him. Thank you very much;” and she +smiled at Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01616">Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper.</p> + +<p id="id01617">“Where is Monsieur Chauvenet—have you any idea?”</p> + +<p id="id01618">“If he isn’t at the hotel or in Washington, I’m sure I don’t know. If we +are going to the dance—”</p> + +<p id="id01619">“Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away.”</p> + +<p id="id01620">“I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;” and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness.</p> + +<p id="id01621">Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read.</p> + +<p id="id01622">“Don’t touch it!” he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly:</p> + +<p id="id01623">“I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?”</p> + +<p id="id01624">“Don’t you know what <i>you</i> are doing here?” she asked, and he flushed.</p> + +<p id="id01625">“I know what, but not <i>why</i>!” he blurted irritably; “but that’s enough!”</p> + +<p id="id01626">“You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don’t know why.”</p> + +<p id="id01627">“I have my orders and I’m going to find him, if it takes ten years.”</p> + +<p id="id01628">Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id01629">“There’s no doubt of that being Chauvenet’s writing, is there?”</p> + +<p id="id01630">“I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01631">The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain.</p> + +<p id="id01632">Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01633">“Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer—an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It’s most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I’m going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!”</p> + +<p id="id01634">Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id01635">“Do it, Dick! He’s undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character.”</p> + +<p id="id01636">“I tell you I’ll find him,” he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers.</p> + +<p id="id01637">“I’ll help you, Dick,” she said, buttoning her glove.</p> + +<p id="id01638">“That’s like you, Shirley.”</p> + +<p id="id01639">“If you want to find Mr. Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01640">“Of course I want to find him—” His voice rose to a roar.</p> + +<p id="id01641">“Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!”</p> + +<p id="id01642">“Yes; I needed my man for other business,” said Armitage, folding his +arms, “and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01643">Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face.</p> + +<p id="id01644">“You are worse than I thought—eavesdropper, housebreaker!”</p> + +<p id="id01645">“Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?”</p> + +<p id="id01646">“You are a rogue, an impostor—”</p> + +<p id="id01647">“We will grant that,” said Armitage quietly. “Where is your warrant for +my arrest?”</p> + +<p id="id01648">“That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you.”</p> + +<p id="id01649">“It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p id="id01650">Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land’s commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The <i>coup de théâtre</i> by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house.</p> + +<p id="id01651">“You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here,” said +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id01652">“In America—in free Virginia—without legal process?” asked Armitage, +laughing.</p> + +<p id="id01653">“You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!”</p> + +<p id="id01654">“You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you—day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now—that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me.”</p> + +<p id="id01655">“No!” shouted Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01656">Armitage drew a step nearer.</p> + +<p id="id01657">“You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is.”</p> + +<p id="id01658">“You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01659">“Do so!—but <i>I</i> must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn’t understand it, and it is clear you +don’t. Give me the message!”</p> + +<p id="id01660">He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides.</p> + +<p id="id01661">“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01662">“I don’t like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01663">Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words:</p> + +<p id="id01664">“Winkelried—Vienna—not later than Friday—Chauvenet.”</p> + +<p id="id01665">“Shirley!” roared Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01666">John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited.</p> + +<p id="id01667">Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills.<br></p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01668" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01669">THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW</h3> + +<p id="id01670">So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of<br> + + battle,<br> + +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled<br> + + were many.<br> + +E’en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh<br> + + in splendor,<br> + +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin<br> + + is breathless,<br> + +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and<br> + + the valleys,<br> + +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless<br> + + ether<br> + +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd—<br> + +Such and so many the fires ’twixt the ships and the streams<br> + + of the Xanthus<br> + +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city.<br> + +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside<br> + + them<br> + +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses,<br> + +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for<br> + + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning.<br></p> + +<p id="id01671"><i>The Iliad</i>: Translation of Prentiss Cummings.</p> + +<p id="id01672" style="margin-top: 2em">“In Vienna, Friday!”</p> + +<p id="id01673">“There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;” and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar.</p> + +<p id="id01674">“Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do.”</p> + +<p id="id01675">“Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands—”</p> + +<p id="id01676">“<i>Our</i> own hands, if you would be accurate!”</p> + +<p id="id01677">“You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart’s desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn’t the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it.”</p> + +<p id="id01678">“You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation.”</p> + +<p id="id01679">“But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,—what +becomes of her in these transactions?”</p> + +<p id="id01680">“That is none of your affair,” replied Chauvenet, frowning. “I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01681">“Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there—ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be.”</p> + +<p id="id01682">“Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul.”</p> + +<p id="id01683">“The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage’s house.”</p> + +<p id="id01684">“Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit.”</p> + +<p id="id01685">The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand’s eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. “I do not require watching, my dear +Durand,” he had said.</p> + +<p id="id01686">“A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;” but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet’s mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere.</p> + +<p id="id01687">While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar’s +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage’s bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited.</p> + +<p id="id01688">Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face.</p> + +<p id="id01689">“The letters!” snapped Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01690">“Is the message safe?” demanded Durand.</p> + +<p id="id01691">“Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,—the +little soldier,—as I crossed a strange field.”</p> + +<p id="id01692">When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper.</p> + +<p id="id01693">“Horses; saddle our two horses quick—and get another if you have to +steal it,” he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow’s +head and cleanse his face.</p> + +<p id="id01694">“So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?”</p> + +<p id="id01695">The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet’s rapid German.</p> + +<p id="id01696">In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning.</p> + +<p id="id01697">The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies.</p> + +<p id="id01698">“We have no time to lose. That message must go to-night. You may be sure<br> + +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we’ve got to go down to +Storm Springs.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01699">They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed.</p> + +<p id="id01700">“He is not so big a fool, this Armitage,” remarked Durand. “He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna.”</p> + +<p id="id01701">“I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward.”</p> + +<p id="id01702">“Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation.”</p> + +<p id="id01703">“If we fail—” began Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01704">“You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?”</p> + +<p id="id01705">“We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,—and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,—he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him.”</p> + +<p id="id01706">“And the fair daughter of the valley—”</p> + +<p id="id01707">“Pish! We are not discussing the young lady.”</p> + +<p id="id01708">“I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine <i>she</i> knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him.”</p> + +<p id="id01709">“His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular.”</p> + +<p id="id01710">Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly.</p> + +<p id="id01711">“Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way—a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!”</p> + +<p id="id01712">An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o’clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai’s laggard beast permitted.</p> + +<p id="id01713">The beat of a horse’s hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal’s walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse’s quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly.</p> + +<p id="id01714">In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian’s +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse.</p> + +<p id="id01715">“Wait!” said the Servian.</p> + +<p id="id01716">The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man’s deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet’s party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them.</p> + +<p id="id01717">“Who goes there?”</p> + +<p id="id01718">The stranger’s horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast’s up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined.</p> + +<p id="id01719">“Who goes there?” shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger’s horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai’s great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack.</p> + +<p id="id01720">“The knife?” bawled the Servian.</p> + +<p id="id01721">“No!” answered Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01722">“The devil!” yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast’s +flanks.</p> + +<p id="id01723">Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse’s head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips.</p> + +<p id="id01724">The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner.</p> + +<p id="id01725">“Tie him,” said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man’s arms +and bound them tight.</p> + +<p id="id01726">The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive’s horse.</p> + +<p id="id01727">“The fellow takes it pretty coolly,” remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. “What are you going to do with him ?”</p> + +<p id="id01728">“We will take him to his own place—it is near—and coax the papers out +of him; then we’ll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter.”</p> + +<p id="id01729">Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse.</p> + +<p id="id01730">“I am ready,” he reported.</p> + +<p id="id01731">“Go ahead; we follow;” and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask:</p> + +<p id="id01732">“Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?”</p> + +<p id="id01733">“Undoubtedly. I didn’t get a square look at him, but he’s a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he’s riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago.”</p> + +<p id="id01734">“Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!”</p> + +<p id="id01735">“The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack.”</p> + +<p id="id01736">Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai.</p> + +<p id="id01737">“The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it.”</p> + +<p id="id01738">They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway.</p> + +<p id="id01739">Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh.</p> + +<p id="id01740">“You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?”</p> + +<p id="id01741">“Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There’s the house.”</p> + +<p id="id01742">He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet’s courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage’s +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others.</p> + +<p id="id01743">“Bring him in!” he said, without taking his eyes from the room.</p> + +<p id="id01744">A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail.</p> + +<p id="id01745">Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them.</p> + +<p id="id01746">“Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;” and as Durand turned into Armitage’s room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner.</p> + +<p id="id01747">“Take off the bag,” he commanded.</p> + +<p id="id01748">Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access.</p> + +<p id="id01749">“Mr. John Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01750">Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01751">The perspiration on Claiborne’s face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men.</p> + +<p id="id01752">The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage’s room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor.</p> + +<p id="id01753">“It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!” muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne’s face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor.</p> + +<p id="id01754">Durand stepped forward with an oath.</p> + +<p id="id01755">“Who is the man?” he demanded.</p> + +<p id="id01756">“It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology—” +Chauvenet began.<br></p> + +<p id="id01757">“You put it mildly,” cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. “I don’t +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur—”</p> + +<p id="id01758">“It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation—anything you ask,” stammered Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id01759">“You are looking for John Armitage, are you?” demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet’s words. “Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o’clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you.”</p> + +<p id="id01760">“You are violent, my dear sir—” began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet’s.</p> + +<p id="id01761">“I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!”</p> + +<p id="id01762">Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm’s length.</p> + +<p id="id01763">“You know too much!”</p> + +<p id="id01764">“I don’t know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War.”</p> + +<p id="id01765">Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation.</p> + +<p id="id01766">“You don’t understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance.”</p> + +<p id="id01767">It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness.</p> + +<p id="id01768">“You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear,” said Claiborne. “What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id01769">“He is a menace to a great throne—an impostor—a—”</p> + +<p id="id01770">Chauvenet’s eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man’s gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him.</p> + +<p id="id01771">“Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles—are not +for these free hills.”</p> + +<p id="id01772">“<i>Where is John Armitage</i>?”</p> + +<p id="id01773">Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed.</p> + +<p id="id01774">Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf.</p> + +<p id="id01775">“I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father’s, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!”</p> + +<p id="id01776">“Come; we waste time,” said Durand in French. “It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!”</p> + +<p id="id01777">“Yes; you’d better go,” said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. “I don’t believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I’ll go to bed. I’m sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can’t just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice.”</p> + +<p id="id01778">He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them.</p> + +<p id="id01779">“Good night, and clear out,” and he waved his arm in dismissal.</p> + +<p id="id01780">“Come!” said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door.</p> + +<p id="id01781">As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight.</p> + +<p id="id01782">As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01783" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01784">THE VERGE OF MORNING</h3> + +<p id="id01785">O to mount again where erst I haunted;<br> + +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,<br> + + And the low green meadows<br> + + Bright with sward;<br> + +And when even dies, the million-tinted,<br> + +And the night has come, and planets glinted,<br> + + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr’d.<br></p> + +<h3 id="id01786">—R.L.S.</h3> + +<p id="id01787" style="margin-top: 2em">“I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!”</p> + +<p id="id01788">Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar’s arm to check the +rush of the little man.</p> + +<p id="id01789">Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms.</p> + +<p id="id01790">“Yes; they are very interesting.”</p> + +<p id="id01791">“And those ribbons and that cloak,—I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman’s horse. Then make some +coffee and wait.”</p> + +<p id="id01792">As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01793">“I didn’t expect this of you; I really didn’t expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?”</p> + +<p id="id01794">“I don’t know—I’ll be <i>damned</i> if I know!” and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage’s +slumbering wrath.</p> + +<p id="id01795">“You’d better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can’t explain yourself I’m going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?”</p> + +<p id="id01796">“I didn’t <i>come</i> here, Armitage; I was brought—with a potato sack over +my head. There’s the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn’t on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs.”</p> + +<p id="id01797">“What are you doing up here in the mountains—why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!”</p> + +<p id="id01798">“Armitage”—as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it—“Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now—”</p> + +<p id="id01799">“Damn my cigarette case!” bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it.</p> + +<p id="id01800">“That’s what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,—you must admit +that.”</p> + +<p id="id01801">“It was, indeed!”</p> + +<p id="id01802">“It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!”</p> + +<p id="id01803">“No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne.”</p> + +<p id="id01804">Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01805">“And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!”</p> + +<p id="id01806">“What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don’t know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can’t get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I’m going to chuck you back into the sack.”</p> + +<p id="id01807">“I came up here in the hills to look for you—you—you—! Do you +understand?” began Claiborne angrily. “And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they’ve +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody’s eye. And there’s all +there is of the story, and I don’t care a damn whether you believe it or +not.”</p> + +<p id="id01808">Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage’s tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud.</p> + +<p id="id01809">“Your face—your face, Claiborne; it’s funny. It’s too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it’s something ghastly. For God’s sake go in there +and wash your face!”</p> + +<p id="id01810">He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave.</p> + +<p id="id01811">“Claiborne—”</p> + +<p id="id01812">Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp.</p> + +<p id="id01813">“You don’t know who I am or what I am; and I haven’t got time to tell +you now. It’s a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what’s going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain—or—must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?”</p> + +<p id="id01814">“Marhof may go to the devil! He’s a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof’s cause.”</p> + +<p id="id01815">“They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye.”</p> + +<p id="id01816">“I believe you, Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id01817">“Thank you. Now your horse is at the door—run along like a good fellow.”</p> + +<p id="id01818">Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on.</p> + +<p id="id01819">“Oscar!” he yelled, “bring in that coffee—with cups for two.”</p> + +<p id="id01820">He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings.</p> + +<p id="id01821">“Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle.”</p> + +<p id="id01822">He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes.</p> + +<p id="id01823">“Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There’s a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you’d like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs,” he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank.</p> + +<p id="id01824">“I’m taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods.”</p> + +<p id="id01825">There was a great color in Armitage’s face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor.</p> + +<p id="id01826">“Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise—isn’t that so, Claiborne?—and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag—original package, you understand. And see if +you can’t find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar—”</p> + +<p id="id01827">With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. “If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe70_25" id="illustration_p320_2"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_p320.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>“Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne.”</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id01828">He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click.</p> + +<p id="id01829">Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id01830">Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty.</p> + +<p id="id01831">“Lord, man! I didn’t mean to throw you into the road! There’s a clean bed +in there that you’re welcome to—go in and get some sleep.”</p> + +<p id="id01832">“I’m not going into the valley,” roared Claiborne, “and I’m not going to +bed; I’m going with you, damn you!”</p> + +<p id="id01833">“But bless your soul, man, you can’t go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I’m terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances—”</p> + +<p id="id01834">“I repeat that I’m going with you. I don’t know why I’m in this row, and +I don’t know what it’s all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can’t be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there.”</p> + +<p id="id01835">“But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again,” said Armitage earnestly. “Take your horse +and go.”</p> + +<p id="id01836">“I’m going back to the valley when you do.”</p> + +<p id="id01837">“Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice.”</p> + +<p id="id01838">He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with:</p> + +<p id="id01839">“I do not think a braver gentleman,<br> + +More active-valiant or more valiant-young,<br> + +More daring or more bold, is now alive<br> + +To grace this latter age with noble deeds.<br> + +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;—<br></p> + +<p id="id01840">“Lord, Claiborne, you don’t know what’s ahead of us! It’s the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this—not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we’ll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We’re off!”</p> + +<p id="id01841">“All ready, sir;” said Oscar briskly.</p> + +<p id="id01842">“It’s half-past two. They didn’t get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They’ve probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven’t got me!”</p> + +<p id="id01843">“They had me and didn’t want me,” said Claiborne, mounting his own horse.</p> + +<p id="id01844">“They’ll have a good many things they don’t want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn’t enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it’s been a great old lark. And now to catch them!”</p> + +<p id="id01845">Outside the preserve they paused for an instant.</p> + +<p id="id01846">“They’re not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven’t studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven’t followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There’s a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I’m guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land.”</p> + +<p id="id01847">“To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business,” said +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id01848">“Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I’ll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses.”</p> + +<p id="id01849">Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses—two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again.</p> + +<p id="id01850">“Come! We’re on the verge of morning,” said Armitage, “and there’s no +time to lose.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01851" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01852">THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD</h3> + +<p id="id01853">Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,<br> + +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.<br></p> + +<p id="id01854">—Louise Imogen Guiney.</p> + +<p id="id01855" style="margin-top: 2em">“There’s an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I’m not mistaken, and if +we’ve made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad.”</p> + +<p id="id01856">Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter.</p> + +<p id="id01857">“It’s a strange business,” Claiborne muttered half-aloud.</p> + +<p id="id01858">The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas.</p> + +<p id="id01859">He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance.</p> + +<p id="id01860">“It’s all right; they haven’t passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they’re handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don’t forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I’m afraid we’re going to have a wet +morning.”</p> + +<p id="id01861">They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches.</p> + +<p id="id01862">“Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic,” said +Armitage; “but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I’ve done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it.”</p> + +<p id="id01863">Claiborne groaned mockingly.</p> + +<p id="id01864">“I suppose I’ll know what it’s all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I’m fighting for.”</p> + +<p id="id01865">“You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you’ve got to take +the consequences. You’ve done what you set out to do—you’ve found me; +and you’re traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I’m going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor—I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build—and in the +dark—on horseback—”</p> + +<p id="id01866">“That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they’d plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion.”</p> + +<p id="id01867">“Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours.”<br></p> + +<p id="id01868">The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot.</p> + +<p id="id01869">Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted.</p> + +<p id="id01870">“Bully for us! We’ve cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01871">“There are three horses all right enough, and they’re forcing the beasts. +What’s the word?”<br></p> + +<p id="id01872">“Drive them back! Ready—here we go!” roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard.</p> + +<p id="id01873">They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop.</p> + +<p id="id01874">“‘Not later than Friday’—back you go!” shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy’s rout. One of the horses—it seemed from its rider’s +yells to be Chauvenet’s—turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come.</p> + +<p id="id01875">Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them.</p> + +<p id="id01876">“They’re rattled,” said Claiborne, “and the fog isn’t helping them any.”</p> + +<p id="id01877">“We’re getting close to my place,” said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses.</p> + +<p id="id01878">“It’s Oscar! He’s a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right.”</p> + +<p id="id01879">“If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment,” +observed Claiborne. “The fog muffles sounds. The road’s pretty level in +here.”</p> + +<p id="id01880">“We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We’re +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!”</p> + +<p id="id01881">The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again.</p> + +<p id="id01882">“By George! They’re coming—here we go!”</p> + +<p id="id01883">They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice.</p> + +<p id="id01884">“Oscar has them on the run—bully for Oscar! They’re getting close—thank +the Lord for this level stretch—now howl and let ’er go!”</p> + +<p id="id01885">They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses’ hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground.</p> + +<p id="id01886">“They’re terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed,” shouted +Claiborne. “Now for it!”<br></p> + +<p id="id01887">They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist.</p> + +<p id="id01888">There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant’s glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand’s impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right.</p> + +<p id="id01889">With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon<br> + +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then<br> + +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet’s frightened horse, panic-stricken at the<br> + +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed.<br></p> + +<p id="id01890">The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses.</p> + +<p id="id01891">“That was too close for fun—are you all there?” asked Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01892">“Still in it; but Chauvenet’s friend won’t miss every time. There’s +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse.”</p> + +<p id="id01893">“Oh, he’s a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun.”</p> + +<p id="id01894">They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light.</p> + +<p id="id01895">“This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you’d get out of this +and go home. You see they’re an ugly lot and don’t use toy pistols.”</p> + +<p id="id01896">“Remember the potato sack! That’s my watchword,” laughed Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01897">They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade.</p> + +<p id="id01898">“I should value a change of raiment,” observed Armitage. “There was an +advantage in armor—your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn’t stick to your hide.”</p> + +<p id="id01899">“Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again.”</p> + +<p id="id01900">They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage’s bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs.</p> + +<p id="id01901">“Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!” And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar.</p> + +<p id="id01902">The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage’s +shots.</p> + +<p id="id01903">“Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!”</p> + +<p id="id01904">“There!”</p> + +<p id="id01905">Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe.</p> + +<p id="id01906">“He’s crazy—he’s gone clean out of his head!” muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. “What do you make of it?”</p> + +<p id="id01907">“He’s having fun with them. He’s just rattling them to warm himself +up—the little beggar. I didn’t know it was in him.”</p> + +<p id="id01908">Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop.</p> + +<p id="id01909">Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar’s wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver.</p> + +<p id="id01910">“Oh, for a saber now!” growled Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01911">But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand’s horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business.</p> + +<p id="id01912">The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear.</p> + +<p id="id01913">“My horse got it that time!” shouted Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01914">“So did I,” replied Armitage; “but never you mind, old man, we’ve got +them cornered now.”</p> + +<p id="id01915" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id01916">“Much damage?”</p> + +<p id="id01917">“It struck a hard place, but I am still fit.”</p> + +<p id="id01918">The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne’s horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace.</p> + +<p id="id01919">“Poor devil! We’ll have a reckoning pretty soon,” cried Armitage +cheerily. “No kingdom is worth a good horse!”</p> + +<p id="id01920">They advanced at a trot toward the Port.</p> + +<p id="id01921">“You’ll be afoot any minute now, but we’re in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won’t care to drop +into! I’m off for the gate—you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer.”</p> + +<p id="id01922">Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id01923" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXV</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id01924">THE PORT OF MISSING MEN</h3> + +<p id="id01925">Fast they come, fast they come;<br> + + See how they gather!<br> + +Wide waves the eagle plume,<br> + + Blended with heather.<br> + +Cast your plaids, draw your blades,<br> + + Forward each man set!<br> + +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset!<br></p> + +<p id="id01926">—Sir Walter Scott.</p> + +<p id="id01927" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left.</p> + +<p id="id01928">“It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man—yes?” was the little +sergeant’s comment. “We shall come back for the saddle and bridle.”</p> + +<p id="id01929">“Humph! Where do you think those men are?”</p> + +<p id="id01930">“Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position.”</p> + +<p id="id01931">“I’m not sure of that. They’ll escape across the old bridge.”</p> + +<p id="id01932">“<i>Nein</i>. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once—they would not +need our bullets!”</p> + +<p id="id01933">Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage.<br></p> + +<p id="id01934">“It’s the signal that he’s got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you.”</p> + +<p id="id01935">“You will have my horse—yes?” Oscar began to dismount.</p> + +<p id="id01936">“No; I do well enough this way. Forward!—the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them.”</p> + +<p id="id01937">The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol.</p> + +<p id="id01938">The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him!</p> + +<p id="id01939">As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet’s party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines.</p> + +<p id="id01940">“They’re really not so bad—bad luck to them!” he muttered. “I’ll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;” and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage’s slow advance out into the open.</p> + +<p id="id01941">The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne’s +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure.</p> + +<p id="id01942">Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target’s elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing.</p> + +<p id="id01943">“I’ve never been the same since that fever,” growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance.</p> + +<p id="id01944">Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage’s advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading.</p> + +<p id="id01945">“They are all together again, are they?” asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne’s rock, his eyes upon the barricade.</p> + +<p id="id01946">“The gentleman with the curly hair—I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id01947">Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences.<br></p> + +<p id="id01948">“Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I’d like to try hunger on +them,” said Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01949">“They’ll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they’ll break it down, and we’ll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them—alive?”</p> + +<p id="id01950">“I certainly do!” Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider.</p> + +<p id="id01951">The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth.</p> + +<p id="id01952">“For God’s sake, get off that horse, Armitage!” bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. “There’s no use in wasting yourself that way.”</p> + +<p id="id01953">“My arm aches and I’ve got to do something. Let’s try storming them just +for fun. It’s a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that’s supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we’ll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn’t as stiff as it looks from this side—know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can’t be seen from this side.”</p> + +<p id="id01954">“Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You’ve got a +hole in you now! Get down!”</p> + +<p id="id01955">“You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them.”</p> + +<p id="id01956">His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert.</p> + +<p id="id01957">Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering:</p> + +<p id="id01958">“For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!”</p> + +<p id="id01959">Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them.</p> + +<p id="id01960">“They can’t jump this—they’ll veer off before they get here,” shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. “Wait till they check their horses for the +turn.”</p> + +<p id="id01961">“We are fools. They have got us trapped;” and Durand’s hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai’s scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne’s voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts.</p> + +<p id="id01962">But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure.</p> + +<p id="id01963">Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood:</p> + +<p id="id01964">“It is in the blood; he is like a king.”</p> + +<p id="id01965">But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field:</p> + +<p id="id01966">“He bade me do something for Austria—for Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id01967">“He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him,” said Zmai.</p> + +<p id="id01968">Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar’s horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him.</p> + +<p id="id01969">“Take him first,” cried Chauvenet. “Then be ready for Armitage!”</p> + +<p id="id01970">Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage’s +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause—not heeding Armitage’s cries—on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared.</p> + +<p id="id01971">Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse’s forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet’s curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels.</p> + +<p id="id01972">Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage’s face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud:</p> + +<p id="id01973">“Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried’s in +jail and the jig’s up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!”</p> + +<p id="id01974">He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage’s head.</p> + +<p id="id01975">“Drop that gun—drop it damned quick!” and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet’s head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id01976">It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight.</p> + +<p id="id01977">“It’s all over but the shouting—what’s next?” demanded Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01978">“Tie him up—and tie the other one up,” said Armitage, staring about +queerly. “Where the devil is Oscar?”</p> + +<p id="id01979">“He’s after the big fellow. You’re badly fussed, old man. We’ve got to +get out of this and fix you up.”</p> + +<p id="id01980">“I’m all right. I’ve got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we’ve got them nailed, and it’s all right, old +man!”</p> + +<p id="id01981">Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01982">“If you start to run I’ll certainly kill you, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01983">“We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings.”</p> + +<p id="id01984">Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01985">“Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing.”</p> + +<p id="id01986">“But, Messieurs,” began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure—“this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions.”</p> + +<p id="id01987">“I don’t question it,” laughed Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id01988">“But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country.”</p> + +<p id="id01989">“It will, indeed,” and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage’s hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. “In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id01990">“I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage—”</p> + +<p id="id01991">Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously.</p> + +<p id="id01992">“You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I’ll choke you!”</p> + +<p id="id01993">Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand:<br></p> + +<p id="id01994">“Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?”</p> + +<p id="id01995">Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand’s pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01996">“We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions.”</p> + +<p id="id01997">A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave.</p> + +<p id="id01998">“Where is the Servian?” demanded Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id01999">The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02000">“He will not come back,” said the sergeant quietly.</p> + +<p id="id02001">“That is bad,” remarked Armitage. “Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage’s house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately.”</p> + +<p id="id02002">“But Armitage—not Marhof—for God’s sake, not Marhof.” Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +“Not Marhof!”</p> + +<p id="id02003">“We can fix this among ourselves—just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs,” protested Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02004">“That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored,” said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision.</p> + +<p id="id02005">“Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?”</p> + +<p id="id02006">Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage’s tone.<br></p> + +<p id="id02007">“It’s a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn’t take as much time as +you thought it would.”</p> + +<p id="id02008">Oscar had mounted Armitage’s horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road.</p> + +<p id="id02009">“After you deliver Mr. Armitage’s message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here.”</p> + +<p id="id02010">“No!” began Armitage. “Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don’t propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!”</p> + +<p id="id02011">“Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He’s +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!”</p> + +<p id="id02012">The conspirators’ horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them.</p> + +<p id="id02013">“Don’t treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we’ll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!”</p> + +<p id="id02014">Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern.</p> + +<p id="id02015">“Wait a few hours, Armitage—let us sit down and talk it all over. We’re +not as black as your imagination paints us!”</p> + +<p id="id02016">“Save your breath! You’ve had your fun so far, and now I’m going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you’re not made for work in the open. Forward!”</p> + +<p id="id02017">They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02018" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVI</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02019">“WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?”</h3> + +<p id="id02020">“<i>Morbleu, Monsieur</i>, you give me too much majesty,” said +the Prince.—<i>The History of Henry Esmond</i>.</p> + +<p id="id02021" style="margin-top: 2em">“These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer—let them sequester +themselves!” and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. “I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about—he may wish to explore my trunks again,” and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd.</p> + +<p id="id02022">“Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we’ll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,—but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time.”</p> + +<p id="id02023">He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat.</p> + +<p id="id02024">“I’d like to hold a little private execution for this,” growled the +officer. “A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart.”</p> + +<p id="id02025">“Don’t be spiteful! I’m as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that.”</p> + +<p id="id02026">“You’re not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can’t do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he’ll fix you up in a +jiffy.”</p> + +<p id="id02027">“That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve—yes, I guess we’ll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir.”</p> + +<p id="id02028">“Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id02029">“I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry’s the Baron will be +glad to let me off.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe63_6875" id="illustration_p356"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illustration_p356.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>With their wrists tied behind them, they looked the +least bit absurd</p></figcaption> +</figure> +<p> + +<p id="id02030">He laughed softly and began repeating:</p> + +<p id="id02031">“‘Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.’”</p> + +<p id="id02032">Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh:</p> + +<p id="id02033">“I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I’ll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival—but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown—it’s in the leather-covered trunk in my room—the one with +the most steamer labels on it—go bring it, Claiborne, and we’ll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick—they ought to be here by this +time!”</p> + +<p id="id02034">He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air.</p> + +<p id="id02035">“The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there’s no treason in hauling up an alien flag,” and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner.</p> + +<p id="id02036">“Here they are,” called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions.</p> + +<p id="id02037">“Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but”—and he looked at Shirley.</p> + +<p id="id02038">“If you will do me the honor to enter—all of you!” and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them.</p> + +<p id="id02039">“We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man,” said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand.</p> + +<p id="id02040">“What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?” demanded Judge +Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id02041">“There was a battle,” replied Dick, grinning, “and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet.”</p> + +<p id="id02042">Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley’s cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly.</p> + +<p id="id02043">Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o’clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her.</p> + +<p id="id02044">“You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear.”</p> + +<p id="id02045">“Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together,” said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly.</p> + +<p id="id02046">Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02047">“Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage,” said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand.</p> + +<p id="id02048">“Won’t you please come in?” said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began:</p> + +<p id="id02049">“Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual—they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne’s advice.”</p> + +<p id="id02050">“Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy,” said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage’s face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees.</p> + +<p id="id02051">“You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests.”</p> + +<p id="id02052">The Baron nodded.</p> + +<p id="id02053">“Yes, I dare say,” he remarked dryly.</p> + +<p id="id02054">“And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them—one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question.”</p> + +<p id="id02055">Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily:</p> + +<p id="id02056">“This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!”</p> + +<p id="id02057">“Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question—just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me—a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work—and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the <i>King Edward</i>. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne’s table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one—some one in +particular.”</p> + +<p id="id02058">Armitage’s eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded:</p> + +<p id="id02059">“Who am I, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p id="id02060">Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly:</p> + +<p id="id02061">“You are the devil—an impostor, a liar, a thief!”</p> + +<p id="id02062">Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English:</p> + +<p id="id02063">“Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?”</p> + +<p id="id02064">“Answer and be quick about it!” snapped Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02065">“I tell you”—began Chauvenet fiercely.</p> + +<p id="id02066">“<i>Who am I</i>?” asked Armitage again.</p> + +<p id="id02067">“I don’t know who you are—”</p> + +<p id="id02068">“You do not! You certainly do not!” laughed Armitage; “but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p id="id02069">“I thought—”</p> + +<p id="id02070">“Yes; you thought—”</p> + +<p id="id02071">“I thought—there seemed reasons to believe—”</p> + +<p id="id02072">“Yes; and you believe it; go on!”</p> + +<p id="id02073">Chauvenet’s eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German:</p> + +<p id="id02074">“This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation—he is +a menace to the throne—”</p> + +<p id="id02075">“Who is he?” demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02076">“I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away—drove him here to watch him. See these things—that +sword—those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death—one death—at Vienna—and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!”</p> + +<p id="id02077">The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador’s +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered:</p> + +<p id="id02078">“He would be king; he would be king!”</p> + +<p id="id02079">Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02080">“That will do. The gentleman may retire now.”</p> + +<p id="id02081">As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling.</p> + +<p id="id02082">“I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl,” he said +quietly; “nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne’s supper-party belongs to me. Here it is.”</p> + +<p id="id02083">The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly.</p> + +<p id="id02084">“This device—the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur.”</p> + +<p id="id02085">“It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl’s son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder—all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly.”</p> + +<p id="id02086">The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold—the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors—the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador’s fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus.</p> + +<p id="id02087">The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage.</p> + +<p id="id02088">“Where is he, Monsieur?” he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows.</p> + +<p id="id02089">“The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be—he, too, is dead.”</p> + +<p id="id02090">“You are quite sure—you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02091">“I am quite sure.”</p> + +<p id="id02092">“That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!”</p> + +<p id="id02093">“No, it is not enough,” replied Armitage quietly. “Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke—his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago.”</p> + +<p id="id02094">“Yes; he was mad—quite mad,” blurted the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02095">“That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year.”</p> + +<p id="id02096">Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused.</p> + +<p id="id02097">“What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02098">“I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key.”</p> + +<p id="id02099">As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down.</p> + +<p id="id02100">“Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?” said the Baron kindly.</p> + +<p id="id02101">“No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons—for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, <i>is not his son</i>!”</p> + +<p id="id02102">“What!” roared the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02103">“It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance.”</p> + +<p id="id02104">The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword.</p> + +<p id="id02105">“It is a marvelous story—it is wonderful! Can it be true—can it be +true?” murmured the Ambassador.</p> + +<p id="id02106">“The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours,” said Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02107">“You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir,” said the Baron, “but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners—”</p> + +<p id="id02108">“They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus,” and Armitage smiled. “I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case—it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me—and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl’s reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne.”</p> + +<p id="id02109">“Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I—”</p> + +<p id="id02110">“And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl’s repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house.”</p> + +<p id="id02111">The Ambassador’s eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage’s lips; but Armitage went on:</p> + +<p id="id02112">“I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the <i>George W. Custis</i>, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan’s wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn’t my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +<i>Sophia Margaret</i>, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive.”</p> + +<p id="id02113">He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne.<br></p> + +<p id="id02114">Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all.</p> + +<p id="id02115">“Who are <i>you</i>, John Armitage?”</p> + +<p id="id02116">And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout:</p> + +<p id="id02117">“I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke’s son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father’s place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short—I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies.”</p> + +<p id="id02118">“Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father—you +never went to him?”</p> + +<p id="id02119">“I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria—Austria, always +Austria!”</p> + +<p id="id02120">“Yes; that was quite like him,” said the Ambassador. “He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America—he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you—that you should have chosen to live here.”</p> + +<p id="id02121">“Then when I saw him at Geneva—that last interview—he told me that +Karl’s statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again—never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now—”</p> + +<p id="id02122">He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened.</p> + +<p id="id02123">“It was not my fault—it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I’ve got them in the room there where they can’t do any +harm!—and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I’m sick—yes, I’m sick—and sleepy—and you’d better haul +down that flag over the door—it’s treason, I tell you!—and if you see +Shirley, tell her I’m John Armitage—tell her I’m John Armitage, John +Arm—”</p> + +<p id="id02124">The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still.</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02125" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02126">DECENT BURIAL</h3> + +<p id="id02127">To-morrow? ’Tis not ours to know<br> + + That we again shall see the flowers.<br> + +To-morrow is the gods’—but, oh! + To day is ours.<br></p> + +<p id="id02128">—C.E. Merrill, Jr.</p> + +<p id="id02129" style="margin-top: 2em">Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador’s demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne’s bag, and all was now in readiness for the night.</p> + +<p id="id02130">Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars.</p> + +<p id="id02131">“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—yes?”</p> + +<p id="id02132">“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?”</p> + +<p id="id02133">“But the men should be hanged—for they shot our captain, and he may +die.”</p> + +<p id="id02134">The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02135">“He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.”</p> + +<p id="id02136">Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper.</p> + +<p id="id02137">“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic—no?”</p> + +<p id="id02138">“You need not tell me how—or anything about it—but you are sure he is +quite dead?”</p> + +<p id="id02139">“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. “I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it +not so?”</p> + +<p id="id02140">“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.”</p> + +<p id="id02141">“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner—yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them—though I had not touched them—and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down—God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.”</p> + +<p id="id02142">And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars.</p> + +<p id="id02143">“Yes, it must have been terrible,” said Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02144">“But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him.”</p> + +<p id="id02145">“But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law’s aid at once.”</p> + +<p id="id02146">“Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station.”</p> + +<p id="id02147">Claiborne looked at his watch.</p> + +<p id="id02148">“I will go with you,” he said.</p> + +<p id="id02149">They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see.</p> + +<p id="id02150">“He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes.”</p> + +<p id="id02151">When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks.</p> + +<p id="id02152"><i>“From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!”</i></p> + +<p id="id02153">Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian’s soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying:</p> + +<p id="id02154"><i>“—That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys.”</i></p> + +<p id="id02155">He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat.</p> + +<p id="id02156">“He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him.”</p> + +<p id="id02157">“Yes, we were spared murder,” said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne’s side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar’s shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning.</p> + +<p id="id02158">“You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?” asked Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02159">“Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father’s place—the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain’s mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition—no?”</p> + +<p id="id02160">The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne’s direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily:</p> + +<p id="id02161">“If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they’re put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the <i>George W. Custis</i>, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender.”</p> + +<p id="id02162">Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears.</p> + +<p id="id02163">“We will waive our right to a writ of <i>habeas corpus</i>,” remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. “Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne’s courteous treatment of us.”</p> + +<p id="id02164">“Shut up!” snapped Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id02165">“You will both of you do well to hold your tongues,” remarked Claiborne +dryly. “One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back.”</p> + +<p id="id02166">“You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne,” drawled Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02167">“There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?” demanded +Chauvenet.<br></p> + +<p id="id02168">“I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision—”</p> + +<p id="id02169">Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern.</p> + +<p id="id02170">“We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!” said Durand.</p> + +<p id="id02171">“Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding—kidnapping us this way—without opportunity for +counsel.”</p> + +<p id="id02172">“And without benefit of clergy,” laughed Claiborne. “Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm.”</p> + +<p id="id02173">“Drive on!” ejaculated Chauvenet.</p> + +<p id="id02174">As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles.</p> + +<p id="id02175">“That’s the end of one chapter,” remarked Judge Claiborne.</p> + +<p id="id02176">“They’re glad enough to go,” said Dick. “What’s the latest word from +Vienna?”<br></p> + +<p id="id02177">“The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly—thanks to +Mr. John Armitage,” and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow.</p> + +<p id="id02178">When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage’s condition was satisfactory.</p> + +<p id="id02179">“He is a hardy plant,” said the surgeon, “and will pull through.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'><h2 id="id02180" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2></div> + +<h3 id="id02181">JOHN ARMITAGE</h3> + +<p id="id02182">If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.—Marius the Epicurean.</p> + +<p id="id02183" style="margin-top: 2em">June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof’s cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily.</p> + +<p id="id02184">“He’s as obstinate as a mule!”</p> + +<p id="id02185">Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron’s vehemence.</p> + +<p id="id02186">“He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances.”</p> + +<p id="id02187">“What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!”</p> + +<p id="id02188">“I suppose there is; but he’s of age; he’s a grown man. I don’t see what +you’re going to do about it.”</p> + +<p id="id02189">“Neither do I! But think what he’s putting aside. The boy’s clever—he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position—the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father’s memory and reputation behind him—”</p> + +<p id="id02190">“But the idea of reward doesn’t appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night.”</p> + +<p id="id02191">“There’s one thing I haven’t dared to ask him: to take his own name—to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn’t want his +father’s money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too.”</p> + +<p id="id02192">“It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage.”</p> + +<p id="id02193">“It’s simply providential that he hasn’t become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!”</p> + +<p id="id02194">They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by.</p> + +<p id="id02195">“Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger.”</p> + +<p id="id02196">He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligée shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free.</p> + +<p id="id02197">“Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can’t be sure of you long,” said the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02198">“You have spoiled me,—I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true.”</p> + +<p id="id02199">“Something must be done about your father’s estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready.”</p> + +<p id="id02200">The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously.</p> + +<p id="id02201">Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees.</p> + +<p id="id02202">“No,—no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country—something that we may hope pleases him if he knows.”</p> + +<p id="id02203">The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request.</p> + +<p id="id02204">“But the name—the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known—a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe—surely +you can at least accept that.”</p> + +<p id="id02205">The Ambassador’s tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw—or thought he saw—the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02206">“How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?” he asked, +sitting down.</p> + +<p id="id02207">“Nothing,—absolutely nothing. The presence of the <i>Sophia Margaret</i> off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,—please do not forget that!—and +you are a friend of my family,—a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness.”</p> + +<p id="id02208">The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still +unanswered.</p> + +<p id="id02209">“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.”</p> + +<p id="id02210">“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him.</p> + +<p id="id02211">“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. “I read in the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.”</p> + +<p id="id02212">“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.”</p> + +<p id="id02213">“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge +Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them.”</p> + +<p id="id02214">“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron.</p> + +<p id="id02215">Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id02216">“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody.”</p> + +<p id="id02217">A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read.</p> + +<p id="id02218">“It’s from the commander of the <i>Sophia Margaret</i>, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health.”</p> + +<p id="id02219">“It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But”—and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously—“as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That’s what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense.”</p> + +<p id="id02220">Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,—before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man’s desire.</p> + +<p id="id02221">The Baron’s next words broke harshly upon his mood.</p> + +<p id="id02222">“The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to<br> + +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,—you could make yourself the younger—the great Stroebel—”<br></p> + +<p id="id02223">The mention of his name brought back the Baron’s still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling.</p> + +<p id="id02224">“I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,—if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,—that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me.”</p> + +<p id="id02225">He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses.</p> + +<p id="id02226">Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron’s +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim.</p> + +<p id="id02227">At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +<i>vestigia</i> that interested him deeply,—a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her.</p> + +<p id="id02228">“They told me you wouldn’t dare venture out for a week,” she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand.</p> + +<p id="id02229">“That was what they told me,” he said, laughing; “but I escaped from my +keepers.”</p> + +<p id="id02230">“You will undoubtedly take cold,—without your hat!”</p> + +<p id="id02231">“Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances.”</p> + +<p id="id02232">“You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero.”</p> + +<p id="id02233">“Please!” He held up his hand. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”</p> + +<p id="id02234">“About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow.”</p> + +<p id="id02235">She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy’s whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,—an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,—not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him.</p> + +<p id="id02236">“I didn’t know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn’t have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn’t +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall.”</p> + +<p id="id02237">“Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It’s hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven’t your hat—”</p> + +<p id="id02238">“Neither have you; you shan’t outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,—the loot of the pergola!”</p> + +<p id="id02239">“There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can’t be responsible +for you.”</p> + +<p id="id02240">“The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that’s what I +have come to ask you about.”</p> + +<p id="id02241">“Then I should say that you oughtn’t to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he’s your uncle.”<br></p> + +<p id="id02242">“No! No! I don’t want him to be my uncle! I don’t need any uncle!”</p> + +<p id="id02243">He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh.</p> + +<p id="id02244">“I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don’t worry; the sheep won’t +tell—and I won’t.”</p> + +<p id="id02245">He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them.</p> + +<p id="id02246">“Shirley!”</p> + +<p id="id02247">He touched her hand.</p> + +<p id="id02248">“Shirley!” and his fingers closed upon hers.</p> + +<p id="id02249">“I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,—before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood—I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;—but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father’s eyes,—his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,—they wish me to take that.”</p> + +<p id="id02250">She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills.</p> + +<p id="id02251">“The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,—in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,—it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man’s right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,—unless you tell me I must, Shirley!”</p> + +<p id="id02252">There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips.</p> + +<p id="id02253">“It was that way,—you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes.”</p> + +<p id="id02254">He caught her hand and kissed it,—bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face.</p> + +<p id="id02255">“I do not know,”—and he scarcely heard the whispered words,—“I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,—but I love—John Armitage,” she +said.</p> + +<p id="id02256">Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron’s +question.</p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13913 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f48595 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e213189 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85a67ff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p320.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..54a180c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_p356.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e70e8b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg18.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..829d690 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg190.jpg diff --git a/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a50e27 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13913-h/images/illustration_pg211.jpg diff --git a/old/old/13913-8.txt b/old/old/13913-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56424dc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/13913-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10066 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Port of Missing Men, by Meredith Nicholson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Port of Missing Men + +Author: Meredith Nicholson + +Release Date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #13913] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORT OF MISSING MEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +by + +MEREDITH NICHOLSON + +Author of _The House of a Thousand Candles_, _The Main Chance_, +_Zelda Dameron_, etc. + +1907 + + + + + + + +Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.--Malory. + + +To the Memory of Herman Kountze + + + + +THE SHINING ROAD + +Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city's bound, +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found. +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn, +And there are happy highways leading on and always on; +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance. + +Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds, +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds; +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine, +E'en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day. + +Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace; +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release! +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town. +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I'll break a lance for you! + +O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear! +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day. +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried +As o'er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride! + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + I "Events, Events" + II The Claibornes, of Washington + III Dark Tidings + IV John Armitage a Prisoner + V A Lost Cigarette Case + VI Toward the Western Stars + VII On the Dark Deck + VIII "The King Is Dead; Long Live the King" + IX "This Is America, Mr. Armitage" + X John Armitage Is Shadowed + XI The Toss of a Napkin + XII A Camp in the Mountains + XIII The Lady of the Pergola + XIV An Enforced Interview + XV Shirley Learns a Secret + XVI Narrow Margins + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding + XVIII An Exchange of Messages + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty + XX The First Ride Together + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow + XXIII The Verge of Morning + XXIV The Attack in the Road + XXV The Port of Missing Men + XXVI "Who Are You, John Armitage?" + XXVII Decent Burial +XXVIII John Armitage + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"EVENTS, EVENTS" + +Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +--_Troilus and Cressida._ + + +"The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim +old Austrian premier. + +"Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you--I believe you admitted it--a slight service." + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair. + +He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen's Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies. + +It was not often that the light in the old man's eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor. + +The card was a gentleman's _carte de visite_, and bore the name John +Armitage. + +"I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris. +Where did you get it?" demanded the minister. + +"I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made," replied the +young man. "Besides, it's English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it." + +"Which is not particularly creditable; but it's probably just as well +so." + +He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy. + +"I hope you are quite well," said Armitage kindly. + +"I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years." + +"It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria's good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read--only +to-day, in the _Contemporary Review_--an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest." + +The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated. + +"But you are here for rest--one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else." + +"What brings you here?" asked the old man with sudden energy. "If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting--" + +"Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?" + +"If you are waiting for events--for events! If you expect something to +happen!" + +Armitage laughed at the old gentleman's earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette. + +"Waiting doesn't suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands--and my wits are--let +us say--average!" + +Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly. + +"Is it true"--he turned again and glanced about--"is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?" + +"Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it," said Armitage, +meeting the old man's eyes steadily. + +"The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year." + +"I am aware of that," replied John Armitage; "but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting--you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing." + +"Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well," growled Von +Stroebel. + +"And the packet I gave you--" + +The old man nodded. + +"--that packet contained the Archduke Karl's sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!" + +"Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive--and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?" + +"I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear," said +John Armitage. + +"Then you should give me the documents." + +"No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City." + +"I should have them; I _must_ have them!" thundered the old man. + +"In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir." + +The palsy in the old man's hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage. + +"That packet is lost, I tell you!" he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. "It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That's what I'm here for--my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?" + +Count von Stroebel's bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion--a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit. + +"The packet has been stolen," he observed calmly; "whom do you suspect of +taking it?" + +The old man leaned upon the table heavily. + +"That amiable Francis--" + +"The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered." + +"But his mother--she is the devil!" blurted the old man. + +"Pray drop that," said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. "I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,--am I to +understand that Francis has it?" + +"Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves." + +"I don't know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar." + +"He has a dozen names--one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He's a blackmailer, who aims high--a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He's a bad lot, I tell you. I've had my best +men after him, and they've just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do--" began the old man. + +"Yes; that packet must be recovered," answered Armitage. "If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it." + +His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister. + +"You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire." + +John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence. + +"Events! Events!" muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power. + +"Events!" the young man murmured. + +"Events!" repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. "A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people--and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!" + +The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright. + +"Why the devil don't you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?" demanded the premier. + +"Like a gentleman?" repeated Armitage. "It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I _am_ dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead." + +"Francis is a troublesome blackguard," declared the old man. "I wish to +God _he_ would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don't you +suppose he could go to Budapest tomorrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He's as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you." + +Armitage nodded and smiled. + +"I dare say," he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: "No doubt you are speaking the truth." + +"Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!" + +There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued: + +"We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage--the commission--would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men." + +"I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name." + +"He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe." + +Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly. + +"I will show you the gentleman's pleasant countenance," said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest. + +"Rambaud!" he exclaimed. + +"That's his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his _noms de guerre_." + +"Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before." + +"That is possible," remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances. + +"I expect to see him here within a few days." + +Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva. + +"He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so." + +"Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men," said the +minister. + +"You wish to arrest him?" + +"You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can't have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can't advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers--Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there's a woman, is there? I've +found that there usually is!" + +"There's a very charming young American girl, to be more exact." + +The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph. + +"I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait--" + +"Events!" and John Armitage laughed. "I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my _forte_. That's what I like about America; they're up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost." + +"They're a lot of swine!" rumbled Von Stroebel's heavy bass. + +"I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don't imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them--in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting--why not?" + +"I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and--fairly clever--" + +Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count's praise. + +"Thank you, with all my heart!" + +"Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen--who can tell? Events--events--if a man will watch and wait and +study events--" + +"Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events," laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. "To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years--a pretty spectacle, too." + +"Carrion! Carrion!" almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +"Don't mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But"--he gulped down more of the brandy--"where and how do +you live?" + +"Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke's death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died--and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch." + +"Washington!" snorted the count. "In due course it will be the storm +center of the world." + +"You read the wrong American newspapers," laughed Armitage. + +They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used: + +"Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?" + +"As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University." + +"What the devil did you do that for?" growled Von Stroebel. + +"From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry--I am very sorry we can't meet on +some common ground." + +"I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far--very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease." + +"What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks--it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor's name you commit an anachronism." + +The count frowned and growled. + +"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing." + +"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains--it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination." + +"You put it coarsely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone." + +"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings." + +"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere." + +"On the other hand, I should become king myself." + +"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse." + +"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping--by the Archduke's own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then--events, events!" + +Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him. + +"Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you." + +Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly. + +"I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more." + +"It is too late. The chasm is too deep." + +The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly. + +The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner. + +"I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service--to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly." + +"Your place is secure--no one can gainsay that," broke in Armitage. + +"If you would do something for me--for me--do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don't care what that service may be; I don't care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. _Do something for Austria_--for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years--then take your name again--and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs." + +"For the Empire--something for the Empire?" murmured the young man, +wondering. + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose. + +"You will accept the commission--I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again." As he took Armitage's +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily. + +"Good night; good-by!" he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON + +--the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.--_The Naulahka_. + + +The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention. + +"'Tis he, the unknown, Dick." + +"I must say I like his persistence!" exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. "In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here--" + +"Over here you have better manners," replied the girl, laughing. "But why +trouble yourself? He doesn't even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language." + +"But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater--he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It's growing a trifle monotonous; it's really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him." + +"You flatter yourself, Richard," mocked the girl. "He's fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost--yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is"--she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment--"light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I'm sure that he is an exemplary person--kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews' and nieces' Christmas trees." + +She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother's growling disdain. + +The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern. + +"He has a sense of humor," the girl resumed. "I saw him yesterday--" + +"You're always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself." + +"Don't interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +_Fliegende Bltter_." + +"But that's no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn't. I'm disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard's eyes!" + +He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed. + +"I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all," she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother's impatience. + +"Which doesn't help the matter materially, that I can see!" exclaimed the +young man. "With a full beard he'd probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother." + +"It isn't your fault, Dick," laughed the girl. "You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him--that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It's +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you'd find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together--the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible." + +"Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party--America for Americans and +only white men on guard!" + +"Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they'd have more weight if +I hadn't seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven't forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We'll call the incident closed, little brother." + +"Our friend Chauvenet, even," continued Captain Claiborne, "is less +persistent--less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven't seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat." + +"Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world," declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes. + +"He lives by his wits--and lives well." + +Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper. + +"He's reading the _Neue Freie Presse_," remarked Dick, "by which token I +argue that he's some sort of a Dutchman. He's probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary." + +"You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction--that air of having been places and seen things and +known people--" + +"Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that--even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It's well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching." + +Shirley Claiborne's eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the _Neue +Freie Presse_. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly--with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference. + +"He has known real sorrow," persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. "He's traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief," the girl continued with mock +sympathy. + +"Then let us leave him in peace! We can't decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow." + +Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business. + +Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother's school and were enjoying a late _djener_ +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip. + +Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl's +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight. + +Much of Shirley's girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens. + +Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia's reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth's foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the _r_ and _l_ slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl--may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne's pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking. + +As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly. + +"Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world." + +The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attach of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station. + +The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked. + +"Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There's mystery in +the air--the great Stroebel is here--under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man--a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor--he's only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way--what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;" and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties. + +"We met him in Vienna," said Shirley Claiborne, "when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear." + +"He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe--and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies--no post-mortem confidences from him!" + +The reader of the _Neue Freie Presse_, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attach, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially. + +"Why, Armitage, of all men!" and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance. + +"Shirley--Miss Claiborne--allow me to present Mr. Armitage." The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attach, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone. + +"One always meets Armitage!" declared Singleton. "He knows our America as +well as we do--and very well indeed--for an Englishman." + +Armitage bowed gravely. + +"You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I'm really a fair sort of American--I +have sometimes told New York people all about--Colorado--Montana--New +Mexico!" + +His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life. + +"Of course you're not English!" exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest. + +"I'm really getting sensitive about it," said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. "But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?" + +The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley's passingly, and she smiled at him--it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man's dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper--and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair. + +"Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here--in this +very house!" whispered Singleton impressively. + +"Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you." He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton's promise to look him up later, and left them. + +When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ which +Armitage had cast aside at their table. + +"Now we shall know!" he declared, unfolding the newspaper. + +"Know what, Dick?" + +"At least what our friend without a country is so interested in." + +He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister. + +"Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!" he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them. + +"Isn't that the worst!" exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully. + +"He's certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation." + +"He isn't an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn." + +"Well, your Mr. Armitage didn't seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!" + +"Don't be foolish, Dick. It's unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again--" + +"Yes--not if I see him _first_!" ejaculated Claiborne. + +"Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing--and +satisfying--to know." + +Later in the day the old attach fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked: + +"Your friend Armitage seems a good sort." + +"Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs." + +"Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives--when +he's at home?" + +"Lord bless you, boy, I don't know anything about Armitage!" spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions. + +"But you introduced us to him--my sister and me. I assumed--" + +"My dear Claiborne, I'm always introducing people! It's my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He's always around everywhere. +I've dined with him in Paris, and I've rarely seen a man order a better +dinner." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARK TIDINGS + +The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.--Shakespeare. + + +The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler's on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage's voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren't +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause--" + +He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box. + +"I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne." + +"I'd like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything." + +"Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs." + +"Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home," replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket. + +"My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage," +Shirley explained. + +"These last errands are always trying--there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff." + +"There's the wireless," said Shirley. "In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again--that photographs don't give." + +"Such as--?" + +"Oh--the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter's; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon's tomb--the awfulness +of what he did and was--and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,"--and +she laughed lightly,--"I have made a most serious confession." + +"It is a new idea--that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance--a tremendous story." + +"That is what makes me sorry to go home," said Shirley meditatively. "We +are so new--still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there's a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost." + +"But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn't do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don't think of their past as much as of their +future--the future of the whole human race." + +Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother's benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about. + +Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy's delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of "the spirit of place" that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat--as she often did--in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators' gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times. + +Armitage was aware that a jeweler's shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl's voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before _High Tide at Gettysburg_, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting--its ardor and fire--took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes. + +His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel's departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy. + +He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage. + +"But America--isn't America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,--its discovery,--the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another's armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior." + +"He could afford to say it; he was the victor," said Shirley. + +"Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions." + +The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage. + +"There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning." + +"Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?" + +It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes. + +"There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn't fair game for an +assassin," said Claiborne. + +"No; he deserved a better fate," remarked Armitage. + +"He was a grand old man," said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. "Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered." + +"Yes; he was a wise and useful man," observed Armitage, still grave. "He +was one of the great men of his time." + +His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further. + +"And now we shall see--" began the young American. + +"We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings." + +John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat. + +"A queer devil," observed Claiborne, as they drove away. "A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?" + +"I found _him_, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure." + +"I shouldn't have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far." + +"And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes." + +"Lord help us, he hasn't been buying you a watch?" + +"No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana." + +"Humph! you're chaffing." + +"Not in the least. He paid--I couldn't help being a witness to the +transaction--he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch--_his_ ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?" + +"I'm afraid it rather does for my theory. I'll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn't a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel's death. You don't suppose he knew him, +do you?" + +"It's possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he's done for." + +"Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he's out of +the way." + +Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel's +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days. + +It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa. + +"We are running for the _King Edward_, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America," +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister's +benefit. + +"That is possible; I am very fond of Washington," responded Armitage +carelessly. + +"Of course you will look us up," persisted Dick. "I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while--and it will always be a pleasure--" + +Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage. + +"Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel's assassin?" she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand. + +"Nothing. It's a very mysterious and puzzling affair." + +"It's horrible to think such a thing possible--he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer." + +"Yes; undoubtedly." + +Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage's back--a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door--Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother's benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key. + +"The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin," she +observed. + +"Yes," replied Armitage gravely. + +He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek--he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right--made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing. + +"The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt," said Shirley. "The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time." + +"That is quite likely," said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. "In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself." + +He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage. + +"Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we've seen the last of that fellow." + +Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage's +last words. "I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself," he had said. + +She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door--his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage. + +And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER + +All things are bright in the track of the sun, + All things are fair I see; +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me. + +And the world turns round and round and round, + And my thought sinks into the sea; +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery. + +--S.W. Duffield. + + +The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes' departure. + +While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes' notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman's death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage's character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week. + +He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear. + +The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord. + +Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet's activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry. + +It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms. + +At about eight o'clock, as Armitage turned the pages of _Figaro_ in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed. + +It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvtique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of _pensions_. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed. + +Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan _gendarmerie_ have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet's errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered. + +Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint. + +The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened. + +Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear. + +"It's stifling in this hole," said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. "If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat." + +He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness. + +"You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it." + +The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva? + +"The old man's death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths." + +"We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel's." + +"He was a beast. He is well dead." + +"That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools." + +The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses. + +"I am going to America at once," said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling. + +"It is probably just as well," said the other. "There's work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues." + +"The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one's self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington," remarked Chauvenet. + +"Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy." + +There was a keen irony in the fellow's tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table. + +"Enough of that, if you please." + +"As you will, _carino_; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of _la belle Americaine_. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army." + +"Humph! He is an ass," ejaculated Chauvenet. + +A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him. + +Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +rle of host, employed a Servian dialect. + +"I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, _carino_. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules." + +"Don't be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don't believe +those fellows are over there. They're probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,---that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and--" + +"The heights--the heights!" And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily. + +"Yes; the heights," repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily. + +"But that declaration--that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say." + +"There is no place--but one--that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend." + +"You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way." + +"Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel's archives." + +"Do you say 'risked much'? My valued neck, that is all!" said the other. +"You and Winkelried are without gratitude." + +"You will do well," said Chauvenet, "to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days--! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen." + +He glanced at his watch. + +"I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade." + +They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune. + +His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat. + +As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A LOST CIGARETTE CASE + +To other woods the trail leads on, + To other worlds and new, +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too. + +--Henry A. Beers. + + +The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man's +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage's back. + +The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German. + +"Who are you and what do you want here?" + +Armitage shook his head; and replied in English: + +"I do not understand." + +The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive's +face, then ran his hands over Armitage's pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security. + +Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant's legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action. + +"Get up," he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage's +head. + +"I will shoot," he said again in his halting German. + +"Undoubtedly you will!" and something in the fellow's manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation. + +The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen. + +"I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you," admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door. + +Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand. + +The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done. + +"You will go to that corner;" and the Servian translated for his +prisoner's benefit with a gesture of the revolver. + +"Anything to please you, worthy fellow," replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man's object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized. + +Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care. + +Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian's caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage's head. + +He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm's length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans. + +"There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!" yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway: + +"Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what's the trouble." + +It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain. + +As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian's head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding. + +It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came. + +Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside. + +Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words: + +"Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand." + +Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax. + +Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight. + +Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke--in French--in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand's tone: + +"A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!" + +With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet's legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing. + +Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard. + +The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself: + +"A few murders, more or less!" + +At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express. + +As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found. + +His annoyance at the loss was balanced--could he have known it--by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen--one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead--bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto _Fide non armis_. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters _F.A._ + +The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet. + +"It isn't possible!" gasped Durand. + +"It is quite possible," replied Chauvenet. "The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!" + +The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet's face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope. + +"Who is he? Who is he?" whispered Durand, very white of face. + +"It may be--it must be some one deeply concerned." + +Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand's arm so tight that +the man flinched. + +"There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He's here--I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!" + +He dropped his hand from Durand's arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand. + +"John Armitage--John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence." + +His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face. + +"Who is John Armitage?" demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself: + +"Is it possible? Is it possible?" and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case. + +"My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?" + +Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand's ear: + +"Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!" + +"Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?" asked Durand +irritably. + +"He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation." + +"Clearly so," remarked Durand ironically. "But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here--" + +Chauvenet again struck the table smartly. + +"Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke's friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them--" + +"Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that," said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes. + +"Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him." + +"And quickly. There must be--" + +"--another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna." + +They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS + +Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star. + +--_Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + + +Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the _King Edward_, whereas he might have taken the _Touraine_ +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the _King Edward_ was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors. + +Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel. + +"I hope," observed Dick, "that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I'm not wholly sure that we shan't +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles." + +"Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the _Tecumseh_. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?" + +Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap. + +"I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as _pre et mre_ get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility." + +"Thank you, Captain." + +"And if there are any titled blackguards on board--" + +"You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won't you, little +brother?" + +"Humph! Thank God, I'm an American!" + +"That's a worthy sentiment, Richard." + +"I'd like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we'd get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I'd like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don't +count." + +"Yes, dearest," mocked Shirley. "Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don't indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room--" + +"Probably from the Liverpool consul--he's been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole." + +"Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They're orchids--from London--but--with Mr. Armitage's card. Wouldn't +that excite you?" + +"It makes me sick!" and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug. + +"They are beautiful orchids. I don't remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard--in such quantities. Now, you really didn't +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn't so bad; and he may be an American, after all." + +"A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again--" + +"Yes, Richard, if you should meet again--" + +"I'd ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up." + +"Yes; I'm sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard," mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother's stalwart shoulders. + +"Don't be silly," observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them. + +"I shan't, but please don't be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,"--and she took hold of his arm entreatingly--"for there he +is--as tall and mysterious as ever--and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!" + +"This is good fortune, indeed," said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. "I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am." + +He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne's resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne's +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day. + +Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain's +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down. + +"You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn't lay hold of +me in my sleep." + +He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar. + +"This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune." + +"Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements," replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass. + +Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,--enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler's hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man's manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage's belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man's eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage's strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet. + +Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father's fame made them conspicuous. + +Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness. + +"Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor"--John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again--"can I make any adequate apology for doing so." + +Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man's attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say. + +"A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed." + +Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter. + +"I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the _King Edward_ by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there." + +Claiborne smiled in spite of himself. + +"But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don't know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us--it's altogether too unusual. It's almost preposterous!" + +And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely. + +"It's only decent for a man to give his references when it's natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,--I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder--what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it," and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it. + +Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley's sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley's hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage? + +The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious. + +"Pardon me," he asked, "but are you an Englishman?" + +"I am not," answered Armitage. "I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere--but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand--" + +He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something. + +"On the other hand," Armitage repeated, "I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died--very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion--particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!" John Armitage laughed. + +"It is, indeed, a real merit," declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage's wish to appear well in his +eyes. + +"And now," said Armitage, "I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself--and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again." + +"I have been interested," remarked Dick; "and," he added, "I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage." + +Armitage began talking of the American army--its strength and +weaknesses--with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk. + +The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON THE DARK DECK + +Ease, of all good gifts the best, + War and wave at last decree: +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea. + +William Watson. + + +"I am Columbus every time I cross," said Shirley. "What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country." + +"Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we're sure to get into trouble if we don't turn +back." + +"You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land." + +"Don't starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!" + +"Choose a cheerfuller word!" pleaded Shirley. + +"I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down 'full faddom five.'" + +"I'm sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate's business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis." + +They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides. + +"Armitage isn't a bad sort," Dick admitted to Shirley. "He's either an +awful liar, or he's seen a lot of the world." + +"Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware," observed Shirley. +"I'm surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere 'peddler,'--and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world." + +"Well, if he's a peddler he's a high-class one--probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works." + +Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer's interest. + +"The glass-blower's a deep one, all right," remarked Dick to Shirley. "He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there's no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you'd hold on to him +tight till we're docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him--and I haven't dared tell her he's only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me--" + +"It would, Richard. Be a generous foe--whether--whether you can afford to +be or not!" + +"My sister--my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I'm going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once." + +Shirley and Armitage talked--as people will on ship-board--of everything +under the sun. Shirley's enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world's larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background. + +Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night. + +"Time oughtn't to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass." + +"I like the idea. Such people could become fishers--permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food." + +"They wouldn't eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea--mine, please note--is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once-- + +"'Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.'" + +"But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn't have +much show. And dreams passing over--the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures--" he said, and paused inquiringly. + +She looked at him quickly. + +"How do you know I do?" + +"You like Detaille particularly." + +"Am I to defend my taste?--what's the answer, if you don't mind?" + +"Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter." + +She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris--in cafs, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases. + +"It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it." + +"No; there certainly was not!" He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley's tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about--and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war. + +"I was in Paris during the exhibition," he said quietly. "Ormsby, the +American painter--the man who did the _High Tide at Gettysburg_--is an +acquaintance of mine." + +"Oh!" + +It was Ormsby's painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett's charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject. + +Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage's remark at the +carriage door in Geneva--that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the _King Edward_; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity. + +"We're all imperialists at heart," said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. "We Americans are hungry for empire; +we're simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation." + +"And before he'd gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand." + +"No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick's +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry's for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?" + +"Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks--if the thing is bound +to be--I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne," he exclaimed, as though with inspiration. + +"Yes--you have an idea--" + +"Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be--" + +"Yes--the suspense is terrible!--what might I be, your Majesty?" + +"Well, we should call you--" + +He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense. + +"I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn't flattering," +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him. + +"Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title--you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress--that's the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered." + +They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals--that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night--interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea. + +"Accident to the dynamo--we shall have the lights on in a moment!" +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger. + +"Shall we go in?" asked Armitage. + +"Yes, it is getting cold," replied Shirley. + +For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand. + +They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage's arm tightened. + +"What is that?--there is some one following us," she said. + +At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about. + +"Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne." + +He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley's grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster. + +"Are you hurt? What has happened?" she demanded. + +"It must have been a sea-serpent," he replied, laughing. + +The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off. + +"I guess it was a sea-serpent," he said. "It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful." Then in a lower tone to Shirley: "That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!" + +"Oh, no," she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; "it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I'm sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn't feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you--it is no jesting +matter--" + +"Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers." + +"Yes, it should be reported," said Shirley. + +"It was very strange. Why, the deck of the _King Edward_ is the safest +place in the world; but it's something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn't caught his cloak--" + +Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident. + +Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies. + +The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the _King Edward_. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider. + +It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet's coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail. + +"Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes--" + +"That will do," said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man. + +"You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting--" said the purser. + +"It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility." + +And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook: + +"_Zmai_--; _travels as Peter Ludovic_." + +Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet's coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers--some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk's clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage's hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister. + +"Do something for Austria--something for the Empire." These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING" + +Low he lies, yet high and great +Looms he, lying thus in state.-- +How exalted o'er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen! + +--James Whitcomb Riley. + + +John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable. + +Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the _King Edward_ sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage's mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage? + +The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door. + +"Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!" + +"Jim Sanderson, come in!" Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice. + +"It's my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury." + +The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. "You're a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?" + +"Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two." + +"You're getting soft,--that's what's the matter with you! You're afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I'll admit that it's +rather more diverting here." + +"There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats." + +Sanderson winked prodigiously. + +"The papers _have_ rather skinned me; but on the whole, I'll do very +well. They say it isn't respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn't to hold it up against a man that he's rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it's nothing +against me, is it?" + +"Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it's the +Lord's hand again." + +"Why sure!" and the Senator from Montana winked once more. "But it's +expensive. I've got to be elected again next winter--I'm only filling out +Billings' term--and I'm not sure I can go up against it." + +"But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you'll not falter, if I know you." + +"There's hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I'm jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it's the Lord's truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England--one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen--" + +"My dear Sanderson, don't call me English! I've told you a dozen times +that I'm not English." + +"So you did; so you did! I'd forgotten that you're so damned sensitive +about it;" and Sanderson's eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man's nativity. + +"I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once--three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess." + +Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection. + +"The sprinkling cart for me! I've got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State's push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You're all right, and I guess +you're about as good an American as they make--anywhere--John Armitage!" + +The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o'clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies. + +Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attach of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian's +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attach proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage's eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man's gaze. + +It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attach at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man's +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne. + +The somber attach was speaking of the Japanese. + +"They must be crushed--crushed," said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French. + +"Yes, _he_ must be crushed," returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun. + +Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,--a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines. + +"Welcome once more, constituent! We're proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they're hung out to-night for +the world to see." She guided Armitage toward the Secretary's gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste. + +"It isn't merely an art gallery; it's the most beautiful room in +America," murmured Mrs. Sanderson. + +"I can well believe it. There's my favorite Vibert,--I wondered what had +become of it." + +"It isn't surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It's a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king's coronation would +not be out of place,--in fact, there's a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He's a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago." + +"Ah, to be sure! I haven't seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little." + +"Then you knew him,--in the old country?" + +"Yes; I used to see him--when I was a boy," remarked Armitage. + +Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,--that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage's antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him. + +The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art. + +"Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there's the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her." + +"I am wholly agreeable," laughed Armitage. "The sooner the better, and be +done with it." + +"Don't be so frivolous. There--you can look safely now. She's stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,--the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,--have a care!" + +Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once. + +"To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!" exclaimed +Shirley. "And you, Mr. Armitage,--" + +"Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne," laughed John, taking her hand. + +"But I haven't introduced you yet"--began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled. + +"No; the _King Edward_ did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage," said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken. + +The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze. + +"Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day." + +"Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary," declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration. + +"The word seems to have been coined for her," said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache. + +"And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty," +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy. + +"How charming!" laughed Mrs. Sanderson. "And this lovely room is just the +place for it." + +They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure. + +"Is Baron von Marhof in the room?" he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle. + +The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching. + +The attach hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief. + +The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room: + +"His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna," he said, and gave his arm to his chief. + +It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attach's words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone. + +The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof's +carriage in the court below. + +"The King is dead; long live the King!" murmured Shirley. + +"Long live the King!" repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, "Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!" + +Then he turned to Shirley with a smile. + +"It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well." + +"Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere." + +"And Captain Claiborne?" + +"He's probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage." + +"Thank you; you are very kind," he said gravely. "I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon." + +As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl's praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied. + +"The girl has gone to your head. Why didn't you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?" + +"I don't remember that you gave me a chance; but I'll say now that I +intend to know them better." + +She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm's +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case. + +"Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?" + +He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage's eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet's lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose. + +"You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host's oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!" + +He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,--all, as it seemed, at a single stroke. + +"My dear sir," began Chauvenet, white with rage. + +"My dear Monsieur Chauvenet," said Armitage, striking a match, "I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly." + +The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke. + +"Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?" demanded Chauvenet +furiously. + +"My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it--now I have it--wherefore it must be mine!" + +Chauvenet's rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly. + +"Between gentlemen--so small a matter!" + +"To be sure--the merest trifle," laughed Armitage with entire good humor. + +"And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker--" + +"Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets--" + +"Come naturally--quite so!" and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction. + +"But the genial art of assassination--there's a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!" + +Chauvenet's hand went again to his lip. + +"To be sure!" he ejaculated with zest. + +"But alone--alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires--I should say--courageous associates. Now in my affairs--would +you believe me?--I am obliged to manage quite alone." + +"How melancholy!" exclaimed Chauvenet. + +"It is indeed very sad!" and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night. + +"Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!" + +"The thought does credit to a generous nature!" responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE" + +Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had + arisen, +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale; +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail. + +--L. Frank Tooker. + + +Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington. + +Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart's desire. + +With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,--that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said: + +"Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!" + +Emperors and kings! They were as impossible today as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador's +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep. + +Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary's ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the _King Edward_, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention. + +At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attach, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her. + +"Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?" + +"It is all of that!" she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet's praise. + +"I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!" he continued. + +"No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!" + +She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,--his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season. + +"Poor Franzel is indeed _triste_. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!" + +"Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!" + +"Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself." + +"That is very sad, Monsieur,"--and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. "My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn--alone." + +He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture. + +"There are sadder blows than losing one's sovereign, Mademoiselle!" and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend. + +She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley's heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her. + +The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl's heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek. + +Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley. + +He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring. + +Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff. + +"Oh! Oh!" and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her. + +"What is it, Miss? Did you call?" + +"No; it was nothing, Thomas--nothing at all," and she mounted and turned +toward home. + +Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man's life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her. + +"Miss Claiborne!" + +The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone: + +"Mr. Armitage!" She laughed. "I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me." + +He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,--he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed. + +"You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man's life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me--" + +"Please don't speak of that! It was so terrible!" + +"But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made--that +night on the _King Edward_." + +"Yes; I have not forgotten." + +"And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me." + +"But this is America, Mr. Armitage!" + +"That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,--it is unpardonable--indefensible!" + +She saw that he was greatly troubled. + +"But you couldn't help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It's a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man--" + +"I know the man." + +"Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up." + +She was seeking to minimize the matter,--to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind. + +Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm. + +"Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can't +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason--for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn't presuming--" + +He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English. + +"How am I to know whether it would be presuming?" she asked. + +"But I was going to say--" + +"When rudely interrupted!" She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished. + +"--that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice." + +She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits. + +"How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past." + +"But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here--" + +"Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected." + +She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter. + +"It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can't travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia." + +"You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting." + +"Yes; at Storm Springs. It's really beautiful down there," she said +simply. + +It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth: + +"I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills." + +"Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There's a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer--up when it's warm, down when it's cold. +There's the secret of our mercurial temperament." + +A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice. + +"He's just up from the farm and doesn't like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon," she said as they rode on. + +"Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!" he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again! + +"Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people's names." + +"Then you reverse the usual fashionable process--you go south to meet the +rising mercury." + +"I hadn't thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep--and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood's golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?" + +"Nothing, but my entire approval," he said. + +He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED + +Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + +--Walt Whitman. + + +Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o'clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument's gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm. + +Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise. + +The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage's case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o'clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow's steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him. + +When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance. + +"My friend," he said, "there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you." + +"Pardon me--" + +"You are watching me; and the thing won't do." + +"Yes, I'm watching you; but--" + +"But the thing won't do! If you are hired--" + +"_Nein! Nein!_ You do me a wrong, sir." + +"Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I'm going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir." + +Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently. + +Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away. + +He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him. + +He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,--an American soldier's campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair. + +"Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful--" + +The man's face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition. + +"My dear fellow, you really become annoying," and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. "I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far." + +The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him: + +"Don't you know me? I am Oscar--don't you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are--" + +He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood. + +John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage's manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller's display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes. + +Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness. + +"Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come." + +The man's hand went to his hat. + +"None of that!" + +Armitage arrested him with a gesture. "My name is Armitage,--John +Armitage," he said. "I advise you to remember it. Now go!" + +The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed. + +It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator. + +Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully. + +"What do you want?" he demanded bluntly. + +He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow's bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him. + +"I want nothing, Mr. Armitage," he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent. + +"Then you will be easily satisfied," said Armitage. "You said your name +was--?" + +"Oscar--Oscar Breunig." + +Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity. + +"You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?" + +"I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek--yes?" + +"What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?" asked Armitage. + +"I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government--yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution." + +He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,--eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier. + +"Oscar!" he said; and repeated, very softly, "Oscar!" + +The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm's length. + +"None of that nonsense! Sit down!" He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair. + +"So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?" + +"I served in the Philippines,--yes?" + +"Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?" + +"I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay," said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed. + +"Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar." + +The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare. + +"You are not dead,--Mr.--Armitage; but your father--?" + +"My father is dead, Oscar." + +"He was a good man," said the soldier. + +"Yes; he was a good man," repeated Armitage gravely. "I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now--" + +The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee. + +"You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers." + +"There are enemies--yes?" and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation. + +"I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants--you are not +married?" + +"How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable," declared Oscar solemnly. + +"I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else--" + +The man nodded his comprehension. + +"That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage." + +Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him. + +"You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet--able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on." + +"You should remember--" began Oscar. + +"I remember nothing," observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar. + +"Do you think you could find that place?" + +The man breathed hard over it for several minutes. + +"Yes; it would be easy," and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia's +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered. + +"It is a farm--yes?" + +"It is a wilderness, I fancy," said Armitage. "I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there--going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There's some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here's a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores--plain military +necessities, you understand--and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it." + +"Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job," said Oscar. + +"And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of--let me consider--a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We'll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar." + +The man nodded gravely. + +"And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here--" + +"I have not been, here--is it not?" + +"It is," replied Armitage, smiling. "You read and write English?" + +"Yes; one must, to serve in the army." + +"If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,--unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,--do you understand?" + +"It is the custom of the country," assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret. + +"To be sure," laughed Armitage; "and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated." + +He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table. + +"It is much money," observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously. + +"It will be enough for your purposes. You can't spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon--perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,--who can tell +without trying it? Don't write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don't hear from me again." + +He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN + +As music and splendor + Survive not the lamp and the lute, +The heart's echoes render + No song when the spirit is mute-- +No songs but sad dirges, + Like the wind through a ruined cell, +Or the mournful surges + That ring the dead seaman's knell. +--Shelley. + + +Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attach of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop. + +"Here's a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret," laughed +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table. + +With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attach, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth's +dominion. + +Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness. + +"He has not old Stroebel's right hand to hold him up," remarked a young +German officer. + +"Thereby hangs a dark tale," remarked Claiborne. "Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago--after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge." + +"Bah! Francis is not as dark as he's painted. He's the most lied-about +prince in Europe," remarked Chauvenet. "He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!" + +"Nothing can happen," remarked the German sadly. "I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions." + +"That is quite true," said Armitage quietly. + +"But," observed the Spaniard, "if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion--?" + +"Such speculations are quite idle," commented Chauvenet. "There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him." + +"Of course," said the German. "If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again." + +"The same applies to the boy he carried away with him--undoubtedly +dead--or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said--" + +"A pretty tale it is!" commented the German--"that the child wasn't +exactly Karl's own. He took it quite hard--went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him." + +"He was surely mad," remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. "He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well." + +They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses--and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries--and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention. + +He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar. + +"With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,"--and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,--"that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive." + +Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet's recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened. + +"It's my experience," continued Chauvenet, "that we never meet a person +once only--there's always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall." + +"At his old tricks, I suppose," observed some one. + +"No; that was the strangest part of it. He's struck a deeper game--though +I'm blessed if I can make it out--he's dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself _Mister_--I've forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He's made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American--his English is +excellent--and he hints at large American interests." + +"He probably has forged securities to sell," commented the German. "I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly." + +"I dare say," returned Chauvenet. + +"Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend," remarked Claiborne +leadingly. + +"No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way." + +All felt that they were now to hear the dnouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders. + +"Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest--the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, _Fide non armis_." + +"The devil!" exclaimed the young German. "Why, that's very like--" + +"Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert--in Berlin, you know--I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up--I wanted to make sure--and +handed it to him, the imitation baron." + +"That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say," remarked +the German. + +"He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,"--continued Chauvenet,--"'Allow me, Baron!'" + +"Well spoken!" exclaimed the Spanish officer. + +"Not so well, either," laughed Chauvenet. "He had the best of it--he's a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said--" and Chauvenet's mirth +stifled him for a moment. + +"Yes; what was it?" demanded the German impatiently. + +"He said: 'Thank you, waiter!' and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!" + +They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne's eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage's cigarette case--on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we'll have to run along." + +Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him. + +"That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the _King Edward_--every word of it +is true." + +"You should face him--you must have it out with him!" exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer's +eyes. + +"But the time hasn't come for that--" + +"Then if there is something between you,"--began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant. + +"There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end." + +Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him. + +"Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don't like it, I tell you! You've got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don't offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance--and the acquaintance of my family!" + +Armitage's face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick. + +"I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters." + +"Then you need never take the trouble!" + +"In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied," said Armitage +quietly, and turned away. + +He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers. + +Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS + +--Who climbed the blue Virginia hills + Against embattled foes; +And planted there, in valleys fair, + The lily and the rose; +Whose fragrance lives in many lands, + Whose beauty stars the earth, +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth. + +--Francis O. Ticknor. + + +The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places. + +Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love. + +He had wanted time to think--to ponder his affairs--to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage. + +He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting. + +"Good morning," said Oscar, saluting. + +"You are prompt, Sergeant," and Armitage shook hands with him. + +As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow. + +"The place--what of it?" asked Armitage. + +"There may be worse--I have not decided." + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +"Is it as bad as that?" + +The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage's +further questions with soldierlike brevity. + +"You have been here--" + +"Two weeks, sir." + +"And nothing has happened? It is a good report." + +"It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal--yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place." + +The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn. + +"I am quite ready, sir," reported Oscar, touching his hat. "There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way." + +"Then let us be off," said Armitage, swinging into the saddle. + +Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood. + +"It is good," said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him. + +"Yes, it is good," repeated Armitage. + +A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage's eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer's cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence. + +"This is Lamar post-office," announced Oscar. + +"There must be some mail here for me," said Armitage. + +Oscar handed him several long envelopes--they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket. + +"You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable." + +"I take a Washington paper--it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world--yes? At the post-office +back there"--he jerked his head to indicate--"it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room." + +"To be sure," laughed Armitage. "I hope it is a good article." + +"It is vile," replied Oscar. "His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye." + +"Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days." + +It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet's assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else--a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well. + +On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him. + +They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage's property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas. + +Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse. + +"It is a fine valley--yes?" asked Oscar. + +"It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!" replied Armitage. "There +is a white building with colonnades away over there--is it the house of +the reigning deity?" + +"It is not, sir," answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. "It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills--do you +see?--it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls--" + +"Golf? Is it possible!" + +"There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself--men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley." + +Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started. + +"Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls." + +"I could not tell it better," responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse. + +"And our place--is it below there?" demanded Armitage. + +"It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen's houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands." + +"Poor Oscar!" laughed Armitage. + +His mood had not often in his life been so high. + +On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her--even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground. + +"Let us go," he said presently. + +Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand. + +"You will find it easier to walk," he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge. + +"This is the place, sir," and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate. + +The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared. + +"There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty," remarked Oscar. + +He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice: + +"It is different from our old hills and forests--yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick." + +"But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!" + +"Here," said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, "is what they call the Port of Missing Men." + +There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted "No Thoroughfare." Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight. + +"It is a bad place," remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground. + +The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry. + +"Why the name?" asked Armitage. + +"There were gray soldiers of many battles--yes?--who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender--no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts," and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion. + +They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow. + +"Your house, sir," and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases. + +"There shall be breakfast," said the man. + +He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match. + +"All one floor--plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir--a place to eat here--a +kitchen beyond--a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all." + +"It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established." + +"This is yours--the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but--you will require hot water for shaving--is it not so?" + +"You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting." + +Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys. + +"The place was built by fools," declared Oscar gloomily. + +"Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them--you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!" + +He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered. + +"You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast." +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room. + +A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said--that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him. + +He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron's escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington. + +Armitage's cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read: + +"The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel." + + * * * * * + +Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room. + +"Shall we unpack--yes?" + +"It is a capital idea," said John Armitage. + +"I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition--and his uniforms--yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse." + +"The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please." + +The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner's taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth. + +"You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn't blend +well in our rainbow--put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud--drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable--give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned--I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well," he added whimsically. + +He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim: + +"'Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!' + +"'Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet's mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now-- + +"'Nothing can we call our own but death, +And that small model of the barren earth +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. +For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'" + +Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought. + +"Oscar," he called abruptly, "how far is it down to Storm Springs?" + +"A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA + +April, April, +Laugh, thy girlish laughter; +Then, the moment after, +Weep thy girlish, tears! +April, that mine ears +Like a lover greetest, +If I tell thee, sweetest, +All my hopes and fears, +April, April, +Laugh thy golden laughter, +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears! + +--William Watson. + + +A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler's writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf--a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry--and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams--made, in fact, some notes in regard to them--and wrote +replies. Then, at four o'clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses. + +"It is spring, and in April a man's blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air." + +He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him. + +They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region. + +"We shall go down into the valley, Oscar," he said; and thereafter it was +he that led. + +They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes. + +Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted. + +"You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don't know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances." + +He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world--they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them. + +At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop. + +He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity. + +"How near is Judge Claiborne's place?" he asked. + +The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on. + +He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener's shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day's light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought. + +It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him. + +Her head went up with surprise and--he was sure--with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet. + +"I am caught--_in flagrante delicto_! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy." + +"They said--they said you had gone to Mexico?" said Shirley +questioningly. + +"Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!" he +laughed. + +"Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother--" + +"Yes, your brother--he is the best fellow in the world!" + +She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes. + +"Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box--" + +"Oh, the cigarette case!" and he held it up. "It's really mine--and I'm +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law." + +"Yes, I believe that is true." And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest. + +"But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne." + +She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater: + +"Why?" + +"Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately--most +unfortunately--I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you--" + +He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand. + +"And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances," said Shirley. + +"You are infinitely kind and generous--" + +"No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things--of course +not!" + +Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed. + +"Then--" + +"Then I will tell you--what I have not told any one else--that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel." + +"You know it--you are quite sure of it?" he asked blankly. + +"Certainly. I saw that person--at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week--I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person." + +Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character. + +"But Captain Claiborne--" + +He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily: + +"I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so--" + +"By Monsieur Chauvenet." + +"So he said." + +"And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet's +entire credibility," declared Armitage, a little airily. + +"I should say not," said Shirley unresponsively. "I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not." + +Armitage laughed. + +"That is a little pointed." + +"It was meant to be," said Shirley sternly. "It is"--she weighed the +word--"ridiculous that both of you should be here." + +"Thank you, for my half! I didn't know he was here! But I am not exactly +_here_--I have a much, safer place,"--he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. "Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him." + +He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley. + +He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly. + +"Oh, this won't do at all! I can't be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,"--and she +indicated it by a nod of her head. + +"Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility--you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear--I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates--particularly when I came over the fence! It's a +long way around anyhow--and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn." + +"My brother--" + +"Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied." + +"But--there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself." + +They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment. + +"I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but--as a rule--I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it's a whim--the merest whim, I assure you." + +He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat--(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)--her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley's hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill. + +Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit. + +She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on. + +"But when I wait for people they always come--even in a strange pergola!" +he added daringly. "Now, in Geneva, not long ago--" + +He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times. + +"In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear--it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate," he concluded mournfully. + +He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate. + +He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone. + +She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW + +_En, garde, Messieurs_! And if my hand is hard, + Remember I've been buffeting at will; + I am a whit impatient, and 'tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. _Messieurs, en garde_. + +--W. Lindsey. + + +"Monsieur Chauvenet!" + +Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage's salutation. + +"My dear Armitage!" he murmured. + +"I didn't go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn't take the risk." + +"He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health," replied the other. + +"You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?" +mocked Armitage. + +"My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life--such pleasures of late have +been denied me." + +"But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair." + +"Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass," continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. "I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society." + +"But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy." + +Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage's plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage's courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion's sterner tones +disconcerted him. + +"I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game--it is +spectacular--it is picturesque--it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna--they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man's common +ambitions." + +"Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?" + +"It is both," replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone: + +"I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne's +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana." + +Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance. + +"Of course. The hour was chosen well!" + +"More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He's a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express." + +Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him. + +"He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel's life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!" + +Chauvenet's gloved fingers caught at his mustache. + +"That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed--therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there's a +difference between us--you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel's +death." + +He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly. + +"A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur." + +"Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel's death, it's unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It's a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman--you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!" + +"You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count's departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?" + +Chauvenet's hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony. + +"To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter." + +"Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you--" + +The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled. + +"You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer." + +"I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night, +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet." + +"If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!" + +"Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!" + +"You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely." + +"You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!" laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor. + +"Perhaps--perhaps--I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!" + +"So you would sell out, would you?" laughed Armitage. "You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next--who +knows?" + +"As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner." + +"All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you--I don't! But remember--if there's a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne's, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch--forward!" + +Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses. + +He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET + +Nightingales warble about it + All night under blossom and star; +The wild swan is dying without it, + And the eagle crieth afar; +The sun, he doth mount but to find it + Searching the green earth o'er; +But more doth a man's heart mind it-- + O more, more, more! + +--G.E. Woodberry. + + +Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother's letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice: + +"I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, _ma chrie_, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I'll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,--or _was_! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,--after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He's over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!" + + * * * * * + +"Dear old Dick!" and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills. + +She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy's zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony's back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast's fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable. + +It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages. + +Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,--the ability to forecast the enemy's strategy and +then strike his weakest point,--that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops. + +Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons. + +Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,--not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,--received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens. + +He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne. + +The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf. + +"A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away." + +Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet. + +"Steady, Fanny! Don't come near her, please--" this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse's bridle. She had +the true horsewoman's pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet's proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley's +hand. + +"Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!" + +"Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn't run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home." + +She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet's company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse. + +"But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends." + +"You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?" + +"What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper 'Yes, Sister,' 'No, Sister,' to everything they +hear." + +"Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet." + +"No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,--you must know--" + +The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley's hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly. + +Chauvenet went on rapidly in French: + +"You must know why I am here--why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear--you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments--" + +"Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur--" + +Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man's shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed. + +"Monsieur!" cried Shirley in a low tone; "look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me." + +Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly. + +"What is it, my dear fellow--my watch--my purse--my horse?" he said in +English. + +"He wants none of those things," said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. "The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?" she asked pleasantly. + +"You cain't do nothin' for me," drawled the man. "Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella'. I got a little business with him." + +"He is a foreigner--he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay," said Shirley. + +She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them. + +"Miss, I have seen you befo', and I reckon we ain't got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella' ain't no business up hy'eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it's all right +for you, Miss; but what's yo' frien' ridin' the hills for at night? He's +lookin' for some un', and I reckon as how that some un' air me!" + +He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley's +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French. + +"Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life--that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me." + +The rifle--a repeater of the newest type--went to the man's shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet's head. + +"None o' that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +'ere negotiations." + +Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly. + +"The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else." + +As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet's position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man's reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying: + +"Mountain folks air slow, and we don't know much, but a stranger don't +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he's got to tell why; and the third time--well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella' that there ain't no third time." + +Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly: + +"I have never been here before in my life." + +The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl: + +"You air a liar, seh!" + +Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed. + +"This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend," said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer's interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her. + +"My friend," she said, "I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father's +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember." + +The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage. + +"I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a--still, do you call it?--in his +life--" and she smiled upon him sweetly. "But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter." + +Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone: + +"We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don't want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn't that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him." + +She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor. + +"Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me." + +"But it is growing dark--I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you--" + +"Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman." + +The mountaineer took off his hat. + +"Thank ye, Miss," he said; and then to Chauvenet: "Get out!" + +"Don't trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet," and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer. + +"What is your name?" + +"Tom Selfridge." + +"Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?" asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer's bared tangle of tow. + +"The name you called him ain't it. It's a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo'--it's--it's like the a'my--" + +"Is it Armitage?" asked Shirley quickly. + +"That's it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +'im. He's moved up hy'eh, and it ain't fer no good. The word's out that a +city man's lookin' for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man's stayin'--" + +"Where?" + +"At the huntin' club where folks don't go no more. I ain't seen him, but +th' word's passed. He's a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella' that's been a soldier into th' army stayin' with 'im. I thought +yo' furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did." + +The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had--and +the thing was funny--served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage's whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer. + +"I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you--will you believe me?" + +"I reckon I got to, Miss." + +"Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road." + +"I'll do it gladly, Miss." + +"Thank you; now let us be off." + +She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key. + +"They are an odd and suspicious people, but they're as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again--not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +NARROW MARGINS + +The black-caps pipe among the reeds, + And there'll be rain to follow; +There is a murmur as of wind + In every coign and hollow; +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears. + +--Amlie Rives. + + +The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage's life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet. + +The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father's, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth--but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes. + +She had kept Dick's letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl: + +"What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars' worth of +telegrams from Sanderson--wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it's all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the _expos_ at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage's) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and _who_ is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present--even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again--he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!--and +sooner or later he's bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is _he_! And why didn't Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse." + + * * * * * + +Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick's +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener's work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor's; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola. + +Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime. + +Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon. + +Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again. + +The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly. + +"This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you." + +He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat. + +"You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage," said Shirley coldly. + +"I'm afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission." + +He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him. + +"No! No! This is impossible--it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion." + +"In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn't mean to apologize for coming"--and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. "But," he went on, "it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium--geraniums are splendid for the +purpose--and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!" + +"It must have hurt him," said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe. + +"I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn't take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!" + +"I suppose you didn't think of us--all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!" + +There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly. + +"Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn't know I was being followed--I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it." + +"You mustn't try to see me! You mustn't come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently--at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain." + +"I know that! I realize all that!" + +"Then you must not come! You must leave instantly." + +She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly. + +"You have been hurt--why did you not tell me that?" + +"It is nothing--the fellow had a knife, and he--but it's only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!" + +The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda. + +As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochre. + +"I'm off--please believe in me--a little." + +"You must not go if you are hurt--and you can't run away now--my father +and mother are at the door." + +There was an instant's respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses. + +"You can't go now; come in and wait." + +There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture--through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings. + +She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda. + +"Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers." + +And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING + +Oh, sweetly fall the April days! + My love was made of frost and light, + Of light to warm and frost to blight +The sweet, strange April of her ways. +Eyes like a dream of changing skies, +And every frown and blush I prize. + With cloud and flush the spring comes in, + With frown and blush maids' loves begin; +For love is rare like April days. + +--L. Frank Tooker. + + +Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage's plight--his +injuries and the dangers that beset him--that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her. + +The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna. + +"The trouble is," said the Ambassador, "that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy--a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together." + +"And a weak hand," suggested Judge Claiborne, "might easily lose or +scatter them." + +"Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice--and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow--" + +The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers. + +"Yes; after him, what?" + +"After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the _disjecta membra_ of the Empire +together." + +"But there are shadows on the screen," remarked Judge Claiborne. "There +was Karl--the mad prince." + +"Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion." + +Judge Claiborne laughed. + +"I don't like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger." + +"No; you are a miracle--that is the only explanation," replied Marhof. + +"But a man like Karl--what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem." + +"No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die." + +"But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father's exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son--" + +"In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information." + +"I have heard as much," and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne's tone. + +The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel's name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions. + +"Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate," she said. "He +believed in the divine right and all that." + +"So do I, Miss Claiborne. It's all we've got to stand on!" + +"But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely--" + +"He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week," declared the Baron vigorously. + +They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home. + +"I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter," remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den. + +"You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley." + +"Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I'll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house." + +"I have a few notes to write; they'll take only a minute, and I'll write +them here." + +She heard her father's door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library. + +"You must go--you must go!" she whispered with deep tensity. + +"Yes; I must go. You have been kind--you are most generous--" + +But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about. + +"I shall go home," he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak. + +"Come! Come! This is all very dreadful--you must go to a physician at +once." + +"My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing." But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk. + +"I do not need the doctor--not now. My man will care for me." + +He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength. + +"It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion--it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you--" + +"Please say nothing at all--but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again--you must leave the valley!" + +"I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me." + +"You must leave the bungalow--I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there--the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them--" + +"Yes?" + +"--that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go." + +He bent and kissed her hand. + +"You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world." His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him. + +"Do not let them hurt you again--" she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out. + +Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES + +When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate, + And time seemed but the vassal of my will, +I entertained certain guests of state-- + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made. + +--S. Weir Mitchell. + + +"Who am I?" asked John Armitage soberly. + +He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage's arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention. + +"Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man's name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country." + +"Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor." + +"First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover--yes?" + +"Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble." + +"It would be better on the fifth--" + +"The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is--mark, My Majesty--pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms." + +"Yes, sire." + +And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence. + +"If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar." + +"He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money." + +"You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I'll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business--" and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot. + +Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk. + +"They killed the great prime minister--yes?" + +"They undoubtedly did, Oscar." + +"He was a good man--he was a very great man," said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him. + +The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage's life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one's dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar's care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence. + +"To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world--to +do something for Austria--such things are to the soul's credit, Oscar," +and then Armitage's mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar's comprehension. + +The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage's mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin's trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears. + +At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse's flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods. + +Oscar's whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse's flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable. + +A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar's lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other's faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant's ear: + +"You are a Servian: it is an ugly race." + +And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl. + +"We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife," grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian's grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand. + +"Throw up your hands," he yelled. + +The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily. + +Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, "Oscar!" and repeated the name several times. + +Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English: + +"All steady, sir!" + +The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian's bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver. + +"Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman's gun and be sure to find his +knife." + +The task was to Oscar's taste, and he made quick work of the Servian's +pockets. + +"Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?" + +"Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives--" the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up. + +"Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow." + +They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors. + +When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room. + +Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman. + +"Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him." + +He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian's small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner's knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head. + +"He is a large devil," commented Oscar. + +"He is large, certainly," remarked Armitage. "Give him a chair. Now," he +said to the man in deliberate German, "I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian." + +The man nodded. + +"Your name is Zmai Miletich." + +The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage. + +"Your name," repeated Armitage, "is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand--do you follow me?" + +The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily. + +"I ask you again," repeated Armitage, "whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake." + +Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head. + +"There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March." + +The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed. + +"Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done--" + +The blood suffused the man's dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him. + +"That will do. You tried to kill me on the _King Edward_; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne's garden; and you came up +here tonight with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar." + +He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write. + +"Don't shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings." + +Armitage wrote: + + * * * * * + +"MONSIEUR: + +"Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you--is +even now aboard the _Tacoma_, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned. + +"You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity--which I am sure interests you greatly--before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps." + + * * * * * + +Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F. + +"Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?" + +"He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof." + +"You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master." + +"It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass." + +"Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!" he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet. + +"You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night--or any other old night, as we say +in America--if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you--buzzard meat!" + +"The orders are understood," said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant's ribs. + +"Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur's receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?" + +It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms. + +Again through the moonlight strode the three--out of Armitage's land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer. + +There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt. + +It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage's hands at the +bungalow. + +"Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man," Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French: + +"You are young to die, Monsieur." + +"A man more or less!" and Oscar shrugged his shoulders. + +"You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder." + +"One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also." + +"That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills." + +Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY + +When he came where the trees were thin, +The moon sat waiting there to see; +On her worn palm she laid her chin, +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been. + +--William Vaughn Moody. + + +In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus: + +Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy's counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs. + +They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof's business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters. + +The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words: + +"You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel--we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson's knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date--going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him." + +"He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics," +said Judge Claiborne. "I talked with him a number of times on the _King +Edward_ and must say that I liked him." + +"Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy," said Dick. + +"It might be explained--" began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. "Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne." + +"We met them abroad," said Dick; "and they both turned up again in +Washington." + +"One of them is here, or has been here in the valley--why not the other?" +asked Judge Claiborne. + +"But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage's whereabouts," Dick +protested. + +"Certainly not," declared his father. + +"How did you make Armitage's acquaintance?" asked the Ambassador. "Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him--if you can remember." + +Dick laughed. + +"It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking _djeuner_ at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton--the ubiquitous--was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attach." + +"And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions," declared Judge +Claiborne. + +They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage's whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there. + +"We must find him--there must be no mistake about it," said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. "They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities." + +"And when we have young Armitage--" the Judge began. + +"Then we shall know the truth." + +"But suppose--suppose," and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +"suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die--to-night--to-morrow--" + +"We will assume nothing of the kind!" ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +"It is impossible." Then to Captain Claiborne: "You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him." + +And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once. + +Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him. + +"Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting--and after a long leave, too." + +"I am on duty. Don't forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat." + +"Humph! It doesn't follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!" + +"You couldn't be that, Shirley, dear." + +"Thank you, Captain." + +They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance: + +"Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times." + +"Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it's rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron." + +"Which he wasn't--" + +"Well, Sanderson says he couldn't have been, and the rogues' gallery +pictures don't resemble our friend at all." + +"Ugh; don't speak of it!" and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed. + +"What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?" she asked. + +"Guess again!" exclaimed Dick hurriedly. "Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow." + +He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair. + +"Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?" + +"Impertinent! How dare you?" + +"But Shirley, the question is fair!" + +"Is it, Richard?" + +"And I want you to answer me." + +"That's different." + +He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back. + +"Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn't do +_this_--" + +"This what, Dick?" + +"You know what I mean. I ask you again--have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?" + +He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self. + +"Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn't he?" + +"He's a regular old brick," declared Dick solemnly. + +"It's a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor--about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself." + +"I am proud to be his son," declared Dick, meeting Shirley's eyes +unflinchingly. + +Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz. + +"A captain--a mere captain of the line--is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing--after a long leave for foreign +travel--and sent away to visit his parents--and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador." + +"Thanks for the 'mere captain,' dearest. You needn't rub it in." + +"I wouldn't. But you are fair game--for your sister only! And you're +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attach. It rather directed attention to you, didn't it, Dick?" + +Dick colored. + +"It certainly did." + +"And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble--" + +"I have every intention of meeting him!" + +"Oh!" + +"Of course, I shall meet him--some time, somewhere. He's at the Springs, +isn't he?" + +"Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven't seen him for several +days." + +"What I should like to see," said Dick, "is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor." + +He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains. + +"Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me." + +"That doesn't answer my question. You don't know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer--" + +"Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven't said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven't exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare." + +"When I find Mr. Armitage--" + +"You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas." + +"I shall find him there--or here!" + +"Good luck to you, Captain!" + +There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER + +My mistress bent that brow of hers; +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs +When pity would be softening through, +Fixed me a breathing-while or two + With life or death in the balance: right! +The blood replenished me again; +My last thought was at least not vain: +I and my mistress, side by side +Shall be together, breathe and ride, +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night? + +--R. Browning. + + +"We shall be leaving soon," said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. "It is not safe to wait much longer." + +He tossed a copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April. + +"Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave." + +"I enlisted for the campaign--yes?--I shall wait until I am discharged." +And the little man buttoned his coat. + +"Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There's another man coming to get into the game--he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills tonight. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say." + +The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow. + +"If I should die unshriven during the next week, here's a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him--tell him--" + +He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on. + +"--tell him, Oscar, that there's a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King." + +Oscar stared at Armitage blankly. + +"That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron's hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in." + +"You should not go out alone--" + +"Don't trouble about me; I shan't go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,--I feel it in +my bones." + +He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills. + +At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon--perhaps in a few hours--he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them. + +He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose. + +"God said, 'I am tired of kings,'" he muttered. "But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service," he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. "To think that it may be for me to say!" And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge. + +"I shall soon be free," he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills. + +Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step--a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman's figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening. + +When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman's security, died on his lips. + +"Shirley!" he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground. + +A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight. + +"I did not know that dreams really came true," he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind. + +She began abruptly, not heeding his words. + +"You must go away--at once--I came to tell you that you can not stay +here." + +"But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,"--he began. + +"It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you--it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go--you must seek the law's +aid--" + +"How do you know I dare--" + +"I don't know--that you dare!" + +"I know that you have a great heart and that I love you," he said. + +She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps. + +"I can't be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came--" + +"If I dared think or believe or hope--" + +"You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!" she replied; "but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me." + +"How do you classify me, please--with friends or acquaintances?" + +He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone. + +"I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?" + +"If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are." + +"You are explicit!" he laughed. "I don't hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do." + +"That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of--of--what might be called the Armitage riddle." + +"Oh; I'm a riddle, am I?" + +"Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one's enmity, +and there's something about murder that is--that isn't exactly nice! It's +positively unesthetic." + +She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words. + +"You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man's life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be." + +"You put it rather flatly, but that's about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid--" + +"Not of me, I hope--" + +"Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity." + +"That is unkind,--that is unkind," and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence. + +He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her. + +"You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you--it will take but a +moment--why and what--" + +"Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can't +allow you to tell me; I really don't want to know!" + +"I am willing that every one should know--to-morrow--or the day +after--not later." + +She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought. + +"The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done--" + +"I have done nothing to be ashamed of,--I swear I have not!" + +"Whatever it is,--and I don't care what it is,"--she said deliberately, +"--it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother--" + +She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly. + +"My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now." + +"But _he_ doesn't understand--" + +"My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand." + +"And you have done this--you have come to warn me--" + +"It does look pretty bad," she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. "But my brother and I--we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case." + +"Oh, I'm a case, am I?" and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. "But I'd really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs." + +"Then you will have to ask him." + +"To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet's request. I swear to you +that I'm as much in the dark as you are." + +"I'm quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,--perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof." + +"Good Lord!" + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +"I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I'm only a traitor and not a +spy." + +"You are the noblest woman in the world," he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. "You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man--for a man she +did not know! And my life--whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow--or the day after--I shall justify these +great kindnesses--this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!" + +As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away. + +"I must go back," said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight. + +"You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again." + +She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once. + +"Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,--I +should have gone back instantly." + +"But not across that spider's web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley." + +"It is much nearer by the bridge,--and I have my horse over there." + +"We shall get the horse without trouble," he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said: + +"This is the Port of Missing Men." + +"Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It's a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself." + +"I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I'll wait here. Fetch the horse," she said, "and hurry, please." + +"If there are explanations to make," he began, looking at her gravely. + +"I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate." + +As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him. + +"Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar," Armitage commanded. + +They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses. + +"You are not to come with me, Oscar." + +"A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent--yes?" + +"It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne's stables; and ask and answer no +questions." + +A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following. + +He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road. + +"The bridge would have been simpler and quicker," said Shirley; "as it +is, I shall be late to the ball." + +"I am contrite enough; but you don't make explanations." + +"No; I don't explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point," she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible. + +Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile. + +He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living. + +Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her. + +"You ride wonderfully," he said. + +"The horse is a joy. He's a Pendragon--I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I'm +sure." + +"You are quite right. He's a Virginia horse. You are incomparable--no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It's a brave woman who isn't +a slave to her hair-pins--I don't believe you spilled one." + +She drew rein at the cross-roads. + +"We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?" + +"Let me go to your own gate, please!" + +"Not at all!" she said with decision. + +"Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don't see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks--for oh, so many things!" he pleaded. + +"To-morrow--or the day after--or never!" + +She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills. + +Near her father's estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier. + +It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road. + +"It is my captain's horse--yes?" he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. "I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable--yes?" + +A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father's house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently. + +"Where have you been, Shirley?" + +"Walking." + +"But you went for a ride--the stable-men told me." + +"I believe that is true, Captain." + +"And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English." + +"Well, they do say English isn't very well taught at West Point, +Captain," she replied, pulling off her gloves. "You oughtn't to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy." + +"I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage--" + +"Captain!" + +"Bah! What are you going to do now?" + +"I'm going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone." + +"They have--for which you should be grateful!" + +Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD + +A glance, a word--and joy or pain + Befalls; what was no more shall be. +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny! + +--T.B. Aldrich. + + +Oscar's eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched. + +"It is the big fellow--yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known." + +Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road. + +"It is mischief that brings him from the hills--yes?" Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly--very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones: + +"Good evening, my friend; it's a fine evening for a walk." + +Zmai drew back and growled. + +"Let me pass," he said in his difficult German. + +"It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia--yes?" and Oscar's tone was pleasantly +conversational. + +Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault. + +"A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains--yes?" + +"I have no time for you," snarled the Servian. "Be gone!" and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall. + +"One should not be in too much haste, comrade;" and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips. + +The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back. + +"It is a message--yes?" asked Oscar. + +"It is my affair," blurted the big fellow. "I mean no harm to you." + +"It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife--yes?" + +The little soldier whipped out his revolver. + +"In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words--Ah!" + +Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture. + +The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar's feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels. + +Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening. + +Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar's revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report. + +At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head. + +"Stop; I want the letter!" shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels. + +Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow's broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar's +hands slipped on the fellow's hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head. + +As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep. + +"The letter--give me the letter!" commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian's. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar's hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man's gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades. + +Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. + +"Damn the sheep!" roared Claiborne. + +"It is sheep--yes?" and Oscar started to bolt. + +"Halt!" + +The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar's ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer. + +"What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?" + +Oscar saluted and summoned his best English. + +"It was an accident, sir." + +"Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable." + +"There was a sheep-stealer--yes? He is yonder by the pens--and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead--no?" + +At that moment Claiborne's eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door. + +"That is the sheep-stealer," said Oscar. "We shall catch him--yes?" + +Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back. + +"One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What's that you have there? Give it to me--quick!" + +"It's a piece of wool--" + +But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar's hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever. + +He blinked under Claiborne's sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library. + +"You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago." + +"Yes, sir." + +"You have been a soldier." + +"In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home." + +"Where do you live?" + +"I work as teamster in the coal mines--yes?--they are by Lamar, sir." + +Claiborne studied Oscar's erect figure carefully. + +"Let me see your hands," he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms. + +"You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn't go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt." + +Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written: + +CABLEGRAM +WlNKELRIED, VIENNA. +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET. + +Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar. + +"Where did you get this?" + +"From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder." + +"Who is he and where did he get it?" + +"I don't know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race--yes?" + +"What were you going to do with the paper?" + +Oscar grinned. + +"If I could read it--yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?" + +Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar's tranquil eyes. + +"Dick!" called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar. + +"Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?" + +"I think not, Dick." + +"It was he that brought your horse home." + +"To be sure it is! I hadn't recognized him. Thank you very much;" and she +smiled at Oscar. + +Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper. + +"Where is Monsieur Chauvenet--have you any idea?" + +"If he isn't at the hotel or in Washington, I'm sure I don't know. If we +are going to the dance--" + +"Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away." + +"I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;" and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness. + +Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read. + +"Don't touch it!" he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly: + +"I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?" + +"Don't you know what _you_ are doing here?" she asked, and he flushed. + +"I know what, but not _why_!" he blurted irritably; "but that's enough!" + +"You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don't know why." + +"I have my orders and I'm going to find him, if it takes ten years." + +Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley. + +"There's no doubt of that being Chauvenet's writing, is there?" + +"I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness." + +The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain. + +Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently. + +"Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer--an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It's most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I'm going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!" + +Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother's shoulders. + +"Do it, Dick! He's undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character." + +"I tell you I'll find him," he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers. + +"I'll help you, Dick," she said, buttoning her glove. + +"That's like you, Shirley." + +"If you want to find Mr. Armitage--" + +"Of course I want to find him--" His voice rose to a roar. + +"Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!" + +"Yes; I needed my man for other business," said Armitage, folding his +arms, "and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him." + +Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face. + +"You are worse than I thought--eavesdropper, housebreaker!" + +"Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?" + +"You are a rogue, an impostor--" + +"We will grant that," said Armitage quietly. "Where is your warrant for +my arrest?" + +"That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you." + +"It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow." + +Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land's commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The _coup de thtre_ by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house. + +"You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here," said +Claiborne. + +"In America--in free Virginia--without legal process?" asked Armitage, +laughing. + +"You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!" + +"You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you--day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now--that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me." + +"No!" shouted Claiborne. + +Armitage drew a step nearer. + +"You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is." + +"You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once." + +"Do so!--but _I_ must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn't understand it, and it is clear you +don't. Give me the message!" + +He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides. + +"I don't like your tone, Mr. Armitage!" + +"I don't like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne." + +Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words: + +"Winkelried--Vienna--not later than Friday--Chauvenet." + +"Shirley!" roared Claiborne. + +John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited. + +Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW + +So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of + battle, +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled + were many. +E'en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh + in splendor, +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin + is breathless, +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and + the valleys, +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless + ether +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd-- +Such and so many the fires 'twixt the ships and the streams + of the Xanthus +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city. +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside + them +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses, +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning. + +_The Iliad_: Translation of Prentiss Cummings. + + +"In Vienna, Friday!" + +"There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;" and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar. + +"Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do." + +"Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands--" + +"_Our_ own hands, if you would be accurate!" + +"You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart's desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn't the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it." + +"You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation." + +"But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,--what +becomes of her in these transactions?" + +"That is none of your affair," replied Chauvenet, frowning. "I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter." + +"Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there--ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be." + +"Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul." + +"The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage's house." + +"Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit." + +The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand's eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. "I do not require watching, my dear +Durand," he had said. + +"A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;" but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet's mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere. + +While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar's +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage's bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited. + +Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face. + +"The letters!" snapped Chauvenet. + +"Is the message safe?" demanded Durand. + +"Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,--the +little soldier,--as I crossed a strange field." + +When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper. + +"Horses; saddle our two horses quick--and get another if you have to +steal it," he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow's +head and cleanse his face. + +"So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?" + +The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet's rapid German. + +In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning. + +The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies. + +"We have no time to lose. That message must go tonight. You may be sure +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we've got to go down to +Storm Springs." + +They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed. + +"He is not so big a fool, this Armitage," remarked Durand. "He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna." + +"I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward." + +"Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation." + +"If we fail--" began Chauvenet. + +"You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?" + +"We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,--and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,--he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him." + +"And the fair daughter of the valley--" + +"Pish! We are not discussing the young lady." + +"I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine _she_ knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him." + +"His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular." + +Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly. + +"Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way--a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!" + +An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o'clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai's laggard beast permitted. + +The beat of a horse's hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal's walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse's quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly. + +In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian's +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse. + +"Wait!" said the Servian. + +The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man's deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet's party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them. + +"Who goes there?" + +The stranger's horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast's up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined. + +"Who goes there?" shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger's horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai's great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack. + +"The knife?" bawled the Servian. + +"No!" answered Chauvenet. + +"The devil!" yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast's +flanks. + +Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse's head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips. + +The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner. + +"Tie him," said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man's arms +and bound them tight. + +The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive's horse. + +"The fellow takes it pretty coolly," remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. "What are you going to do with him ?" + +"We will take him to his own place--it is near--and coax the papers out +of him; then we'll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter." + +Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse. + +"I am ready," he reported. + +"Go ahead; we follow;" and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask: + +"Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?" + +"Undoubtedly. I didn't get a square look at him, but he's a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he's riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago." + +"Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!" + +"The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack." + +Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai. + +"The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it." + +They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway. + +Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh. + +"You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?" + +"Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There's the house." + +He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet's courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage's +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others. + +"Bring him in!" he said, without taking his eyes from the room. + +A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail. + +Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them. + +"Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;" and as Durand turned into Armitage's room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner. + +"Take off the bag," he commanded. + +Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access. + +"Mr. John Armitage--" + +Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne. + +The perspiration on Claiborne's face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men. + +The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage's room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor. + +"It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!" muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne's face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor. + +Durand stepped forward with an oath. + +"Who is the man?" he demanded. + +"It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology--" +Chauvenet began. + +"You put it mildly," cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. "I don't +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur--" + +"It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation--anything you ask," stammered Chauvenet. + +"You are looking for John Armitage, are you?" demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet's words. "Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o'clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you." + +"You are violent, my dear sir--" began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet's. + +"I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!" + +Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm's length. + +"You know too much!" + +"I don't know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War." + +Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation. + +"You don't understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance." + +It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness. + +"You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear," said Claiborne. "What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?" + +"He is a menace to a great throne--an impostor--a--" + +Chauvenet's eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man's gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him. + +"Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles--are not +for these free hills." + +"_Where is John Armitage_?" + +Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed. + +Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf. + +"I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father's, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!" + +"Come; we waste time," said Durand in French. "It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!" + +"Yes; you'd better go," said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. "I don't believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I'll go to bed. I'm sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can't just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice." + +He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them. + +"Good night, and clear out," and he waved his arm in dismissal. + +"Come!" said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. + +As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight. + +As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VERGE OF MORNING + +O to mount again where erst I haunted; +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, + And the low green meadows + Bright with sward; +And when even dies, the million-tinted, +And the night has come, and planets glinted, + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr'd. + +--R.L.S. + + +"I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!" + +Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar's arm to check the +rush of the little man. + +Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms. + +"Yes; they are very interesting." + +"And those ribbons and that cloak,--I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman's horse. Then make some +coffee and wait." + +As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne. + +"I didn't expect this of you; I really didn't expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?" + +"I don't know--I'll be _damned_ if I know!" and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage's +slumbering wrath. + +"You'd better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can't explain yourself I'm going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?" + +"I didn't _come_ here, Armitage; I was brought--with a potato sack over +my head. There's the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn't on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs." + +"What are you doing up here in the mountains--why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!" + +"Armitage"--as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it--"Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now--" + +"Damn my cigarette case!" bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it. + +"That's what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,--you must admit +that." + +"It was, indeed!" + +"It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!" + +"No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne." + +Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently. + +"And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!" + +"What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don't know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can't get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I'm going to chuck you back into the sack." + +"I came up here in the hills to look for you--you--you--! Do you +understand?" began Claiborne angrily. "And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they've +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody's eye. And there's all +there is of the story, and I don't care a damn whether you believe it or +not." + +Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage's tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud. + +"Your face--your face, Claiborne; it's funny. It's too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it's something ghastly. For God's sake go in there +and wash your face!" + +He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave. + +"Claiborne--" + +Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp. + +"You don't know who I am or what I am; and I haven't got time to tell +you now. It's a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what's going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain--or--must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?" + +"Marhof may go to the devil! He's a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof's cause." + +"They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye." + +"I believe you, Armitage." + +"Thank you. Now your horse is at the door--run along like a good fellow." + +Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on. + +"Oscar!" he yelled, "bring in that coffee--with cups for two." + +He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings. + +"Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle." + +He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes. + +"Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There's a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you'd like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs," he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank. + +"I'm taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods." + +There was a great color in Armitage's face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor. + +"Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise--isn't that so, Claiborne?--and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag--original package, you understand. And see if +you can't find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar--" + +With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. "If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!" + +He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click. + +Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage's +shoulder. + +Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty. + +"Lord, man! I didn't mean to throw you into the road! There's a clean bed +in there that you're welcome to--go in and get some sleep." + +"I'm not going into the valley," roared Claiborne, "and I'm not going to +bed; I'm going with you, damn you!" + +"But bless your soul, man, you can't go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I'm terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances--" + +"I repeat that I'm going with you. I don't know why I'm in this row, and +I don't know what it's all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can't be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there." + +"But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again," said Armitage earnestly. "Take your horse +and go." + +"I'm going back to the valley when you do." + +"Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice." + +He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with: + +"I do not think a braver gentleman, +More active-valiant or more valiant-young, +More daring or more bold, is now alive +To grace this latter age with noble deeds. +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;-- + +"Lord, Claiborne, you don't know what's ahead of us! It's the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this--not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we'll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We're off!" + +"All ready, sir;" said Oscar briskly. + +"It's half-past two. They didn't get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They've probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven't got me!" + +"They had me and didn't want me," said Claiborne, mounting his own horse. + +"They'll have a good many things they don't want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn't enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it's been a great old lark. And now to catch them!" + +Outside the preserve they paused for an instant. + +"They're not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven't studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven't followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There's a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I'm guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land." + +"To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business," said +Claiborne. + +"Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I'll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses." + +Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses--two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again. + +"Come! We're on the verge of morning," said Armitage, "and there's no +time to lose." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD + +Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him. + +--Louise Imogen Guiney. + + +"There's an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I'm not mistaken, and if +we've made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad." + +Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter. + +"It's a strange business," Claiborne muttered half-aloud. + +The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas. + +He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance. + +"It's all right; they haven't passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they're handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don't forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I'm afraid we're going to have a wet +morning." + +They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches. + +"Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic," said +Armitage; "but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I've done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it." + +Claiborne groaned mockingly. + +"I suppose I'll know what it's all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I'm fighting for." + +"You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you've got to take +the consequences. You've done what you set out to do--you've found me; +and you're traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I'm going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor--I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build--and in the +dark--on horseback--" + +"That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they'd plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion." + +"Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours." + +The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot. + +Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted. + +"Bully for us! We've cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?" + +"There are three horses all right enough, and they're forcing the beasts. +What's the word?" + +"Drive them back! Ready--here we go!" roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard. + +They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop. + +"'Not later than Friday'--back you go!" shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy's rout. One of the horses--it seemed from its rider's +yells to be Chauvenet's--turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come. + +Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them. + +"They're rattled," said Claiborne, "and the fog isn't helping them any." + +"We're getting close to my place," said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses. + +"It's Oscar! He's a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right." + +"If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment," +observed Claiborne. "The fog muffles sounds. The road's pretty level in +here." + +"We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We're +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!" + +The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again. + +"By George! They're coming--here we go!" + +They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice. + +"Oscar has them on the run--bully for Oscar! They're getting close--thank +the Lord for this level stretch--now howl and let 'er go!" + +They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses' hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground. + +"They're terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed," shouted +Claiborne. "Now for it!" + +They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist. + +There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant's glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand's impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right. + +With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet's frightened horse, panic-stricken at the +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed. + +The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses. + +"That was too close for fun--are you all there?" asked Armitage. + +"Still in it; but Chauvenet's friend won't miss every time. There's +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse." + +"Oh, he's a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun." + +They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light. + +"This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you'd get out of this +and go home. You see they're an ugly lot and don't use toy pistols." + +"Remember the potato sack! That's my watchword," laughed Claiborne. + +They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade. + +"I should value a change of raiment," observed Armitage. "There was an +advantage in armor--your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn't stick to your hide." + +"Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again." + +They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage's bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs. + +"Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!" And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar. + +The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage's +shots. + +"Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!" + +"There!" + +Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe. + +"He's crazy--he's gone clean out of his head!" muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. "What do you make of it?" + +"He's having fun with them. He's just rattling them to warm himself +up--the little beggar. I didn't know it was in him." + +Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop. + +Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar's wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver. + +"Oh, for a saber now!" growled Claiborne. + +But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand's horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business. + +The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear. + +"My horse got it that time!" shouted Claiborne. + +"So did I," replied Armitage; "but never you mind, old man, we've got +them cornered now." + + +Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder. + +"Much damage?" + +"It struck a hard place, but I am still fit." + +The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne's horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace. + +"Poor devil! We'll have a reckoning pretty soon," cried Armitage +cheerily. "No kingdom is worth a good horse!" + +They advanced at a trot toward the Port. + +"You'll be afoot any minute now, but we're in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won't care to drop +into! I'm off for the gate--you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer." + +Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +Fast they come, fast they come; + See how they gather! +Wide waves the eagle plume, + Blended with heather. +Cast your plaids, draw your blades, + Forward each man set! +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset! + +--Sir Walter Scott. + + +Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left. + +"It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man--yes?" was the little +sergeant's comment. "We shall come back for the saddle and bridle." + +"Humph! Where do you think those men are?" + +"Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position." + +"I'm not sure of that. They'll escape across the old bridge." + +"_Nein_. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once--they would not +need our bullets!" + +Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage. + +"It's the signal that he's got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you." + +"You will have my horse--yes?" Oscar began to dismount. + +"No; I do well enough this way. Forward!--the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them." + +The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol. + +The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him! + +As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet's party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines. + +"They're really not so bad--bad luck to them!" he muttered. "I'll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;" and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage's slow advance out into the open. + +The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne's +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure. + +Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target's elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing. + +"I've never been the same since that fever," growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance. + +Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage's advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading. + +"They are all together again, are they?" asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne's rock, his eyes upon the barricade. + +"The gentleman with the curly hair--I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot--yes?" + +Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences. + +"Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I'd like to try hunger on +them," said Armitage. + +"They'll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they'll break it down, and we'll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them--alive?" + +"I certainly do!" Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider. + +The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth. + +"For God's sake, get off that horse, Armitage!" bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. "There's no use in wasting yourself that way." + +"My arm aches and I've got to do something. Let's try storming them just +for fun. It's a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that's supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we'll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn't as stiff as it looks from this side--know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can't be seen from this side." + +"Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You've got a +hole in you now! Get down!" + +"You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them." + +His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert. + +Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering: + +"For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!" + +Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them. + +"They can't jump this--they'll veer off before they get here," shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. "Wait till they check their horses for the +turn." + +"We are fools. They have got us trapped;" and Durand's hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai's scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne's voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts. + +But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure. + +Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood: + +"It is in the blood; he is like a king." + +But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field: + +"He bade me do something for Austria--for Austria!" + +"He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him," said Zmai. + +Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar's horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him. + +"Take him first," cried Chauvenet. "Then be ready for Armitage!" + +Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage's +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause--not heeding Armitage's cries--on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared. + +Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse's forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet's curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels. + +Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage's face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud: + +"Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried's in +jail and the jig's up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!" + +He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage's head. + +"Drop that gun--drop it damned quick!" and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet's head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed. + +It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight. + +"It's all over but the shouting--what's next?" demanded Claiborne. + +"Tie him up--and tie the other one up," said Armitage, staring about +queerly. "Where the devil is Oscar?" + +"He's after the big fellow. You're badly fussed, old man. We've got to +get out of this and fix you up." + +"I'm all right. I've got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we've got them nailed, and it's all right, old +man!" + +Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently. + +"If you start to run I'll certainly kill you, Monsieur." + +"We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings." + +Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes. + +"Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing." + +"But, Messieurs," began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure--"this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions." + +"I don't question it," laughed Claiborne. + +"But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country." + +"It will, indeed," and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage's hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. "In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur." + +"I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage--" + +Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously. + +"You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I'll choke you!" + +Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand: + +"Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?" + +Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand's pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage. + +"We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions." + +A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave. + +"Where is the Servian?" demanded Armitage. + +The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage. + +"He will not come back," said the sergeant quietly. + +"That is bad," remarked Armitage. "Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage's house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately." + +"But Armitage--not Marhof--for God's sake, not Marhof." Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +"Not Marhof!" + +"We can fix this among ourselves--just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs," protested Durand. + +"That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored," said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision. + +"Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?" + +Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage's tone. + +"It's a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn't take as much time as +you thought it would." + +Oscar had mounted Armitage's horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road. + +"After you deliver Mr. Armitage's message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here." + +"No!" began Armitage. "Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don't propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!" + +"Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He's +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!" + +The conspirators' horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them. + +"Don't treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we'll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!" + +Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern. + +"Wait a few hours, Armitage--let us sit down and talk it all over. We're +not as black as your imagination paints us!" + +"Save your breath! You've had your fun so far, and now I'm going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you're not made for work in the open. Forward!" + +They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +"WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?" + +"_Morbleu, Monsieur_, you give me too much majesty," said +the Prince.--_The History of Henry Esmond_. + + +"These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer--let them sequester +themselves!" and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. "I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about--he may wish to explore my trunks again," and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd. + +"Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we'll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,--but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time." + +He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat. + +"I'd like to hold a little private execution for this," growled the +officer. "A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart." + +"Don't be spiteful! I'm as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that." + +"You're not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can't do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he'll fix you up in a +jiffy." + +"That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve--yes, I guess we'll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir." + +"Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage." + +"I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry's the Baron will be +glad to let me off." + +He laughed softly and began repeating: + +"'Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.'" + +Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh: + +"I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I'll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival--but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown--it's in the leather-covered trunk in my room--the one with +the most steamer labels on it--go bring it, Claiborne, and we'll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick--they ought to be here by this +time!" + +He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air. + +"The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there's no treason in hauling up an alien flag," and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner. + +"Here they are," called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions. + +"Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but"--and he looked at Shirley. + +"If you will do me the honor to enter--all of you!" and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them. + +"We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man," said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand. + +"What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?" demanded Judge +Claiborne. + +"There was a battle," replied Dick, grinning, "and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet." + +Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley's cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly. + +Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o'clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her. + +"You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear." + +"Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together," said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly. + +Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne. + +"Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage," said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand. + +"Won't you please come in?" said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began: + +"Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual--they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne's advice." + +"Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy," said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage's face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees. + +"You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests." + +The Baron nodded. + +"Yes, I dare say," he remarked dryly. + +"And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them--one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question." + +Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily: + +"This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!" + +"Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question--just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me--a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work--and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the _King Edward_. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne's table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one--some one in +particular." + +Armitage's eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded: + +"Who am I, Monsieur?" + +Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly: + +"You are the devil--an impostor, a liar, a thief!" + +Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English: + +"Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?" + +"Answer and be quick about it!" snapped Claiborne. + +"I tell you"--began Chauvenet fiercely. + +"_Who am I_?" asked Armitage again. + +"I don't know who you are--" + +"You do not! You certainly do not!" laughed Armitage; "but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?" + +"I thought--" + +"Yes; you thought--" + +"I thought--there seemed reasons to believe--" + +"Yes; and you believe it; go on!" + +Chauvenet's eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German: + +"This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation--he is +a menace to the throne--" + +"Who is he?" demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage. + +"I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away--drove him here to watch him. See these things--that +sword--those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death--one death--at Vienna--and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!" + +The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador's +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered: + +"He would be king; he would be king!" + +Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne. + +"That will do. The gentleman may retire now." + +As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling. + +"I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl," he said +quietly; "nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne's supper-party belongs to me. Here it is." + +The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly. + +"This device--the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur." + +"It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl's son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder--all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly." + +The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold--the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors--the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador's fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus. + +The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage. + +"Where is he, Monsieur?" he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows. + +"The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be--he, too, is dead." + +"You are quite sure--you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?" + +"I am quite sure." + +"That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!" + +"No, it is not enough," replied Armitage quietly. "Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke--his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago." + +"Yes; he was mad--quite mad," blurted the Baron. + +"That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year." + +Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused. + +"What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?" + +"I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key." + +As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down. + +"Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?" said the Baron kindly. + +"No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons--for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, _is not his son_!" + +"What!" roared the Baron. + +"It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance." + +The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword. + +"It is a marvelous story--it is wonderful! Can it be true--can it be +true?" murmured the Ambassador. + +"The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours," said Judge Claiborne. + +"You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir," said the Baron, "but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners--" + +"They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus," and Armitage smiled. "I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case--it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me--and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl's reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne." + +"Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I--" + +"And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl's repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house." + +The Ambassador's eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage's lips; but Armitage went on: + +"I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the _George W. Custis_, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan's wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn't my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +_Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive." + +He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne. + +Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all. + +"Who are _you_, John Armitage?" + +And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout: + +"I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke's son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father's place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short--I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies." + +"Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father--you +never went to him?" + +"I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria--Austria, always +Austria!" + +"Yes; that was quite like him," said the Ambassador. "He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America--he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you--that you should have chosen to live here." + +"Then when I saw him at Geneva--that last interview--he told me that +Karl's statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again--never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now--" + +He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened. + +"It was not my fault--it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I've got them in the room there where they can't do any +harm!--and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I'm sick--yes, I'm sick--and sleepy--and you'd better haul +down that flag over the door--it's treason, I tell you!--and if you see +Shirley, tell her I'm John Armitage--tell her I'm John Armitage, John +Arm--" + +The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +DECENT BURIAL + +To-morrow? 'Tis not ours to know + That we again shall see the flowers. +To-morrow is the gods'--but, oh! + To day is ours. + +--C.E. Merrill, Jr. + + +Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador's demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne's bag, and all was now in readiness for the night. + +Oscar's erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars. + +"We can get rid of the prisoners to-night--yes?" + +"At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?" + +"But the men should be hanged--for they shot our captain, and he may +die." + +The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne. + +"He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train." + +Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper. + +"I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic--no?" + +"You need not tell me how--or anything about it--but you are sure he is +quite dead?" + +"He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly," said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. "I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, 'We must take them prisoners,' was it +not so?" + +"Yes; that was Mr. Armitage's wish." + +"Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner--yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them--though I had not touched them--and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down--God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die." + +And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars. + +"Yes, it must have been terrible," said Claiborne. + +"But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him." + +"But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law's aid at once." + +"Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station." + +Claiborne looked at his watch. + +"I will go with you," he said. + +They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see. + +"He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes." + +When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks. + +_"From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!"_ + +Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian's soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying: + +_"--That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys."_ + +He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat. + +"He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him." + +"Yes, we were spared murder," said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne's side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar's shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning. + +"You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?" asked Claiborne. + +"Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father's place--the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain's mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition--no?" + +The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne's direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily: + +"If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they're put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the _George W. Custis_, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender." + +Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears. + +"We will waive our right to a writ of _habeas corpus_," remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. "Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne's courteous treatment of us." + +"Shut up!" snapped Chauvenet. + +"You will both of you do well to hold your tongues," remarked Claiborne +dryly. "One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back." + +"You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne," drawled Durand. + +"There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?" demanded +Chauvenet. + +"I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision--" + +Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern. + +"We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!" said Durand. + +"Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding--kidnapping us this way--without opportunity for +counsel." + +"And without benefit of clergy," laughed Claiborne. "Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm." + +"Drive on!" ejaculated Chauvenet. + +As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles. + +"That's the end of one chapter," remarked Judge Claiborne. + +"They're glad enough to go," said Dick. "What's the latest word from +Vienna?" + +"The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly--thanks to +Mr. John Armitage," and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow. + +When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage's condition was satisfactory. + +"He is a hardy plant," said the surgeon, "and will pull through." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +JOHN ARMITAGE + +If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.--Marius the Epicurean. + + +June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof's cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily. + +"He's as obstinate as a mule!" + +Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron's vehemence. + +"He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances." + +"What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!" + +"I suppose there is; but he's of age; he's a grown man. I don't see what +you're going to do about it." + +"Neither do I! But think what he's putting aside. The boy's clever--he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position--the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father's memory and reputation behind him--" + +"But the idea of reward doesn't appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night." + +"There's one thing I haven't dared to ask him: to take his own name--to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn't want his +father's money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too." + +"It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage." + +"It's simply providential that he hasn't become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!" + +They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by. + +"Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger." + +He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a neglige shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free. + +"Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can't be sure of you long," said the Baron. + +"You have spoiled me,--I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true." + +"Something must be done about your father's estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready." + +The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously. + +Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees. + +"No,--no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country--something that we may hope pleases him if he knows." + +The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request. + +"But the name--the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known--a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe--surely +you can at least accept that." + +The Ambassador's tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw--or thought he saw--the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron. + +"How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?" he asked, +sitting down. + +"Nothing,--absolutely nothing. The presence of the _Sophia Margaret_ off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,--please do not forget that!--and +you are a friend of my family,--a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness." + +The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron's question was still +unanswered. + +"You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely." + +"That was very generous of them;" and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage--for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him. + +"The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough," remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron's question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. "I read in the _Neue Freie Presse_ a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs." + +"Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate." + +"We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile," remarked Judge +Claiborne. "We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them." + +"They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them," said the Baron. + +Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed. + +"They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody." + +A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read. + +"It's from the commander of the _Sophia Margaret_, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health." + +"It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But"--and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously--"as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That's what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense." + +Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,--before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man's desire. + +The Baron's next words broke harshly upon his mood. + +"The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,--you could make yourself the younger--the great Stroebel--" + +The mention of his name brought back the Baron's still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling. + +"I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,--if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,--that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me." + +He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses. + +Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron's +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim. + +At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +_vestigia_ that interested him deeply,--a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her. + +"They told me you wouldn't dare venture out for a week," she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand. + +"That was what they told me," he said, laughing; "but I escaped from my +keepers." + +"You will undoubtedly take cold,--without your hat!" + +"Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances." + +"You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero." + +"Please!" He held up his hand. "That's what I came to talk to you about." + +"About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow." + +She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy's whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,--an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,--not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him. + +"I didn't know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn't have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn't +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall." + +"Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It's hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven't your hat--" + +"Neither have you; you shan't outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,--the loot of the pergola!" + +"There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can't be responsible +for you." + +"The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that's what I +have come to ask you about." + +"Then I should say that you oughtn't to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he's your uncle." + +"No! No! I don't want him to be my uncle! I don't need any uncle!" + +He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh. + +"I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don't worry; the sheep won't +tell--and I won't." + +He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them. + +"Shirley!" + +He touched her hand. + +"Shirley!" and his fingers closed upon hers. + +"I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,--before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood--I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;--but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father's eyes,--his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,--they wish me to take that." + +She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills. + +"The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,--in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,--it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man's right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,--unless you tell me I must, Shirley!" + +There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips. + +"It was that way,--you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes." + +He caught her hand and kissed it,--bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face. + +"I do not know,"--and he scarcely heard the whispered words,--"I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,--but I love--John Armitage," she +said. + +Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron's +question. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORT OF MISSING MEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 13913-8.txt or 13913-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13913 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/old/13913-8.zip b/old/old/13913-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..087684d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/13913-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/13913.txt b/old/old/13913.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41ababa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/13913.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10066 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Port of Missing Men, by Meredith Nicholson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Port of Missing Men + +Author: Meredith Nicholson + +Release Date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #13913] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORT OF MISSING MEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +by + +MEREDITH NICHOLSON + +Author of _The House of a Thousand Candles_, _The Main Chance_, +_Zelda Dameron_, etc. + +1907 + + + + + + + +Then Sir Pellinore put off his armour; then a little afore midnight they +heard the trotting of an horse. Be ye still, said King Pellinore, for we +shall hear of some adventure.--Malory. + + +To the Memory of Herman Kountze + + + + +THE SHINING ROAD + +Come, sweetheart, let us ride away beyond the city's bound, +And seek what pleasant lands across the distant hills are found. +There is a golden light that shines beyond the verge of dawn, +And there are happy highways leading on and always on; +So, sweetheart, let us mount and ride, with never a backward glance, +To find the pleasant shelter of the Valley of Romance. + +Before us, down the golden road, floats dust from charging steeds, +Where two adventurous companies clash loud in mighty deeds; +And from the tower that stands alert like some tall, beckoning pine, +E'en now, my heart, I see afar the lights of welcome shine! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the Borders of To-day. + +Draw rein and rest a moment here in this cool vale of peace; +The race half-run, the goal half-won, half won the sure release! +To right and left are flowery fields, and brooks go singing down +To mock the sober folk who still are prisoned in the town. +Now to the trail again, dear heart; my arm and blade are true, +And on some plain ere night descend I'll break a lance for you! + +O sweetheart, it is good to find the pathway shining clear! +The road is broad, the hope is sure, and you are near and dear! +So loose the rein and cheer the steed and let us race away +To seek the lands that lie beyond the borders of To-day. +Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried +As o'er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride! + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + I "Events, Events" + II The Claibornes, of Washington + III Dark Tidings + IV John Armitage a Prisoner + V A Lost Cigarette Case + VI Toward the Western Stars + VII On the Dark Deck + VIII "The King Is Dead; Long Live the King" + IX "This Is America, Mr. Armitage" + X John Armitage Is Shadowed + XI The Toss of a Napkin + XII A Camp in the Mountains + XIII The Lady of the Pergola + XIV An Enforced Interview + XV Shirley Learns a Secret + XVI Narrow Margins + XVII A Gentleman in Hiding + XVIII An Exchange of Messages + XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty + XX The First Ride Together + XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold + XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow + XXIII The Verge of Morning + XXIV The Attack in the Road + XXV The Port of Missing Men + XXVI "Who Are You, John Armitage?" + XXVII Decent Burial +XXVIII John Armitage + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"EVENTS, EVENTS" + +Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back +Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. +--_Troilus and Cressida._ + + +"The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim +old Austrian premier. + +"Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost +none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are +remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able +to render you--I believe you admitted it--a slight service." + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes +from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte +Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and +about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with +characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before +admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and +a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair. + +He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in +March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the +secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of +peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von +Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within +a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen's Cathedral, +at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in +varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, +he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies. + +It was not often that the light in the old man's eyes was as gentle as +now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on +the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his +apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay +on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with +sudden humor. + +The card was a gentleman's _carte de visite_, and bore the name John +Armitage. + +"I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris. +Where did you get it?" demanded the minister. + +"I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made," replied the +young man. "Besides, it's English, and I pass readily for an Englishman. +I have quite got used to it." + +"Which is not particularly creditable; but it's probably just as well +so." + +He drew closer to the table, and his keen old eyes snapped with the +intentness of his thought. The hands he clasped on the table were those +of age, and it was pathetically evident that he folded them to hide their +slight palsy. + +"I hope you are quite well," said Armitage kindly. + +"I am not. I am anything but well. I am an old man, and I have had no +rest for twenty years." + +"It is the penalty of greatness. It is Austria's good fortune that you +have devoted yourself to the affairs of government. I have read--only +to-day, in the _Contemporary Review_--an admirable tribute to your +sagacity in handling the Servian affair. Your work was masterly. I +followed it from the beginning with deepest interest." + +The old gentleman bowed half-unconsciously, for his thoughts were far +away, as the vague stare in his small, shrewd eyes indicated. + +"But you are here for rest--one comes to Geneva at this season for +nothing else." + +"What brings you here?" asked the old man with sudden energy. "If the +papers you gave me in Paris are forgeries and you are waiting--" + +"Yes; assuming that, what should I be waiting for?" + +"If you are waiting for events--for events! If you expect something to +happen!" + +Armitage laughed at the old gentleman's earnest manner, asked if he might +smoke, and lighted a cigarette. + +"Waiting doesn't suit me. I thought you understood that. I was not born +for the waiting list. You see, I have strong hands--and my wits are--let +us say--average!" + +Von Stroebel clasped his own hands together more firmly and bent toward +Armitage searchingly. + +"Is it true"--he turned again and glanced about--"is it positively true +that the Archduke Karl is dead?" + +"Yes; quite true. There is absolutely no doubt of it," said Armitage, +meeting the old man's eyes steadily. + +"The report that he is still living somewhere in North America is +persistent. We hear it frequently in Vienna; I have heard it since you +told me that story and gave me those papers in Paris last year." + +"I am aware of that," replied John Armitage; "but I told you the truth. +He died in a Canadian lumber camp. We were in the north hunting--you may +recall that he was fond of that sort of thing." + +"Yes, I remember; there was nothing else he did so well," growled Von +Stroebel. + +"And the packet I gave you--" + +The old man nodded. + +"--that packet contained the Archduke Karl's sworn arraignment of his +wife. It is of great importance, indeed, to Francis, his worthless son, +or supposed son, who may present himself for coronation one of these +days!" + +"Not with Karl appearing in all parts of the world, never quite dead, +never quite alive--and his son Frederick Augustus lurking with him in the +shadows. Who knows whether they are dead?" + +"I am the only person on earth in a position to make that clear," said +John Armitage. + +"Then you should give me the documents." + +"No; I prefer to keep them. I assure you that I have sworn proof of the +death of the Archduke Karl, and of his son Frederick Augustus. Those +papers are in a box in the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York +City." + +"I should have them; I _must_ have them!" thundered the old man. + +"In due season; but not just now. In fact, I have regretted parting with +that document I gave you in Paris. It is safer in America than in Vienna. +If you please, I should like to have it again, sir." + +The palsy in the old man's hands had increased, and he strove to control +his agitation; but fear had never been reckoned among his weaknesses, and +he turned stormily upon Armitage. + +"That packet is lost, I tell you!" he blurted, as though it were +something that he had frequently explained before. "It was stolen from +under my very nose only a month ago! That's what I'm here for--my agents +are after the thief, and I came to Geneva to meet them, to find out why +they have not caught him. Do you imagine that I travel for pleasure at my +age, Mr. John Armitage?" + +Count von Stroebel's bluster was merely a cloak to hide his confusion--a +cloak, it may be said, to which he did not often resort; but in this case +he watched Armitage warily. He clearly expected some outburst of +indignation from the young man, and he was unfeignedly relieved when +Armitage, after opening and closing his eyes quickly, reached for a fresh +cigarette and lighted it with the deft ease of habit. + +"The packet has been stolen," he observed calmly; "whom do you suspect of +taking it?" + +The old man leaned upon the table heavily. + +"That amiable Francis--" + +"The suggestion is not dismaying. Francis would not know an opportunity +if it offered." + +"But his mother--she is the devil!" blurted the old man. + +"Pray drop that," said Armitage in a tone that caused the old man to look +at him with a new scrutiny. "I want the paper back for the very reason +that it contains that awful indictment of her. I have been uncomfortable +ever since I gave it to you; and I came to ask you for it that I might +keep it safe in my own hands. But the document is lost,--am I to +understand that Francis has it?" + +"Not yet! But Rambaud has it, and Rambaud and Francis are as thick as +thieves." + +"I don't know Rambaud. The name is unfamiliar." + +"He has a dozen names--one for every capital. He even operates in +Washington, I have heard. He's a blackmailer, who aims high--a broker in +secrets, a scandal-peddler. He's a bad lot, I tell you. I've had my best +men after him, and they've just been here to report another failure. If +you have nothing better to do--" began the old man. + +"Yes; that packet must be recovered," answered Armitage. "If your agents +have failed at the job it may be worth my while to look for it." + +His quiet acceptance of the situation irritated the minister. + +"You entertain me, John Armitage! You speak of that packet as though it +were a pound of tea. Francis and his friends, Winkelried and Rambaud, are +not chasers of fireflies, I would have you know. If the Archduke and his +son are dead, then a few more deaths and Francis would rule the Empire." + +John Armitage and Count von Stroebel stared at each other in silence. + +"Events! Events!" muttered the old man presently, and he rested one of +his hands upon the despatch box, as though it were a symbol of authority +and power. + +"Events!" the young man murmured. + +"Events!" repeated Count von Stroebel without humor. "A couple of deaths +and there you see him, on the ground and quite ready. Karl was a genius, +therefore he could not be king. He threw away about five hundred years of +work that had been done for him by other people--and he cajoled you into +sharing his exile. You threw away your life for him! Bah! But you seem +sane enough!" + +The prime minister concluded with his rough burr; and Armitage laughed +outright. + +"Why the devil don't you go to Vienna and set yourself up like a +gentleman?" demanded the premier. + +"Like a gentleman?" repeated Armitage. "It is too late. I should die in +Vienna in a week. Moreover, I _am_ dead, and it is well, when one has +attained that beatific advantage, to stay dead." + +"Francis is a troublesome blackguard," declared the old man. "I wish to +God _he_ would form the dying habit, so that I might have a few years in +peace; but he is forever turning up in some mischief. And what can you do +about it? Can we kick him out of the army without a scandal? Don't you +suppose he could go to Budapest tomorrow and make things interesting for +us if he pleased? He's as full of treason as he can stick, I tell you." + +Armitage nodded and smiled. + +"I dare say," he said in English; and when the old statesman glared at +him he said in German: "No doubt you are speaking the truth." + +"Of course I speak the truth; but this is a matter for action, and not +for discussion. That packet was stolen by intention, and not by chance, +John Armitage!" + +There was a slight immaterial sound in the hall, and the old prime +minister slipped from German to French without changing countenance as he +continued: + +"We have enough troubles in Austria without encouraging treason. If +Rambaud and his chief, Winkelried, could make a king of Francis, the +brokerage--the commission--would be something handsome; and Winkelried +and Rambaud are clever men." + +"I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him +of late; but Rambaud is a new name." + +"He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe." + +Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and +sipped it slowly. + +"I will show you the gentleman's pleasant countenance," said the +minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small +photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly +and then with sudden interest. + +"Rambaud!" he exclaimed. + +"That's his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish +you a list of his _noms de guerre_." + +"Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it +may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before." + +"That is possible," remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in +any circumstances. + +"I expect to see him here within a few days." + +Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, +while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in +Geneva. + +"He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; +and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or +so." + +"Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men," said the +minister. + +"You wish to arrest him?" + +"You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I +shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can't have it +peddled all over Europe, and I can't advertise my business by having him +arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to +do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian +affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best +buyers--Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there's a woman, is there? I've +found that there usually is!" + +"There's a very charming young American girl, to be more exact." + +The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the +photograph. + +"I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you +belong, make a proper marriage and wait--" + +"Events!" and John Armitage laughed. "I tell you, sir, that waiting is +not my _forte_. That's what I like about America; they're up and at it +over there; the man who waits is lost." + +"They're a lot of swine!" rumbled Von Stroebel's heavy bass. + +"I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don't imagine you are +hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but +that John Armitage might become famous among them--in politics, in +finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become +president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other +offices worth getting--why not?" + +"I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and--fairly clever--" + +Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count's praise. + +"Thank you, with all my heart!" + +"Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may +happen--who can tell? Events--events--if a man will watch and wait and +study events--" + +"Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of +events," laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. "To be sure, the +Bourbons have studied events these many years--a pretty spectacle, too." + +"Carrion! Carrion!" almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. +"Don't mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them +makes me sick. But"--he gulped down more of the brandy--"where and how do +you live?" + +"Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke's death I +have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with +him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died--and, I am +almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! +Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington +when I got tired of the ranch." + +"Washington!" snorted the count. "In due course it will be the storm +center of the world." + +"You read the wrong American newspapers," laughed Armitage. + +They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own +thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used: + +"Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?" + +"As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English +tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had +spent a year at Harvard University." + +"What the devil did you do that for?" growled Von Stroebel. + +"From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law +school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I +am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish +to rake over the past; but I am sorry--I am very sorry we can't meet on +some common ground." + +"I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a +man of yourself. You might go far--very far; but this democracy has hold +of you like a disease." + +"What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when +we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how +to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack +of bricks--it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in +defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the +apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and +dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send +orders in an emperor's name you commit an anachronism." + +The count frowned and growled. + +"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing." + +"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull +kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips +without your brains--it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my +imagination." + +"You put it coarsely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps have +a statue when I am gone." + +"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the +royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for +something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings." + +"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy +and brotherhood everywhere." + +"On the other hand, I should become king myself." + +"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I +should hate to see you in a madhouse." + +"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I +were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state +carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the +middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready +to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce +myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men +intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same +month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as +brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my +keeping--by the Archduke's own wish. You have spent your life studying +human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would +believe my story if I said I was the Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and +unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a +diversion, and then--events, events!" + +Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an +effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious +declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and +glared at him. + +"Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back +to America before the police discover you." + +Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly. + +"I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be +friends, if we can be nothing more." + +"It is too late. The chasm is too deep." + +The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as +though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of +government. The young man watched him eagerly. + +The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and forth +over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new +and gentler tone and manner. + +"I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one +service--to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt. +History, I believe, will reckon it justly." + +"Your place is secure--no one can gainsay that," broke in Armitage. + +"If you would do something for me--for me--do something for Austria, do +something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have +courage. I don't care what that service may be; I don't care where or how +you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well +enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to +afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about +democracy. _Do something for Austria_--for the Empire that I have held +here under my hand these difficult years--then take your name again--and +you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs." + +"For the Empire--something for the Empire?" murmured the young man, +wondering. + +Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose. + +"You will accept the commission--I am quite sure you will accept. I leave +on an early train, and I shall not see you again." As he took Armitage's +hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a +lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an +instant; then he sighed heavily. + +"Good night; good-by!" he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON + +--the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly +incomprehensible.--_The Naulahka_. + + +The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her +brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what +had attracted her attention. + +"'Tis he, the unknown, Dick." + +"I must say I like his persistence!" exclaimed the young fellow, turning +again to the table. "In America I should call him out and punch his head, +but over here--" + +"Over here you have better manners," replied the girl, laughing. "But why +trouble yourself? He doesn't even look at us. We are of no importance to +him whatever. We probably speak a different language." + +"But he travels by the same trains; he stops at the same inns; he sits +near us at the theater--he even affects the same pictures in the same +galleries! It's growing a trifle monotonous; it's really insufferable. I +think I shall have to try my stick on him." + +"You flatter yourself, Richard," mocked the girl. "He's fully your height +and a trifle broader across the shoulders. The lines about his mouth are +almost--yes, I should say, quite as firm as yours, though he is a younger +man. His eyes are nice blue ones, and they are very steady. His hair +is"--she paused to reflect and tilted her head slightly, her eyes +wandering for an instant to the subject of her comment--"light brown, I +should call it. And he is beardless, as all self-respecting men should +be. I'm sure that he is an exemplary person--kind to his sisters and +aunts, very willing to sacrifice himself for others and light the candles +on his nephews' and nieces' Christmas trees." + +She rested her cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply +to provoke a continuation of her brother's growling disdain. + +The young gentleman to whom she had referred had seated himself at a +table not far distant, given an order with some particularity, and +settled himself to the reading of a newspaper which he had drawn from the +pocket of his blue serge coat. He was at once absorbed, and the presence +of the Claibornes gave him apparently not the slightest concern. + +"He has a sense of humor," the girl resumed. "I saw him yesterday--" + +"You're always seeing him: you ought to be ashamed of yourself." + +"Don't interrupt me, please. As I was saying, I saw him laughing over the +_Fliegende Blaetter_." + +"But that's no sign he has a sense of humor. It rather proves that he +hasn't. I'm disappointed in you, Shirley. To think that my own sister +should be able to tell the color of a wandering blackguard's eyes!" + +He struck a match viciously, and his sister laughed. + +"I might add to his portrait. That blue and white scarf is tied +beautifully; and his profile would be splendid in a medallion. I believe +from his nose he may be English, after all," she added with a dreamy air +assumed to add to her brother's impatience. + +"Which doesn't help the matter materially, that I can see!" exclaimed the +young man. "With a full beard he'd probably look like a Sicilian bandit. +If I thought he was really pursuing you in this darkly mysterious way I +should certainly give him a piece of my American mind. You might suppose +that a girl would be safe traveling with her brother." + +"It isn't your fault, Dick," laughed the girl. "You know our parents dear +were with us when we first began to notice him--that was in Rome. And now +that we are alone he continues to follow our trail just the same. It's +really diverting; and if you were a good brother you'd find out all about +him, and we might even do stunts together--the three of us, with you as +the watchful chaperon. You forget how I have worked for you, Dick. I +took great chances in forcing an acquaintance with those frosty English +people at Florence just because you were crazy about the scrawny blonde +who wore the frightful hats. I wash my hands of you hereafter. Your taste +in girls is horrible." + +"Your mind has been affected by reading these fake-kingdom romances, +where a ridiculous prince gives up home and mother and his country to +marry the usual beautiful American girl who travels about having silly +adventures. I belong to the Know-nothing Party--America for Americans and +only white men on guard!" + +"Yes, Richard! Your sentiments are worthy, but they'd have more weight if +I hadn't seen you staring your eyes out every time we came within a mile +of a penny princess. I haven't forgotten your disgraceful conduct in +collecting photographs of that homely daughter of a certain English duke. +We'll call the incident closed, little brother." + +"Our friend Chauvenet, even," continued Captain Claiborne, "is less +persistent--less gloomily present on the horizon. We haven't seen him for +a week or two. But he expects to visit Washington this spring. His +waistcoats are magnificent. The governor shies every time the fellow +unbuttons his coat." + +"Mr. Chauvenet is an accomplished man of the world," declared Shirley +with an insincere sparkle in her eyes. + +"He lives by his wits--and lives well." + +Claiborne dismissed Chauvenet and turned again toward the strange young +man, who was still deep in his newspaper. + +"He's reading the _Neue Freie Presse_," remarked Dick, "by which token I +argue that he's some sort of a Dutchman. He's probably a traveling agent +for a Vienna glass-factory, or a drummer for a cheap wine-house, or the +agent for a Munich brewery. That would account for his travels. We simply +fall in with his commercial itinerary." + +"You seem to imply, brother, that my charms are not in themselves +sufficient. But a commercial traveler hardly commands that fine repose, +that distinction--that air of having been places and seen things and +known people--" + +"Tush! I have seen American book agents who had all that--even the air of +having been places! Your instincts ought to serve you better, Shirley. +It's well that we go on to-morrow. I shall warn mother and the governor +that you need watching." + +Shirley Claiborne's eyes rested again upon the calm reader of the _Neue +Freie Presse_. The waiter was now placing certain dishes upon the table +without, apparently, interesting the young gentleman in the least. Then +the unknown dropped his newspaper, and buttered a roll reflectively. His +gaze swept the room for the first time, passing over the heads of Miss +Claiborne and her brother unseeingly--with, perhaps, too studied an air +of indifference. + +"He has known real sorrow," persisted Shirley, her elbows on the table, +her fingers interlocked, her chin resting idly upon them. "He's traveling +in an effort to forget a blighting grief," the girl continued with mock +sympathy. + +"Then let us leave him in peace! We can't decently linger in the presence +of his sacred sorrow." + +Captain Richard Claiborne and his sister Shirley had stopped at Geneva to +spend a week with a younger brother, who was in school there, and were to +join their father and mother at Liverpool and sail for home at once. The +Claibornes were permanent residents of Washington, where Hilton +Claiborne, a former ambassador to two of the greatest European courts, +was counsel for several of the embassies and a recognized authority in +international law. He had been to Rome to report to the Italian +government the result of his efforts to collect damages from the United +States for the slaughter of Italian laborers in a railroad strike, and +had proceeded thence to England on other professional business. + +Dick Claiborne had been ill, and was abroad on leave in an effort to +shake off the lingering effects of typhoid fever contracted in the +Philippines. He was under orders to report for duty at Fort Myer on the +first of April, and it was now late March. He and his sister had spent +the morning at their brother's school and were enjoying a late _dejeuner_ +at the Monte Rosa. There existed between them a pleasant comradeship that +was in no wise affected by divergent tastes and temperaments. Dick had +just attained his captaincy, and was the youngest man of his rank in the +service. He did not know an orchid from a hollyhock, but no man in the +army was a better judge of a cavalry horse, and if a Wagner recital bored +him to death his spirit rose, nevertheless, to the bugle, and he drilled +his troop until he could play with it and snap it about him like a whip. + +Shirley Claiborne had been out of college a year, and afforded a pleasant +refutation of the dull theory that advanced education destroys a girl's +charm, or buoyancy, or whatever it is that is so greatly admired in young +womanhood. She gave forth the impression of vitality and strength. She +was beautifully fair, with a high color that accentuated her +youthfulness. Her brown hair, caught up from her brow in the fashion of +the early years of the century, flashed gold in sunlight. + +Much of Shirley's girlhood had been spent in the Virginia hills, where +Judge Claiborne had long maintained a refuge from the heat of Washington. +From childhood she had read the calendar of spring as it is written upon +the landscape itself. Her fingers found by instinct the first arbutus; +she knew where white violets shone first upon the rough breast of the +hillsides; and particular patches of rhododendron had for her the +intimate interest of private gardens. + +Undoubtedly there are deities fully consecrated to the important business +of naming girls, so happily is that task accomplished. Gladys is a child +of the spirit of mischief. Josephine wears a sweet gravity, and Mary, +too, discourses of serious matters. Nora, in some incarnation, has seen +fairies scampering over moor and hill and the remembrance of them teases +her memory. Katherine is not so faithless as her ways might lead you to +believe. Laura without dark eyes would be impossible, and her predestined +Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against +a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready +with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia's reserve and discretion +commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found +in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable +person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon +kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, +and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have +observed that there is no button on Elizabeth's foil; you do well not to +clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square +with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing +of infant candidates for the font in your parish. Shirley, in such case, +will mean nothing to you. It is a waste of time to tell you that the name +may become audible without being uttered; you can not be made to +understand that the _r_ and _l_ slip into each other as ripples glide +over pebbles in a brook. And from the name to the girl--may you be +forever denied a glimpse of Shirley Claiborne's pretty head, her brown +hair and dream-haunted eyes, if you do not first murmur the name with +honest liking. + +As the Claibornes lingered at their table a short stout man espied them +from the door and advanced beamingly. + +"Ah, my dear Shirley, and Dick! Can it be possible! I only heard by +the merest chance that you were here. But Switzerland is the real +meeting-place of the world." + +The young Americans greeted the new-comer cordially. A waiter placed a +chair for him, and took his hat. Arthur Singleton was an American, though +he had lived abroad so long as to have lost his identity with any +particular city or state of his native land. He had been an attache of +the American embassy at London for many years. Administrations changed +and ambassadors came and went, but Singleton was never molested. It was +said that he kept his position on the score of his wide acquaintance; +he knew every one, and he was a great peddler of gossip, particularly +about people in high station. + +The children of Hilton Claiborne were not to be overlooked. He would +impress himself upon them, as was his way; for he was sincerely social by +instinct, and would go far to do a kindness for people he really liked. + +"Ah me! You have arrived opportunely, Miss Claiborne. There's mystery in +the air--the great Stroebel is here--under this very roof and in a +dreadfully bad humor. He is a dangerous man--a very dangerous man, but +failing fast. Poor Austria! Count Ferdinand von Stroebel can have no +successor--he's only a sort of holdover from the nineteenth century, and +with him and his Emperor out of the way--what? For my part I see only +dark days ahead;" and he concluded with a little sigh that implied +crumbling thrones and falling dynasties. + +"We met him in Vienna," said Shirley Claiborne, "when father was there +before the Ecuador Claims Commission. He struck me as being a delightful +old grizzly bear." + +"He will have his place in history; he is a statesman of the old blood +and iron school; he is the peer of Bismarck, and some things he has done. +He holds more secrets than any other man in Europe--and you may be quite +sure that they will die with him. He will leave no memoirs to be poked +over by his enemies--no post-mortem confidences from him!" + +The reader of the _Neue Freie Presse_, preparing to leave his table, tore +from the newspaper an article that seemed to have attracted him, placed +it in his card-case, and walked toward the door. The eyes of Arthur +Singleton lighted in recognition, and the attache, muttering an apology +to the Claibornes, addressed the young gentleman cordially. + +"Why, Armitage, of all men!" and he rose, still facing the Claibornes, +with an air of embracing the young Americans in his greetings. He never +liked to lose an auditor; and he would, in no circumstances, miss a +chance to display the wide circumference of his acquaintance. + +"Shirley--Miss Claiborne--allow me to present Mr. Armitage." The young +army officer and Armitage then shook hands, and the three men stood for a +moment, detained, it seemed, by the old attache, who had no engagement +for the next hour or two and resented the idea of being left alone. + +"One always meets Armitage!" declared Singleton. "He knows our America as +well as we do--and very well indeed--for an Englishman." + +Armitage bowed gravely. + +"You make it necessary again for me to disavow any allegiance to the +powers that rule Great Britain. I'm really a fair sort of American--I +have sometimes told New York people all about--Colorado--Montana--New +Mexico!" + +His voice and manner were those of a gentleman. His color, as Shirley +Claiborne now observed, was that of an outdoors man; she was familiar +with it in soldiers and sailors, and knew that it testified to a vigorous +and wholesome life. + +"Of course you're not English!" exclaimed Singleton, annoyed as he +remembered, or thought he did, that Armitage had on some other occasion +made the same protest. + +"I'm really getting sensitive about it," said Armitage, more to the +Claibornes than to Singleton. "But must we all be from somewhere? Is it +so melancholy a plight to be a man without a country?" + +The mockery in his tone was belied by the good humor in his face; his +eyes caught Shirley's passingly, and she smiled at him--it seemed a +natural, a perfectly inevitable thing to do. She liked the kind tolerance +with which he suffered the babble of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had +called an international bore. The young man's dignity was only an +expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties +resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was +perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his +discarded newspaper--and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on a chair. + +"Have you heard the news, Armitage? The Austrian sphinx is here--in this +very house!" whispered Singleton impressively. + +"Yes; to be sure, Count von Stroebel is here, but he will probably not +remain long. The Alps will soon be safe again. I am glad to have met +you." He bowed to the Claibornes inclusively, nodded in response to +Singleton's promise to look him up later, and left them. + +When Shirley and her brother reached their common sitting-room Dick +Claiborne laughingly held up the copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ which +Armitage had cast aside at their table. + +"Now we shall know!" he declared, unfolding the newspaper. + +"Know what, Dick?" + +"At least what our friend without a country is so interested in." + +He opened the paper, from which half a column had been torn, noted the +date, rang the bell, and ordered a copy of the same issue. When it was +brought he opened it, found the place, laughed loudly, and passed the +sheet over to his sister. + +"Oh, Shirley, Shirley! This is almost too much!" he cried, watching her +as her eyes swept the article. She turned away to escape his noise, and +after a glance threw down the paper in disgust. The article dealt in +detail with Austro-Hungarian finances, and fairly bristled with figures +and sage conclusions based upon them. + +"Isn't that the worst!" exclaimed Shirley, smiling ruefully. + +"He's certainly a romantic figure ready to your hand. Probably a +bank-clerk who makes European finance his recreation." + +"He isn't an Englishman, at any rate. He repudiated the idea with scorn." + +"Well, your Mr. Armitage didn't seem so awfully excited at meeting +Singleton; but he seemed rather satisfied with your appearance, to put it +mildly. I wonder if he had arranged with Singleton to pass by in that +purely incidental way, just for the privilege of making your +acquaintance!" + +"Don't be foolish, Dick. It's unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But +if you should see Mr. Singleton again--" + +"Yes--not if I see him _first_!" ejaculated Claiborne. + +"Well, you might ask him who Mr. Armitage is. It would be amusing--and +satisfying--to know." + +Later in the day the old attache fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room +and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the +American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble +Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after some +further talk, Claiborne remarked: + +"Your friend Armitage seems a good sort." + +"Oh, yes; a capital talker, and thoroughly well posted in affairs." + +"Yes, he seemed interesting. Do you happen to know where he lives--when +he's at home?" + +"Lord bless you, boy, I don't know anything about Armitage!" spluttered +Singleton, with the emphasis so thrown as to imply that of course in any +other branch of human knowledge he would be found abundantly qualified to +answer questions. + +"But you introduced us to him--my sister and me. I assumed--" + +"My dear Claiborne, I'm always introducing people! It's my business to +introduce people. Armitage is all right. He's always around everywhere. +I've dined with him in Paris, and I've rarely seen a man order a better +dinner." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARK TIDINGS + +The news I bring is heavy in my tongue.--Shakespeare. + + +The second day thereafter Shirley Claiborne went into a jeweler's on the +Grand Quai to purchase a trinket that had caught her eye, while she +waited for Dick, who had gone off in their carriage to the post-office to +send some telegrams. It was a small shop, and the time early afternoon, +when few people were about. A man who had preceded her was looking at +watches, and seemed deeply absorbed in this occupation. She heard his +inquiries as to quality and price, and knew that it was Armitage's voice +before she recognized his tall figure. She made her purchase quickly, and +was about to leave the shop, when he turned toward her and she bowed. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Claiborne. These are very tempting bazaars, aren't +they? If the abominable tariff laws of America did not give us pause--" + +He bent above her, hat in hand, smiling. He had concluded the purchase of +a watch, which the shopkeeper was now wrapping in a box. + +"I have just purchased a little remembrance for my ranch foreman out in +Montana, and before I can place it in his hands it must be examined and +appraised and all the pleasure of the gift destroyed by the custom +officers in New York. I hope you are a good smuggler, Miss Claiborne." + +"I'd like to be. Women are supposed to have a knack at the business; but +my father is so patriotic that he makes me declare everything." + +"Patriotism will carry one far; but I object both to being taxed and to +the alternative of corrupting the gentlemen who lie in wait at the +receipt of customs." + +"Of course the answer is that Americans should buy at home," replied +Shirley. She received her change, and Armitage placed his small package +in his pocket. + +"My brother expected to meet me here; he ran off with our carriage," +Shirley explained. + +"These last errands are always trying--there are innumerable things one +would like to come back for from mid-ocean, tariff or no tariff." + +"There's the wireless," said Shirley. "In time we shall be able to commit +our afterthoughts to it. But lost views can hardly be managed that way. +After I get home I shall think of scores of things I should like to see +again--that photographs don't give." + +"Such as--?" + +"Oh--the way the Pope looks when he gives his blessing at St. Peter's; +and the feeling you have when you stand by Napoleon's tomb--the awfulness +of what he did and was--and being here in Switzerland, where I always +feel somehow the pressure of all the past of Europe about me. Now,"--and +she laughed lightly,--"I have made a most serious confession." + +"It is a new idea--that of surveying the ages from these mountains. They +must be very wise after all these years, and they have certainly seen men +and nations do many evil and wretched things. But the history of the +world is all one long romance--a tremendous story." + +"That is what makes me sorry to go home," said Shirley meditatively. "We +are so new--still in the making, and absurdly raw. When we have a war, it +is just politics, with scandals about what the soldiers have to eat, and +that sort of thing; and there's a fuss about pensions, and the heroic +side of it is lost." + +"But it is easy to overestimate the weight of history and tradition. The +glory of dead Caesar doesn't do the peasant any good. When you see +Italian laborers at work in America digging ditches or laying railroad +ties, or find Norwegian farmers driving their plows into the new hard +soil of the Dakotas, you don't think of their past as much as of their +future--the future of the whole human race." + +Armitage had been the subject of so much jesting between Dick and herself +that it seemed strange to be talking to him. His face brightened +pleasantly when he spoke; his eyes were grayer than she had mockingly +described them for her brother's benefit the day before. His manner was +gravely courteous, and she did not at all believe that he had followed +her about. + +Her ideals of men were colored by the American prejudice in favor of +those who aim high and venture much. In her childhood she had read Malory +and Froissart with a boy's delight. She possessed, too, that poetic sense +of the charm of "the spirit of place" that is the natural accompaniment +of the imaginative temperament. The cry of bugles sometimes brought tears +to her eyes; her breath came quickly when she sat--as she often did--in +the Fort Myer drill hall at Washington and watched the alert cavalrymen +dashing toward the spectators' gallery in the mimic charge. The work that +brave men do she admired above anything else in the world. As a child in +Washington she had looked wonderingly upon the statues of heroes and the +frequent military pageants of the capital; and she had wept at the solemn +pomp of military funerals. Once on a battleship she had thrilled at the +salutes of a mighty fleet in the Hudson below the tomb of Grant; and soon +thereafter had felt awe possess her as she gazed upon the white marble +effigy of Lee in the chapel at Lexington; for the contemplation of heroes +was dear to her, and she was proud to believe that her father, a veteran +of the Civil War, and her soldier brother were a tie between herself and +the old heroic times. + +Armitage was aware that a jeweler's shop was hardly the place for +extended conversation with a young woman whom he scarcely knew, but he +lingered in the joy of hearing this American girl's voice, and what she +said interested him immensely. He had seen her first in Paris a few +months before at an exhibition of battle paintings. He had come upon her +standing quite alone before _High Tide at Gettysburg_, the picture of the +year; and he had noted the quick mounting of color to her cheeks as the +splendid movement of the painting--its ardor and fire--took hold of her. +He saw her again in Florence; and it was from there that he had +deliberately followed the Claibornes. + +His own plans were now quite unsettled by his interview with Von +Stroebel. He fully expected Chauvenet in Geneva; the man had apparently +been on cordial terms with the Claibornes; and as he had seemed to be +master of his own time, it was wholly possible that he would appear +before the Claibornes left Geneva. It was now the second day after Von +Stroebel's departure, and Armitage began to feel uneasy. + +He stood with Shirley quite near the shop door, watching for Captain +Claiborne to come back with the carriage. + +"But America--isn't America the most marvelous product of romance in the +world,--its discovery,--the successive conflicts that led up to the +realization of democracy? Consider the worthless idlers of the Middle +Ages going about banging one another's armor with battle-axes. Let us +have peace, said the tired warrior." + +"He could afford to say it; he was the victor," said Shirley. + +"Ah! there is Captain Claiborne. I am indebted to you, Miss Claiborne, +for many pleasant suggestions." + +The carriage was at the door, and Dick Claiborne came up to them at once +and bowed to Armitage. + +"There is great news: Count Ferdinand von Stroebel was murdered in his +railway carriage between here and Vienna; they found him dead at +Innsbruck this morning." + +"Is it possible! Are you quite sure he was murdered?" + +It was Armitage who asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite +matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; +but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden +feeling flashed in his eyes. + +"There is no doubt of it. It was an atrocious crime; the count was an old +man and feeble when we saw him the other day. He wasn't fair game for an +assassin," said Claiborne. + +"No; he deserved a better fate," remarked Armitage. + +"He was a grand old man," said Shirley, as they left the shop and walked +toward the carriage. "Father admired him greatly; and he was very kind to +us in Vienna. It is terrible to think of his being murdered." + +"Yes; he was a wise and useful man," observed Armitage, still grave. "He +was one of the great men of his time." + +His tone was not that of one who discusses casually a bit of news of the +hour, and Captain Claiborne paused a moment at the carriage door, curious +as to what Armitage might say further. + +"And now we shall see--" began the young American. + +"We shall see Johann Wilhelm die of old age within a few years at most; +and then Charles Louis, his son, will be the Emperor-king in his place; +and if he should go hence without heirs, his cousin Francis would rule in +the house of his fathers; and Francis is corrupt and worthless, and quite +necessary to the plans of destiny for the divine order of kings." + +John Armitage stood beside the carriage quite erect, his hat and stick +and gloves in his right hand, his left thrust lightly into the side +pocket of his coat. + +"A queer devil," observed Claiborne, as they drove away. "A solemn +customer, and not cheerful enough to make a good drummer. By what +singular chance did he find you in that shop?" + +"I found _him_, dearest brother, if I must make the humiliating +disclosure." + +"I shouldn't have believed it! I hardly thought you would carry it so +far." + +"And while he may be a salesman of imitation cut-glass, he has expensive +tastes." + +"Lord help us, he hasn't been buying you a watch?" + +"No; he was lavishing himself on a watch for the foreman of his ranch in +Montana." + +"Humph! you're chaffing." + +"Not in the least. He paid--I couldn't help being a witness to the +transaction--he actually paid five hundred francs for a watch to give to +the foreman of his ranch--_his_ ranch, mind you, in Montana, U.S.A. +He spoke of it incidentally, as though he were always buying watches for +cowboys. Now where does that leave us?" + +"I'm afraid it rather does for my theory. I'll look him up when I get +home. Montana isn't a good hiding-place any more. But it was odd the way +he acted about old Stroebel's death. You don't suppose he knew him, +do you?" + +"It's possible. Poor Count von Stroebel! Many hearts are lighter, now +that he's done for." + +"Yes; and there will be something doing in Austria, now that he's out of +the way." + +Four days passed, in which they devoted themselves to their young +brother. The papers were filled with accounts of Count von Stroebel's +death and speculations as to its effect on the future of Austria and the +peace of Europe. The Claibornes saw nothing of Armitage. Dick asked for +him in the hotel, and found that he had gone, but would return in a few +days. + +It was on the morning of the fourth day that Armitage appeared suddenly +at the hotel as Dick and his sister waited for a carriage to carry them +to their train. He had just returned, and they met by the narrowest +margin. He walked with them to the door of the Monte Rosa. + +"We are running for the _King Edward_, and hope for a day in London +before we sail. Perhaps we shall see you one of these days in America," +said Claiborne, with some malice, it must be confessed, for his sister's +benefit. + +"That is possible; I am very fond of Washington," responded Armitage +carelessly. + +"Of course you will look us up," persisted Dick. "I shall be at Fort Myer +for a while--and it will always be a pleasure--" + +Claiborne turned for a last word with the porter about their baggage, and +Armitage stood talking to Shirley, who had already entered the carriage. + +"Oh, is there any news of Count von Stroebel's assassin?" she asked, +noting the newspaper that Armitage held in his hand. + +"Nothing. It's a very mysterious and puzzling affair." + +"It's horrible to think such a thing possible--he was a wonderful old +man. But very likely they will find the murderer." + +"Yes; undoubtedly." + +Then, seeing her brother beating his hands together impatiently behind +Armitage's back--a back whose ample shoulders were splendidly silhouetted +in the carriage door--Shirley smiled in her joy of the situation, and +would have prolonged it for her brother's benefit even to the point of +missing the train, if the matter had been left wholly in her hands. It +amused her to keep the conversation pitched in the most impersonal key. + +"The secret police will scour Europe in pursuit of the assassin," she +observed. + +"Yes," replied Armitage gravely. + +He thought her brown traveling gown, with hat and gloves to match, +exceedingly becoming, and he liked the full, deep tones of her voice, +and the changing light of her eyes; and a certain dimple in her left +cheek--he had assured himself that it had no counterpart on the +right--made the fate of principalities and powers seem, at the moment, an +idle thing. + +"The truth will be known before we sail, no doubt," said Shirley. "The +assassin may be here in Geneva by this time." + +"That is quite likely," said John Armitage, with unbroken gravity. "In +fact, I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day myself." + +He bowed and made way for the vexed and chafing Claiborne, who gave his +hand to Armitage hastily and jumped into the carriage. + +"Your imitation cut-glass drummer has nearly caused us to miss our train. +Thank the Lord, we've seen the last of that fellow." + +Shirley said nothing, but gazed out of the window with a wondering look +in her eyes. And on the way to Liverpool she thought often of Armitage's +last words. "I rather expect him here, or I should be leaving to-day +myself," he had said. + +She was not sure whether, if it had not been for those words, she would +have thought of him again at all. She remembered him as he stood framed +in the carriage door--his gravity, his fine ease, the impression he gave +of great physical strength, and of resources of character and courage. + +And so Shirley Claiborne left Geneva, not knowing the curious web that +fate had woven for her, nor how those last words spoken by Armitage at +the carriage door were to link her to strange adventures at the very +threshold of her American home. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JOHN ARMITAGE A PRISONER + +All things are bright in the track of the sun, + All things are fair I see; +And the light in a golden tide has run + Down out of the sky to me. + +And the world turns round and round and round, + And my thought sinks into the sea; +The sea of peace and of joy profound + Whose tide is mystery. + +--S.W. Duffield. + + +The man whom John Armitage expected arrived at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few +hours after the Claibornes' departure. + +While he waited, Mr. Armitage employed his time to advantage. He +carefully scrutinized his wardrobe, and after a process of elimination +and substitution he packed his raiment in two trunks and was ready to +leave the inn at ten minutes' notice. Between trains, when not engaged in +watching the incoming travelers, he smoked a pipe over various packets of +papers and letters, and these he burned with considerable care. All the +French and German newspaper accounts of the murder of Count von Stroebel +he read carefully; and even more particularly he studied the condition of +affairs in Vienna consequent upon the great statesman's death. Secret +agents from Vienna and detectives from Paris had visited Geneva in their +study of this astounding crime, and had made much fuss and asked many +questions; but Mr. John Armitage paid no heed to them. He had held the +last conversation of length that any one had enjoyed with Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel, but the fact of this interview was known to no one, unless +to one or two hotel servants, and these held a very high opinion of Mr. +Armitage's character, based on his generosity in the matter of gold coin; +and there could, of course, be no possible relationship between so +shocking a tragedy and a chance acquaintance between two travelers. Mr. +Armitage knew nothing that he cared to impart to detectives, and a great +deal that he had no intention of imparting to any one. He accumulated a +remarkable assortment of time-tables and advertisements of transatlantic +sailings against sudden need, and even engaged passage on three steamers +sailing from English and French ports within the week. + +He expected that the person for whom he waited would go direct to the +Hotel Monte Rosa for the reason that Shirley Claiborne had been there; +and Armitage was not mistaken. When this person learned that the +Claibornes had left, he would doubtless hurry after them. This is the +conclusion that was reached by Mr. Armitage, who, at times, was +singularly happy in his speculations as to the mental processes of other +people. Sometimes, however, he made mistakes, as will appear. + +The gentleman for whom John Armitage had been waiting arrived alone, and +was received as a distinguished guest by the landlord. + +Monsieur Chauvenet inquired for his friends the Claibornes, and was +clearly annoyed to find that they had gone; and no sooner had this +intelligence been conveyed to him than he, too, studied time-tables and +consulted steamer advertisements. Mr. John Armitage in various discreet +ways was observant of Monsieur Chauvenet's activities, and bookings at +steamship offices interested him so greatly that he reserved passage on +two additional steamers and ordered the straps buckled about his trunks, +for it had occurred to him that he might find it necessary to leave +Geneva in a hurry. + +It was not likely that Monsieur Chauvenet, being now under his eyes, +would escape him; and John Armitage, making a leisurely dinner, learned +from his waiter that Monsieur Chauvenet, being worn from his travels, was +dining alone in his rooms. + +At about eight o'clock, as Armitage turned the pages of _Figaro_ in the +smoking-room, Chauvenet appeared at the door, scrutinized the group +within, and passed on. Armitage had carried his coat, hat and stick into +the smoking-room, to be ready for possible emergencies; and when +Chauvenet stepped out into the street he followed. + +It was unusually cold for the season, and a fine drizzle filled the air. +Chauvenet struck off at once away from the lake, turned into the +Boulevard Helvetique, thence into the Boulevard Froissart with its colony +of _pensions_. He walked rapidly until he reached a house that was +distinguished from its immediate neighbors only by its unlighted upper +windows. He pulled the bell in the wall, and the door was at once opened +and instantly closed. + +Armitage, following at twenty yards on the opposite side of the street, +paused abruptly at the sudden ending of his chase. It was not an hour for +loitering, for the Genevan _gendarmerie_ have rather good eyes, but +Armitage had by no means satisfied his curiosity as to the nature of +Chauvenet's errand. He walked on to make sure he was unobserved, crossed +the street, and again passed the dark, silent house which Chauvenet had +entered. He noted the place carefully; it gave no outward appearance of +being occupied. He assumed, from the general plan of the neighboring +buildings, that there was a courtyard at the rear of the darkened house, +accessible through a narrow passageway at the side. As he studied the +situation he kept moving to avoid observation, and presently, at a moment +when he was quite alone in the street, walked rapidly to the house +Chauvenet had entered. + +Gentlemen in search of adventures do well to avoid the continental wall. +Mr. Armitage brushed the glass from the top with his hat. It jingled +softly within under cover of the rain-drip. The plaster had crumbled from +the bricks in spots, giving a foot its opportunity, and Mr. Armitage drew +himself to the top and dropped within. The front door and windows stared +at him blankly, and he committed his fortunes to the bricked passageway. +The rain was now coming down in earnest, and at the rear of the house +water had begun to drip noisily into an iron spout. The electric lights +from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened +court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to +the rear wall and viewed the premises. He knew his Geneva from many +previous visits; the quarter was undeniably respectable; and there is, to +be sure, no reason why the blinds of a house should not be carefully +drawn at nightfall at the pleasure of the occupants. The whole lower +floor seemed utterly deserted; only at one point on the third floor was +there any sign of light, and this the merest hint. + +The increasing fall of rain did not encourage loitering in the wet +courtyard, where the downspout now rattled dolorously, and Armitage +crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was +dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second +and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated +a foot above his head. John Armitage was fully aware that his position, +if discovered, was, to say the least, untenable; but he was secure from +observation by police, and he assumed that the occupants of the house +were probably too deeply engrossed with their affairs to waste much time +on what might happen without. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest +round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur +against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second +story were as dark and quiet as those below. Armitage continued to the +third story, where a door, as well as several windows, gave upon the +balcony; and he found that it was from a broken corner of the door shade +that a sharp blade of light cut the dark. All continued quiet below; he +heard the traffic of the neighboring thoroughfares quite distinctly; and +from a kitchen near by came the rough clatter of dishwashing to the +accompaniment of a quarrel in German between the maids. For the moment +he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened. + +Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of +importance, for they spoke with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the +long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty +matter was in debate. The beat of the rain on the balcony and its steady +rattle in the spout intervened to dull the sound of voices, but presently +one of the speakers, with an impatient exclamation, rose, opened the +small glass-paned door a few inches, peered out, and returned to his seat +with an exclamation of relief. Armitage had dropped down the ladder half +a dozen rounds as he heard the latch snap in the door. He waited an +instant to make sure he had not been seen, then crept back to the balcony +and found that the slight opening in the door made it possible for him to +see as well as hear. + +"It's stifling in this hole," said Chauvenet, drawing deeply upon his +cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke. "If you will pardon the +informality, I will lay aside my coat." + +He carefully hung the garment upon the back of his chair to hold its +shape, then resumed his seat. His companion watched him meanwhile with a +certain intentness. + +"You take excellent care of your clothes, my dear Jules. I never have +been able to fold a coat without ruining it." + +The rain was soaking Armitage thoroughly, but its persistent beat covered +any slight noises made by his own movements, and he was now intent upon +the little room and its occupants. He observed the care with which the +man kept close to his coat, and he pondered the matter as he hung upon +the balcony. If Chauvenet was on his way to America it was possible that +he would carry with him the important paper whose loss had caused so much +anxiety to the Austrian minister; if so, where was it during his stay in +Geneva? + +"The old man's death is only the first step. We require a succession of +deaths." + +"We require three, to be explicit, not more or less. We should be +fortunate if the remaining two could be accomplished as easily as +Stroebel's." + +"He was a beast. He is well dead." + +"That depends on the way you look at it. They seem really to be mourning +the old beggar at Vienna. It is the way of a people. They like to be +ruled by a savage hand. The people, as you have heard me say before, are +fools." + +The last speaker was a young man whom Armitage had never seen before; +he was a decided blond, with close-trimmed straw-colored beard and +slightly-curling hair. Opposite him, and facing the door, sat Chauvenet. +On the table between them were decanters and liqueur glasses. + +"I am going to America at once," said Chauvenet, holding his filled glass +toward a brass lamp of an old type that hung from the ceiling. + +"It is probably just as well," said the other. "There's work to do there. +We must not forget our more legitimate business in the midst of these +pleasant side issues." + +"The field is easy. After our delightful continental capitals, where, as +you know, one is never quite sure of one's self, it is pleasant to +breathe the democratic airs of Washington," remarked Chauvenet. + +"Particularly so, my dear friend, when one is blessed with your +delightful social gifts. I envy you your capacity for making others +happy." + +There was a keen irony in the fellow's tongue and the edge of it +evidently touched Chauvenet, who scowled and bent forward with his +fingers on the table. + +"Enough of that, if you please." + +"As you will, _carino_; but you will pardon me for offering my +condolences on the regrettable departure of _la belle Americaine_. If you +had not been so intent on matters of state you would undoubtedly have +found her here. As it is, you are now obliged to see her on her native +soil. A month in Washington may do much for you. She is beautiful and +reasonably rich. Her brother, the tall captain, is said to be the best +horseman in the American army." + +"Humph! He is an ass," ejaculated Chauvenet. + +A servant now appeared bearing a fresh bottle of cordial. He was +distinguished by a small head upon a tall and powerful body, and bore +little resemblance to a house servant. While he brushed the cigar ashes +from the table the men continued their talk without heeding him. + +Chauvenet and his friend had spoken from the first in French, but in +addressing some directions to the servant, the blond, who assumed the +role of host, employed a Servian dialect. + +"I think we were saying that the mortality list in certain directions +will have to be stimulated a trifle before we can do our young friend +Francis any good. You have business in America, _carino_. That paper we +filched from old Stroebel strengthens our hold on Francis; but there is +still that question as to Karl and Frederick Augustus. Our dear Francis +is not satisfied. He wishes to be quite sure that his dear father and +brother are dead. We must reassure him, dearest Jules." + +"Don't be a fool, Durand. You never seem to understand that the United +States of America is a trifle larger than a barnyard. And I don't believe +those fellows are over there. They're probably lying in wait here +somewhere, ready to take advantage of any opportunity,---that is, if they +are alive. A man can hardly fail to be impressed with the fact that so +few lives stand between him and--" + +"The heights--the heights!" And the young man, whom Chauvenet called +Durand, lifted his tiny glass airily. + +"Yes; the heights," repeated Chauvenet a little dreamily. + +"But that declaration--that document! You have never honored me with a +glimpse; but you have it put safely away, I dare say." + +"There is no place--but one--that I dare risk. It is always within easy +reach, my dear friend." + +"You will do well to destroy that document. It is better out of the way." + +"Your deficiencies in the matter of wisdom are unfortunate. That paper +constitutes our chief asset, my dear associate. So long as we have it we +are able to keep dear Francis in order. Therefore we shall hold fast to +it, remembering that we risked much in removing it from the lamented +Stroebel's archives." + +"Do you say 'risked much'? My valued neck, that is all!" said the other. +"You and Winkelried are without gratitude." + +"You will do well," said Chauvenet, "to keep an eye open in Vienna for +the unknown. If you hear murmurs in Hungary one of these fine days--! +Nothing has happened for some time; therefore much may happen." + +He glanced at his watch. + +"I have work in Paris before sailing for New York. Shall we discuss the +matter of those Peruvian claims? That is business. These other affairs +are more in the nature of delightful diversions, my dear comrade." + +They drew nearer the table and Durand produced a box of papers over which +he bent with serious attention. Armitage had heard practically all of +their dialogue, and, what was of equal interest, had been able to study +the faces and learn the tones of voice of the two conspirators. He was +cramped from his position on the narrow balcony and wet and chilled by +the rain, which was now slowly abating. He had learned much that he +wished to know, and with an ease that astonished him; and he was well +content to withdraw with gratitude for his good fortune. + +His legs were numb and he clung close to the railing of the little ladder +for support as he crept toward the area. At the second story his foot +slipped on the wet iron, smooth from long use, and he stumbled down +several steps before he recovered himself. He listened a moment, heard +nothing but the tinkle of the rain in the spout, then continued his +retreat. + +As he stepped out upon the brick courtyard he was seized from behind by a +pair of strong arms that clasped him tight. In a moment he was thrown +across the threshold of a door into an unlighted room, where his captor +promptly sat upon him and proceeded to strike a light. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A LOST CIGARETTE CASE + +To other woods the trail leads on, + To other worlds and new, +Where they who keep the secret here + Will keep the promise too. + +--Henry A. Beers. + + +The man clenched Armitage about the body with his legs while he struck a +match on a box he produced from his pocket. The suddenness with which he +had been flung into the kitchen had knocked the breath out of Armitage, +and the huge thighs of his captor pinned his arms tight. The match +spurted fire and he looked into the face of the servant whom he had seen +in the room above. His round head was covered with short, wire-like hair +that grew low upon his narrow forehead. Armitage noted, too, the man's +bull-like neck, small sharp eyes and bristling mustache. The fitful flash +of the match disclosed the rough furniture of a kitchen; the brick +flooring and his wet inverness lay cold at Armitage's back. + +The fellow growled an execration in Servian; then with ponderous +difficulty asked a question in German. + +"Who are you and what do you want here?" + +Armitage shook his head; and replied in English: + +"I do not understand." + +The man struck a series of matches that he might scrutinize his captive's +face, then ran his hands over Armitage's pockets to make sure he had no +arms. The big fellow was clearly puzzled to find that he had caught a +gentleman in water-soaked evening clothes lurking in the area, and as the +matter was beyond his wits it only remained for him to communicate with +his master. This, however, was not so readily accomplished. He had +reasons of his own for not calling out, and there were difficulties in +the way of holding the prisoner and at the same time bringing down the +men who had gone to the most distant room in the house for their own +security. + +Several minutes passed during which the burly Servian struck his matches +and took account of his prisoner; and meanwhile Armitage lay perfectly +still, his arms fast numbing from the rough clasp of the stalwart +servant's legs. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle in this +position, and he knew that the Servian would not risk losing him in the +effort to summon the odd pair who were bent over their papers at the top +of the house. The Servian was evidently a man of action. + +"Get up," he commanded, still in rough German, and he rose in the dark +and jerked Armitage after him. There was a moment of silence in which +Armitage shook and stretched himself, and then the Servian struck another +match and held it close to a revolver which he held pointed at Armitage's +head. + +"I will shoot," he said again in his halting German. + +"Undoubtedly you will!" and something in the fellow's manner caused +Armitage to laugh. He had been caught and he did not at once see any safe +issue out of his predicament; but his plight had its preposterous side +and the ease with which he had been taken at the very outset of his quest +touched his humor. Then he sobered instantly and concentrated his wits +upon the immediate situation. + +The Servian backed away with a match upheld in one hand and the leveled +revolver in the other, leaving Armitage in the middle of the kitchen. + +"I am going to light a lamp and if you move I will kill you," admonished +the fellow, and Armitage heard his feet scraping over the brick floor of +the kitchen as he backed toward a table that stood against the wall near +the outer door. + +Armitage stood perfectly still. The neighborhood and the house itself +were quiet; the two men in the third-story room were probably engrossed +with the business at which Armitage had left them; and his immediate +affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his +threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who +understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several +times to signify that he did not understand. + +The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left +hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp +that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an +easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with, +particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner +of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before +the job was done. + +"You will go to that corner;" and the Servian translated for his +prisoner's benefit with a gesture of the revolver. + +"Anything to please you, worthy fellow," replied Armitage, and he obeyed +with amiable alacrity. The man's object was to get him as far from the +inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of +course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized. + +Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his +left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was +at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the +interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway +leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door +with care. + +Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the +middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about +him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his +tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian's caution, and +he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at +Armitage's head. + +He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in +a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver +at arm's length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he +was red in the face. He paused to listen, then renewed his cries, while +Armitage, with his back against the rack of pots, studied the room and +made his plans. + +"There is a thief here! I have caught a thief!" yelled the Servian, now +exasperated by the silence above. Then, as he relaxed a moment and turned +to make sure that his revolver still covered Armitage, there was a sudden +sound of steps above and a voice bawled angrily down the stairway: + +"Zmai, stop your noise and tell me what's the trouble." + +It was the voice of Durand speaking in the Servian dialect; and Zmai +opened his mouth to explain. + +As the big fellow roared his reply Armitage snatched from the rack a +heavy iron boiling-pot, swung it high by the bail with both hands and let +it fly with all his might at the Servian's head, upturned in the +earnestness of his bawling. On the instant the revolver roared loudly in +the narrow kitchen and Armitage seized the brass lamp and flung it from +him upon the hearth, where it fell with a great clatter without +exploding. + +It was instantly pitch dark. The Servian had gone down like a felled ox +and Armitage at the threshold leaped over him into the hall past the rear +stairs down which the men were stumbling, cursing volubly as they came. + +Armitage had assumed the existence of a front stairway, and now that he +was launched upon an unexpected adventure, he was in a humor to prolong +it for a moment, even at further risk. He crept along a dark passage to +the front door, found and turned the key to provide himself with a ready +exit, then, as he heard the men from above stumble over the prostrate +Servian, he bounded up the front stairway, gained the second floor, then +the third, and readily found by its light the room that he had observed +earlier from the outside. + +Below there was smothered confusion and the crackling of matches as +Durand and Chauvenet sought to grasp the unexpected situation that +confronted them. The big servant, Armitage knew, would hardly be able +to clear matters for them at once, and he hurriedly turned over the +packets of papers that lay on the table. They were claims of one kind and +another against several South and Central American republics, chiefly for +naval and military supplies, and he merely noted their general character. +They were, on the face of it, certified accounts in the usual manner of +business. On the back of each had been printed with a rubber stamp the +words: + +"Vienna, Paris, Washington. +Chauvenet et Durand." + +Armitage snatched up the coat which Chauvenet had so carefully placed on +the back of his chair, ran his hands through the pockets, found them +empty, then gathered the garment tightly in his hands, laughed a little +to himself to feel papers sewn into the lining, and laughed again as he +tore the lining loose and drew forth a flat linen envelope brilliant with +three seals of red wax. + +Steps sounded below; a man was running up the back stairs; and from the +kitchen rose sounds of mighty groanings and cursings in the heavy +gutturals of the Servian, as he regained his wits and sought to explain +his plight. + +Armitage picked up a chair, ran noiselessly to the head of the back +stairs, and looked down upon Chauvenet, who was hurrying up with a +flaming candle held high above his head, its light showing anxiety and +fear upon his face. He was half-way up the last flight, and Armitage +stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and +something, too, of humor. Then he spoke--in French--in a tone that +imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand's tone: + +"A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark, +dearest Jules!" + +With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck +Jules Chauvenet's legs with a force that carried him howling lustily +backward to the second landing. + +Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor +from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In +fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own, +placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went +quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and +stepped into the boulevard. + +The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep +breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the +Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still +grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which +Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage +muttered to himself: + +"A few murders, more or less!" + +At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his +dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by +the night express. + +As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and +discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great +concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags +at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was +not to be found. + +His annoyance at the loss was balanced--could he have known it--by the +interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two +gentlemen--one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump +over his forehead--bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on +the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when +found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish +tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white +enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and, +beneath, the motto _Fide non armis_. The back bore in English script, +written large, the letters _F.A._ + +The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped +to their feet. + +"It isn't possible!" gasped Durand. + +"It is quite possible," replied Chauvenet. "The emblem is unmistakable. +Good God, look!" + +The sweat had broken out on Chauvenet's face and he leaped to the chair +where his coat hung, and caught up the garment with shaking hands. The +silk lining fluttered loose where Armitage had roughly torn out the +envelope. + +"Who is he? Who is he?" whispered Durand, very white of face. + +"It may be--it must be some one deeply concerned." + +Chauvenet paused, drawing his hand across his forehead slowly; then the +color leaped back into his face, and he caught Durand's arm so tight that +the man flinched. + +"There has been a man following me about; I thought he was interested in +the Claibornes. He's here--I saw him at the Monte Rosa to-night. God!" + +He dropped his hand from Durand's arm and struck the table fiercely with +his clenched hand. + +"John Armitage--John Armitage! I heard his name in Florence." + +His eyes were snapping with excitement, and amazement grew in his face. + +"Who is John Armitage?" demanded Durand sharply; but Chauvenet stared at +him in stupefaction for a tense moment, then muttered to himself: + +"Is it possible? Is it possible?" and his voice was hoarse and his hand +trembled as he picked up the cigarette case. + +"My dear Jules, you act as though you had seen a ghost. Who the devil is +Armitage?" + +Chauvenet glanced about the room cautiously, then bent forward and +whispered very low, close to Durand's ear: + +"Suppose he were the son of the crazy Karl! Suppose he were Frederick +Augustus!" + +"Bah! It is impossible! What is your man Armitage like?" asked Durand +irritably. + +"He is the right age. He is a big fellow and has quite an air. He seems +to be without occupation." + +"Clearly so," remarked Durand ironically. "But he has evidently been +watching us. Quite possibly the lamented Stroebel employed him. He may +have seen Stroebel here--" + +Chauvenet again struck the table smartly. + +"Of course he would see Stroebel! Stroebel was the Archduke's friend; +Stroebel and this fellow between them--" + +"Stroebel is dead. The Archduke is dead; there can be no manner of doubt +of that," said Durand; but doubt was in his tone and in his eyes. + +"Nothing is certain; it would be like Karl to turn up again with a son to +back his claims. They may both be living. This Armitage is not the +ordinary pig of a secret agent. We must find him." + +"And quickly. There must be--" + +"--another death added to our little list before we are quite masters of +the situation in Vienna." + +They gave Zmai orders to remain on guard at the house and went hurriedly +out together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TOWARD THE WESTERN STARS + +Her blue eyes sought the west afar, +For lovers love the western star. + +--_Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + + +Geneva is a good point from which to plan flight to any part of the +world, for there at the top of Europe the whole continental railway +system is easily within your grasp, and you may make your choice of +sailing ports. It is, to be sure, rather out of your way to seek a ship +at Liverpool unless you expect to gain some particular advantage in doing +so. Mr. John Armitage hurried thither in the most breathless haste to +catch the _King Edward_, whereas he might have taken the _Touraine_ +at Cherbourg and saved himself a mad scamper; but his satisfaction in +finding himself aboard the _King Edward_ was supreme. He was and is, it +may be said, a man who salutes the passing days right amiably, no matter +how somber their colors. + +Shirley Claiborne and Captain Richard Claiborne, her brother, were on +deck watching the shipping in the Mersey as the big steamer swung into +the channel. + +"I hope," observed Dick, "that we have shaken off all your transatlantic +suitors. That little Chauvenet died easier than I had expected. He never +turned up after we left Florence, but I'm not wholly sure that we shan't +find him at the dock in New York. And that mysterious Armitage, who spent +so much railway fare following us about, and who almost bought you a +watch in Geneva, really disappoints me. His persistence had actually +compelled my admiration. For a glass-blower he was fairly decent, though, +and better than a lot of these little toy men with imitation titles." + +"Is that an American cruiser? I really believe it is the _Tecumseh_. What +on earth were you talking about, Dick?" + +Shirley fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of the American flag +displayed by the cruiser, and Dick lifted his cap. + +"I was bidding farewell to your foreign suitors, Shirley, and +congratulating myself that as soon as _pere et mere_ get their sea legs +they will resume charge of you, and let me look up two or three very +presentable specimens of your sex I saw come on board. Your affairs +have annoyed me greatly and I shall be glad to be free of the +responsibility." + +"Thank you, Captain." + +"And if there are any titled blackguards on board--" + +"You will do dreadfully wicked things to them, won't you, little +brother?" + +"Humph! Thank God, I'm an American!" + +"That's a worthy sentiment, Richard." + +"I'd like to give out, as our newspapers say, a signed statement throwing +a challenge to all Europe. I wish we'd get into a real war once so we +could knock the conceit out of one of their so-called first-class powers. +I'd like to lead a regiment right through the most sacred precincts of +London; or take an early morning gallop through Berlin to wake up the +Dutch. All this talk about hands across the sea and such rot makes me +sick. The English are the most benighted and the most conceited and +condescending race on earth; the Germans and Austrians are stale +beer-vats, and the Italians and French are mere decadents and don't +count." + +"Yes, dearest," mocked Shirley. "Oh, my large brother, I have a +confession to make. Please don't indulge in great oaths or stamp a hole +in this sturdy deck, but there are flowers in my state-room--" + +"Probably from the Liverpool consul--he's been pestering father to help +him get a transfer to a less gloomy hole." + +"Then I shall intercede myself with the President when I get home. +They're orchids--from London--but--with Mr. Armitage's card. Wouldn't +that excite you?" + +"It makes me sick!" and Dick hung heavily on the rail and glared at a +passing tug. + +"They are beautiful orchids. I don't remember when orchids have happened +to me before, Richard--in such quantities. Now, you really didn't +disapprove of him so much, did you? This is probably good-by forever, but +he wasn't so bad; and he may be an American, after all." + +"A common adventurer! Such fellows are always turning up, like bad +pennies, or a one-eyed dog. If I should see him again--" + +"Yes, Richard, if you should meet again--" + +"I'd ask him to be good enough to stop following us about, and if he +persisted I should muss him up." + +"Yes; I'm sure you would protect me from his importunities at any +hazard," mocked Shirley, turning and leaning against the rail so that she +looked along the deck beyond her brother's stalwart shoulders. + +"Don't be silly," observed Dick, whose eyes were upon a trim yacht that +was steaming slowly beneath them. + +"I shan't, but please don't be violent! Do not murder the poor man, +Dickie, dear,"--and she took hold of his arm entreatingly--"for there he +is--as tall and mysterious as ever--and me found guilty with a few of his +orchids pinned to my jacket!" + +"This is good fortune, indeed," said Armitage a moment later when they +had shaken hands. "I finished my errand at Geneva unexpectedly and here I +am." + +He smiled at the feebleness of his explanation, and joined in their +passing comment on the life of the harbor. He was not so dull but that he +felt Dick Claiborne's resentment of his presence on board. He knew +perfectly well that his acquaintance with the Claibornes was too slight +to be severely strained, particularly where a fellow of Dick Claiborne's +high spirit was concerned. He talked with them a few minutes longer, then +took himself off; and they saw little of him the rest of the day. + +Armitage did not share their distinction of a seat at the captain's +table, and Dick found him late at night in the smoking-saloon with pipe +and book. Armitage nodded and asked him to sit down. + +"You are a sailor as well as a soldier, Captain. You are fortunate; I +always sit up the first night to make sure the enemy doesn't lay hold of +me in my sleep." + +He tossed his book aside, had brandy and soda brought and offered +Claiborne a cigar. + +"This is not the most fortunate season for crossing; I am sure to fall +to-morrow. My father and mother hate the sea particularly and have +retired for three days. My sister is the only one of us who is perfectly +immune." + +"Yes; I can well image Miss Claiborne in the good graces of the +elements," replied Armitage; and they were silent for several minutes +while a big Russian, who was talking politics in a distant corner with a +very small and solemn German, boomed out his views on the Eastern +question in a tremendous bass. + +Dick Claiborne was a good deal amused at finding himself sitting beside +Armitage,--enjoying, indeed, his fellow traveler's hospitality; but +Armitage, he was forced to admit, bore all the marks of a gentleman. He +had, to be sure, followed Shirley about, but even the young man's manner +in this was hardly a matter at which he could cavil. And there was +something altogether likable in Armitage; his very composure was +attractive to Claiborne; and the bold lines of his figure were not wasted +on the young officer. In the silence, while they smoked, he noted the +perfect taste that marked Armitage's belongings, which to him meant more, +perhaps, than the steadiness of the man's eyes or the fine lines of his +face. Unconsciously Claiborne found himself watching Armitage's strong +ringless hands, and he knew that such a hand, well kept though it +appeared, had known hard work, and that the long supple fingers were such +as might guide a tiller fearlessly or set a flag daringly upon a +fire-swept parapet. + +Armitage was thinking rapidly of something he had suddenly resolved to +say to Captain Claiborne. He knew that the Claibornes were a family of +distinction; the father was an American diplomat and lawyer of wide +reputation; the family stood for the best of which America is capable, +and they were homeward bound to the American capital where their social +position and the father's fame made them conspicuous. + +Armitage put down his cigar and bent toward Claiborne, speaking with +quiet directness. + +"Captain Claiborne, I was introduced to you at Geneva by Mr. Singleton. +You may have observed me several times previously at Venice, Borne, +Florence, Paris, Berlin. I certainly saw you! I shall not deny that I +intentionally followed you, nor"--John Armitage smiled, then grew grave +again--"can I make any adequate apology for doing so." + +Claiborne looked at Armitage wonderingly. The man's attitude and tone +were wholly serious and compelled respect. Claiborne nodded and threw +away his cigar that he might give his whole attention to what Armitage +might have to say. + +"A man does not like to have his sister forming the acquaintances of +persons who are not properly vouched for. Except for Singleton you know +nothing of me; and Singleton knows very little of me, indeed." + +Claiborne nodded. He felt the color creeping into his cheeks consciously +as Armitage touched upon this matter. + +"I speak to you as I do because it is your right to know who and what I +am, for I am not on the _King Edward_ by accident but by intention, and I +am going to Washington because your sister lives there." + +Claiborne smiled in spite of himself. + +"But, my dear sir, this is most extraordinary! I don't know that I care +to hear any more; by listening I seem to be encouraging you to follow +us--it's altogether too unusual. It's almost preposterous!" + +And Dick Claiborne frowned severely; but Armitage still met his eyes +gravely. + +"It's only decent for a man to give his references when it's natural for +them to be required. I was educated at Trinity College, Toronto. I spent +a year at the Harvard Law School. And I am not a beggar utterly. I own a +ranch in Montana that actually pays and a thousand acres of the best +wheat land in Nebraska. At the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York I +have securities to a considerable amount,--I am perfectly willing that +any one who is at all interested should inquire of the Trust Company +officers as to my standing with them. If I were asked to state my +occupation I should have to say that I am a cattle herder--what you call +a cowboy. I can make my living in the practice of the business almost +anywhere from New Mexico north to the Canadian line. I flatter myself +that I am pretty good at it," and John Armitage smiled and took a +cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it. + +Dick Claiborne was greatly interested in what Armitage had said, and he +struggled between an inclination to encourage further confidence and a +feeling that he should, for Shirley's sake, make it clear to this +young-stranger that it was of no consequence to any member of the +Claiborne family who he was or what might be the extent of his lands or +the unimpeachable character of his investments. But it was not so easy to +turn aside a fellow who was so big of frame and apparently so sane and so +steady of purpose as this Armitage. And there was, too, the further +consideration that while Armitage was volunteering gratuitous +information, and assuming an interest in his affairs by the Claibornes +that was wholly unjustified, there was also the other side of the matter: +that his explanations proceeded from motives of delicacy that were +praiseworthy. Dick was puzzled, and piqued besides, to find that his +resources as a big protecting brother were so soon exhausted. What +Armitage was asking was the right to seek his sister Shirley's hand in +marriage, and the thing was absurd. Moreover, who was John Armitage? + +The question startled Claiborne into a realization of the fact that +Armitage had volunteered considerable information without at all +answering this question. Dick Claiborne was a human being, and curious. + +"Pardon me," he asked, "but are you an Englishman?" + +"I am not," answered Armitage. "I have been so long in America that I +feel as much at home there as anywhere--but I am neither English nor +American by birth; I am, on the other hand--" + +He hesitated for the barest second, and Claiborne was sensible of an +intensification of interest; now at last there was to be a revelation +that amounted to something. + +"On the other hand," Armitage repeated, "I was born at Fontainebleau, +where my parents lived for only a few months; but I do not consider that +that fact makes me a Frenchman. My mother is dead. My father died--very +recently. I have been in America enough to know that a foreigner is often +under suspicion--particularly if he have a title! My distinction is that +I am a foreigner without one!" John Armitage laughed. + +"It is, indeed, a real merit," declared Dick, who felt that something was +expected of him. In spite of himself, he found much to like in John +Armitage. He particularly despised sham and pretense, and he had been +won by the evident sincerity of Armitage's wish to appear well in his +eyes. + +"And now," said Armitage, "I assure you that I am not in the habit of +talking so much about myself--and if you will overlook this offense I +promise not to bore you again." + +"I have been interested," remarked Dick; "and," he added, "I can not do +less than thank you, Mr. Armitage." + +Armitage began talking of the American army--its strength and +weaknesses--with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and +interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was +with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that Claiborne +reviewed their talk. + +The next day brought heavy weather, and only hardened sea-goers were +abroad. Armitage, breakfasting late, was not satisfied that he had acted +wisely in speaking to Captain Claiborne; but he had, at any rate, eased +in some degree his own conscience, and he had every intention of seeing +all that he could of Shirley Claiborne during these days of their +fellow-voyaging. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON THE DARK DECK + +Ease, of all good gifts the best, + War and wave at last decree: +Love alone denies us rest, + Crueler than sword or sea. + +William Watson. + + +"I am Columbus every time I cross," said Shirley. "What lies out there in +the west is an undiscovered country." + +"Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew. +There is no America, and we're sure to get into trouble if we don't turn +back." + +"You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned +over to the Indians as soon as we reach land." + +"Don't starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the +plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!" + +"Choose a cheerfuller word!" pleaded Shirley. + +"I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination +play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me +down 'full faddom five.'" + +"I'm sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character. +Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery. +Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die +before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate's business is all +done over the counter on a strictly cash basis." + +They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was +peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious +California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage +held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both +sides. + +"Armitage isn't a bad sort," Dick admitted to Shirley. "He's either an +awful liar, or he's seen a lot of the world." + +"Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware," observed Shirley. +"I'm surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere 'peddler,'--and you +an officer in the finest cavalry in the world." + +"Well, if he's a peddler he's a high-class one--probably the junior +member of the firm that owns the works." + +Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant +intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an +interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the +best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they +were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to +awaken the old lawyer's interest. + +"The glass-blower's a deep one, all right," remarked Dick to Shirley. "He +jollies me occasionally, just to show there's no hard feeling; then he +jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm +this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you'd hold on to him +tight till we're docked. My little friend from California is crazy about +him--and I haven't dared tell her he's only a drummer; such a fling would +be unchivalrous of me--" + +"It would, Richard. Be a generous foe--whether--whether you can afford to +be or not!" + +"My sister--my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest. +I'm going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once." + +Shirley and Armitage talked--as people will on ship-board--of everything +under the sun. Shirley's enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but +she was informed in the world's larger affairs, as became the daughter of +a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to +discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was +that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something +of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days +that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from +the fact that he had no tangible background. + +Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after +dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through +thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were +out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the +night. + +"Time oughtn't to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel +themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old +man with the hour-glass." + +"I like the idea. Such people could become fishers--permanently, +and grow very wise from so much brain food." + +"They wouldn't eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a +breakfast-food advertisement. My idea--mine, please note--is for such +fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails +and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once-- + +"'Time seemed to pause a little pace, + I heard a dream go by.'" + +"But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn't have +much show. And dreams passing over--the idea is pretty, and is creditable +to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for +example, you like battle pictures--" he said, and paused inquiringly. + +She looked at him quickly. + +"How do you know I do?" + +"You like Detaille particularly." + +"Am I to defend my taste?--what's the answer, if you don't mind?" + +"Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly +personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle +pictures shown in Paris last winter." + +She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds +did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen +Armitage in Paris--in cafes, at the opera, but not at the great +exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen +her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of +absorption she had spent before those canvases. + +"It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing +it." + +"No; there certainly was not!" He laughed, then was serious at once. +Shirley's tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted +lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris, +came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen +glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship +flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and +open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that +moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed +her about--and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which +she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war. + +"I was in Paris during the exhibition," he said quietly. "Ormsby, the +American painter--the man who did the _High Tide at Gettysburg_--is an +acquaintance of mine." + +"Oh!" + +It was Ormsby's painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She +had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken +advantage of her deep interest in Pickett's charging gray line was +annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject. + +Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage's remark at the +carriage door in Geneva--that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian +prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime +in any way in his talks with her on the _King Edward_; their +conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or +if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of +levity. + +"We're all imperialists at heart," said Shirley, referring to a talk +between them earlier in the day. "We Americans are hungry for empire; +we're simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and +up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new +dispensation." + +"And before he'd gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for +disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without +a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old +stand." + +"No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the +keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick's +Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry's for luncheon, and sign a +few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you +follow me, Mr. Armitage?" + +"Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the +looting of the temples and the plundering of banks--if the thing is bound +to be--I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea, +Miss Claiborne," he exclaimed, as though with inspiration. + +"Yes--you have an idea--" + +"Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be--" + +"Yes--the suspense is terrible!--what might I be, your Majesty?" + +"Well, we should call you--" + +He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet +the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense. + +"I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn't flattering," +she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she +walked the deck beside him. + +"Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title--you would, of course, +occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress--that's the +rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an +empress. So there you are answered." + +They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the +whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They +watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The +exchange of rocket signals--that pretty and graceful parley between ships +that pass in the night--interested them for a moment. Then the deck +lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended +and shut them in with the sea. + +"Accident to the dynamo--we shall have the lights on in a moment!" +shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger. + +"Shall we go in?" asked Armitage. + +"Yes, it is getting cold," replied Shirley. + +For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard +voices near at hand. + +They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left +Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near. +A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive +movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her +hand on Armitage's arm tightened. + +"What is that?--there is some one following us," she said. + +At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a +stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about. + +"Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne." + +He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall +figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head +and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the +ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley +at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and +clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He +had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another +attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak +still lay in Shirley's grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the +figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the +shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage +regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster. + +"Are you hurt? What has happened?" she demanded. + +"It must have been a sea-serpent," he replied, laughing. + +The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of +light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter +off. + +"I guess it was a sea-serpent," he said. "It bit a hole in my ulster, for +which I am not grateful." Then in a lower tone to Shirley: "That was +certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am +under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually +pulled the fellow away!" + +"Oh, no," she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; "it was the +instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment, +and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing, +and I caught hold of his cloak; I'm sure it was a cloak, and that makes +me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn't feel in the least +like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you--it is no jesting +matter--" + +"Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to +the officers." + +"Yes, it should be reported," said Shirley. + +"It was very strange. Why, the deck of the _King Edward_ is the safest +place in the world; but it's something to have had hold of a sea-serpent, +or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an +encounter; but if you hadn't caught his cloak--" + +Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident +was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great +transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the +fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights +had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and +daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley +to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but +impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have +been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable +plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the +brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash +and sought to minimize her impression of the incident. + +Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own +counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a +thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by +very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or +brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage, +about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not +reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is +menaced by secret enemies. + +The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift +reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and +scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a +steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin +passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the +second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand +had boarded the _King Edward_. He himself had made the boat only by a +quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to +consider. + +It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some +one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house +on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no +doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case +he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance +of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet's coat was not a +trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser +said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth. +The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke +bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in +gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His +name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail. + +"Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes--" + +"That will do," said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he +identified the man. + +"You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter +pass without acting--" said the purser. + +"It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the +responsibility." + +And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook: + +"_Zmai_--; _travels as Peter Ludovic_." + +Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet's coat +pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the +_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. +The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that +had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack +on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers--some +half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk's clear hand in +black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which +Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come +again into Armitage's hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and +cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance +of his last interview with the old prime minister. + +"Do something for Austria--something for the Empire." These phrases +repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and +fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal +Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count +Ferdinand von Stroebel. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING" + +Low he lies, yet high and great +Looms he, lying thus in state.-- +How exalted o'er ye when +Dead, my lords and gentlemen! + +--James Whitcomb Riley. + + +John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the +Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on +the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana, +and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept +Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he +thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he +stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over +the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and +he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an +air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely +in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted +his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his +coming to Washington had been inevitable. + +Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His +life, he felt, could never be again as it had been before, and he sighed +deeply as he recalled his talk with the old prime minister at Geneva. +Then he laughed quietly as he remembered Chauvenet and Durand and the +dark house on the Boulevard Froissart; but the further recollection of +the attack made on his life on the deck of the _King Edward_ sobered him, +and he turned away from the window impatiently. He had seen the sick +second-cabin passenger leave the steamer at New York, but had taken no +trouble either to watch or to avoid him. Very likely the man was under +instructions, and had been told to follow the Claibornes home; and the +thought of their identification with himself by his enemies angered him. +Chauvenet was likely to appear in Washington at any time, and would +undoubtedly seek the Claibornes at once. The fact that the man was a +scoundrel might, in some circumstances, have afforded Armitage comfort, +but here again Armitage's mood grew dark. Jules Chauvenet was undoubtedly +a rascal of a shrewd and dangerous type; but who, pray, was John +Armitage? + +The bell in his entry rang, and he flashed on the lights and opened the +door. + +"Well, I like this! Setting yourself up here in gloomy splendor and never +saying a word. You never deserved to have any friends, John Armitage!" + +"Jim Sanderson, come in!" Armitage grasped the hands of a red-bearded +giant of forty, the possessor of alert brown eyes and a big voice. + +"It's my rural habit of reading the register every night in search of +constituents that brings me here. They said they guessed you were in, so +I just came up to see whether you were opening a poker game or had come +to sneak a claim past the watch-dog of the treasury." + +The caller threw himself into a chair and rolled a fat, unlighted cigar +about in his mouth. "You're a peach, all right, and as offensively hale +and handsome as ever. When are you going to the ranch?" + +"Well, not just immediately; I want to sample the flesh-pots for a day or +two." + +"You're getting soft,--that's what's the matter with you! You're afraid +of the spring zephyrs on the Montana range. Well, I'll admit that it's +rather more diverting here." + +"There is no debating that, Senator. How do you like being a statesman? +It was so sudden and all that. I read an awful roast of you in an English +paper. They took your election to the Senate as another evidence of +the complete domination of our politics by the plutocrats." + +Sanderson winked prodigiously. + +"The papers _have_ rather skinned me; but on the whole, I'll do very +well. They say it isn't respectable to be a senator these days, but they +oughtn't to hold it up against a man that he's rich. If the Lord put +silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it's nothing +against me, is it?" + +"Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it's the +Lord's hand again." + +"Why sure!" and the Senator from Montana winked once more. "But it's +expensive. I've got to be elected again next winter--I'm only filling out +Billings' term--and I'm not sure I can go up against it." + +"But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands +it you'll not falter, if I know you." + +"There's hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I +saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was +sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I'm jeopardizing my reputation +for veracity, but it's the Lord's truth. Of course you spent Christmas at +the old home in England--one of those yule-log and plum-pudding +Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen--" + +"My dear Sanderson, don't call me English! I've told you a dozen times +that I'm not English." + +"So you did; so you did! I'd forgotten that you're so damned sensitive +about it;" and Sanderson's eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, +as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the +young man's nativity. + +"I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana +cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once--three dashes orange +bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a +jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half +Montana with that mess." + +Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection. + +"The sprinkling cart for me! I've got a nerve specialist engaged by the +year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us +to-night to the Secretary of State's push. Not many of the Montana boys +get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, +John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there +it increased my circulation seven beats! You're all right, and I guess +you're about as good an American as they make--anywhere--John Armitage!" + +The function for which the senator from Montana provided an invitation +for Armitage was a large affair in honor of several new ambassadors. At +ten o'clock Senator Sanderson was introducing Armitage right and left +as one of his representative constituents. Armitage and he owned +adjoining ranches in Montana, and Sanderson called upon his neighbor to +stand up boldly for their state before the minions of effete monarchies. + +Mrs. Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana +talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and +as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, +he chatted with Franzel, an attache of the Austrian embassy, to whom +Sanderson had introduced him. Franzel was a gloomy young man with a +monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the +daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had +chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and +Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian's +point of view. Armitage had half expected that the Claibornes would be +present at a function as comprehensive of the higher official world as +this, and he intended asking Mrs. Sanderson if she knew them as soon as +opportunity offered. The Austrian attache proved tiresome, and Armitage +was about to drop him, when suddenly he caught sight of Shirley Claiborne +at the far end of the broad hall. Her head was turned partly toward him; +he saw her for an instant through the throng; then his eyes fell upon +Chauvenet at her side, talking with liveliest animation. He was not more +than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of +a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage's eyes; then as +Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned, +holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man's gaze. + +It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some +declaration of the melancholy attache at this moment. He had known when +he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man's +prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the +steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German +or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself. +Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but +socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne. + +The somber attache was speaking of the Japanese. + +"They must be crushed--crushed," said Franzel. The two had been +conversing in French. + +"Yes, _he_ must be crushed," returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in +English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in +French, changing the pronoun. + +Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much +younger than her stalwart husband,--a college graduate whom he had found +teaching school near one of his silver mines. + +"Welcome once more, constituent! We're proud to see you, I can tell you. +Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they're hung out to-night for +the world to see." She guided Armitage toward the Secretary's gallery on +an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for +his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in +which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries +and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of a thoroughly +cultivated taste. + +"It isn't merely an art gallery; it's the most beautiful room in +America," murmured Mrs. Sanderson. + +"I can well believe it. There's my favorite Vibert,--I wondered what had +become of it." + +"It isn't surprising that the Secretary is making a great reputation +by his dealings with foreign powers. It's a poor ambassador who could +not be persuaded after an hour in this splendid room. The ordinary +affairs of life should not be mentioned here. A king's coronation would +not be out of place,--in fact, there's a chair in the corner against that +Gobelin that would serve the situation. The old gentleman by that cabinet +is the Baron von Marhof, the Ambassador from Austria-Hungary. He's a +brother-in-law of Count von Stroebel, who was murdered so horribly in a +railway carriage a few weeks ago." + +"Ah, to be sure! I haven't seen the Baron in years. He has changed +little." + +"Then you knew him,--in the old country?" + +"Yes; I used to see him--when I was a boy," remarked Armitage. + +Mrs. Sanderson glanced at Armitage sharply. She had dined at his ranch +house in Montana and knew that he lived like a gentleman,--that his +house, its appointments and service were unusual for a western ranchman. +And she recalled, too, that she and her husband had often speculated as +to Armitage's antecedents and history, without arriving at any conclusion +in regard to him. + +The room had slowly filled and they strolled about, dividing attention +between distinguished personages and the not less celebrated works of +art. + +"Oh, by the way, Mr. Armitage, there's the girl I have chosen for you to +marry. I suppose it would be just as well for you to meet her now, though +that dark little foreigner seems to be monopolizing her." + +"I am wholly agreeable," laughed Armitage. "The sooner the better, and be +done with it." + +"Don't be so frivolous. There--you can look safely now. She's stopped to +speak to that bald and pink Justice of the Supreme Court,--the girl with +the brown eyes and hair,--have a care!" + +Shirley and Chauvenet left the venerable Justice, and Mrs. Sanderson +intercepted them at once. + +"To think of all these beautiful things in our own America!" exclaimed +Shirley. "And you, Mr. Armitage,--" + +"Among the other curios, Miss Claiborne," laughed John, taking her hand. + +"But I haven't introduced you yet"--began Mrs. Sanderson, puzzled. + +"No; the _King Edward_ did that. We crossed together. Oh, Monsieur +Chauvenet, let me present Mr. Armitage," said Shirley, seeing that the +men had not spoken. + +The situation amused Armitage and he smiled rather more broadly than was +necessary in expressing his pleasure at meeting Monsieur Chauvenet. They +regarded each other with the swift intentness of men who are used to the +sharp exercise of their eyes; and when Armitage turned toward Shirley and +Mrs. Sanderson, he was aware that Chauvenet continued to regard him with +fixed gaze. + +"Miss Claiborne is a wonderful sailor; the Atlantic is a little +tumultuous at times in the spring, but she reported to the captain every +day." + +"Miss Claiborne is nothing if not extraordinary," declared Mrs. Sanderson +with frank admiration. + +"The word seems to have been coined for her," said Chauvenet, his white +teeth showing under his thin black mustache. + +"And still leaves the language distinguished chiefly for its poverty," +added Armitage; and the men bowed to Shirley and then to Mrs. Sanderson, +and again to each other. It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a +comedy. + +"How charming!" laughed Mrs. Sanderson. "And this lovely room is just the +place for it." + +They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had +spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, +it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure. + +"Is Baron von Marhof in the room?" he asked of Armitage, fumbling +nervously at his monocle. + +The Austrian Ambassador, with several ladies, and led by Senator +Sanderson, was approaching. + +The attache hurried to his chief and addressed him in a low tone. The +Ambassador stopped, grew very white, and stared at the messenger for a +moment in blank unbelief. + +The young man now repeated, in English, in a tone that could be heard in +all parts of the hushed room: + +"His Majesty, the Emperor Johann Wilhelm, died suddenly to-night, in +Vienna," he said, and gave his arm to his chief. + +It was a strange place for the delivery of such a message, and the +strangeness of it was intensified to Shirley by the curious glance that +passed between John Armitage and Jules Chauvenet. Shirley remembered +afterward that as the attache's words rang out in the room, Armitage +started, clenched his hands, and caught his breath in a manner very +uncommon in men unless they are greatly moved. The Ambassador walked +directly from the room with bowed head, and every one waited in silent +sympathy until he had gone. + +The word passed swiftly through the great house, and through the open +windows the servants were heard crying loudly for Baron von Marhof's +carriage in the court below. + +"The King is dead; long live the King!" murmured Shirley. + +"Long live the King!" repeated Chauvenet and Mrs. Sanderson, in unison; +and then Armitage, as though mastering a phrase they were teaching him, +raised his head and said, with an unction that surprised them, "Long live +the Emperor and King! God save Austria!" + +Then he turned to Shirley with a smile. + +"It is very pleasant to see you on your own ground. I hope your family +are well." + +"Thank you; yes. My father and mother are here somewhere." + +"And Captain Claiborne?" + +"He's probably sitting up all night to defend Fort Myer from the crafts +and assaults of the enemy. I hope you will come to see us, Mr. Armitage." + +"Thank you; you are very kind," he said gravely. "I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure very soon." + +As Shirley passed on with Chauvenet Mrs. Sanderson launched upon the +girl's praises, but she found him suddenly preoccupied. + +"The girl has gone to your head. Why didn't you tell me you knew the +Claibornes?" + +"I don't remember that you gave me a chance; but I'll say now that I +intend to know them better." + +She bade him take her to the drawing-room. As they went down through the +house they found that the announcement of the Emperor Johann Wilhelm's +death had cast a pall upon the company. All the members of the diplomatic +corps had withdrawn at once as a mark of respect and sympathy for Baron +von Marhof, and at midnight the ball-room held all of the company that +remained. Armitage had not sought Shirley again. He found a room that had +been set apart for smokers, threw himself into a chair, lighted a cigar +and stared at a picture that had no interest for him whatever. He put +down his cigar after a few whiffs, and his hand went to the pocket in +which he had usually carried his cigarette case. + +"Ah, Mr. Armitage, may I offer you a cigarette?" + +He turned to find Chauvenet close at his side. He had not heard the man +enter, but Chauvenet had been in his thoughts and he started slightly at +finding him so near. Chauvenet held in his white-gloved hand a gold +cigarette case, which he opened with a deliberate care that displayed its +embellished side. The smooth golden surface gleamed in the light, the +helmet in blue, and the white falcon flashed in Armitage's eyes. The +meeting was clearly by intention, and a slight smile played about +Chauvenet's lips in his enjoyment of the situation. Armitage smiled up at +him in amiable acknowledgment of his courtesy, and rose. + +"You are very considerate, Monsieur. I was just at the moment regretting +our distinguished host's oversight in providing cigars alone. Allow me!" + +He bent forward, took the outstretched open case into his own hands, +removed a cigarette, snapped the case shut and thrust it into his +trousers pocket,--all, as it seemed, at a single stroke. + +"My dear sir," began Chauvenet, white with rage. + +"My dear Monsieur Chauvenet," said Armitage, striking a match, "I am +indebted to you for returning a trinket that I value highly." + +The flame crept half the length of the stick while they regarded each +other; then Armitage raised it to the tip of his cigarette, lifted his +head and blew a cloud of smoke. + +"Are you able to prove your property, Mr. Armitage?" demanded Chauvenet +furiously. + +"My dear sir, they have a saying in this country that possession is nine +points of the law. You had it--now I have it--wherefore it must be mine!" + +Chauvenet's rigid figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with +a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved his hand carelessly. + +"Between gentlemen--so small a matter!" + +"To be sure--the merest trifle," laughed Armitage with entire good humor. + +"And where a gentleman has the predatory habits of a burglar and +housebreaker--" + +"Then lesser affairs, such as picking up trinkets--" + +"Come naturally--quite so!" and Chauvenet twisted his mustache with an +air of immense satisfaction. + +"But the genial art of assassination--there's a business that requires a +calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!" + +Chauvenet's hand went again to his lip. + +"To be sure!" he ejaculated with zest. + +"But alone--alone one can do little. For larger operations one +requires--I should say--courageous associates. Now in my affairs--would +you believe me?--I am obliged to manage quite alone." + +"How melancholy!" exclaimed Chauvenet. + +"It is indeed very sad!" and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into +the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night. + +"Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!" + +"The thought does credit to a generous nature!" responded Armitage, and +passed out into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE" + +Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had + arisen, +The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale; +Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed + from his prison, +As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail. + +--L. Frank Tooker. + + +Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, +crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington. + +Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the +conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned +impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The +call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted +yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a +spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of +the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the +maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the +incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer +earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the +capital of the land of heart's desire. + +With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,--that +rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at +the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship +were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian +embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the +entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. +Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of +State a week before, when Baron von Marhof had learned of the death of +his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of +his, look and voice as he said: + +"Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!" + +Emperors and kings! They were as impossible today as a snowstorm. The +grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing +their decorations, always struck her as being particularly distinguished. +It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and +scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies +in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that +were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador's +household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who +democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep. + +Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house +twice since the Secretary's ball, and she had been surprised to find how +fully she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. +He derived, too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons +knew him; he was, indeed, an entirely different person since the Montana +Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept +her own counsel touching the scene on the dark deck of the _King Edward_, +but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with +herself this mellow afternoon to find how persistently Armitage came into +her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept recurring +in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew +so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode +into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention. + +At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attache, swung into +view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode +beside her. + +"Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss +Claiborne?" + +"It is all of that!" she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not +needed Chauvenet's praise. + +"I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!" he continued. + +"No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is +tragic!" + +She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the +spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in +his riding-coat,--his belongings were too perfect. She had really enjoyed +his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood +for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to +America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and +small social affairs that marked the end of the season. + +"Poor Franzel is indeed _triste_. He is taking the death of Johann +Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems +less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!" + +"Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is +not an hour for hard questions!" + +"Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, +who is indeed a funeral in himself." + +"That is very sad, Monsieur,"--and she smiled at him with mischief in her +eyes. "My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn--alone." + +He gathered his reins and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a +perfect gesture. + +"There are sadder blows than losing one's sovereign, Mademoiselle!" and +he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend. + +She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the +sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the +creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of awakened life +throbbing about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, +and Shirley's heart overflowed with them, until her pulse thrilled and +sang in quickening cadences. The wistfulness of April, the dream of +unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in +her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, +into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars +of April nights and the pensive moon of September are glad because of +her. + +The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the gallops that fell +abruptly to a walk with the alterations of mood in the girl's heart, the +pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green +curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of +spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning +afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape +the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, +and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone +beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a +narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at +the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for +the splash and babble of the creek. + +Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, +though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She +raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through +the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop +tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and +dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It +was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he +leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley. + +He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, +and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the +bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to +steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her +eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the +undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused +by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he +crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big +body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of +legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his +hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and +still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand +that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and +poised for a spring. + +Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little +vale and sounding back from the cliff. + +"Oh! Oh!" and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first +upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon +the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through +the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the +bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward +her. + +"What is it, Miss? Did you call?" + +"No; it was nothing, Thomas--nothing at all," and she mounted and turned +toward home. + +Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to +gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she +had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an unknown enemy. She +recalled now a certain pathos of his figure as she first saw him leaning +against the tree watching the turbulent little stream, and she was +impatient to find how her sympathy went out to him. It made no difference +who John Armitage was; his enemy was a coward, and the horror of such a +menace to a man's life appalled her. She passed a mounted policeman, who +recognized her and raised his hand in salute, but the idea of reporting +the strange affair in the strip of woodland occurred to her only to be +dismissed. She felt that here was an ugly business that was not within +the grasp of a park patrolman, and, moreover, John Armitage was entitled +to pursue his own course in matters that touched his life so closely. The +thought of him reassured her; he was no simple boy to suffer such attacks +to pass unchallenged; and so, dismissing him, she raised her head and saw +him gallop forth from a by-path and rein his horse beside her. + +"Miss Claiborne!" + +The suppressed feeling in his tone made the moment tense and she saw that +his lips trembled. It was a situation that must have its quick relief, so +she said instantly, in a mockery of his own tone: + +"Mr. Armitage!" She laughed. "I am almost caught in the dark. The +blandishments of spring have beguiled me." + +He looked at her with a quick scrutiny. It did not seem possible that +this could be the girl who had called to him in warning scarce five +minutes before; but he knew it had been she,--he would have known her +voice anywhere in the world. They rode silent beside the creek, which was +like a laughing companion seeking to mock them into a cheerier mood. At +an opening through the hills they saw the western horizon aglow in tints +of lemon deepening into gold and purple. Save for the riot of the brook +the world was at peace. She met his eyes for an instant, and their +gravity, and the firm lines in which his lips were set, showed that the +shock of his encounter had not yet passed. + +"You must think me a strange person, Miss Claiborne. It seems +inexplicable that a man's life should be so menaced in a place like this. +If you had not called to me--" + +"Please don't speak of that! It was so terrible!" + +"But I must speak of it! Once before the same attempt was made--that +night on the _King Edward_." + +"Yes; I have not forgotten." + +"And to-day I have reason to believe that the same man watched his +chance, for I have ridden here every day since I came, and he must have +kept track of me." + +"But this is America, Mr. Armitage!" + +"That does not help me with you. You have every reason to resent my +bringing you into such dangers,--it is unpardonable--indefensible!" + +She saw that he was greatly troubled. + +"But you couldn't help my being in the park to-day! I have often stopped +just there before. It's a favorite place for meditations. If you know the +man--" + +"I know the man." + +"Then the law will certainly protect you, as you know very well. He was a +dreadful-looking person. The police can undoubtedly find and lock him +up." + +She was seeking to minimize the matter,--to pass it off as a commonplace +affair of every day. They were walking their horses; the groom followed +stolidly behind. + +Armitage was silent, a look of great perplexity on his face. When he +spoke he was quite calm. + +"Miss Claiborne, I must tell you that this is an affair in which I can't +ask help in the usual channels. You will pardon me if I seem to make a +mystery of what should be ordinarily a bit of business between myself and +the police; but to give publicity to these attempts to injure me just now +would be a mistake. I could have caught that man there in the wood; but I +let him go, for the reason--for the reason that I want the men back of +him to show themselves before I act. But if it isn't presuming--" + +He was quite himself again. His voice was steady and deep with the ease +and assurance that she liked in him. She had marked to-day in his +earnestness, more than at any other time, a slight, an almost +indistinguishable trace of another tongue in his English. + +"How am I to know whether it would be presuming?" she asked. + +"But I was going to say--" + +"When rudely interrupted!" She was trying to make it easy for him to say +whatever he wished. + +"--that these troubles of mine are really personal. I have committed no +crime and am not fleeing from justice." + +She laughed and urged her horse into a gallop for a last stretch of road +near the park limits. + +"How uninteresting! We expect a Montana ranchman to have a spectacular +past." + +"But not to carry it, I hope, to Washington. On the range I might become +a lawless bandit in the interest of picturesqueness; but here--" + +"Here in the world of frock-coated statesmen nothing really interesting +is to be expected." + +She walked her horse again. It occurred to her that he might wish an +assurance of silence from her. What she had seen would make a capital bit +of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her +conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding +him. She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her +brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over +seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him. +A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no +claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding +with him in so strange and grave a matter. + +"It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills. I always +wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can't travel so +far from home. Our ranch is in Virginia." + +"You have a Virginia farm? That is very interesting." + +"Yes; at Storm Springs. It's really beautiful down there," she said +simply. + +It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia +soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it +seemed best not to multiply his places of residence. He had, moreover, +forgotten the name of the county in which his preserve lay. He said, with +truth: + +"I know nothing of Virginia or the South; but I have viewed the landscape +from Arlington and some day I hope to go adventuring in the Virginia +hills." + +"Then you should not overlook our valley. I am sure there must be +adventures waiting for somebody down there. You can tell our place by +the spring lamb on the hillside. There's a huge inn that offers the +long-distance telephone and market reports and golf links and very good +horses, and lots of people stop there as a matter of course in their +flight between Florida and Newport. They go up and down the coast like +the mercury in a thermometer--up when it's warm, down when it's cold. +There's the secret of our mercurial temperament." + +A passing automobile frightened her horse, and he watched her perfect +coolness in quieting the animal with rein and voice. + +"He's just up from the farm and doesn't like town very much. But he shall +go home again soon," she said as they rode on. + +"Oh, you go down to shepherd those spring lambs!" he exclaimed, with +misgiving in his heart. He had followed her across the sea and now she +was about to take flight again! + +"Yes; and to escape from the tiresome business of trying to remember +people's names." + +"Then you reverse the usual fashionable process--you go south to meet the +rising mercury." + +"I hadn't thought of it, but that is so. I dearly love a hillside, with +pines and cedars, and sloping meadows with sheep--and rides over mountain +roads to the gate of dreams, where Spottswood's golden horseshoe knights +ride out at you with a grand sweep of their plumed hats. Now what have +you to say to that?" + +"Nothing, but my entire approval," he said. + +He dimly understood, as he left her in this gay mood, at the Claiborne +house, that she had sought to make him forget the lurking figure in the +park thicket and the dark deed thwarted there. It was her way of +conveying to him her dismissal of the incident, and it implied a greater +kindness than any pledge of secrecy. He rode away with grave eyes, and a +new hope filled his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOHN ARMITAGE IS SHADOWED + +Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, +Healthy, free, the world before me, +The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. + +--Walt Whitman. + + +Armitage dined alone that evening and left the hotel at nine o'clock for +a walk. He unaffectedly enjoyed paved ground and the sights and ways of +cities, and he walked aimlessly about the lighted thoroughfares of the +capital with conscious pleasure in the movement and color of life. He let +his eyes follow the Washington Monument's gray line starward; and he +stopped to enjoy the high-poised equestrian statue of Sherman, to which +the starry dusk gave something of legendary and Old World charm. + +Coming out upon Pennsylvania Avenue he strolled past the White House, +and, at the wide-flung gates, paused while a carriage swept by him at the +driveway. He saw within the grim face of Baron von Marhof and +unconsciously lifted his hat, though the Ambassador was deep in thought +and did not see him. Armitage struck the pavement smartly with his stick +as he walked slowly on, pondering; but he was conscious a moment later +that some one was loitering persistently in his wake. Armitage was at +once on the alert with all his faculties sharpened. He turned and +gradually slackened his pace, and the person behind him immediately did +likewise. + +The sensation of being followed is at first annoying; then a pleasant +zest creeps into it, and in Armitage's case the reaction was immediate. +He was even amused to reflect that the shadow had chosen for his exploit +what is probably the most conspicuous and the best-guarded spot in +America. It was not yet ten o'clock, but the streets were comparatively +free of people. He slackened his pace gradually, and threw open his +overcoat, for the night was warm, to give an impression of ease, and when +he had reached the somber facade of the Treasury Building he paused and +studied it in the glare of the electric lights, as though he were a +chance traveler taking a preliminary view of the sights of the capital. A +man still lingered behind him, drawing nearer now, at a moment when they +had the sidewalk comparatively free to themselves. The fellow was short, +but of soldierly erectness, and even in his loitering pace lifted his +feet with the quick precision of the drilled man. Armitage walked to the +corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, then turned and +retraced his steps slowly past the Treasury Building. The man who had +been following faced about and walked slowly in the opposite direction, +and Armitage, quickening his own pace, amused himself by dogging the +fellow's steps closely for twenty yards, then passed him. + +When he had gained the advantage of a few feet, Armitage stopped suddenly +and spoke to the man in the casual tone he might have used in addressing +a passing acquaintance. + +"My friend," he said, "there are two policemen across the street; if you +continue to follow me I shall call their attention to you." + +"Pardon me--" + +"You are watching me; and the thing won't do." + +"Yes, I'm watching you; but--" + +"But the thing won't do! If you are hired--" + +"_Nein! Nein!_ You do me a wrong, sir." + +"Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve +yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I'm going to +finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place +where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir." + +Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light +of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently. + +Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence +caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward +them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away. + +He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had +so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail +quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him. + +He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books +in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to +find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his +hat,--an American soldier's campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme +blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light +hair. + +"Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is +quite wonderful--" + +The man's face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that +awaited recognition. + +"My dear fellow, you really become annoying," and Armitage again thrust +his hand into his trousers pocket. "I should hate awfully to appeal to +the police; but you must not crowd me too far." + +The man seemed moved by deep feeling, and his eyes were bright with +excitement. His hands clasped tightly the railing that protected the +glass window of the book shop. As Armitage turned away impatiently the +man ejaculated huskily, as though some over-mastering influence wrung the +words from him: + +"Don't you know me? I am Oscar--don't you remember me, and the great +forest, where I taught you to shoot and fish? You are--" + +He bent toward Armitage with a fierce insistence, his eyes blazing in his +eagerness to be understood. + +John Armitage turned again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron +railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently +absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. +Taking his cue from Armitage's manner he appeared to be deeply interested +in the bookseller's display; but the excitement still glittered in his +eyes. + +Armitage was thinking swiftly, and his thoughts covered a very wide range +of time and place as he stood there. Then he spoke very deliberately and +coolly, but with a certain peremptory sharpness. + +"Go ahead of me to the New American and wait in the office until I come." + +The man's hand went to his hat. + +"None of that!" + +Armitage arrested him with a gesture. "My name is Armitage,--John +Armitage," he said. "I advise you to remember it. Now go!" + +The man hurried away, and Armitage slowly followed. + +It occurred to him that the man might be of use, and with this in mind he +returned to the New American, got his key from the office, nodded to his +acquaintance of the street and led the way to the elevator. + +Armitage put aside his coat and hat, locked the hall door, and then, when +the two stood face to face in his little sitting-room, he surveyed the +man carefully. + +"What do you want?" he demanded bluntly. + +He took a cigarette from a box on the table, lighted it, and then, with +an air of finality, fixed his gaze upon the man, who eyed him with a kind +of stupefied wonder. Then there flashed into the fellow's bronzed face +something of dignity and resentment. He stood perfectly erect with his +felt hat clasped in his hand. His clothes were cheap, but clean, and his +short coat was buttoned trimly about him. + +"I want nothing, Mr. Armitage," he replied humbly, speaking slowly and +with a marked German accent. + +"Then you will be easily satisfied," said Armitage. "You said your name +was--?" + +"Oscar--Oscar Breunig." + +Armitage sat down and scrutinized the man again without relaxing his +severity. + +"You think you have seen me somewhere, so you have followed me in the +streets to make sure. When did this idea first occur to you?" + +"I saw you at Fort Myer at the drill last Friday. I have been looking for +you since, and saw you leave your horse at the hotel this afternoon. You +ride at Rock Creek--yes?" + +"What do you do for a living, Mr. Breunig?" asked Armitage. + +"I was in the army, but served out my time and was discharged +a few months ago and came to Washington to see where they make the +government--yes? I am going to South America. Is it Peru? Yes; there will +be a revolution." + +He paused, and Armitage met his eyes; they were very blue and kind,--eyes +that spoke of sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn +hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to +charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of +eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have +been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but +suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands +of the little soldier. + +"Oscar!" he said; and repeated, very softly, "Oscar!" + +The man was deeply moved and the tears sprang into his eyes. Armitage +laughed, holding him at arm's length. + +"None of that nonsense! Sit down!" He turned to the door, opened it, and +peered into the hall, locked the door again, then motioned the man to a +chair. + +"So you deserted your mother country, did you, and have borne arms for +the glorious republic?" + +"I served in the Philippines,--yes?" + +"Rank, titles, emoluments, Oscar?" + +"I was a sergeant; and the surgeon could not find the bullet after Big +Bend, Luzon; so they were sorry and gave me a certificate and two dollars +a month to my pay," said the man, so succinctly and colorlessly that +Armitage laughed. + +"Yon have done well, Oscar; honor me by accepting a cigar." + +The man took a cigar from the box which Armitage extended, but would not +light it. He held it rather absent-mindedly in his hand and continued to +stare. + +"You are not dead,--Mr.--Armitage; but your father--?" + +"My father is dead, Oscar." + +"He was a good man," said the soldier. + +"Yes; he was a good man," repeated Armitage gravely. "I am alive, and yet +I am dead, Oscar; do you grasp the idea? You were a good friend when we +were lads together in the great forest. If I should want you to help +me now--" + +The man jumped to his feet and stood at attention so gravely that +Armitage laughed and slapped his knee. + +"You are well taught, Sergeant Oscar! Sit down. I am going to trust you. +My affairs just now are not without their trifling dangers." + +"There are enemies--yes?" and Oscar nodded his head solemnly in +acceptance of the situation. + +"I am going to trust you absolutely. You have no confidants--you are not +married?" + +"How should a man be married who is a soldier? I have no friends; they +are unprofitable," declared Oscar solemnly. + +"I fear you are a pessimist, Oscar; but a pessimist who keeps his mouth +shut is a good ally. Now, if you are not afraid of being shot or struck +with a knife, and if you are willing to obey my orders for a few weeks we +may be able to do some business. First, remember that I am Mr. Armitage; +you must learn that now, and remember it for all time. And if any one +should ever suggest anything else--" + +The man nodded his comprehension. + +"That will be the time for Oscar to be dumb. I understand, Mr. Armitage." + +Armitage smiled. The man presented so vigorous a picture of health, his +simple character was so transparently reflected in his eyes and face that +he did not in the least question him. + +"You are an intelligent person, Sergeant. If you are equally +discreet--able to be deaf when troublesome questions are asked, then I +think we shall get on." + +"You should remember--" began Oscar. + +"I remember nothing," observed Armitage sharply; and Oscar was quite +humble again. Armitage opened a trunk and took out an envelope from which +he drew several papers and a small map, which he unfolded and spread on +the table. He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to +Oscar. + +"Do you think you could find that place?" + +The man breathed hard over it for several minutes. + +"Yes; it would be easy," and he nodded his head several times as he named +the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place +was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an +east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which +conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a +curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers +of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia's +splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had +passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had +been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an +advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which +the preserve was offered. + +"It is a farm--yes?" + +"It is a wilderness, I fancy," said Armitage. "I have never seen it; +I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way +there--going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping +your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount +to. There's some sort of a bungalow there, built by the shooting-club. +Here's a description of the place, on the strength of which I bought it. +You may take these papers along to judge the size of the swindle." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a couple of good horses; plenty of commissary stores--plain military +necessities, you understand--and some bedding should be provided. I want +you to take full charge of this matter and get to work as quickly as +possible. It may be a trifle lonesome down there among the hills, but if +you serve me well you shall not regret it." + +"Yes, I am quite satisfied with the job," said Oscar. + +"And after you have reached the place and settled yourself you will tell +the postmaster and telegraph operator who you are and where you may be +found, so that messages may reach you promptly. If you get an unsigned +message advising you of--let me consider--a shipment of steers, you may +expect me any hour. On the other hand, you may not see me at all. We'll +consider that our agreement lasts until the first snow flies next winter. +You are a soldier. There need be no further discussion of this matter, +Oscar." + +The man nodded gravely. + +"And it is well for you not to reappear in this hotel. If you should be +questioned on leaving here--" + +"I have not been, here--is it not?" + +"It is," replied Armitage, smiling. "You read and write English?" + +"Yes; one must, to serve in the army." + +"If you should see a big Servian with a neck like a bull and a head the +size of a pea, who speaks very bad German, you will do well to keep out +of his way,--unless you find a good place to tie him up. I advise you not +to commit murder without special orders,--do you understand?" + +"It is the custom of the country," assented Oscar, in a tone of deep +regret. + +"To be sure," laughed Armitage; "and now I am going to give you money +enough to carry out the project I have indicated." + +He took from his trunk a long bill-book, counted out twenty new +one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the table. + +"It is much money," observed Oscar, counting the bills laboriously. + +"It will be enough for your purposes. You can't spend much money up there +if you try. Bacon--perhaps eggs; a cow may be necessary,--who can tell +without trying it? Don't write me any letters or telegrams, and forget +that you have seen me if you don't hear from me again." + +He went to the elevator and rode down to the office with Oscar and +dismissed him carelessly. Then John Armitage bought an armful of +magazines and newspapers and returned to his room, quite like any +traveler taking the comforts of his inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TOSS OF A NAPKIN + +As music and splendor + Survive not the lamp and the lute, +The heart's echoes render + No song when the spirit is mute-- +No songs but sad dirges, + Like the wind through a ruined cell, +Or the mournful surges + That ring the dead seaman's knell. +--Shelley. + + +Captain Richard Claiborne gave a supper at the Army and Navy Club for ten +men in honor of the newly-arrived military attache of the Spanish +legation. He had drawn his guests largely from his foreign acquaintances +in Washington because the Spaniard spoke little English; and Dick knew +Washington well enough to understand that while a girl and a man who +speak different languages may sit comfortably together at table, men in +like predicament grow morose and are likely to quarrel with their eyes +before the cigars are passed. It was Friday, and the whole party had +witnessed the drill at Fort Myer that afternoon, with nine girls to +listen to their explanation of the manoeuvers and the earliest spring +bride for chaperon. Shirley had been of the party, and somewhat the +heroine of it, too, for it was Dick who sat on his horse out in the +tanbark with the little whistle to his lips and manipulated the troop. + +"Here's a confusion of tongues; I may need you to interpret," laughed +Dick, indicating a chair at his left; and when Armitage sat down he faced +Chauvenet across the round table. + +With the first filling of glasses it was found that every one could speak +French, and the talk went forward spiritedly. The discussion of military +matters naturally occupied first place, and all were anxious to steer +clear of anything that might be offensive to the Spaniard, who had lost a +brother at San Juan. Claiborne thought it wisest to discuss nations that +were not represented at the table, and this made it very simple for all +to unite in rejecting the impertinent claims of Japan to be reckoned +among world powers, and to declare, for the benefit of the Russian +attache, that Slav and Saxon must ultimately contend for the earth's +dominion. + +Then they fell to talking about individuals, chiefly men in the public +eye; and as the Austro-Hungarian embassy was in mourning and +unrepresented at the table, the new Emperor-king was discussed with +considerable frankness. + +"He has not old Stroebel's right hand to hold him up," remarked a young +German officer. + +"Thereby hangs a dark tale," remarked Claiborne. "Somebody stuck a knife +into Count von Stroebel at a singularly inopportune moment. I saw him in +Geneva two days before he was assassinated, and he was very feeble and +seemed harassed. It gives a man the shudders to think of what might +happen if his Majesty, Charles Louis, should go by the board. His only +child died a year ago--after him his cousin Francis, and then the +deluge." + +"Bah! Francis is not as dark as he's painted. He's the most lied-about +prince in Europe," remarked Chauvenet. "He would most certainly be an +improvement on Charles Louis. But alas! Charles Louis will undoubtedly +live on forever, like his lamented father. The King is dead: long live +the King!" + +"Nothing can happen," remarked the German sadly. "I have lost much money +betting on upheavals in that direction. If there were a man in Hungary it +would be different; but riots are not revolutions." + +"That is quite true," said Armitage quietly. + +"But," observed the Spaniard, "if the Archduke Karl had not gone out of +his head and died in two or three dozen places, so that no one is sure he +is dead at all, things at Vienna might be rather more interesting. +Karl took a son with him into exile. Suppose one or the other of them +should reappear, stir up strife and incite rebellion--?" + +"Such speculations are quite idle," commented Chauvenet. "There is no +doubt whatever that Karl is dead, or we should hear of him." + +"Of course," said the German. "If he were not, the death of the old +Emperor would have brought him to life again." + +"The same applies to the boy he carried away with him--undoubtedly +dead--or we should hear of him. Karl disappeared soon after his son +Francis was born. It was said--" + +"A pretty tale it is!" commented the German--"that the child wasn't +exactly Karl's own. He took it quite hard--went away to hide his shame in +exile, taking his son Frederick Augustus with him." + +"He was surely mad," remarked Chauvenet, sipping a cordial. "He is much +better dead and out of the way for the good of Austria. Francis, as I +say, is a good fellow. We have hunted together, and I know him well." + +They fell to talking about the lost sons of royal houses--and a goodly +number there have been, even in these later centuries--and then of the +latest marriages between American women and titled foreigners. Chauvenet +was now leading the conversation; it might even have seemed to a critical +listener that he was guiding it with a certain intention. + +He laughed as though at the remembrance of something amusing, and held +the little company while he bent over a candle to light a cigar. + +"With all due respect to our American host, I must say that a title in +America goes further than anywhere else in the world. I was at Bar Harbor +three years ago when the Baron von Kissel devastated that region. He made +sad havoc among the ladies that summer; the rest of us simply had no +place to stand. You remember, gentlemen,"--and Chauvenet looked slowly +around the listening circle,--"that the unexpected arrival of the +excellent Ambassador of Austria-Hungary caused the Baron to leave Bar +Harbor between dark and daylight. The story was that he got off in a +sail-boat; and the next we heard of him he was masquerading under some +title in San Francisco, where he proved to be a dangerous forger. You all +remember that the papers were full of his performances for a while, but +he was a lucky rascal, and always disappeared at the proper psychological +moment. He had, as you may say, the cosmopolitan accent, and was the most +plausible fellow alive." + +Chauvenet held his audience well in hand, for nearly every one remembered +the brilliant exploits of the fraudulent baron, and all were interested +in what promised to be some new information about him. Armitage, +listening intently to Chauvenet's recital, felt his blood quicken, and +his face flushed for a moment. His cigarette case lay upon the edge of +the table, and he snapped it shut and fingered it nervously as he +listened. + +"It's my experience," continued Chauvenet, "that we never meet a person +once only--there's always a second meeting somewhere; and I was not at +all surprised when I ran upon my old friend the baron in Germany last +fall." + +"At his old tricks, I suppose," observed some one. + +"No; that was the strangest part of it. He's struck a deeper game--though +I'm blessed if I can make it out--he's dropped the title altogether, and +now calls himself _Mister_--I've forgotten for the moment the rest of it, +but it is an English name. He's made a stake somehow, and travels about +in decent comfort. He passes now as an American--his English is +excellent--and he hints at large American interests." + +"He probably has forged securities to sell," commented the German. "I +know those fellows. The business is best done quietly." + +"I dare say," returned Chauvenet. + +"Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend," remarked Claiborne +leadingly. + +"No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me +in a very curious way." + +All felt that they were now to hear the denouement of the story, and +several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the +table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his +shoulders. + +"Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor +had a real crest--the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I +dare say, because of the pretty insignium. He had it engraved on his +cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath +there was a motto, _Fide non armis_." + +"The devil!" exclaimed the young German. "Why, that's very like--" + +"Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs. Well, I remembered the +cigarette case, and one night at a concert--in Berlin, you know--I +chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat +alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, +when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I +bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up--I wanted to make sure--and +handed it to him, the imitation baron." + +"That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say," remarked +the German. + +"He was the man, beyond doubt. There was no mistaking the cigarette ease. +What I said was,"--continued Chauvenet,--"'Allow me, Baron!'" + +"Well spoken!" exclaimed the Spanish officer. + +"Not so well, either," laughed Chauvenet. "He had the best of it--he's a +clever man, I am obliged to admit! He said--" and Chauvenet's mirth +stifled him for a moment. + +"Yes; what was it?" demanded the German impatiently. + +"He said: 'Thank you, waiter!' and put the cigarette case back into his +pocket!" + +They all laughed. Then Captain Claiborne's eyes fell upon the table and +rested idly on John Armitage's cigarette case--on the smoothly-worn gold +of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the +bird poised. He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on +the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "if we are going to show ourselves at the +Darlington ball we'll have to run along." + +Below, in the coat room, Claiborne was fastening the frogs of his +military overcoat when Armitage, who had waited for the opportunity, +spoke to him. + +"That story is a lie, Claiborne. That man never saw me or my cigarette +case in Berlin; and moreover, I was never at Bar Harbor in my life. I +gave you some account of myself on the _King Edward_--every word of it +is true." + +"You should face him--you must have it out with him!" exclaimed +Claiborne, and Armitage saw the conflict and uncertainty in the officer's +eyes. + +"But the time hasn't come for that--" + +"Then if there is something between you,"--began Claiborne, the doubt now +clearly dominant. + +"There is undoubtedly a great deal between us, and there will be more +before we reach the end." + +Dick Claiborne was a perfectly frank, outspoken fellow, and this hint of +mystery by a man whose character had just been boldly assailed angered +him. + +"Good God, man! I know as much about Chauvenet as I do about you. This +thing is ugly, as you must see. I don't like it, I tell you! You've got +to do more than deny a circumstantial story like that by a fellow whose +standing here is as good as yours! If you don't offer some better +explanation of this by to-morrow night I shall have to ask you to cut my +acquaintance--and the acquaintance of my family!" + +Armitage's face was grave, but he smiled as he took his hat and stick. + +"I shall not be able to satisfy you of my respectability by to-morrow +night, Captain Claiborne. My own affairs must wait on larger matters." + +"Then you need never take the trouble!" + +"In my own time you shall be quite fully satisfied," said Armitage +quietly, and turned away. + +He was not among the others of the Claiborne party when they got into +their carriages to go to the ball. He went, in fact, to the telegraph +office and sent a message to Oscar Breunig, Lamar, Virginia, giving +notice of a shipment of steers. + +Then he returned to the New American and packed his belongings. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS + +--Who climbed the blue Virginia hills + Against embattled foes; +And planted there, in valleys fair, + The lily and the rose; +Whose fragrance lives in many lands, + Whose beauty stars the earth, +And lights the hearths of happy homes + With loveliness and worth. + +--Francis O. Ticknor. + + +The study of maps and time-tables is a far more profitable business than +appears. John Armitage possessed a great store of geographical knowledge +as interpreted in such literature. He could tell you, without leaving his +room, and probably without opening his trunk, the quickest way out of +Tokio, or St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, or Cinch Tight, Montana, if you +suddenly received a cablegram calling you to Vienna or Paris or +Washington from one of those places. + +Such being the case, it was remarkable that he should have started for a +point in the Virginia hills by way of Boston, thence to Norfolk by +coastwise steamer, and on to Lamar by lines of railroad whose schedules +would have been the despair of unhardened travelers. He had expressed his +trunks direct, and traveled with two suitcases and an umbrella. His +journey, since his boat swung out into Massachusetts Bay, had been spent +in gloomy speculations, and two young women booked for Baltimore wrongly +attributed his reticence and aloofness to a grievous disappointment in +love. + +He had wanted time to think--to ponder his affairs--to devise some way +out of his difficulties, and to contrive the defeat of Chauvenet. +Moreover, his relations to the Claibornes were in an ugly tangle: +Chauvenet had dealt him a telling blow in a quarter where he particularly +wished to appear to advantage. + +He jumped out of the day coach in which he had accomplished the last +stage of his journey to Lamar, just at dawn, and found Oscar with two +horses waiting. + +"Good morning," said Oscar, saluting. + +"You are prompt, Sergeant," and Armitage shook hands with him. + +As the train roared on through the valley, Armitage opened one of the +suit-cases and took out a pair of leather leggings, which he strapped on. +Then Oscar tied the cases together with a rope and hung them across his +saddle-bow. + +"The place--what of it?" asked Armitage. + +"There may be worse--I have not decided." + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +"Is it as bad as that?" + +The man was busy tightening the saddle girths, and he answered Armitage's +further questions with soldierlike brevity. + +"You have been here--" + +"Two weeks, sir." + +"And nothing has happened? It is a good report." + +"It is good for the soul to stand on mountains and look at the world. You +will like that animal--yes? He is lighter than a cavalry horse. Mine, you +will notice, is a trifle heavier. I bought them at a stock farm in +another valley, and rode them up to the place." + +The train sent back loud echoes. A girl in a pink sun-bonnet rode up on a +mule and carried off the mail pouch. The station agent was busy inside at +his telegraph instruments and paid no heed to the horsemen. Save for a +few huts clustered on the hillside, there were no signs of human +habitation in sight. The lights in a switch target showed yellow against +the growing dawn. + +"I am quite ready, sir," reported Oscar, touching his hat. "There is +nothing here but the station; the settlement is farther on our way." + +"Then let us be off," said Armitage, swinging into the saddle. + +Oscar led the way in silence along a narrow road that clung close to the +base of a great pine-covered hill. The morning was sharp and the horses +stepped smartly, the breath of their nostrils showing white on the air. +The far roar and whistle of the train came back more and more faintly, +and when it had quite ceased Armitage sighed, pushed his soft felt hat +from his face, and settled himself more firmly in his saddle. The keen +air was as stimulating as wine, and he put his horse to the gallop and +rode ahead to shake up his blood. + +"It is good," said the stolid cavalryman, as Armitage wheeled again into +line with him. + +"Yes, it is good," repeated Armitage. + +A peace descended upon him that he had not known in many days. The light +grew as the sun rose higher, blazing upon them like a brazen target +through deep clefts in the mountains. The morning mists retreated before +them to farther ridges and peaks, and the beautiful gray-blue of the +Virginia hills delighted Armitage's eyes. The region was very wild. Here +and there from some mountaineer's cabin a light penciling of smoke stole +upward. They once passed a boy driving a yoke of steers. After several +miles the road, that had hung midway of the rough hill, dipped down +sharply, and they came out into another and broader valley, where there +were tilled farms, and a little settlement, with a blacksmith shop and a +country store, post-office and inn combined. The storekeeper stood in the +door, smoking a cob pipe. Seeing Oscar, he went inside and brought out +some letters and newspapers, which he delivered in silence. + +"This is Lamar post-office," announced Oscar. + +"There must be some mail here for me," said Armitage. + +Oscar handed him several long envelopes--they bore the name of the Bronx +Loan and Trust Company, whose office in New York was his permanent +address, and he opened and read a number of letters and cablegrams that +had been forwarded. Their contents evidently gave him satisfaction, for +he whistled cheerfully as he thrust them into his pocket. + +"You keep in touch with the world, do you, Oscar? It is commendable." + +"I take a Washington paper--it relieves the monotony, and I can see where +the regiments are moving, and whether my old captain is yet out of the +hospital, and what happened to my lieutenant in his court-martial about +the pay accounts. One must observe the world--yes? At the post-office +back there"--he jerked his head to indicate--"it is against the law to +sell whisky in a post-office, so that storekeeper with the red nose and +small yellow eyes keeps it in a brown jug in the back room." + +"To be sure," laughed Armitage. "I hope it is a good article." + +"It is vile," replied Oscar. "His brother makes it up in the hills, and +it is as strong as wood lye." + +"Moonshine! I have heard of it. We must have some for rainy days." + +It was a new world to John Armitage, and his heart was as light as the +morning air as he followed Oscar along the ruddy mountain road. He was in +Virginia, and somewhere on this soil, perhaps in some valley like the one +through which he rode, Shirley Claiborne had gazed upon blue distances, +with ridge rising against ridge, and dark pine-covered slopes like these +he saw for the first time. He had left his affairs in Washington in a +sorry muddle; but he faced the new day with a buoyant spirit, and did not +trouble himself to look very far ahead. He had a definite business before +him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point. The fact that he was, +in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least. He had no +intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet's assassins to kill him, or of +being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel. If he +admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove +that he was anybody else--a fact touching human testimony which Jules +Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well. + +On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus +far. The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a +growing elation. He began singing in German a ballad that recited the +sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence +her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures. On the +last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from +him. + +They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a +short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and +Armitage's property. The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging +pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent. +Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in +long and beautiful vistas. + +Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse. + +"It is a fine valley--yes?" asked Oscar. + +"It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!" replied Armitage. "There +is a white building with colonnades away over there--is it the house of +the reigning deity?" + +"It is not, sir," answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged +precision, giving equal value to all words. "It is a vast hotel where +the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills--do you +see?--it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little +balls--" + +"Golf? Is it possible!" + +"There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself--men and +women. The place is called Storm Valley." + +Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started. + +"Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those +houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste +and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish +game you describe with little white balls." + +"I could not tell it better," responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a +good trooper, to rest his horse. + +"And our place--is it below there?" demanded Armitage. + +"It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is +lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen's houses. At night it +is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, +there is music of bands." + +"Poor Oscar!" laughed Armitage. + +His mood had not often in his life been so high. + +On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic +capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe +him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; +but at least he would soon be near her--even now she might be somewhere +below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon +what was glorified and enchanted ground. + +"Let us go," he said presently. + +Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand. + +"You will find it easier to walk," he said, and, leading their horses, +they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then +mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain +road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the +descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and +beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge. + +"This is the place, sir," and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate. + +The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still +turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of +wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a +fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at +the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and +disappeared. + +"There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty," remarked Oscar. + +He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice: + +"It is different from our old hills and forests--yes? but sometimes I +have been homesick." + +"But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!" + +"Here," said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the +open, "is what they call the Port of Missing Men." + +There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost +imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge +and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood +and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath +below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across +the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now +in disrepair, and at either end was posted "No Thoroughfare." Armitage +stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under +his weight. + +"It is a bad place," remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and +Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground. + +The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock. +In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and +only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place +suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and +struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the +evolutions of a squadron of cavalry. + +"Why the name?" asked Armitage. + +"There were gray soldiers of many battles--yes?--who fought the long +fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the +war was over some of them would not surrender--no; but they marched here, +and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was +called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there +beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves +are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts," and Oscar lifted +his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion. + +They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a +mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed +bungalow. + +"Your house, sir," and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad +veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while +Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and +was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage +traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the +far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, +who appeared carrying the suit-cases. + +"There shall be breakfast," said the man. + +He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a +fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match. + +"All one floor--plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir--a place to eat here--a +kitchen beyond--a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all." + +"It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no +choice, and camp will be established." + +"This is yours--the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon +goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a +shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, +but--you will require hot water for shaving--is it not so?" + +"You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will +be wanting." + +Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He +had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the +proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, +and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys. + +"The place was built by fools," declared Oscar gloomily. + +"Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live +in them--you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!" + +He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee +and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage +appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, +eggs and toast were further offered. + +"You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast." +Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the +room. + +A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the +untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one +end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few +novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained +on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of +meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the +agent through whom he had made the purchase had said--that the place had +proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value +was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set +up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in +an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet +after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that +had shaken him. + +He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought +from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with +care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of +the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of +Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into +the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the +foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the +paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that +caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of +the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail +the baron's escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California +and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but +based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman +of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von +Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had +within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive +circles of Washington. + +Armitage's cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth +as he read: + +"The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax +in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, +palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families +of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young +gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission +and title from the American government, entertained a small company of +friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible +adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the +foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow +guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought +Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for +the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. +John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were +vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the +matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, +and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police +all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures +of this impudent scoundrel." + + * * * * * + +Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and +faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the +middle of the room. + +"Shall we unpack--yes?" + +"It is a capital idea," said John Armitage. + +"I was striker for my captain also, who had fourteen pairs of boots and a +bad disposition--and his uniforms--yes? He was very pretty to look at on +a horse." + +"The ideal is high, Oscar, but I shall do my best. That one first, +please." + +The contents of the two trunks were disposed of deftly by Oscar as +Armitage directed. One of the bedrooms was utilized as a closet, and +garments for every imaginable occasion were brought forth. There were +stout English tweeds for the heaviest weather, two dress suits, and +Norfolk jackets in corduroy. The owner's taste ran to grays and browns, +it seemed, and he whimsically ordered his raiment grouped by colors as he +lounged about with a pipe in his mouth. + +"You may hang those scarfs on the string provided by my predecessor, +Sergeant. They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn't blend +well in our rainbow--put it in your pocket and wear it, with my +compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud--drop +them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable--give the oldest to +me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned--I gave gold +for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing +may serve me well," he added whimsically. + +He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to +his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and +strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage +began to declaim: + +"'Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have +Immortal longings in me!' + +"'Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet's mind; I will go forth upon a +bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death. +Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. +Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await +the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, +and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now-- + +"'Nothing can we call our own but death, +And that small model of the barren earth +Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. +For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground +And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'" + +Then he grew serious, tossed the cloak and hat upon a bench that ran +round the room, and refilled and lighted his pipe. Oscar, soberly +unpacking, saw Armitage pace the hall floor for an hour, deep in thought. + +"Oscar," he called abruptly, "how far is it down to Storm Springs?" + +"A forced march, and you are there in an hour and a half, sir." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LADY OF THE PERGOLA + +April, April, +Laugh, thy girlish laughter; +Then, the moment after, +Weep thy girlish, tears! +April, that mine ears +Like a lover greetest, +If I tell thee, sweetest, +All my hopes and fears, +April, April, +Laugh thy golden laughter, +But, the moment after, +Weep thy golden tears! + +--William Watson. + + +A few photographs of foreign scenes tacked on the walls; a Roman blanket +hung as a tapestry over the mantel; a portfolio and traveler's writing +materials distributed about a table produced for the purpose, and +additions to the meager book-shelf--a line of Baedekers, a pocket atlas, +a comprehensive American railway guide, several volumes of German and +French poetry--and the place was not so bad. Armitage slept for an hour +after a simple luncheon had been prepared by Oscar, studied his letters +and cablegrams--made, in fact, some notes in regard to them--and wrote +replies. Then, at four o'clock, he told Oscar to saddle the horses. + +"It is spring, and in April a man's blood will not be quiet. We shall go +forth and taste the air." + +He had studied the map of Lamar County with care, and led the way out of +his own preserve by the road over which they had entered in the morning. +Oscar and his horses were a credit to the training of the American army, +and would have passed inspection anywhere. Armitage watched his adjutant +with approval. The man served without question, and, quicker of wit than +of speech, his buff-gauntleted hand went to his hat-brim whenever +Armitage addressed him. + +They sought again the spot whence Armitage had first looked down upon +Storm Valley, and he opened his pocket map, the better to clarify his +ideas of the region. + +"We shall go down into the valley, Oscar," he said; and thereafter it was +he that led. + +They struck presently into an old road that had been an early highway +across the mountains. Above and below the forest hung gloomily, and +passing clouds darkened the slopes and occasionally spilled rain. +Armitage drew on his cloak and Oscar enveloped himself in a slicker as +they rode through a sharp shower. At a lower level they came into fair +weather again, and, crossing a bridge, rode down into Storm Valley. The +road at once bore marks of care; and they passed a number of traps that +spoke unmistakably of cities, and riders whose mounts knew well the +bridle-paths of Central Park. The hotel loomed massively before them, and +beyond were handsome estates and ambitious mansions scattered through the +valley and on the lower slopes. + +Armitage paused in a clump of trees and dismounted. + +"You will stay here until I come back. And remember that we don't know +any one; and at our time of life, Oscar, one should be wary of making new +acquaintances." + +He tossed his cloak over the saddle and walked toward the inn. The size +of the place and the great number of people going and coming surprised +him, but in the numbers he saw his own security, and he walked boldly up +the steps of the main hotel entrance. He stepped into the long corridor +of the inn, where many people lounged about, and heard with keen +satisfaction and relief the click of a telegraph instrument that seemed +at once to bring him into contact with the remote world. He filed his +telegrams and walked the length of the broad hall, his riding-crop under +his arm. The gay banter and laughter of a group of young men and women +just returned from a drive gave him a touch of heartache, for there was a +girl somewhere in the valley whom he had followed across the sea, and +these people were of her own world--they undoubtedly knew her; very +likely she came often to this huge caravansary and mingled with them. + +At the entrance he passed Baron von Marhof, who, by reason of the death +of his royal chief, had taken a cottage at the Springs to emphasize his +abstention from the life of the capital. The Ambassador lifted his eyes +and bowed to Armitage, as he bowed to a great many young men whose names +he never remembered; but, oddly enough, the Baron paused, stared after +Armitage for a moment, then shook his head and walked on with knit brows. +Armitage had lifted his hat and passed out, tapping his leg with his +crop. + +He walked toward the private houses that lay scattered over the valley +and along the gradual slope of the hills as though carelessly flung from +a dice box. Many of the places were handsome estates, with imposing +houses set amid beautiful gardens. Half a mile from the hotel he stopped +a passing negro to ask who owned a large house that stood well back from +the road. The man answered; he seemed anxious to impart further +information, and Armitage availed himself of the opportunity. + +"How near is Judge Claiborne's place?" he asked. + +The man pointed. It was the next house, on the right-hand side; and +Armitage smiled to himself and strolled on. + +He looked down in a moment upon a pretty estate, distinguished by its +formal garden, but with the broad acres of a practical farm stretching +far out into the valley. The lawn terraces were green, broken only by +plots of spring flowers; the walks were walled in box and privet; the +house, of the pillared colonial type, crowned a series of terraces. A +long pergola, with pillars topped by red urns, curved gradually through +the garden toward the mansion. Armitage followed a side road along the +brick partition wall and contemplated the inner landscape. The sharp snap +of a gardener's shears far up the slope was the only sound that reached +him. It was a charming place, and he yielded to a temptation to explore +it. He dropped over the wall and strolled away through the garden, the +smell of warm earth, moist from the day's light showers, and the faint +odor of green things growing, sweet in his nostrils. He walked to the far +end of the pergola, sat down on a wooden bench, and gave himself up to +reverie. He had been denounced as an impostor; he was on Claiborne soil; +and the situation required thought. + +It was while he thus pondered his affairs that Shirley, walking over the +soft lawn from a neighboring estate, came suddenly upon him. + +Her head went up with surprise and--he was sure--with disdain. She +stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet. + +"I am caught--_in flagrante delicto_! I can only plead guilty and pray +for mercy." + +"They said--they said you had gone to Mexico?" said Shirley +questioningly. + +"Plague take the newspapers! How dare they so misrepresent me!" he +laughed. + +"Yes, I read those newspaper articles with a good deal of interest. And +my brother--" + +"Yes, your brother--he is the best fellow in the world!" + +She mused, but a smile of real mirth now played over her face and lighted +her eyes. + +"Those are generous words, Mr. Armitage. My brother warned me against you +in quite unequivocal language. He told me about your match-box--" + +"Oh, the cigarette case!" and he held it up. "It's really mine--and I'm +going to keep it. It was very damaging evidence. It would argue strongly +against me in any court of law." + +"Yes, I believe that is true." And she looked at the trinket with frank +interest. + +"But I particularly do not wish to have to meet that charge in any court +of law, Miss Claiborne." + +She met his gaze very steadily, and her eyes were grave. Then she asked, +in much the same tone that she would have used if they had been very old +friends and he had excused himself for not riding that day, or for not +going upon a hunt, or to the theater: + +"Why?" + +"Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were +forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von +Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately--most +unfortunately--I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have +come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over +a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain +events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I +saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing +to you--" + +He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand. + +"And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain +Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circumstances," said Shirley. + +"You are infinitely kind and generous--" + +"No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things--of course +not!" + +Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed. + +"Then--" + +"Then I will tell you--what I have not told any one else--that I know +very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three +years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel." + +"You know it--you are quite sure of it?" he asked blankly. + +"Certainly. I saw that person--at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport +for a week--I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am +sure you are not the same person." + +Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the +matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, +gave him a new impression of her character. + +"But Captain Claiborne--" + +He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had +faltered, and answered, a little icily: + +"I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with +my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed +himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so--" + +"By Monsieur Chauvenet." + +"So he said." + +"And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet's +entire credibility," declared Armitage, a little airily. + +"I should say not," said Shirley unresponsively. "I am quite as sure that +he was not the false baron as I am that you were not." + +Armitage laughed. + +"That is a little pointed." + +"It was meant to be," said Shirley sternly. "It is"--she weighed the +word--"ridiculous that both of you should be here." + +"Thank you, for my half! I didn't know he was here! But I am not exactly +_here_--I have a much, safer place,"--he swept the blue-hilled horizon +with his hand. "Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in +the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have +an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively +grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him." + +He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind +the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the +valley. + +He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused +abruptly. + +"Oh, this won't do at all! I can't be seen with you, even in the shadow +of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,"--and she +indicated it by a nod of her head. + +"Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German +nobility--you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear--I +assure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to +sneak out by side gates--particularly when I came over the fence! It's a +long way around anyhow--and I have a horse over there somewhere by the +inn." + +"My brother--" + +"Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress +parade, and he is thoroughly occupied." + +"But--there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse +himself." + +They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for +a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, +and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly +at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that +Shirley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she +instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, +when he detained her for a moment. + +"I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable +entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached +this charming valley before me; but--as a rule--I prefer to be a little +ahead of him; it's a whim--the merest whim, I assure you." + +He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the +picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the +white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he +thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth +gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; +and her hat--(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, +but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)--her hat, Armitage was aware, +was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well +calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the +bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! Shirley's hand, thrice +laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and +all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that +Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: +Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill. + +Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in +an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of +an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the +tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was +possessed by a reckless spirit. + +She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on. + +"But when I wait for people they always come--even in a strange pergola!" +he added daringly. "Now, in Geneva, not long ago--" + +He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her +head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding +curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other +tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at +other times. + +"In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked +man to appear--it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost +immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is +inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate," he concluded mournfully. + +He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a +flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to +the front gate. + +He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight +Shirley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his +steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And +she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had +gone. + +She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face +to face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW + +_En, garde, Messieurs_! And if my hand is hard, + Remember I've been buffeting at will; + I am a whit impatient, and 'tis ill +To cross a hungry dog. _Messieurs, en garde_. + +--W. Lindsey. + + +"Monsieur Chauvenet!" + +Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused +with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual +care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He +struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment passed, and he +smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage's salutation. + +"My dear Armitage!" he murmured. + +"I didn't go to Mexico after all, my good Chauvenet. The place is full of +fevers; I couldn't take the risk." + +"He is indeed a wise man who safeguards his health," replied the other. + +"You are quite right. And when one has had many narrow escapes, one may +be excused for exercising rather particular care. Do you not find it so?" +mocked Armitage. + +"My dear fellow, my life is one long fight against ennui. Danger, +excitement, the hazard of my precious life--such pleasures of late have +been denied me." + +"But you are young and of intrepid spirit, Monsieur. It would be quite +surprising if some perilous adventure did not overtake you before the +silver gets in your hair." + +"Ah! I assure you the speculation interests me; but I must trouble you to +let me pass," continued Chauvenet, in the same tone. "I shall quite +forget that I set out to make a call if I linger longer in your charming +society." + +"But I must ask you to delay your call for the present. I shall greatly +value your company down the road a little way. It is a trifling favor, +and you are a man of delightful courtesy." + +Chauvenet twisted his mustache reflectively. His mind had been busy +seeking means of turning the meeting to his own advantage. He had met +Armitage at quite the least imaginable spot in the world for an encounter +between them; and he was not a man who enjoyed surprises. He had taken +care that the exposure of Armitage at Washington should be telegraphed to +every part of the country, and put upon the cables. He had expected +Armitage to leave Washington, but he had no idea that he would turn up at +a fashionable resort greatly affected by Washingtonians and only a +comparatively short distance from the capital. He was at a great +disadvantage in not knowing Armitage's plans and strategy; his own mind +was curiously cunning, and his reasoning powers traversed oblique lines. +He was thus prone to impute similar mental processes to other people; +simplicity and directness he did not understand at all. He had underrated +Armitage's courage and daring; he wished to make no further mistakes, and +he walked back toward the hotel with apparent good grace. Armitage spoke +now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he +much affected ironical raillery, and his companion's sterner tones +disconcerted him. + +"I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules +Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than +you know. You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game--it is +spectacular--it is picturesque--it is immense! It is so stupendous that +the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be +attained. Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In +this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly. +London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna--they are a long way off, and the things +they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American +mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man's common +ambitions." + +"Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow?" + +"It is both," replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had +spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and +continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone: + +"I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne's +supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I +wanted to watch your plans a little in security. The only man who could +have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was +in Montana." + +Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance. + +"Of course. The hour was chosen well!" + +"More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours. +He's a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains. I had no trouble in +shaking him off in Boston, where you probably advised him I should be +taking the Montreal express." + +Chauvenet blinked. This was precisely what he had told Zmai to expect. He +shifted from one foot to another, and wondered just how he was to escape +from Armitage. He had gone to Storm Springs to be near Shirley Claiborne, +and he deeply resented having business thrust upon him. + +"He is a wise man who wields the knife himself, Monsieur Chauvenet. In +the taking of poor Count von Stroebel's life so deftly and secretly, you +prove my philosophy. It was a clever job, Monsieur!" + +Chauvenet's gloved fingers caught at his mustache. + +"That is almost insulting, Monsieur Armitage. A distinguished statesman +is killed--therefore I must have murdered him. You forget that there's a +difference between us--you are an unknown adventurer, carried on the +books of the police as a fugitive from justice, and I can walk to the +hotel and get twenty reputable men to vouch for me. I advise you to be +careful not to mention my name in connection with Count von Stroebel's +death." + +He had begun jauntily, but closed in heat, and when he finished Armitage +nodded to signify that he understood perfectly. + +"A few more deaths and you would be in a position to command tribute from +a high quarter, Monsieur." + +"Your mind seems to turn upon assassination. If you know so much about +Stroebel's death, it's unfortunate that you left Europe at a time when +you might have rendered important aid in finding the murderer. It's a bit +suspicious, Monsieur Armitage! It is known at the Hotel Monte Rosa in +Geneva that you were the last person to enjoy an interview with the +venerable statesman--you see I am not dull, Monsieur Armitage!" + +"You are not dull, Chauvenet; you are only shortsighted. The same +witnesses know that John Armitage was at the Hotel Monte Rosa for +twenty-four hours following the Count's departure. Meanwhile, where +were you, Jules Chauvenet?" + +Chauvenet's hand again went to his face, which whitened, though he sought +refuge again in flippant irony. + +"To be sure! Where was I, Monsieur? Undoubtedly you know all my +movements, so that it is unnecessary for me to have any opinions in the +matter." + +"Quite so! Your opinions are not of great value to me, for I employed +agents to trace every move you made during the month in which Count von +Stroebel was stabbed to death in his railway carriage. It is so +interesting that I have committed the record to memory. If the story +would interest you--" + +The hand that again sought the slight mustache trembled slightly; but +Chauvenet smiled. + +"You should write the memoirs of your very interesting career, my dear +fellow. I can not listen to your babble longer." + +"I do not intend that you shall; but your whereabouts on Monday night, +March eighteenth, of this year, may need explanation, Monsieur +Chauvenet." + +"If it should, I shall call upon you, my dear fellow!" + +"Save yourself the trouble! The bureau I employed to investigate the +matter could assist you much better. All I could offer would be copies of +its very thorough reports. The number of cups of coffee your friend +Durand drank for breakfast this morning at his lodgings in Vienna will +reach me in due course!" + +"You are really a devil of a fellow, John Armitage! So much knowledge! So +acute an intellect! You are too wise to throw away your life futilely." + +"You have been most generous in sparing it thus far!" laughed Armitage, +and Chauvenet took instant advantage of his change of humor. + +"Perhaps--perhaps--I have pledged my faith in the wrong quarter, +Monsieur. If I may say it, we are both fairly clever men; together we +could achieve much!" + +"So you would sell out, would you?" laughed Armitage. "You miserable +little blackguard, I should like to join forces with you! Your knack of +getting the poison into the right cup every time would be a valuable +asset! But we are not made for each other in this world. In the next--who +knows?" + +"As you will! I dare say you would be an exacting partner." + +"All of that, Chauvenet! You do best to stick to your present employer. +He needs you and the like of you--I don't! But remember--if there's a +sudden death in Vienna, in a certain high quarter, you will not live +to reap the benefits. Charles Louis rules Austria-Hungary; his cousin, +your friend Francis, is not of kingly proportions. I advise you to cable +the amiable Durand of a dissolution of partnership. It is now too late +for you to call at Judge Claiborne's, and I shall trouble you to walk on +down the road for ten minutes. If you look round or follow me, I shall +certainly turn you into something less attractive than a pillar of salt. +You do well to consult your watch--forward!" + +Armitage pointed down the road with his riding-crop. As Chauvenet walked +slowly away, swinging his stick, Armitage turned toward the hotel. The +shadow of night was enfolding the hills, and it was quite dark when he +found Oscar and the horses. + +He mounted, and they rode through the deepening April dusk, up the +winding trail that led out of Storm Valley. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SHIRLEY LEARNS A SECRET + +Nightingales warble about it + All night under blossom and star; +The wild swan is dying without it, + And the eagle crieth afar; +The sun, he doth mount but to find it + Searching the green earth o'er; +But more doth a man's heart mind it-- + O more, more, more! + +--G.E. Woodberry. + + +Shirley Claiborne was dressed for a ride, and while waiting for her horse +she re-read her brother's letter; and the postscript, which follows, she +read twice: + +"I shall never live down my acquaintance with the delectable Armitage. My +brother officers insist on rubbing it in. I even hear, _ma cherie_, that +you have gone into retreat by reason of the exposure. I'll admit, for +your consolation, that he really took me in; and, further, I really +wonder who the devil he is,--or _was_! Our last interview at the Club, +after Chauvenet told his story, lingers with me disagreeably. I was +naturally pretty hot to find him playing the darkly mysterious, which +never did go with me,--after eating my bird and drinking my bottle. As a +precaution I have looked up Chauvenet to the best of my ability. At the +Austro-Hungarian Embassy they speak well of him. He's over here to +collect the price of a few cruisers or some such rubbish from one of our +sister republics below the Gulf. But bad luck to all foreigners! Me for +America every time!" + + * * * * * + +"Dear old Dick!" and she dropped the letter into a drawer and went out +into the sunshine, mounted her horse and turned toward the hills. + +She had spent the intermediate seasons of the year at Storm Springs ever +since she could remember, and had climbed the surrounding hills and +dipped into the valleys with a boy's zest and freedom. The Virginia +mountains were linked in her mind to the dreams of her youth, to her +earliest hopes and aspirations, and to the books she had read, and she +galloped happily out of the valley to the tune of an old ballad. She rode +as a woman should, astride her horse and not madly clinging to it in the +preposterous ancient fashion. She had known horses from early years, in +which she had tumbled from her pony's back in the stable-yard, and she +knew how to train a horse to a gait and how to master a beast's fear; and +even some of the tricks of the troopers in the Fort Myer drill she had +surreptitiously practised in the meadow back of the Claiborne stable. + +It was on Tuesday that John Armitage had appeared before her in the +pergola. It was now Thursday afternoon, and Chauvenet had been to see her +twice since, and she had met him the night before at a dance at one of +the cottages. + +Judge Claiborne was distinguished for his acute and sinewy mind; but he +had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his +gift of imagination,--the ability to forecast the enemy's strategy and +then strike his weakest point,--that had made him a great lawyer and +diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she had learned +to see around corners as he did, and she liked a problem, a test of wit, +a contest of powers. She knew how to wait and ponder in silence, and +therein lay the joy of the saddle, when she could ride alone with no +groom to bother her, and watch enchantments unfold on the hilltops. + +Once free of the settlement she rode far and fast, until she was quite +beyond the usual routes of the Springs excursionists; then in mountain +byways she enjoyed the luxury of leisure and dismounted now and then to +delight in the green of the laurel and question the rhododendrons. + +Jules Chauvenet had scoured the hills all day and explored many +mountain paths and inquired cautiously of the natives. The telegraph +operator at the Storm Springs inn was a woman, and the despatch and +receipt by Jules Chauvenet of long messages, many of them in cipher, +piqued her curiosity. No member of the Washington diplomatic circle who +came to the Springs,--not even the shrewd and secretive Russian +Ambassador,--received longer or more cryptic cables. With the social +diversions of the Springs and the necessity for making a show of having +some legitimate business in America, Jules Chauvenet was pretty well +occupied; and now the presence of John Armitage in Virginia added to his +burdens. + +He was tired and perplexed, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he +rode out of an obscure hill-path into a bit of open wood overhanging a +curious defile and came upon Shirley Claiborne. + +The soil was soft and his horse carried him quite near before she heard +him. A broad sheet of water flashed down the farther side of the narrow +pass, sending up a pretty spurt of spray wherever it struck the jutting +rock. As Shirley turned toward him he urged his horse over the springy +turf. + +"A pity to disturb the picture, Miss Claiborne! A thousand pardons! But I +really wished to see whether the figure could come out of the canvas. Now +that I have dared to make the test, pray do not send me away." + +Her horse turned restlessly and brought her face to face with Chauvenet. + +"Steady, Fanny! Don't come near her, please--" this last to Chauvenet, +who had leaped down and put out his hand to her horse's bridle. She had +the true horsewoman's pride in caring for herself and her eyes flashed +angrily for a moment at Chauvenet's proffered aid. A man might open a +door for her or pick up her handkerchief, but to touch her horse was an +altogether different business. The pretty, graceful mare was calm in a +moment and arched her neck contentedly under the stroke of Shirley's +hand. + +"Beautiful! The picture is even more perfect, Mademoiselle!" + +"Fanny is best in action, and splendid when she runs away. She hasn't run +away to-day, but I think she is likely to before I get home." + +She was thinking of the long ride which she had no intention of taking in +Chauvenet's company. He stood uncovered beside her, holding his horse. + +"But the danger, Mademoiselle! You should not hazard your life with a +runaway horse on these roads. It is not fair to your friends." + +"You are a conservative, Monsieur. I should be ashamed to have a runaway +in a city park, but what does one come to the country for?" + +"What, indeed, but for excitement? You are not of those tame young women +across the sea who come out into the world from a convent, frightened at +all they see and whisper 'Yes, Sister,' 'No, Sister,' to everything they +hear." + +"Yes; we Americans are deficient in shyness and humility. I have often +heard it remarked, Monsieur Chauvenet." + +"No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are +delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope +you would not believe me capable of speaking in disparagement, +Mademoiselle,--you must know--" + +The water tumbled down the rock into the vale; the soft air was sweet +with the scent of pines. An eagle cruised high against the blue overhead. +Shirley's hand tightened on the rein, and Fanny lifted her head +expectantly. + +Chauvenet went on rapidly in French: + +"You must know why I am here--why I have crossed the sea to seek you in +your own home. I have loved you, Mademoiselle, from the moment I first +saw you in Florence. Here, with only the mountains, the sky, the wood, +I must speak. You must hear--you must believe, that I love you! I offer +you my life, my poor attainments--" + +"Monsieur, you do me a great honor, but I can not listen. What you ask is +impossible, quite impossible. But, Monsieur--" + +Her eyes had fallen upon a thicket behind him where something had +stirred. She thought at first that it was an animal of some sort; but she +saw now quite distinctly a man's shabby felt hat that rose slowly until +the bearded face of its wearer was disclosed. + +"Monsieur!" cried Shirley in a low tone; "look behind you and be careful +what you say or do. Leave the man to me." + +Chauvenet turned and faced a scowling mountaineer who held a rifle and +drew it to his shoulder as Chauvenet threw out his arms, dropped them to +his thighs and laughed carelessly. + +"What is it, my dear fellow--my watch--my purse--my horse?" he said in +English. + +"He wants none of those things," said Shirley, urging her horse a few +steps toward the man. "The mountain people are not robbers. What can we +do for you?" she asked pleasantly. + +"You cain't do nothin' for me," drawled the man. "Go on away, Miss. I +want to see this little fella'. I got a little business with him." + +"He is a foreigner--he knows little of our language. You will do best to +let me stay," said Shirley. + +She had not the remotest idea of what the man wanted, but she had known +the mountain folk from childhood and well understood that familiarity +with their ways and tact were necessary in dealing with them. + +"Miss, I have seen you befo', and I reckon we ain't got no cause for +trouble with you; but this little fella' ain't no business up hy'eh. Them +hotel people has their own places to ride and drive, and it's all right +for you, Miss; but what's yo' frien' ridin' the hills for at night? He's +lookin' for some un', and I reckon as how that some un' air me!" + +He spoke drawlingly with a lazy good humor in his tones, and Shirley's +wits took advantage of his deliberation to consider the situation from +several points of view. Chauvenet stood looking from Shirley to the man +and back again. He was by no means a coward, and he did not in the least +relish the thought of owing his safety to a woman. But the confidence +with which Shirley addressed the man, and her apparent familiarity with +the peculiarities of the mountaineers impressed him. He spoke to her +rapidly in French. + +"Assure the man that I never heard of him before in my life--that the +idea of seeking him never occurred to me." + +The rifle--a repeater of the newest type--went to the man's shoulder in a +flash and the blue barrel pointed at Chauvenet's head. + +"None o' that! I reckon the American language air good enough for these +'ere negotiations." + +Chauvenet shrugged his shoulders; but he gazed into the muzzle of the +rifle unflinchingly. + +"The gentleman was merely explaining that you are mistaken; that he does +not know you and never heard of you before, and that he has not been +looking for you in the mountains or anywhere else." + +As Shirley spoke these words very slowly and distinctly she questioned +for the first time Chauvenet's position. Perhaps, after all, the +mountaineer had a real cause of grievance. It seemed wholly unlikely, but +while she listened to the man's reply she weighed the matter judicially. +They were in an unfrequented part of the mountains, which cottagers and +hotel guests rarely explored. The mountaineer was saying: + +"Mountain folks air slow, and we don't know much, but a stranger don't +ride through these hills more than once for the scenery; the second time +he's got to tell why; and the third time--well, Miss, you kin tell the +little fella' that there ain't no third time." + +Chauvenet flushed and he ejaculated hotly: + +"I have never been here before in my life." + +The man dropped the rifle into his arm without taking his eyes from +Chauvenet. He said succinctly, but still with his drawl: + +"You air a liar, seh!" + +Chauvenet took a step forward, looked again into the rifle barrel, and +stopped short. Fanny, bored by the prolonged interview, bent her neck and +nibbled at a weed. + +"This gentleman has been in America only a few weeks; you are certainly +mistaken, friend," said Shirley boldly. Then the color flashed into her +face, as an explanation of the mountaineer's interest in a stranger +riding the hills occurred to her. + +"My friend," she said, "I am Miss Claiborne. You may know my father's +house down in the valley. We have been coming here as far back as I can +remember." + +The mountaineer listened to her gravely, and at her last words he +unconsciously nodded his head. Shirley, seeing that he was interested, +seized her advantage. + +"I have no reason for misleading you. This gentleman is not a revenue +man. He probably never heard of a--still, do you call it?--in his +life--" and she smiled upon him sweetly. "But if you will let him go I +promise to satisfy you entirely in the matter." + +Chauvenet started to speak, but Shirley arrested him with a gesture, and +spoke again to the mountaineer in her most engaging tone: + +"We are both mountaineers, you and I, and we don't want any of our people +to be carried off to jail. Isn't that so? Now let this gentleman ride +away, and I shall stay here until I have quite assured you that you are +mistaken about him." + +She signaled Chauvenet to mount, holding the mystified and reluctant +mountaineer with her eyes. Her heart was thumping fast and her hand shook +a little as she tightened her grasp on the rein. She addressed Chauvenet +in English as a mark of good faith to their captor. + +"Ride on, Monsieur; do not wait for me." + +"But it is growing dark--I can not leave you alone, Mademoiselle. You +have rendered me a great service, when it is I who should have extricated +you--" + +"Pray do not mention it! It is a mere chance that I am able to help. I +shall be perfectly safe with this gentleman." + +The mountaineer took off his hat. + +"Thank ye, Miss," he said; and then to Chauvenet: "Get out!" + +"Don't trouble about me in the least, Monsieur Chauvenet," and Shirley +affirmed the last word with a nod as Chauvenet jumped into his saddle and +rode off. When the swift gallop of his horse had carried him out of +sight and sound down the road, Shirley faced the mountaineer. + +"What is your name?" + +"Tom Selfridge." + +"Whom did you take that man to be, Mr. Selfridge?" asked Shirley, and in +her eagerness she bent down above the mountaineer's bared tangle of tow. + +"The name you called him ain't it. It's a queer name I never heerd tell +on befo'--it's--it's like the a'my--" + +"Is it Armitage?" asked Shirley quickly. + +"That's it, Miss! The postmaster over at Lamar told me to look out fer +'im. He's moved up hy'eh, and it ain't fer no good. The word's out that a +city man's lookin' for some_thing_ or some_body_ in these hills. And +the man's stayin'--" + +"Where?" + +"At the huntin' club where folks don't go no more. I ain't seen him, but +th' word's passed. He's a city man and a stranger, and got a little +fella' that's been a soldier into th' army stayin' with 'im. I thought +yo' furriner was him, Miss, honest to God I did." + +The incident amused Shirley and she laughed aloud. She had undoubtedly +gained information that Chauvenet had gone forth to seek; she had--and +the thing was funny--served Chauvenet well in explaining away his +presence in the mountains and getting him out of the clutches of the +mountaineer, while at the same time she was learning for herself the fact +of Armitage's whereabouts and keeping it from Chauvenet. It was a curious +adventure, and she gave her hand smilingly to the mystified and still +doubting mountaineer. + +"I give you my word of honor that neither man is a government officer and +neither one has the slightest interest in you--will you believe me?" + +"I reckon I got to, Miss." + +"Good; and now, Mr. Selfridge, it is growing dark and I want you to walk +down this trail with me until we come to the Storm Springs road." + +"I'll do it gladly, Miss." + +"Thank you; now let us be off." + +She made him turn back when they reached a point from which they could +look upon the electric lights of the Springs colony, and where the big +hotel and its piazzas shone like a steamship at night. A moment later +Chauvenet, who had waited impatiently, joined her, and they rode down +together. She referred at once to the affair with the mountaineer in her +most frivolous key. + +"They are an odd and suspicious people, but they're as loyal as the +stars. And please let us never mention the matter again--not to any one, +if you please, Monsieur!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +NARROW MARGINS + +The black-caps pipe among the reeds, + And there'll be rain to follow; +There is a murmur as of wind + In every coign and hollow; +The wrens do chatter of their fears +While swinging on the barley-ears. + +--Amelie Rives. + + +The Judge and Mrs. Claiborne were dining with some old friends in the +valley, and Shirley, left alone, carried to the table several letters +that had come in the late mail. The events of the afternoon filled her +mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was +building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered +whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she +had witnessed against John Armitage's life, she ought now to unfold all +she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was +not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the +feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening +sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she +smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had +practised upon Chauvenet. + +The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which +her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty +picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek, +bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white +and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only +ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft +gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm +flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy. Her hair was swept up high +from her brow; her nose, straight, like her father's, was saved from +arrogance by a sensitive mouth, all eloquent of kindness and wholesome +mirth--but we take unfair advantage! A girl dining in candle-light with +only her dreams for company should be safe from impertinent eyes. + +She had kept Dick's letter till the last. He wrote often and in the key +of his talk. She dropped a lump of sugar into her coffee-cup and read his +hurried scrawl: + +"What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars' worth of +telegrams from Sanderson--wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana, +that it's all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The +newspaper accounts of the _expose_ at my supper party had just reached +him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage's) ranch all that summer +the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask, +does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And +where and _who_ is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present--even +from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn +up again--he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!--and +sooner or later he's bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I +think of it, who in the devil is _he_! And why didn't Armitage call him +down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows +addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse." + + * * * * * + +Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to +it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick's +questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet +was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour +in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew +on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down +from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length +of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where +steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and +she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its +needs and the gardener's work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a +light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it, +thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor's; but +the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was +about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the +shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the +stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola. + +Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in +the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the +garden a flying figure darted in and out among the walks. For several +minutes two dark figures played at vigorous hide-and-seek. Occasionally +gravel crunched underfoot and shrubbery snapped back with a sharp swish +where it was caught and held for support at corners. Pursued and pursuer +were alike silent; the scene was like a pantomime. + +Then the tables seemed to be turned; the bulkier figure of the pursuer +was now in flight; and Shirley lost both for a moment, but immediately a +dark form rose at the wall; she heard the scratch of feet upon the brick +surface as a man gained the top, turned and lifted his arm as though +aiming a weapon. + +Then a dark object, hurled through the air, struck him squarely in the +face and he tumbled over the wall, and Shirley heard him crash through +the hedge of the neighboring estate, then all was quiet again. + +The game of hide-and-seek in the garden and the scramble over the wall +had consumed only two or three minutes, and Shirley now waited, her eyes +bent upon the darkly-outlined pergola for some manifestation from the +remaining intruder. A man now walked rapidly toward the veranda, carrying +a cloak on his arm. She recognized Armitage instantly. He doffed his hat +and bowed. The lights of the house lamps shone full upon him, and she saw +that he was laughing a little breathlessly. + +"This is really fortunate, Miss Claiborne. I owe your house an apology, +and if you will grant me audience I will offer it to you." + +He threw the cloak over his shoulder and fanned himself with his hat. + +"You are a most informal person, Mr. Armitage," said Shirley coldly. + +"I'm afraid I am! The most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in +to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not +for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the +pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter +of foot he grew ugly and tried to put me out of commission." + +He was still laughing, but Shirley felt that he was again trying to make +light of a serious situation, and a further tie of secrecy with Armitage +was not to her liking. As he walked boldly to the veranda steps, she +stepped back from him. + +"No! No! This is impossible--it will not do at all, Mr. Armitage. It is +not kind of you to come here in this strange fashion." + +"In this way forsooth! How could I send in my card when I was being +chased all over the estate! I didn't mean to apologize for coming"--and +he laughed again, with a sincere mirth that shook her resolution to deal +harshly with him. "But," he went on, "it was the flowerpot! He was mad +because I beat him in the foot-race and wanted to shoot me from the wall, +and I tossed him a potted geranium--geraniums are splendid for the +purpose--and it caught him square in the head. I have the knack of it! +Once before I handed him a boiling-pot!" + +"It must have hurt him," said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that +was meant to be severe. + +"I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it! He was most +tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in +the garden it would have had an ugly look. Armitage, the false baron, +would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to +burglarize the Claiborne mansion! But I wouldn't take the Claiborne plate +for anything, I assure you!" + +"I suppose you didn't think of us--all of us, and the unpleasant +consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened +here!" + +There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far +with his light treatment of the affair. His tone changed instantly. + +"Please forgive me! I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any +member of your family for kingdoms. I didn't know I was being followed--I +had come here to see you. That is the truth of it." + +"You mustn't try to see me! You mustn't come here at all unless you come +with the knowledge of my father. And the very fact that your life is +sought so persistently--at most unusual times and in impossible places, +leaves very much to explain." + +"I know that! I realize all that!" + +"Then you must not come! You must leave instantly." + +She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door +she turned to him again. They were in the full glare of the door lamps, +and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he +flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly. + +"You have been hurt--why did you not tell me that?" + +"It is nothing--the fellow had a knife, and he--but it's only a trifle in +the shoulder. I must be off!" + +The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind +was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof +of the veranda. + +As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward +the porte-cochere. + +"I'm off--please believe in me--a little." + +"You must not go if you are hurt--and you can't run away now--my father +and mother are at the door." + +There was an instant's respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda +steps. She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses. + +"You can't go now; come in and wait." + +There was no time for debate. She flung open the door and swept him past +her with a gesture--through the library and beyond, into a smaller room +used by Judge Claiborne as an office. Armitage sank down on a leather +couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the +rod rings. + +She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the +veranda. + +"Ah, Miss Claiborne! Your father and mother picked me up and brought me +in out of the rain. Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its +powers." + +And Shirley went forward to greet Baron von Marhof. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING + +Oh, sweetly fall the April days! + My love was made of frost and light, + Of light to warm and frost to blight +The sweet, strange April of her ways. +Eyes like a dream of changing skies, +And every frown and blush I prize. + With cloud and flush the spring comes in, + With frown and blush maids' loves begin; +For love is rare like April days. + +--L. Frank Tooker. + + +Mrs. Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the +Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great +sheets against the house. Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn +of affairs. The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and +meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was. If by any chance he should +be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his +presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage's plight--his +injuries and the dangers that beset him--that was uppermost in her mind. +The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should +be found concealed in the house troubled her little. Her heart beat +wildly as she realized this; and the look in his eyes and the quick pain +that twitched his face at the door haunted her. + +The two men were talking of the new order of things in Vienna. + +"The trouble is," said the Ambassador, "that Austria-Hungary is not a +nation, but what Metternich called Italy--a geographical expression. +Where there are so many loose ends a strong grasp is necessary to hold +them together." + +"And a weak hand," suggested Judge Claiborne, "might easily lose or +scatter them." + +"Precisely. And a man of character and spirit could topple down the +card-house to-morrow, pick out what he liked, and create for himself a +new edifice--and a stronger one. I speak frankly. Von Stroebel is out of +the way; the new Emperor-king is a weakling, and if he should die +to-night or to-morrow--" + +The Ambassador lifted his hands and snapped his fingers. + +"Yes; after him, what?" + +"After him his scoundrelly cousin Francis; and then a stronger than Von +Stroebel might easily fail to hold the _disjecta membra_ of the Empire +together." + +"But there are shadows on the screen," remarked Judge Claiborne. "There +was Karl--the mad prince." + +"Humph! There was some red blood in him; but he was impossible; he had a +taint of democracy, treason, rebellion." + +Judge Claiborne laughed. + +"I don't like the combination of terms. If treason and rebellion are +synonyms of democracy, we Americans are in danger." + +"No; you are a miracle--that is the only explanation," replied Marhof. + +"But a man like Karl--what if he were to reappear in the world! A little +democracy might solve your problem." + +"No, thank God! he is out of the way. He was sane enough to take himself +off and die." + +"But his ghost walks. Not a year ago we heard of him; and he had a son +who chose his father's exile. What if Charles Louis, who is without +heirs, should die and Karl or his son--" + +"In the providence of God they are dead. Impostors gain a little brief +notoriety by pretending to be the lost Karl or his son Frederick +Augustus; but Von Stroebel satisfied himself that Karl was dead. I am +quite sure of it. You know dear Stroebel had a genius for gaining +information." + +"I have heard as much," and Shirley and the Baron smiled at Judge +Claiborne's tone. + +The storm was diminishing and Shirley grew more tranquil. Soon the +Ambassador would leave and she would send Armitage away; but the mention +of Stroebel's name rang oddly in her ears, and the curious way in which +Armitage and Chauvenet had come into her life awoke new and anxious +questions. + +"Count von Stroebel was not a democrat, at any rate," she said. "He +believed in the divine right and all that." + +"So do I, Miss Claiborne. It's all we've got to stand on!" + +"But suppose a democratic prince were to fall heir to one of the European +thrones, insist on giving his crown to the poor and taking his oath in a +frock coat, upsetting the old order entirely--" + +"He would be a fool, and the people would drag him to the block in a +week," declared the Baron vigorously. + +They pursued the subject in lighter vein a few minutes longer, then the +Baron rose. Judge Claiborne summoned the waiting carriage from the +stable, and the Baron drove home. + +"I ought to work for an hour on that Danish claims matter," remarked the +Judge, glancing toward his curtained den. + +"You will do nothing of the kind! Night work is not permitted in the +valley." + +"Thank you! I hoped you would say that, Shirley. I believe I am tired; +and now if you will find a magazine for me, I'll go to bed. Ring for +Thomas to close the house." + +"I have a few notes to write; they'll take only a minute, and I'll write +them here." + +She heard her father's door close, listened to be quite sure that the +house was quiet, and threw back the curtains. Armitage stepped out into +the library. + +"You must go--you must go!" she whispered with deep tensity. + +"Yes; I must go. You have been kind--you are most generous--" + +But she went before him to the hall, waited, listened, for one instant; +then threw open the outer door and bade him go. The rain dripped heavily +from the eaves, and the cool breath of the freshened air was sweet and +stimulating. She was immensely relieved to have him out of the house, but +he lingered on the veranda, staring helplessly about. + +"I shall go home," he said, but so unsteadily that she looked at him +quickly. He carried the cloak flung over his shoulder and in readjusting +it dropped it to the floor, and she saw in the light of the door lamps +that his arm hung limp at his side and the gray cloth of his sleeve was +heavy and dark with blood. With a quick gesture she stooped and picked up +the cloak. + +"Come! Come! This is all very dreadful--you must go to a physician at +once." + +"My man and horse are waiting for me; the injury is nothing." But she +threw the cloak over his shoulders and led the way, across the veranda, +and out upon the walk. + +"I do not need the doctor--not now. My man will care for me." + +He started through the dark toward the outer wall, as though confused, +and she went before him toward the side entrance. He was aware of her +quick light step, of the soft rustle of her skirts, of a wish to send her +back, which his tongue could not voice; but he knew that it was sweet to +follow her leading. At the gate he took his bearings with a new assurance +and strength. + +"It seems that I always appear to you in some miserable fashion--it is +preposterous for me to ask forgiveness. To thank you--" + +"Please say nothing at all--but go! Your enemies must not find you here +again--you must leave the valley!" + +"I have a work to do! But it must not touch your life. Your happiness is +too much, too sweet to me." + +"You must leave the bungalow--I found out to-day where you are staying. +There is a new danger there--the mountain people think you are a revenue +officer. I told one of them--" + +"Yes?" + +"--that you are not! That is enough. Now hurry away. You must find your +horse and go." + +He bent and kissed her hand. + +"You trust me; that is the dearest thing in the world." His voice +faltered and broke in a sob, for he was worn and weak, and the mystery of +the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart +leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only +blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the +night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before +her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her low whisper arrested +him. + +"Do not let them hurt you again--" she said; and he felt her hand seek +his, felt its cool furtive pressure for a moment; and then she was gone. +He heard the house door close a moment later, and gazing across the +garden, saw the lights on the veranda flash out. + +Then with a smile on his face he strode away to find Oscar and the +horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AN EXCHANGE OF MESSAGES + +When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate, + And time seemed but the vassal of my will, +I entertained certain guests of state-- + The great of older days, who, faithful still, +Have kept with me the pact my youth had made. + +--S. Weir Mitchell. + + +"Who am I?" asked John Armitage soberly. + +He tossed the stick of a match into the fireplace, where a pine-knot +smoldered, drew his pipe into a glow and watched Oscar screw the top on a +box of ointment which he had applied to Armitage's arm. The little +soldier turned and stood sharply at attention. + +"Yon are Mr. John Armitage, sir. A man's name is what he says it is. It +is the rule of the country." + +"Thank you, Oscar. Your words reassure me. There have been times lately +when I have been in doubt myself. You are a pretty good doctor." + +"First aid to the injured; I learned the trick from a hospital steward. +If you are not poisoned, and do not die, you will recover--yes?" + +"Thank you, Sergeant. You are a consoling spirit; but I assure you on my +honor as a gentleman that if I die I shall certainly haunt you. This is +the fourth day. To-morrow I shall throw away the bandage and be quite +ready for more trouble." + +"It would be better on the fifth--" + +"The matter is settled. You will now go for the mail; and do take care +that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to +me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is--mark, My Majesty--pray +say that I am quite well and equal to ruling over many kingdoms." + +"Yes, sire." + +And Armitage roared with laughter, as the little man, pausing as he +buckled a cartridge belt under his coat, bowed with a fine mockery of +reverence. + +"If a man were king he could have a devilish fine time of it, Oscar." + +"He could review many troops and they would fire salutes until the powder +cost much money." + +"You are mighty right, as we say in Montana; and I'll tell you quite +confidentially, Sergeant, that if I were out of work and money and needed +a job the thought of being king might tempt me. These gentlemen who are +trying to stick knives into me think highly of my chances. They may force +me into the business--" and Armitage rose and kicked the flaring knot. + +Oscar drew on his gauntlet with a jerk. + +"They killed the great prime minister--yes?" + +"They undoubtedly did, Oscar." + +"He was a good man--he was a very great man," said Oscar slowly, and went +quickly out and closed the door softly after him. + +The life of the two men in the bungalow was established in a definite +routine. Oscar was drilled in habits of observation and attention and he +realized without being told that some serious business was afoot; he knew +that Armitage's life had been attempted, and that the receipt and +despatch of telegrams was a part of whatever errand had brought his +master to the Virginia hills. His occupations were wholly to his liking; +there was simple food to eat; there were horses to tend; and his errands +abroad were of the nature of scouting and in keeping with one's dignity +who had been a soldier. He rose often at night to look abroad, and +sometimes he found Armitage walking the veranda or returning from +a tramp through the wood. Armitage spent much time studying papers; and +once, the day after Armitage submitted his wounded arm to Oscar's care, +he had seemed upon the verge of a confidence. + +"To save life; to prevent disaster; to do a little good in the world--to +do something for Austria--such things are to the soul's credit, Oscar," +and then Armitage's mood changed and he had begun chaffing in a fashion +that was beyond Oscar's comprehension. + +The little soldier rode over the hills to Lamar Station in the waning +spring twilight, asked at the telegraph office for messages, stuffed +Armitage's mail into his pockets at the post-office, and turned home as +the moonlight poured down the slopes and flooded the valleys. The +Virginia roads have been cursed by larger armies than any that ever +marched in Flanders, but Oscar was not a swearing man. He paused to rest +his beast occasionally and to observe the landscape with the eye +of a strategist. Moonlight, he remembered, was a useful accessory of the +assassin's trade, and the faint sounds of the spring night were all +promptly traced to their causes as they reached his alert ears. + +At the gate of the hunting-park grounds he bent forward in the saddle to +lift the chain that held it; urged his horse inside, bent down to +refasten it, and as his fingers clutched the iron a man rose in the +shadow of the little lodge and clasped him about the middle. The iron +chain swung free and rattled against the post, and the horse snorted with +fright, then, at a word from Oscar, was still. There was the barest +second of waiting, in which the long arms tightened, and the great body +of his assailant hung heavily about him; then he dug spurs into the +horse's flanks and the animal leaped forward with a snort of rage, jumped +out of the path and tore away through the woods. + +Oscar's whole strength was taxed to hold his seat as the burly figure +thumped against the horse's flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, +but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar +took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate +it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood +he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. +His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on +top of him, and the freed horse galloped away toward the stable. + +A rough and tumble fight now followed. Oscar's lithe, vigorous body +writhed in the grasp of his antagonist, now free, now clasped by giant +arms. They saw each other's faces plainly in the clear moonlight, and at +breathless pauses in the struggle their eyes maintained the state of war. +At one instant, when both men lay with arms interlocked, half-lying on +their thighs, Oscar hissed in the giant's ear: + +"You are a Servian: it is an ugly race." + +And the Servian cursed him in a fierce growl. + +"We expected you; you are a bad hand with the knife," grunted Oscar, and +feeling the bellows-like chest beside him expand, as though in +preparation for a renewal of the fight, he suddenly wrenched himself free +of the Servian's grasp, leaped away a dozen paces to the shelter of a +great pine, and turned, revolver in hand. + +"Throw up your hands," he yelled. + +The Servian fired without pausing for aim, the shot ringing out sharply +through the wood. Then Oscar discharged his revolver three times in quick +succession, and while the discharges were still keen on the air he drew +quickly back to a clump of underbrush, and crept away a dozen yards to +watch events. The Servian, with his eyes fixed upon the tree behind which +his adversary had sought shelter, grew anxious, and thrust his head +forward warily. + +Then he heard a sound as of some one running through the wood to the left +and behind him, but still the man he had grappled on the horse made no +sign. It dawned upon him that the three shots fired in front of him had +been a signal, and in alarm he turned toward the gate, but a voice near +at hand called loudly, "Oscar!" and repeated the name several times. + +Behind the Servian the little soldier answered sharply in English: + +"All steady, sir!" + +The use of a strange tongue added to the Servian's bewilderment, and he +fled toward the gate, with Oscar hard after him. Then Armitage suddenly +leaped out of the shadows directly in his path and stopped him with a +leveled revolver. + +"Easy work, Oscar! Take the gentleman's gun and be sure to find his +knife." + +The task was to Oscar's taste, and he made quick work of the Servian's +pockets. + +"Your horse was a good despatch bearer. You are all sound, Oscar?" + +"Never better, sir. A revolver and two knives--" the weapons flashed in +the moonlight as he held them up. + +"Good! Now start your friend toward the bungalow." + +They set off at a quick pace, soon found the rough driveway, and trudged +along silently, the Servian between his captors. + +When they reached the house Armitage flung open the door and followed +Oscar and the prisoner into the long sitting-room. + +Armitage lighted a pipe at the mantel, readjusted the bandage on his arm, +and laughed aloud as he looked upon the huge figure of the Servian +standing beside the sober little cavalryman. + +"Oscar, there are certainly giants in these days, and we have caught one. +You will please see that the cylinder of your revolver is in good order +and prepare to act as clerk of our court-martial. If the prisoner moves, +shoot him." + +He spoke these last words very deliberately in German, and the +Servian's small eyes blinked his comprehension. Armitage sat down on the +writing-table, with his own revolver and the prisoner's knives and pistol +within reach of his available hand. A smile of amusement played over his +face as he scrutinized the big body and its small, bullet-like head. + +"He is a large devil," commented Oscar. + +"He is large, certainly," remarked Armitage. "Give him a chair. Now," he +said to the man in deliberate German, "I shall say a few things to you +which I am very anxious for you to understand. You are a Servian." + +The man nodded. + +"Your name is Zmai Miletich." + +The man shifted his great bulk uneasily in his chair and fastened his +lusterless little eyes upon Armitage. + +"Your name," repeated Armitage, "is Zmai Miletich; your home is, or was, +in the village of Toplica, where you were a blacksmith until you became a +thief. You are employed as an assassin by two gentlemen known as +Chauvenet and Durand--do you follow me?" + +The man was indeed following him with deep engrossment. His narrow +forehead was drawn into minute wrinkles; his small eyes seemed to recede +into his head; his great body turned uneasily. + +"I ask you again," repeated Armitage, "whether you follow me. There must +be no mistake." + +Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in +the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his +head. + +"There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed +at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for +orders. At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the +head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March." + +The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage +laughed. + +"Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and +when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new +Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for +what you have done--" + +The blood suffused the man's dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of +angry denial breaking from him. + +"That will do. You tried to kill me on the _King Edward_; you tried your +knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne's garden; and you came up +here tonight with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me. +Give me the mail, Oscar." + +He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that +bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment +he laughed and jumped from the table. He brought a portfolio from his +bedroom and sat down to write. + +"Don't shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet. You may even give him +a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings." + +Armitage wrote: + + * * * * * + +"MONSIEUR: + +"Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back +to the blacksmith shop at Toplica. I learn that Monsieur Durand, +distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you--is +even now aboard the _Tacoma_, bound for New York. I am profoundly +grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to +conclude our interesting business in republican territory without +prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned. + +"You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as +immensely dull, Monsieur. Ponder this: should it seem expedient for me to +establish my identity--which I am sure interests you greatly--before +Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be +quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against +your departure in any unseemly haste. I, myself, dear friend, am not +without a certain facility in setting traps." + + * * * * * + +Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care. Then +he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope +and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went +into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal +beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax. Returning to the table he +lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter. He held the red scar on +the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest. The +lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly +distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F. + +"Oscar, what do you recommend that we do with the prisoner?" + +"He should be tied to a tree and shot; or, perhaps, it would be better to +hang him to the rafters in the kitchen. Yet he is heavy and might pull +down the roof." + +"You are a bloodthirsty wretch, and there is no mercy in you. Private +executions are not allowed in this country; you would have us before a +Virginia grand jury and our own necks stretched. No; we shall send him +back to his master." + +"It is a mistake. If your Excellency would go away for an hour he should +never know where the buzzards found this large carcass." + +"Tush! I would not trust his valuable life to you. Get up!" he commanded, +and Oscar jerked Zmai to his feet. + +"You deserve nothing at my hands, but I need a discreet messenger, and +you shall not die to-night, as my worthy adjutant recommends. To-morrow +night, however, or the following night--or any other old night, as we say +in America--if you show yourself in these hills, my chief of staff shall +have his way with you--buzzard meat!" + +"The orders are understood," said Oscar, thrusting the revolver into the +giant's ribs. + +"Now, Zmai, blacksmith of Toplica, and assassin at large, here is a +letter for Monsieur Chauvenet. It is still early. When you have delivered +it, bring me back the envelope with Monsieur's receipt written right +here, under the seal. Do you understand?" + +It had begun to dawn upon Zmai that his life was not in immediate danger, +and the light of intelligence kindled again in his strange little eyes. +Lest he might not fully grasp the errand with which Armitage intrusted +him, Oscar repeated what Armitage had said in somewhat coarser terms. + +Again through the moonlight strode the three--out of Armitage's land to +the valley road and to the same point to which Shirley Claiborne had only +a few days before been escorted by the mountaineer. + +There they sent the Servian forward to the Springs, and Armitage went +home, leaving Oscar to wait for the return of the receipt. + +It was after midnight when Oscar placed it in Armitage's hands at the +bungalow. + +"Oscar, it would be a dreadful thing to kill a man," Armitage declared, +holding the empty envelope to the light and reading the line scrawled +beneath the unbroken wax. It was in French: + +"You are young to die, Monsieur." + +"A man more or less!" and Oscar shrugged his shoulders. + +"You are not a good churchman. It is a grievous sin to do murder." + +"One may repent; it is so written. The people of your house are Catholics +also." + +"That is quite true, though I may seem to forget it. Our work will be +done soon, please God, and we shall ask the blessed sacrament somewhere +in these hills." + +Oscar crossed himself and fell to cleaning his rifle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CAPTAIN CLAIBORNE ON DUTY + +When he came where the trees were thin, +The moon sat waiting there to see; +On her worn palm she laid her chin, +And laughed awhile in sober glee +To think how strong this knight had been. + +--William Vaughn Moody. + + +In some mystification Captain Richard Claiborne packed a suit-case in his +quarters at Fort Myer. Being a soldier, he obeyed orders; but being +human, he was also possessed of a degree of curiosity. He did not know +just the series of incidents and conferences that preceded his summons to +Washington, but they may be summarized thus: + +Baron von Marhof was a cautious man. When the young gentlemen of his +legation spoke to him in awed whispers of a cigarette case bearing an +extraordinary device that had been seen in Washington he laughed them +away; then, possessing a curious and thorough mind, he read all the press +clippings relating to the false Baron von Kissel, and studied the +heraldic emblems of the Schomburgs. As he pondered, he regretted the +death of his eminent brother-in-law, Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, who +was not a man to stumble over so negligible a trifle as a cigarette case. +But Von Marhof himself was not without resources. He told the gentlemen +of his suite that he had satisfied himself that there was nothing in the +Armitage mystery; then he cabled Vienna discreetly for a few days, and +finally consulted Hilton Claiborne, the embassy's counsel, at the +Claiborne home at Storm Springs. + +They had both gone hurriedly to Washington, where they held a long +conference with the Secretary of State. Then the state department called +the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the +commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain +Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly +sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; +but Baron von Marhof's business was urgent; it was also of a private +and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage +at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and +had gone back to Virginia to take the waters. + +The Claiborne house was the pleasantest place in Storm Valley, and the +library a comfortable place for a conference. Dick Claiborne caught the +gravity of the older men as they unfolded to him the task for which +they had asked his services. The Baron stated the case in these words: + +"You know and have talked with this man Armitage; you saw the device on +the cigarette case; and asked an explanation, which he refused; and you +know also Chauvenet, whom we suspect of complicity with the conspirators +at home. Armitage is not the false Baron von Kissel--we have established +that from Senator Sanderson beyond question. But Sanderson's knowledge of +the man is of comparatively recent date--going back about five years to +the time Armitage purchased his Montana ranch. Whoever Armitage may be, +he pays his bills; he conducts himself like a gentleman; he travels at +will, and people who meet him say a good word for him." + +"He is an agreeable man and remarkably well posted in European politics," +said Judge Claiborne. "I talked with him a number of times on the _King +Edward_ and must say that I liked him." + +"Chauvenet evidently knows him; there was undoubtedly something back of +that little trick at my supper party at the Army and Navy," said Dick. + +"It might be explained--" began the Baron; then he paused and looked from +father to son. "Pardon me, but they both manifest some interest in Miss +Claiborne." + +"We met them abroad," said Dick; "and they both turned up again in +Washington." + +"One of them is here, or has been here in the valley--why not the other?" +asked Judge Claiborne. + +"But, of course, Shirley knows nothing of Armitage's whereabouts," Dick +protested. + +"Certainly not," declared his father. + +"How did you make Armitage's acquaintance?" asked the Ambassador. "Some +one must have been responsible for introducing him--if you can remember." + +Dick laughed. + +"It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing +each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. +He was taking _dejeuner_ at the same hour, and he passed us going out. +Old Arthur Singleton--the ubiquitous--was talking to us, and he nailed +Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the +usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew +nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made +himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of +his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him +whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, +and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attache." + +"And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with +ourselves, where we can ask him some questions," declared Judge +Claiborne. + +They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should +remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got +no clue to Armitage's whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if +anything could be learned there. + +"We must find him--there must be no mistake about it," said the +Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. "They are almost +panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder +in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the +game has dangerous possibilities." + +"And when we have young Armitage--" the Judge began. + +"Then we shall know the truth." + +"But suppose--suppose," and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, +"suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should +die--to-night--to-morrow--" + +"We will assume nothing of the kind!" ejaculated the Ambassador sharply. +"It is impossible." Then to Captain Claiborne: "You must pardon me if I +do not explain further. I wish to find Armitage; it is of the greatest +importance. It would not aid you if I told you why I must see and talk +with him." + +And as though to escape from the thing of which his counsel had hinted, +Baron von Marhof took his departure at once. + +Shirley met her brother on the veranda. His arrival had been unheralded +and she was frankly astonished to see him. + +"Well, Captain Claiborne, you are a man of mystery. You will undoubtedly +be court-martialed for deserting--and after a long leave, too." + +"I am on duty. Don't forget that you are the daughter of a diplomat." + +"Humph! It doesn't follow, necessarily, that I should be stupid!" + +"You couldn't be that, Shirley, dear." + +"Thank you, Captain." + +They discussed family matters for a few minutes; then she said, with +elaborate irrelevance: + +"Well, we must hope that your appearance will cause no battles to be +fought in our garden. There was enough fighting about here in old times." + +"Take heart, little sister, I shall protect you. Oh, it's rather decent +of Armitage to have kept away from you, Shirley, after all that fuss +about the bogus baron." + +"Which he wasn't--" + +"Well, Sanderson says he couldn't have been, and the rogues' gallery +pictures don't resemble our friend at all." + +"Ugh; don't speak of it!" and Shirley shrugged her shoulders. She +suffered her eyes to climb the slopes of the far hills. Then she looked +steadily at her brother and laughed. + +"What do you and father and Baron von Marhof want with Mr. John +Armitage?" she asked. + +"Guess again!" exclaimed Dick hurriedly. "Has that been the undercurrent +of your conversation? As I may have said before in this connection, you +disappoint me, Shirley. You seem unable to forget that fellow." + +He paused, grew very serious, and bent forward in his wicker chair. + +"Have you seen John Armitage since I saw him?" + +"Impertinent! How dare you?" + +"But Shirley, the question is fair!" + +"Is it, Richard?" + +"And I want you to answer me." + +"That's different." + +He rose and took several steps toward her. She stood against the railing +with her hands behind her back. + +"Shirley, you are the finest girl in the world, but you wouldn't do +_this_--" + +"This what, Dick?" + +"You know what I mean. I ask you again--have you or have you not seen +Armitage since you came to the Springs?" + +He spoke impatiently, his eyes upon hers. A wave of color swept her face, +and then her anger passed and she was her usual good-natured self. + +"Baron von Marhof is a charming old gentleman, isn't he?" + +"He's a regular old brick," declared Dick solemnly. + +"It's a great privilege for a young man like you to know him, Dick, and +to have private talks with him and the governor--about subjects of deep +importance. The governor is a good deal of a man himself." + +"I am proud to be his son," declared Dick, meeting Shirley's eyes +unflinchingly. + +Shirley was silent for a moment, while Dick whistled a few bars from the +latest waltz. + +"A captain--a mere captain of the line--is not often plucked out of his +post when in good health and standing--after a long leave for foreign +travel--and sent away to visit his parents--and help entertain a +distinguished Ambassador." + +"Thanks for the 'mere captain,' dearest. You needn't rub it in." + +"I wouldn't. But you are fair game--for your sister only! And you're +better known than you were before that little supper for the Spanish +attache. It rather directed attention to you, didn't it, Dick?" + +Dick colored. + +"It certainly did." + +"And if you should meet Monsieur Chauvenet, who caused the trouble--" + +"I have every intention of meeting him!" + +"Oh!" + +"Of course, I shall meet him--some time, somewhere. He's at the Springs, +isn't he?" + +"Am I a hotel register that I should know? I haven't seen him for several +days." + +"What I should like to see," said Dick, "is a meeting between Armitage +and Chauvenet. That would really be entertaining. No doubt Chauvenet +could whip your mysterious suitor." + +He looked away, with an air of unconcern, at the deepening shadows on the +mountains. + +"Dear Dick, I am quite sure that if you have been chosen out of all the +United States army to find Mr. John Armitage, you will succeed without +any help from me." + +"That doesn't answer my question. You don't know what you are doing. What +if father knew that you were seeing this adventurer--" + +"Oh, of course, if you should tell father! I haven't said that I had seen +Mr. Armitage; and you haven't exactly told me that you have a warrant for +his arrest; so we are quits, Captain. You had better look in at the +hotel dance to-night. There are girls there and to spare." + +"When I find Mr. Armitage--" + +"You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas." + +"I shall find him there--or here!" + +"Good luck to you, Captain!" + +There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that passed between +them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and +went into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER + +My mistress bent that brow of hers; +Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs +When pity would be softening through, +Fixed me a breathing-while or two + With life or death in the balance: right! +The blood replenished me again; +My last thought was at least not vain: +I and my mistress, side by side +Shall be together, breathe and ride, +So, one day more am I deified. + Who knows but the world may end to-night? + +--R. Browning. + + +"We shall be leaving soon," said Armitage, half to himself and partly to +Oscar. "It is not safe to wait much longer." + +He tossed a copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ on the table. Oscar had been +down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the +stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for +Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April. + +"Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have +asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these +hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave." + +"I enlisted for the campaign--yes?--I shall wait until I am discharged." +And the little man buttoned his coat. + +"Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with +this business. There's another man coming to get into the game--he +reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly. +Very likely they are both in the hills tonight. And, Oscar, listen +carefully to what I say." + +The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the +table in the bungalow. + +"If I should die unshriven during the next week, here's a key that opens +a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In +case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, +Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him--tell him--" + +He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then +he laughed and went on. + +"--tell him, Oscar, that there's a message in that safety box from a +gentleman who might have been King." + +Oscar stared at Armitage blankly. + +"That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron's hands +will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed. +I shall take a walk before I turn in." + +"You should not go out alone--" + +"Don't trouble about me; I shan't go far. I think we are safe until two +gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down +into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is +undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more +and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,--I feel it in +my bones." + +He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda. +The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars +trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool +air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and +peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed +the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He +had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain +emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should +succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills. + +At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a +narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric +lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and +he smiled with the thought of her; for soon--perhaps in a few hours--he +would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous +task would henceforth lie between them. + +He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, +singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still +again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring +the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an +under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry +held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of +empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships +that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry +of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars +spoke an heroic language that was of newer and nobler things; and he +shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose. + +"God said, 'I am tired of kings,'" he muttered. "But I shall keep my +pledge; I shall do Austria a service," he said; and then laughed a little +to himself. "To think that it may be for me to say!" And with this he +walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron +cable from which swung the bridge. + +"I shall soon be free," he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the +starlighted hills. + +Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it +the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the +sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, +and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge +now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step--a soft, furtive step, as +of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then +through the starlight he distinguished a woman's figure, and drew back. A +loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she passed it freed +itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure +stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, +and snatched away the light barricade that had been nailed across the +opening. + +When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the +woman's security, died on his lips. + +"Shirley!" he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm +ground. + +A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her +weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the +waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight. + +"I did not know that dreams really came true," he said, with an awe in +his voice that the passing fear had left behind. + +She began abruptly, not heeding his words. + +"You must go away--at once--I came to tell you that you can not stay +here." + +"But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, +too kind,"--he began. + +"It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you--it +is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that +such a thing can be in America. But you must go--you must seek the law's +aid--" + +"How do you know I dare--" + +"I don't know--that you dare!" + +"I know that you have a great heart and that I love you," he said. + +She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps. + +"I can't be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. +Armitage. If you knew why I came--" + +"If I dared think or believe or hope--" + +"You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!" she replied; "but I +will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea +of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these +Virginia hills does not please me." + +"How do you classify me, please--with friends or acquaintances?" + +He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone. + +"I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life +to warn me that I am in danger?" + +"If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It +makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are." + +"You are explicit!" he laughed. "I don't hesitate to tell you that I +value your life much higher than you do." + +"That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a +person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution +of--of--what might be called the Armitage riddle." + +"Oh; I'm a riddle, am I?" + +"Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one's enmity, +and there's something about murder that is--that isn't exactly nice! It's +positively unesthetic." + +She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words. + +"You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man's life without caring +in the least what manner of man he may be." + +"You put it rather flatly, but that's about the truth of the matter. Do +you know, I am almost afraid--" + +"Not of me, I hope--" + +"Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit +of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in +mystifying people as to your identity." + +"That is unkind,--that is unkind," and he spoke without resentment, but +softly, with a falling cadence. + +He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his +arms toward her. + +"You are not unkind or unjust. You have a right to know who I am and what +I am doing here. It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; +but if you will listen I should like to tell you--it will take but a +moment--why and what--" + +"Please do not! As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter. I can't +allow you to tell me; I really don't want to know!" + +"I am willing that every one should know--to-morrow--or the day +after--not later." + +She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought. + +"The day after may be too late. Whatever it is that you have done--" + +"I have done nothing to be ashamed of,--I swear I have not!" + +"Whatever it is,--and I don't care what it is,"--she said deliberately, +"--it is something quite serious, Mr. Armitage. My brother--" + +She hesitated for a moment, then spoke rapidly. + +"My brother has been detailed to help in the search for you. He is at +Storm Springs now." + +"But _he_ doesn't understand--" + +"My brother is a soldier and it is not necessary for him to understand." + +"And you have done this--you have come to warn me--" + +"It does look pretty bad," she said, changing her tone and laughing a +little. "But my brother and I--we always had very different ideas about +you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case." + +"Oh, I'm a case, am I?" and he caught gladly at the suggestion of +lightness in her tone. "But I'd really like to know what he has to do +with my affairs." + +"Then you will have to ask him." + +"To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain +Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet's request. I swear to you +that I'm as much in the dark as you are." + +"I'm quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties +and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an +Ambassador from a great power made the request,--perhaps, for example, +it was Baron von Marhof." + +"Good Lord!" + +Armitage laughed aloud. + +"I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador +looking for me?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I'm only a traitor and not a +spy." + +"You are the noblest woman in the world," he said boldly, and his heart +leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. "You have made +sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man--for a man she +did not know! And my life--whatever it is worth, every hour and second of +it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away. I +followed you half-way round the world and I shall follow you again and as +long as I live. And to-morrow--or the day after--I shall justify these +great kindnesses--this generous confidence; but to-night I have a work to +do!" + +As they stood on the verge of the defile, by the bridge that swung out +from the cliff like a fairy structure, they heard far and faint the +whistle and low rumble of the night train south-bound from Washington; +and to both of them the sound urged the very real and practical world +from which for a little time they had stolen away. + +"I must go back," said Shirley, and turned to the bridge and put her hand +on its slight iron frame; but he seized her wrists and held them tight. + +"You have risked much for me, but you shall not risk your life again, in +my cause. You can not venture cross that bridge again." + +She yielded without further parley and he dropped her wrists at once. + +"Please say no more. You must not make me sorry I came. I must go,--I +should have gone back instantly." + +"But not across that spider's web. You must go by the long road. I will +give you a horse and ride with you into the valley." + +"It is much nearer by the bridge,--and I have my horse over there." + +"We shall get the horse without trouble," he said, and she walked beside +him through the starlighted wood. As they crossed the open tract she +said: + +"This is the Port of Missing Men." + +"Yes, here the lost legion made its last stand. There lie the graves of +some of them. It's a pretty story; I hope some day to know more of it +from some such authority as yourself." + +"I used to ride here on my pony when I was a little girl, and dream about +the gray soldiers who would not surrender. It was as beautiful as an old +ballad. I'll wait here. Fetch the horse," she said, "and hurry, please." + +"If there are explanations to make," he began, looking at her gravely. + +"I am not a person who makes explanations, Mr. Armitage. You may meet me +at the gate." + +As he ran toward the house he met Oscar, who had become alarmed at his +absence and was setting forth in search of him. + +"Come; saddle both the horses, Oscar," Armitage commanded. + +They went together to the barn and quickly brought out the horses. + +"You are not to come with me, Oscar." + +"A captain does not go alone; it should be the sergeant who is +sent--yes?" + +"It is not an affair of war, Oscar, but quite another matter. There is a +saddled horse hitched to the other side of our abandoned bridge. Get it +and ride it to Judge Claiborne's stables; and ask and answer no +questions." + +A moment later he was riding toward the gate, the led-horse following. + +He flung himself down, adjusting the stirrups and gave her a hand into +the saddle. They turned silently into the mountain road. + +"The bridge would have been simpler and quicker," said Shirley; "as it +is, I shall be late to the ball." + +"I am contrite enough; but you don't make explanations." + +"No; I don't explain; and you are to come back as soon as we strike the +valley. I always send gentlemen back at that point," she laughed, and +went ahead of him into the narrow road. She guided the strange horse with +the ease of long practice, skilfully testing his paces, and when they +came to a stretch of smooth road sent him flying at a gallop over the +trail. He had given her his own horse, a hunter of famous strain, and she +at once defined and maintained a distance between them that made talk +impossible. + +Her short covert riding-coat, buttoned close, marked clearly in the +starlight her erect figure; light wisps of loosened hair broke free under +her soft felt hat, and when she turned her head the wind caught the brim +and pressed it back from her face, giving a new charm to her profile. + +He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or +reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in +flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time +afraid of him. He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break +down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure. +His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; +quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride. As she +waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to +what she had done. It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his +secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her +blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy +of flight. Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the +great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode. Who was John +Armitage? She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him +her last service. Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a +mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was +not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living. + +Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley +she suffered him perforce to ride beside her. + +"You ride wonderfully," he said. + +"The horse is a joy. He's a Pendragon--I know them in the dark. He must +have come from this valley somewhere. We own some of his cousins, I'm +sure." + +"You are quite right. He's a Virginia horse. You are incomparable--no +other woman alive could have kept that pace. It's a brave woman who isn't +a slave to her hair-pins--I don't believe you spilled one." + +She drew rein at the cross-roads. + +"We part here. How shall I return Bucephalus?" + +"Let me go to your own gate, please!" + +"Not at all!" she said with decision. + +"Then Oscar will pick him up. If you don't see him, turn the horse loose. +But my thanks--for oh, so many things!" he pleaded. + +"To-morrow--or the day after--or never!" + +She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she +spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home. He listened, marking her +flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; +then he turned back into the hills. + +Near her father's estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the +manner of a soldier. + +It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer +road. + +"It is my captain's horse--yes?" he said, as the slim, graceful animal +whinnied and pawed the ground. "I found a horse at the broken bridge and +took it to your stable--yes?" + +A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda +of her father's house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth +impatiently. + +"Where have you been, Shirley?" + +"Walking." + +"But you went for a ride--the stable-men told me." + +"I believe that is true, Captain." + +"And your horse was brought home half an hour ago by a strange fellow who +saluted like a soldier when I spoke to him, but refused to understand my +English." + +"Well, they do say English isn't very well taught at West Point, +Captain," she replied, pulling off her gloves. "You oughtn't to blame the +polite stranger for his courtesy." + +"I believe you have been up to some mischief, Shirley. If you are seeing +that man Armitage--" + +"Captain!" + +"Bah! What are you going to do now?" + +"I'm going to the ball with you as soon as I can change my gown. I +suppose father and mother have gone." + +"They have--for which you should be grateful!" + +Captain Claiborne lighted a cigar and waited. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE COMEDY OF A SHEEPFOLD + +A glance, a word--and joy or pain + Befalls; what was no more shall be. +How slight the links are in the chain + That binds us to our destiny! + +--T.B. Aldrich. + + +Oscar's eye, roaming the landscape as he left Shirley Claiborne and +started for the bungalow, swept the upland Claiborne acres and rested +upon a moving shadow. He drew rein under a clump of wild cherry-trees at +the roadside and waited. Several hundred yards away lay the Claiborne +sheepfold, with a broad pasture rising beyond. A shadow is not a thing to +be ignored by a man trained in the niceties of scouting. Oscar, +satisfying himself that substance lay behind the shadow, dismounted and +tied his horse. Then he bent low over the stone wall and watched. + +"It is the big fellow--yes? He is a stealer of sheep, as I might have +known." + +Zmai was only a dim figure against the dark meadow, which he was slowly +crossing from the side farthest from the Claiborne house. He stopped +several times as though uncertain of his whereabouts, and then clambered +over a stone wall that formed one side of the sheepfold, passed it and +strode on toward Oscar and the road. + +"It is mischief that brings him from the hills--yes?" Oscar reflected, +glancing up and down the highway. Faintly--very softly through the night +he heard the orchestra at the hotel, playing for the dance. The little +soldier unbuttoned his coat, drew the revolver from his belt, and thrust +it into his coat pocket. Zmai was drawing nearer, advancing rapidly, now +that he had gained his bearings. At the wall Oscar rose suddenly and +greeted him in mockingly-courteous tones: + +"Good evening, my friend; it's a fine evening for a walk." + +Zmai drew back and growled. + +"Let me pass," he said in his difficult German. + +"It is a long wall; there should be no difficulty in passing. This +country is much freer than Servia--yes?" and Oscar's tone was pleasantly +conversational. + +Zmai put his hand on the wall and prepared to vault. + +"A moment only, comrade. You seem to be in a hurry; it must be a business +that brings you from the mountains--yes?" + +"I have no time for you," snarled the Servian. "Be gone!" and he shook +himself impatiently and again put his hand on the wall. + +"One should not be in too much haste, comrade;" and Oscar thrust Zmai +back with his finger-tips. + +The man yielded and ran a few steps out of the clump of trees and sought +to escape there. It was clear to Oscar that Zmai was not anxious to +penetrate closer to the Claiborne house, whose garden extended quite +near. He met Zmai promptly and again thrust him back. + +"It is a message--yes?" asked Oscar. + +"It is my affair," blurted the big fellow. "I mean no harm to you." + +"It was you that tried the knife on my body. It is much quieter than +shooting. You have the knife--yes?" + +The little soldier whipped out his revolver. + +"In which pocket is the business carried? A letter undoubtedly. They do +not trust swine to carry words--Ah!" + +Oscar dropped below the wall as Zmai struck at him; when he looked up a +moment later the Servian was running back over the meadow toward the +sheepfold. Oscar, angry at the ease with which the Servian had evaded +him, leaped the wall and set off after the big fellow. He was quite sure +that the man bore a written message, and equally sure that it must be of +importance to his employer. He clutched his revolver tight, brought up +his elbows for greater ease in running, and sped after Zmai, now a blur +on the starlighted sheep pasture. + +The slope was gradual and a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but +it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he +had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a +group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field +beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick +thump of Oscar's feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through +tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was rougher to the feet +than it appeared to the eye. A hound in the Claiborne stable-yard bayed +suddenly and the sound echoed from the surrounding houses and drifted off +toward the sheepfold. Then a noble music rose from the kennels. + +Captain Claiborne, waiting for his sister on the veranda, looked toward +the stables, listening. + +Zmai approached the sheep-sheds rapidly, with still a hundred yards to +traverse beyond them before he should reach the pasture wall. His rage at +thus being driven by a small man for whom he had great contempt did not +help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now +that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer +if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his +pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his +small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him +rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his +pursuer headlong. At the moment he turned, Oscar's revolver bit keenly +into the night. Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the +flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report. + +At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his +hands to his head. + +"Stop; I want the letter!" shouted Oscar in German. The man turned +slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, +half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels. + +Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a +lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and +thence into the pasture beyond. Meanwhile Oscar, thinking Zmai badly +hurt, did not fire again, but flung himself upon the fellow's broad +shoulders and down they crashed against the door of the nearest pen. Zmai +swerved and shook himself free while he fiercely cursed his foe. Oscar's +hands slipped on the fellow's hot blood that ran from a long crease in +the side of his head. + +As they fell the pen door snapped free, and out into the starry pasture +thronged the frightened sheep. + +"The letter--give me the letter!" commanded Oscar, his face close to the +Servian's. He did not know how badly the man was injured, but he was +anxious to complete his business and be off. Still the sheep came +huddling through the broken door, across the prostrate men, and scampered +away into the open. Captain Claiborne, running toward the fold with his +lantern and not looking for obstacles, stumbled over their bewildered +advance guard and plunged headlong into the gray fleeces. Meanwhile into +the pockets of his prostrate foe went Oscar's hands with no result. Then +he remembered the man's gesture in pulling the hat close upon his ears, +and off came the hat and with it a blood-stained envelope. The last sheep +in the pen trooped out and galloped toward its comrades. + +Oscar, making off with the letter, plunged into the rear guard of the +sheep, fell, stumbled to his feet, and confronted Captain Claiborne as +that gentleman, in soiled evening dress, fumbled for his lantern and +swore in language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. + +"Damn the sheep!" roared Claiborne. + +"It is sheep--yes?" and Oscar started to bolt. + +"Halt!" + +The authority of the tone rang familiarly in Oscar's ears. He had, after +considerable tribulation, learned to stop short when an officer spoke to +him, and the gentleman of the sheepfold stood straight in the starlight +and spoke like an officer. + +"What in the devil are you doing here, and who fired that shot?" + +Oscar saluted and summoned his best English. + +"It was an accident, sir." + +"Why are you running and why did you fire? Understand you are a +trespasser here, and I am going to turn you over to the constable." + +"There was a sheep-stealer--yes? He is yonder by the pens--and we had +some little fighting; but he is not dead--no?" + +At that moment Claiborne's eyes caught sight of a burly figure rising and +threshing about by the broken pen door. + +"That is the sheep-stealer," said Oscar. "We shall catch him--yes?" + +Zmai peered toward them uncertainly for a moment; then turned abruptly +and ran toward the road. Oscar started to cut off his retreat, but +Claiborne caught the sergeant by the shoulder and flung him back. + +"One of you at a time! They can turn the hounds on the other rascal. +What's that you have there? Give it to me--quick!" + +"It's a piece of wool--" + +But Claiborne snatched the paper from Oscar's hand, and commanded the man +to march ahead of him to the house. So over the meadow and through the +pergola they went, across the veranda and into the library. The power of +army discipline was upon Oscar; if Claiborne had not been an officer he +would have run for it in the garden. As it was, he was taxing his wits to +find some way out of his predicament. He had not the slightest idea as to +what the paper might be. He had risked his life to secure it, and now +the crumpled, blood-stained paper had been taken away from him by a +person whom it could not interest in any way whatever. + +He blinked under Claiborne's sharp scrutiny as they faced each other in +the library. + +"You are the man who brought a horse back to our stable an hour ago." + +"Yes, sir." + +"You have been a soldier." + +"In the cavalry, sir. I have my discharge at home." + +"Where do you live?" + +"I work as teamster in the coal mines--yes?--they are by Lamar, sir." + +Claiborne studied Oscar's erect figure carefully. + +"Let me see your hands," he commanded; and Oscar extended his palms. + +"You are lying; you do not work in the coal mines. Your clothes are not +those of a miner; and a discharged soldier doesn't go to digging coal. +Stand where you are, and it will be the worse for you if you try to +bolt." + +Claiborne turned to the table with the envelope. It was not sealed, and +he took out the plain sheet of notepaper on which was written: + +CABLEGRAM +WlNKELRIED, VIENNA. +Not later than Friday. +CHAUVENET. + +Claiborne read and re-read these eight words; then he spoke bluntly to +Oscar. + +"Where did you get this?" + +"From the hat of the sheep-stealer up yonder." + +"Who is he and where did he get it?" + +"I don't know, sir. He was of Servia, and they are an ugly race--yes?" + +"What were you going to do with the paper?" + +Oscar grinned. + +"If I could read it--yes; I might know; but if Austria is in the paper, +then it is mischief; and maybe it would be murder; who knows?" + +Claiborne looked frowningly from the paper to Oscar's tranquil eyes. + +"Dick!" called Shirley from the hall, and she appeared in the doorway, +drawing on her gloves; but paused at seeing Oscar. + +"Shirley, I caught this man in the sheepfold. Did you ever see him +before?" + +"I think not, Dick." + +"It was he that brought your horse home." + +"To be sure it is! I hadn't recognized him. Thank you very much;" and she +smiled at Oscar. + +Dick frowned fiercely and referred again to the paper. + +"Where is Monsieur Chauvenet--have you any idea?" + +"If he isn't at the hotel or in Washington, I'm sure I don't know. If we +are going to the dance--" + +"Plague the dance! I heard a shot in the sheep pasture a bit ago and ran +out to find this fellow in a row with another man, who got away." + +"I heard the shot and the dogs from my window. You seem to have been in a +fuss, too, from the looks of your clothes;" and Shirley sat down and +smoothed her gloves with provoking coolness. + +Dick sent Oscar to the far end of the library with a gesture, and held up +the message for Shirley to read. + +"Don't touch it!" he exclaimed; and when she nodded her head in sign that +she had read it, he said, speaking earnestly and rapidly: + +"I suppose I have no right to hold this message; I must send the man to +the hotel telegraph office with it. But where is Chauvenet? What is his +business in the valley? And what is the link between Vienna and these +hills?" + +"Don't you know what _you_ are doing here?" she asked, and he flushed. + +"I know what, but not _why_!" he blurted irritably; "but that's enough!" + +"You know that Baron von Marhof wants to find Mr. John Armitage; but you +don't know why." + +"I have my orders and I'm going to find him, if it takes ten years." + +Shirley nodded and clasped her fingers together. Her elbows resting on +the high arms of her chair caused her cloak to flow sweepingly away from +her shoulders. At the end of the room, with his back to the portieres, +stood Oscar, immovable. Claiborne reexamined the message, and extended it +again to Shirley. + +"There's no doubt of that being Chauvenet's writing, is there?" + +"I think not, Dick. I have had notes from him now and then in that hand. +He has taken pains to write this with unusual distinctness." + +The color brightened in her cheeks suddenly as she looked toward Oscar. +The curtains behind him swayed, but so did the curtain back of her. A +May-time languor had crept into the heart of April, and all the windows +were open. The blurred murmurs of insects stole into the house. Oscar, +half-forgotten by his captor, heard a sound in the window behind him and +a hand touched him through the curtain. + +Claiborne crumpled the paper impatiently. + +"Shirley, you are against me! I believe you have seen Armitage here, and +I want you to tell me what you know of him. It is not like you to shield +a scamp of an adventurer--an unknown, questionable character. He has +followed you to this valley and will involve you in his affairs without +the slightest compunction, if he can. It's most infamous, outrageous, and +when I find him I'm going to thrash him within an inch of his life before +I turn him over to Marhof!" + +Shirley laughed for the first time in their interview, and rose and +placed her hands on her brother's shoulders. + +"Do it, Dick! He's undoubtedly a wicked, a terribly wicked and dangerous +character." + +"I tell you I'll find him," he said tensely, putting up his hands to +hers, where they rested on his shoulders. She laughed and kissed him, and +when her hands fell to her side the message was in her gloved fingers. + +"I'll help you, Dick," she said, buttoning her glove. + +"That's like you, Shirley." + +"If you want to find Mr. Armitage--" + +"Of course I want to find him--" His voice rose to a roar. + +"Then turn around; Mr. Armitage is just behind you!" + +"Yes; I needed my man for other business," said Armitage, folding his +arms, "and as you were very much occupied I made free with the rear +veranda and changed places with him." + +Claiborne walked slowly toward him, the anger glowing in his face. + +"You are worse than I thought--eavesdropper, housebreaker!" + +"Yes; I am both those things, Captain Claiborne. But I am also in a great +hurry. What do you want with me?" + +"You are a rogue, an impostor--" + +"We will grant that," said Armitage quietly. "Where is your warrant for +my arrest?" + +"That will be forthcoming fast enough! I want you to understand that I +have a personal grievance against you." + +"It must wait until day after to-morrow, Captain Claiborne. I will come +to you here or wherever you say on the day after to-morrow." + +Armitage spoke with a deliberate sharp decision that was not the tone of +a rogue or a fugitive. As he spoke he advanced until he faced Claiborne +in the center of the room. Shirley still stood by the window, holding the +soiled paper in her hand. She had witnessed the change of men at the end +of the room; it had touched her humor; it had been a joke on her brother; +but she felt that the night had brought a crisis: she could not continue +to shield a man of whom she knew nothing save that he was the object of a +curious enmity. Her idle prayer that her own land's commonplace +sordidness might be obscured by the glamour of Old World romance came +back to her; she had been in touch with an adventure that was certainly +proving fruitful of diversion. The _coup de theatre_ by which Armitage +had taken the place of his servant had amused her for a moment; but she +was vexed and angry now that he had dared come again to the house. + +"You are under arrest, Mr. Armitage; I must detain you here," said +Claiborne. + +"In America--in free Virginia--without legal process?" asked Armitage, +laughing. + +"You are a housebreaker, that is enough. Shirley, please go!" + +"You were not detached from the army to find a housebreaker. But I will +make your work easy for you--day after to-morrow I will present myself to +you wherever you say. But now--that cable message which my man found in +your sheep pasture is of importance. I must trouble you to read it to +me." + +"No!" shouted Claiborne. + +Armitage drew a step nearer. + +"You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching +consequence, hang upon that message. I must know what it is." + +"You certainly have magnificent cheek! I am going to take that paper to +Baron von Marhof at once." + +"Do so!--but _I_ must know first! Baron von Marhof and I are on the same +side in this business, but he doesn't understand it, and it is clear you +don't. Give me the message!" + +He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked +out his last words with angry impatience. At the same moment he and +Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their +sides. + +"I don't like your tone, Mr. Armitage!" + +"I don't like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne." + +Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message. Then, going +to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite +slowly the words: + +"Winkelried--Vienna--not later than Friday--Chauvenet." + +"Shirley!" roared Claiborne. + +John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the +hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, +where Oscar waited. + +Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von +Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW + +So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of + battle, +Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled + were many. +E'en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh + in splendor, +Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin + is breathless, +Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and + the valleys, +All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless + ether +Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd-- +Such and so many the fires 'twixt the ships and the streams + of the Xanthus +Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city. +Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside + them +Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses, +Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for + action, +Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning. + +_The Iliad_: Translation of Prentiss Cummings. + + +"In Vienna, Friday!" + +"There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;" and Monsieur Durand +adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the +ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar. + +"Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do." + +"Which is not so simple after all, as one studies the situation. Mr. +Armitage is here, quite within reach. We suspect him of being a person of +distinction. He evinced unusual interest in a certain document that was +once in your own hands--" + +"_Our_ own hands, if you would be accurate!" + +"You are captious; but granted so, we must get them back. The gentleman +is dwelling in a bungalow on the mountain side, for greater convenience +in watching events and wooing the lady of his heart's desire. We employed +a clumsy clown to put him out of the world; but he dies hard, and now we +have got to get rid of him. But if he hasn't the papers on his clothes +then you have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down +to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to +come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my +dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has over-stimulated +it." + +"You are not the fool you look, my dear Durand. You have actually taken a +pretty fair grasp of the situation." + +"But the adorable young lady, the fair Mademoiselle Claiborne,--what +becomes of her in these transactions?" + +"That is none of your affair," replied Chauvenet, frowning. "I am quite +content with my progress. I have not finished in that matter." + +"Neither, it would seem, has Mr. John Armitage! But I am quite well +satisfied to leave it to you. In a few days we shall know much more than +we do now. I should be happier if you were in charge in Vienna. A false +step there--ugh! I hesitate to think of the wretched mess there would +be." + +"Trust Winkelried to do his full duty. You must not forget that the acute +Stroebel now sleeps the long sleep and that many masses have already been +said for the repose of his intrepid soul." + +"The splendor of our undertaking is enough to draw his ghost from the +grave. Ugh! By this time Zmai should have filed our cablegram at the +Springs and got your mail at the hotel. I hope you have not misplaced +your confidence in the operator there. Coming back, our giant must pass +Armitage's house." + +"Trust him to pass it! His encounters with Armitage have not been to his +credit." + +The two men were dressed in rough clothes, as for an outing, and in spite +of the habitual trifling tone of their talk, they wore a serious air. +Durand's eyes danced with excitement and he twisted his mustache +nervously. Chauvenet had gone to Washington to meet Durand, to get from +him news of the progress of the conspiracy in Vienna, and, not least, to +berate him for crossing the Atlantic. "I do not require watching, my dear +Durand," he had said. + +"A man in love, dearest Jules, sometimes forgets;" but they had gone into +the Virginia hills amicably and were quartered with the postmaster. They +waited now for Zmai, whom they had sent to the Springs with a message and +to get Chauvenet's mail. Armitage, they had learned, used the Lamar +telegraph office and they had decided to carry their business elsewhere. + +While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big +Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart +heavy with dread. The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged +down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he +must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess +of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar's +revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and +stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly +by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his +calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to +clasp his small head in his great hands. When he passed the wild tangle +that hid Armitage's bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in +his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue. It was near midnight when he +reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the +two men waited. + +Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the +great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark +blood-smeared face. + +"The letters!" snapped Chauvenet. + +"Is the message safe?" demanded Durand. + +"Lost; lost; they are lost! I lost my way and he nearly killed me,--the +little soldier,--as I crossed a strange field." + +When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door +and bawled through the house for the innkeeper. + +"Horses; saddle our two horses quick--and get another if you have to +steal it," he screamed. Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while +Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow's +head and cleanse his face. + +"So that beggarly little servant did it, did he? He stole that paper I +had given you, did he? What do you imagine I brought you to this country +for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a +clown?" + +The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse +meekly. He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by +an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he +understood little of Chauvenet's rapid German. + +In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the +operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be +back until morning. + +The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet +with ironies. + +"We have no time to lose. That message must go tonight. You may be sure +Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we've got to go down to +Storm Springs." + +They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and +wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that +Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode +grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican +could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in +Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and +Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They +talked together in low tones as they followed. + +"He is not so big a fool, this Armitage," remarked Durand. "He is quite +deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne, +and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna." + +"I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It +is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not +a coward." + +"Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good +deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with +a spine at his coronation." + +"If we fail--" began Chauvenet. + +"You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be +fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future +residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried +succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?" + +"We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman +of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has +had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,--and you are considered +a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,--he +has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to +Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this +Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems +unable to cope with him." + +"And the fair daughter of the valley--" + +"Pish! We are not discussing the young lady." + +"I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you, my dear +Jules. What do you imagine _she_ knows of Monsieur Armitage? If he is +the man we think he is and a possible heir to a great throne it would be +impossible for her to marry him." + +"His tastes are democratic. In Montana he is quite popular." + +Durand flung away his cigarette and laughed suddenly. + +"Has it occurred to you that this whole affair is decidedly amusing? Here +we are, in one of the free American states, about to turn a card that +will dethrone a king, if we are lucky. And here is a man we are trying to +get out of the way--a man we might make king if he were not a fool! In +America! It touches my sense of humor, my dear Jules!" + +An exclamation from Zmai arrested them. The Servian jerked up his horse +and they were instantly at his side. They had reached a point near the +hunting preserve in the main highway. It was about half-past one o'clock, +an hour at which Virginia mountain roads are usually free of travelers, +and they had been sending their horses along as briskly as the uneven +roads and the pace of Zmai's laggard beast permitted. + +The beat of a horse's hoofs could be heard quite distinctly in the road +ahead of them. The road tended downward, and the strain of the ascent was +marked in the approaching animal's walk; in a moment the three men heard +the horse's quick snort of satisfaction as it reached leveler ground; +then scenting the other animals, it threw up its head and neighed +shrilly. + +In the dusk of starlight Durand saw Zmai dismount and felt the Servian's +big rough hand touch his in passing the bridle of his horse. + +"Wait!" said the Servian. + +The horse of the unknown paused, neighed again, and refused to go +farther. A man's deep voice encouraged him in low tones. The horses of +Chauvenet's party danced about restlessly, responsive to the nervousness +of the strange beast before them. + +"Who goes there?" + +The stranger's horse was quiet for an instant and the rider had forced +him so near that the beast's up-reined head and the erect shoulders of +the horseman were quite clearly defined. + +"Who goes there?" shouted the rider; while Chauvenet and Durand bent +their eyes toward him, their hands tight on their bridles, and listened, +waiting for Zmai. They heard a sudden rush of steps, the impact of his +giant body as he flung himself upon the shrinking horse; and then a cry +of alarm and rage. Chauvenet slipped down and ran forward with the quick, +soft glide of a cat and caught the bridle of the stranger's horse. The +horseman struggled in Zmai's great arms, and his beast plunged wildly. No +words passed. The rider had kicked his feet out of the stirrups and +gripped the horse hard with his legs. His arms were flung up to protect +his head, over which Zmai tried to force the sack. + +"The knife?" bawled the Servian. + +"No!" answered Chauvenet. + +"The devil!" yelled the rider; and dug his spurs into the rearing beast's +flanks. + +Chauvenet held on valiantly with both hands to the horse's head. Once the +frightened beast swung him clear of the ground. A few yards distant +Durand sat on his own horse and held the bridles of the others. He +soothed the restless animals in low tones, the light of his cigarette +shaking oddly in the dark with the movement of his lips. + +The horse ceased to plunge; Zmai held its rider erect with his left arm +while the right drew the sack down over the head and shoulders of the +prisoner. + +"Tie him," said Chauvenet; and Zmai buckled a strap about the man's arms +and bound them tight. + +The dust in the bag caused the man inside to cough, but save for the one +exclamation he had not spoken. Chauvenet and Durand conferred in low +tones while Zmai drew out a tether strap and snapped it to the curb-bit +of the captive's horse. + +"The fellow takes it pretty coolly," remarked Durand, lighting a fresh +cigarette. "What are you going to do with him ?" + +"We will take him to his own place--it is near--and coax the papers out +of him; then we'll find a precipice and toss him over. It is a simple +matter." + +Zmai handed Chauvenet the revolver he had taken from the silent man on +the horse. + +"I am ready," he reported. + +"Go ahead; we follow;" and they started toward the bungalow, Zmai riding +beside the captive and holding fast to the led-horse. Where the road was +smooth they sent the horses forward at a smart trot; but the captive +accepted the gait; he found the stirrups again and sat his saddle +straight. He coughed now and then, but the hemp sack was sufficiently +porous to give him a little air. As they rode off his silent submission +caused Durand to ask: + +"Are you sure of the man, my dear Jules?" + +"Undoubtedly. I didn't get a square look at him, but he's a gentleman by +the quality of his clothes. He is the same build; it is not a plow-horse, +but a thoroughbred he's riding. The gentlemen of the valley are in their +beds long ago." + +"Would that we were in ours! The spring nights are cold in these hills!" + +"The work is nearly done. The little soldier is yet to reckon with; but +we are three; and Zmai did quite well with the potato sack." + +Chauvenet rode ahead and addressed a few words to Zmai. + +"The little man must be found before we finish. There must be no mistake +about it." + +They exercised greater caution as they drew nearer the wood that +concealed the bungalow, and Chauvenet dismounted, opened the gate and set +a stone against it to insure a ready egress; then they walked their +horses up the driveway. + +Admonished by Chauvenet, Durand threw away his cigarette with a sigh. + +"You are convinced this is the wise course, dearest Jules?" + +"Be quiet and keep your eyes open. There's the house." + +He halted the party, dismounted and crept forward to the bungalow. He +circled the veranda, found the blinds open, and peered into the long +lounging-room, where a few embers smoldered in the broad fireplace, and +an oil lamp shed a faint light. One man they held captive; the other was +not in sight; Chauvenet's courage rose at the prospect of easy victory. +He tried the door, found it unfastened, and with his revolver ready in +his hand, threw it open. Then he walked slowly toward the table, turned +the wick of the lamp high, and surveyed the room carefully. The doors of +the rooms that opened from the apartment stood ajar; he followed the wall +cautiously, kicked them open, peered into the room where Armitage's +things were scattered about, and found his iron bed empty. Then he walked +quickly to the veranda and summoned the others. + +"Bring him in!" he said, without taking his eyes from the room. + +A moment later Zmai had lifted the silent rider to the veranda, and flung +him across the threshold. Durand, now aroused, fastened the horses to the +veranda rail. + +Chauvenet caught up some candles from the mantel and lighted them. + +"Open the trunks in those rooms and be quick; I will join you in a +moment;" and as Durand turned into Armitage's room, Chauvenet peered +again into the other chambers, called once or twice in a low tone; then +turned to Zmai and the prisoner. + +"Take off the bag," he commanded. + +Chauvenet studied the lines of the erect, silent figure as Zmai loosened +the strap, drew off the bag, and stepped back toward the table on which +he had laid his revolver for easier access. + +"Mr. John Armitage--" + +Chauvenet, his revolver half raised, had begun an ironical speech, but +the words died on his lips. The man who stood blinking from the sudden +burst of light was not John Armitage, but Captain Claiborne. + +The perspiration on Claiborne's face had made a paste of the dirt from +the potato sack, which gave him a weird appearance. He grinned broadly, +adding a fantastic horror to his visage which caused Zmai to leap back +toward the door. Then Chauvenet cried aloud, a cry of anger, which +brought Durand into the hall at a jump. Claiborne shrugged his shoulders, +shook the blood into his numbed arms; then turned his besmeared face +toward Durand and laughed. He laughed long and loud as the stupefaction +deepened on the faces of the two men. + +The objects which Durand held caused Claiborne to stare, and then he +laughed again. Durand had caught up from a hook in Armitage's room a +black cloak, so long that it trailed at length from his arms, its red +lining glowing brightly where it lay against the outer black. From the +folds of the cloak a sword, plucked from a trunk, dropped upon the floor +with a gleam of its bright scabbard. In his right hand he held a silver +box of orders, and as his arm fell at the sight of Claiborne, the gay +ribbons and gleaming pendants flashed to the floor. + +"It is not Armitage; we have made a mistake!" muttered Chauvenet tamely, +his eyes falling from Claiborne's face to the cloak, the sword, the +tangled heap of ribbons on the floor. + +Durand stepped forward with an oath. + +"Who is the man?" he demanded. + +"It is my friend Captain Claiborne. We owe the gentleman an apology--" +Chauvenet began. + +"You put it mildly," cried Claiborne in English, his back to the +fireplace, his arms folded, and the smile gone from his face. "I don't +know your companions, Monsieur Chauvenet, but you seem inclined to the +gentle arts of kidnapping and murder. Really, Monsieur--" + +"It is a mistake! It is unpardonable! I can only offer you +reparation--anything you ask," stammered Chauvenet. + +"You are looking for John Armitage, are you?" demanded Claiborne hotly, +without heeding Chauvenet's words. "Mr. Armitage is not here; he was in +Storm Springs to-night, at my house. He is a brave gentleman, and I warn +you that you will injure him at your peril. You may kill me here or +strangle me or stick a knife into me, if you will be better satisfied +that way; or you may kill him and hide his body in these hills; but, by +God, there will be no escape for you! The highest powers of my government +know that I am here; Baron von Marhof knows that I am here. I have an +engagement to breakfast with Baron von Marhof at his house at eight +o'clock in the morning, and if I am not there every agency of the +government will be put to work to find you, Mr. Jules Chauvenet, and +these other scoundrels who travel with you." + +"You are violent, my dear sir--" began Durand, whose wits were coming +back to him much quicker than Chauvenet's. + +"I am not as violent as I shall be if I get a troop of cavalry from Port +Myer down here and hunt you like rabbits through the hills. And I advise +you to cable Winkelried at Vienna that the game is all off!" + +Chauvenet suddenly jumped toward the table, the revolver still swinging +at arm's length. + +"You know too much!" + +"I don't know any more than Armitage, and Baron von Marhof and my father, +and the Honorable Secretary of State, to say nothing of the equally +Honorable Secretary of War." + +Claiborne stretched out his arms and rested them along the shelf of the +mantel, and smiled with a smile which the dirt on his face weirdly +accented. His hat was gone, his short hair rumpled; he dug the bricks of +the hearth with the toe of his riding-boot as an emphasis of his +contentment with the situation. + +"You don't understand the gravity of our labors. The peace of a great +Empire is at stake in this business. We are engaged on a patriotic +mission of great importance." + +It was Durand who spoke. Outside, Zmai held the horses in readiness. + +"You are a fine pair of patriots, I swear," said Claiborne. "What in the +devil do you want with John Armitage?" + +"He is a menace to a great throne--an impostor--a--" + +Chauvenet's eyes swept with a swift glance the cloak, the sword, the +scattered orders. Claiborne followed the man's gaze, but he looked +quickly toward Durand and Chauvenet, not wishing them to see that the +sight of these things puzzled him. + +"Pretty trinkets! But such games as yours, these pretty baubles--are not +for these free hills." + +"_Where is John Armitage_?" + +Chauvenet half raised his right arm as he spoke and the steel of his +revolver flashed. + +Claiborne did not move; he smiled upon them, recrossed his legs, and +settled his back more comfortably against the mantel-shelf. + +"I really forget where he said he would be at this hour. He and his man +may have gone to Washington, or they may have started for Vienna, or they +may be in conference with Baron von Marhof at my father's, or they may be +waiting for you at the gate. The Lord only knows!" + +"Come; we waste time," said Durand in French. "It is a trap. We must not +be caught here!" + +"Yes; you'd better go," said Claiborne, yawning and settling himself in a +new pose with his back still to the fireplace. "I don't believe Armitage +will care if I use his bungalow occasionally during my sojourn in the +hills; and if you will be so kind as to leave my horse well tied out +there somewhere I believe I'll go to bed. I'm sorry, Mr. Chauvenet, that +I can't just remember who introduced you to me and my family. I owe that +person a debt of gratitude for bringing so pleasant a scoundrel to my +notice." + +He stepped to the table, his hands in his pockets, and bowed to them. + +"Good night, and clear out," and he waved his arm in dismissal. + +"Come!" said Durand peremptorily, and as Chauvenet hesitated, Durand +seized him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. + +As they mounted and turned to go they saw Claiborne standing at the +table, lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. He walked to the +veranda and listened until he was satisfied that they had gone; then went +in and closed the door. He picked up the cloak and sword and restored the +insignia to the silver box. The sword he examined with professional +interest, running his hand over the embossed scabbard, then drawing the +bright blade and trying its balance and weight. + +As he held it thus, heavy steps sounded at the rear of the house, a door +was flung open and Armitage sprang into the room with Oscar close at his +heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VERGE OF MORNING + +O to mount again where erst I haunted; +Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, + And the low green meadows + Bright with sward; +And when even dies, the million-tinted, +And the night has come, and planets glinted, + Lo! the valley hollow, + Lamp-bestarr'd. + +--R.L.S. + + +"I hope you like my things, Captain Claiborne!" + +Armitage stood a little in advance, his hand on Oscar's arm to check the +rush of the little man. + +Claiborne sheathed the sword, placed it on the table and folded his arms. + +"Yes; they are very interesting." + +"And those ribbons and that cloak,--I assure you they are of excellent +quality. Oscar, put a blanket on this gentleman's horse. Then make some +coffee and wait." + +As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his +gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne. + +"I didn't expect this of you; I really didn't expect it. Now that you +have found me, what in the devil do you want?" + +"I don't know--I'll be _damned_ if I know!" and Claiborne grinned, so +that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage's +slumbering wrath. + +"You'd better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you +can't explain yourself I'm going to tie you hand and foot and drop you +down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my +grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs +and rummaging in my trunks?" + +"I didn't _come_ here, Armitage; I was brought--with a potato sack over +my head. There's the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn't on +my face must be permanently settled in my lungs." + +"What are you doing up here in the mountains--why are you not at your +station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and +hurry up!" + +"Armitage"--as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his +finger-tips on it--"Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during +our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and +cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the +ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. +Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the +Army and Navy Club that night; and now--" + +"Damn my cigarette case!" bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his +pocket to make sure of it. + +"That's what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,--you must admit +that." + +"It was, indeed!" + +"It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like +that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of the gentlemen!" + +"No doubt of it whatever, Mr. Claiborne." + +Armitage unbuttoned his coat, and jerked back the lapels impatiently. + +"And I knew as much about Monsieur Chauvenet as I did about you, or as I +do about you!" + +"What you know of him, Mr. Claiborne, is of no consequence. And what you +don't know about me would fill a large volume. How did you get here, and +what do you propose doing, now that you are here? I am in a hurry and +have no time to waste. If I can't get anything satisfactory out of you +within two minutes I'm going to chuck you back into the sack." + +"I came up here in the hills to look for you--you--you--! Do you +understand?" began Claiborne angrily. "And as I was riding along the road +about two miles from here I ran into three men on horseback. When I +stopped to parley with them and find out what they were doing, they crept +up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had +mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and +pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had +made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when +they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot +on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they've +done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that +the sword is handsome enough to challenge anybody's eye. And there's all +there is of the story, and I don't care a damn whether you believe it or +not." + +Their eyes were fixed upon each other in a gaze of anger and resentment. +Suddenly, Armitage's tense figure relaxed; the fierce light in his eyes +gave way to a gleam of humor and he laughed long and loud. + +"Your face--your face, Claiborne; it's funny. It's too funny for any use. +When your teeth show it's something ghastly. For God's sake go in there +and wash your face!" + +He made a light in his own room and plied Claiborne with towels, while he +continued to break forth occasionally in fresh bursts of laughter. When +they went into the hall both men were grave. + +"Claiborne--" + +Armitage put out his hand and Claiborne took it in a vigorous clasp. + +"You don't know who I am or what I am; and I haven't got time to tell +you now. It's a long story; and I have much to do, but I swear to you, +Claiborne, that my hands are clean; that the game I am playing is no +affair of my own, but a big thing that I have pledged myself to carry +through. I want you to ride down there in the valley and keep Marhof +quiet for a few hours; tell him I know more of what's going on in +Vienna than he does, and that if he will only sit in a rocking-chair +and tell you fairy stories till morning, we can all be happy. Is it a +bargain--or--must I still hang your head down the well till I get +through?" + +"Marhof may go to the devil! He's a lot more mysterious than even you, +Armitage. These fellows that brought me up here to kill me in the belief +that I was you can not be friends of Marhof's cause." + +"They are not; I assure you they are not! They are blackguards of the +blackest dye." + +"I believe you, Armitage." + +"Thank you. Now your horse is at the door--run along like a good fellow." + +Armitage dived into his room, caught up a cartridge belt and reappeared +buckling it on. + +"Oscar!" he yelled, "bring in that coffee--with cups for two." + +He kicked off his boots and drew on light shoes and leggings. + +"Light marching orders for the rough places. Confound that buckle." + +He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes. + +"Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket +for you. There's a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you'd like a +nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, +Oscar, and never mind the chairs," he added as Oscar came in with a tin +pot and the cups on a piece of plank. + +"I'm taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with +the real goods." + +There was a great color in Armitage's face as he strode about preparing +to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that +he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera +that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously +from the bare pine floor. + +"Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a +surprise--isn't that so, Claiborne?--and those fellows must be pretty mad +by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the +sugar from the paper bag--original package, you understand. And see if +you can't find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar--" + +With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table +dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt +strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a +high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting +another morning. "If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!" + +He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword +from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click. + +Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the +idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage's +shoulder. + +Armitage, intent with his own affairs, had not looked at Claiborne for +several minutes, but he glanced at him now as though just recalling a +duty. + +"Lord, man! I didn't mean to throw you into the road! There's a clean bed +in there that you're welcome to--go in and get some sleep." + +"I'm not going into the valley," roared Claiborne, "and I'm not going to +bed; I'm going with you, damn you!" + +"But bless your soul, man, you can't go with me; you are as ignorant as a +babe of my affairs, and I'm terribly busy and have no time to talk to +you. Oscar, that coffee scalded me. Claiborne, if only I had time, you +know, but under existing circumstances--" + +"I repeat that I'm going with you. I don't know why I'm in this row, and +I don't know what it's all about, but I believe what you say about it; +and I want you to understand that I can't be put in a bag like a prize +potato without taking a whack at the man who put me there." + +"But if you should get hurt, Claiborne, it would spoil my plans. I never +could face your family again," said Armitage earnestly. "Take your horse +and go." + +"I'm going back to the valley when you do." + +"Humph! Drink your coffee! Oscar, bring out the rest of the artillery and +give Captain Claiborne his choice." + +He picked up his sword again, flung the blade from the scabbard with a +swish, and cut the air with it, humming a few bars of a German +drinking-song. Then he broke out with: + +"I do not think a braver gentleman, +More active-valiant or more valiant-young, +More daring or more bold, is now alive +To grace this latter age with noble deeds. +For my part, I may speak it to my shame, +I have a truant been to chivalry;-- + +"Lord, Claiborne, you don't know what's ahead of us! It's the greatest +thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this--not on my +cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to +pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do +him! And we'll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them +up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We're off!" + +"All ready, sir;" said Oscar briskly. + +"It's half-past two. They didn't get off their message at Lamar, because +the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the +valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this +time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They've probably decided to +go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile +they haven't got me!" + +"They had me and didn't want me," said Claiborne, mounting his own horse. + +"They'll have a good many things they don't want in the next twenty-four +hours. If I hadn't enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had +some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout +for them. But it's been a great old lark. And now to catch them!" + +Outside the preserve they paused for an instant. + +"They're not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and +post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven't studied +the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on +maps. They haven't followed the railroad north, because the valley +broadens too much and there are too many people. There's a trail up here +that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement +about five miles south of Lamar. If I'm guessing right, we can cut around +and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land." + +"To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business," said +Claiborne. + +"Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you +hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I'll fire twice when I +get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the +same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, +you understand, not corpses." + +Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the +forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they +rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating +horses--two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen +wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground +restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they +turned up their coat collars before mounting again. + +"Come! We're on the verge of morning," said Armitage, "and there's no +time to lose." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ATTACK IN THE ROAD + +Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, +Straight, grim and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, +With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him. + +--Louise Imogen Guiney. + + +"There's an abandoned lumber camp down here, if I'm not mistaken, and if +we've made the right turns we ought to be south of Lamar and near the +railroad." + +Armitage passed his rein to Claiborne and plunged down the steep road to +reconnoiter. + +"It's a strange business," Claiborne muttered half-aloud. + +The cool air of the ridge sobered him, but he reviewed the events of the +night without regret. Every young officer in the service would envy him +this adventure. At military posts scattered across the continent men whom +he knew well were either abroad on duty, or slept the sleep of peace. He +lifted his eyes to the paling stars. Before long bugle and morning gun +would announce the new day at points all along the seaboard. His West +Point comrades were scattered far, and the fancy seized him that the +bugle brought them together every day of their lives as it sounded the +morning calls that would soon begin echoing down the coast from Kennebec +Arsenal and Fort Preble in Maine, through Myer and Monroe, to McPherson, +in Georgia, and back through Niagara and Wayne to Sheridan, and on to +Ringgold and Robinson and Crook, zigzagging back and forth over mountain +and plain to the Pacific, and thence ringing on to Alaska, and echoing +again from Hawaii to lonely outposts in Asian seas. + +He was so intent with the thought that he hummed reveille, and was about +to rebuke himself for unsoldierly behavior on duty when Armitage whistled +for him to advance. + +"It's all right; they haven't passed yet. I met a railroad track-walker +down there and he said he had seen no one between here and Lamar. Now +they're handicapped by the big country horse they had to take for that +Servian devil, and we can push them as hard as we like. We must get them +beyond Lamar before we crowd them; and don't forget that we want to drive +them into my land for the round-up. I'm afraid we're going to have a wet +morning." + +They rode abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long +freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a +coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under flaring +torches. + +"Their message to Winkelried is still on this side of the Atlantic," said +Armitage; "but Winkelried is in a strong room by this time, if the +existing powers at Vienna are what they ought to be. I've done my best +to get him there. The message would only help the case against him if +they sent it." + +Claiborne groaned mockingly. + +"I suppose I'll know what it's all about when I read it in the morning +papers. I like the game well enough, but it might be more amusing to know +what the devil I'm fighting for." + +"You enlisted without reading the articles of war, and you've got to take +the consequences. You've done what you set out to do--you've found me; +and you're traveling with me over the Virginia mountains to report my +capture to Baron von Marhof. On the way you are going to assist in +another affair that will be equally to your credit; and then if all goes +well with us I'm going to give myself the pleasure of allowing Monsieur +Chauvenet to tell you exactly who I am. The incident appeals to my sense +of humor--I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of +very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have +crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled +in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck +to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build--and in the +dark--on horseback--" + +"That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they'd plug me for sure, and +that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would be afraid to +kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion." + +"Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood. +These roads will be paste in a few hours." + +The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a +light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of +the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode +ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen +their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot. + +Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and +halted. + +"Bully for us! We've cut in ahead of them. Can you count them, +Claiborne?" + +"There are three horses all right enough, and they're forcing the beasts. +What's the word?" + +"Drive them back! Ready--here we go!" roared Armitage in a voice intended +to be heard. + +They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the +advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop. + +"'Not later than Friday'--back you go!" shouted Armitage, and laughed +aloud at the enemy's rout. One of the horses--it seemed from its rider's +yells to be Chauvenet's--turned and bolted, and the others followed +back the way they had come. + +Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly +before them. + +"They're rattled," said Claiborne, "and the fog isn't helping them any." + +"We're getting close to my place," said Armitage; and as he spoke two +shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they +jerked up their horses. + +"It's Oscar! He's a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right." + +"If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment," +observed Claiborne. "The fog muffles sounds. The road's pretty level in +here." + +"We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We're +within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that +long open strip where the fences are down. Damn the fog!" + +The agreed signal of two shots reached them again, but clearer, like +drum-taps, and was immediately answered by scattering shots. A moment +later, as the two riders moved forward at a walk, a sharp volley rang out +quite clearly and they heard shouts and the crack of revolvers again. + +"By George! They're coming--here we go!" + +They put their horses to the gallop and rode swiftly through the fog. The +beat of hoofs was now perfectly audible ahead of them, and they heard, +quite distinctly, a single revolver snap twice. + +"Oscar has them on the run--bully for Oscar! They're getting close--thank +the Lord for this level stretch--now howl and let 'er go!" + +They went forward with a yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the +gray cloak of fog, their horses' hoofs pounding dully on the earthen +road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the +ground. + +"They're terribly brave or horribly seared, from their speed," shouted +Claiborne. "Now for it!" + +They rose in their stirrups and charged, yelling lustily, riding neck and +neck toward the unseen foe, and with their horses at their highest pace +they broke upon the mounted trio that now rode upon them grayly out of +the mist. + +There was a mad snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals +turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added +to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and +Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an +instant's glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; +of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; +and of Durand's impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his +left hand and leveled a revolver at Armitage with his right. + +With a cry Claiborne put spurs to his horse and drove him forward upon +Durand. His hand knocked the leveled revolver flying into the fog. Then +Zmai fired twice, and Chauvenet's frightened horse, panic-stricken at the +shots, reared, swung round and dashed back the way he had come, and +Durand and Zmai followed. + +The three disappeared into the mist, and Armitage and Claiborne shook +themselves together and quieted their horses. + +"That was too close for fun--are you all there?" asked Armitage. + +"Still in it; but Chauvenet's friend won't miss every time. There's +murder in his eye. The big fellow seemed to be trying to shoot his own +horse." + +"Oh, he's a knife and sack man and clumsy with the gun." + +They moved slowly forward now and Armitage sent his horse across the +rough ditch at the roadside to get his bearings. The fog seemed at the +point of breaking, and the mass about them shifted and drifted in the +growing light. + +"This is my land, sure enough. Lord, man, I wish you'd get out of this +and go home. You see they're an ugly lot and don't use toy pistols." + +"Remember the potato sack! That's my watchword," laughed Claiborne. + +They rode with their eyes straight ahead, peering through the breaking, +floating mist. It was now so clear and light that they could see the wood +at either hand, though fifty yards ahead in every direction the fog still +lay like a barricade. + +"I should value a change of raiment," observed Armitage. "There was an +advantage in armor--your duds might get rusty on a damp excursion, but +your shirt wouldn't stick to your hide." + +"Who cares? Those devils are pretty quiet, and the little sergeant is +about due to bump into them again." + +They had come to a gradual turn in the road at a point where a steep, +wooded incline swept up on the left. On the right lay the old hunting +preserve and Armitage's bungalow. As they drew into the curve they heard +a revolver crack twice, as before, followed by answering shots and cries +and the thump of hoofs. + +"Ohee! Oscar has struck them again. Steady now! Watch your horse!" And +Armitage raised his arm high above his head and fired twice as a warning +to Oscar. + +The distance between the contending parties was shorter now than at the +first meeting, and Armitage and Claiborne bent forward in their saddles, +talking softly to their horses, that had danced wildly at Armitage's +shots. + +"Lord! if we can crowd them in here now and back to the Port!" + +"There!" + +Exclamations died on their lips at the instant. Ahead of them lay the +fog, rising and breaking in soft folds, and behind it men yelled and +several shots snapped spitefully on the heavy air. Then a curious picture +disclosed itself just at the edge of the vapor, as though it were a +curtain through which actors in a drama emerged upon a stage. Zmai and +Chauvenet flashed into view suddenly, and close behind them, Oscar, +yelling like mad. He drove his horse between the two men, threw himself +flat as Zmai fired at him, and turned and waved his hat and laughed at +them; then, just before his horse reached Claiborne and Armitage, he +checked its speed abruptly, flung it about and then charged back, still +yelling, upon the amazed foe. + +"He's crazy--he's gone clean out of his head!" muttered Claiborne, +restraining his horse with difficulty. "What do you make of it?" + +"He's having fun with them. He's just rattling them to warm himself +up--the little beggar. I didn't know it was in him." + +Back went Oscar toward the two horsemen he had passed less than a minute +before, still yelling, and this time he discharged his revolver with +seeming unconcern, for the value of ammunition, and as he again dashed +between them, and back through the gray curtain, Armitage gave the word, +and he and Claiborne swept on at a gallop. + +Durand was out of sight, and Chauvenet turned and looked behind him +uneasily; then he spoke sharply to Zmai. Oscar's wild ride back and forth +had demoralized the horses, which were snorting and plunging wildly. As +Armitage and Claiborne advanced Chauvenet spoke again to Zmai and drew +his own revolver. + +"Oh, for a saber now!" growled Claiborne. + +But it was not a moment for speculation or regret. Both sides were +perfectly silent as Claiborne, leading slightly, with Armitage pressing +close at his left, galloped toward the two men who faced them at the gray +wall of mist. They bore to the left with a view of crowding the two +horsemen off the road and into the preserve, and as they neared them they +heard cries through the mist and rapid hoof-beats, and Durand's horse +leaped the ditch at the roadside just before it reached Chauvenet and +Zmai and ran away through the rough underbrush into the wood, Oscar close +behind and silent now, grimly intent on his business. + +The revolvers of Zmai and Chauvenet cracked together, and they, too, +turned their horses into the wood, and away they all went, leaving the +road clear. + +"My horse got it that time!" shouted Claiborne. + +"So did I," replied Armitage; "but never you mind, old man, we've got +them cornered now." + + +Claiborne glanced at Armitage and saw his right hand, still holding his +revolver, go to his shoulder. + +"Much damage?" + +"It struck a hard place, but I am still fit." + +The blood streamed from the neck of Claiborne's horse, which threw up its +head and snorted in pain, but kept bravely on at the trot in which +Armitage had set the pace. + +"Poor devil! We'll have a reckoning pretty soon," cried Armitage +cheerily. "No kingdom is worth a good horse!" + +They advanced at a trot toward the Port. + +"You'll be afoot any minute now, but we're in good shape and on our own +soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won't care to drop +into! I'm off for the gate--you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, +give the answer." + +Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse +just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and +rolled over dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE PORT OF MISSING MEN + +Fast they come, fast they come; + See how they gather! +Wide waves the eagle plume, + Blended with heather. +Cast your plaids, draw your blades, + Forward each man set! +Pibroch of Donuil Dhu + Knell for the onset! + +--Sir Walter Scott. + + +Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off +through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man +slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He +threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the +lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of +the wood at his left. + +"It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man--yes?" was the little +sergeant's comment. "We shall come back for the saddle and bridle." + +"Humph! Where do you think those men are?" + +"Behind some rocks near the edge of the gap. It is a poor position." + +"I'm not sure of that. They'll escape across the old bridge." + +"_Nein_. A sparrow would shake it down. Three men at once--they would not +need our bullets!" + +Far away to the right two reports in quick succession gave news of +Armitage. + +"It's the signal that he's got between them and the gate. Swing around to +the left and I will go straight to the big clearing, and meet you." + +"You will have my horse--yes?" Oscar began to dismount. + +"No; I do well enough this way. Forward!--the word is to keep them +between us and the gap until we can sit on them." + +The mist was fast disappearing and swirling away under a sharp wind, and +the sunlight broke warmly upon the drenched world. Claiborne started +through the wet undergrowth at a dog trot. Armitage, he judged, was about +half a mile away, and to make their line complete Oscar should traverse +an equal distance. The soldier blood in Claiborne warmed at the prospect +of a definite contest. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had won +the distinction of having a horse shot under him in an open road fight, +almost within sight of the dome of the Capitol. + +The brush grew thinner and the trees fewer, and he dropped down and +crawled presently to the shelter of a boulder, from which he could look +out upon the open and fairly level field known as the Port of Missing +Men. There as a boy he had dreamed of battles as he pondered the legend +of the Lost Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted +cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in +the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming +the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over +upon the imaginary enemy ahead of him! + +As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out +of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a +rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand +had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the +marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about +him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning +in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the +rifles of Chauvenet's party as they expelled their exploded cartridges +and refilled their magazines. + +"They're really not so bad--bad luck to them!" he muttered. "I'll be ripe +for the little brown men after I get through with this;" and Claiborne +laughed a little and watched Armitage's slow advance out into the open. + +The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed +the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long +irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne's +signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the +little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered +what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure. + +Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes +on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort +to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed +away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target's elbow, and +the man dropped back out of sight without firing. + +"I've never been the same since that fever," growled Claiborne, and +snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance. + +Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover +Armitage's advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage +and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars +fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing +themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to +Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading. + +"They are all together again, are they?" asked Armitage, pausing a few +yards from Claiborne's rock, his eyes upon the barricade. + +"The gentleman with the curly hair--I drove him in. He is a damned poor +shot--yes?" + +Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and +Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences. + +"Shall we risk a rush or starve them out? I'd like to try hunger on +them," said Armitage. + +"They'll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up. If +they all go at once they'll break it down, and we'll lose our quarry. But +you want to capture them--alive?" + +"I certainly do!" Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had +fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting +the indignity by trying to throw his rider. + +The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse +snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth. + +"For God's sake, get off that horse, Armitage!" bawled Claiborne, rising +upon, the rock. "There's no use in wasting yourself that way." + +"My arm aches and I've got to do something. Let's try storming them just +for fun. It's a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the +artillery that's supporting our advance. Fall away there, Oscar, about +forty yards, and we'll race for it to the wall and over. That barricade +isn't as stiff as it looks from this side--know all about it. There are +great chunks out of it that can't be seen from this side." + +"Thank me for that, Armitage. I tumbled down a good many yards of it when +I played up here as a kid. Get off that horse, I tell you! You've got a +hole in you now! Get down!" + +"You make me tired, Claiborne. This beautiful row will all be over in a +few minutes. I never intended to waste much time on those fellows when I +got them where I wanted them." + +His left arm hung quite limp at his side and his face was very white. He +had dropped his rifle in the road at the moment the ball struck his +shoulder, but he still carried his revolver. He nodded to Oscar, and they +both galloped forward over the open ground, making straight for the cedar +covert. + +Claiborne was instantly up and away between the two riders. Their bold +advance evidently surprised the trio beyond the barricade, who shouted +hurried commands to one another as they distributed themselves along the +wall and awaited the onslaught. Then they grew still and lay low out of +sight as the silent riders approached. The hoofs of the onrushing horses +rang now and then on the harsh outcropping rock, and here and there +struck fire. Armitage sat erect and steady in his saddle, his horse +speeding on in great bounds toward the barricade. His lips moved in a +curious stiff fashion, as though he were ill, muttering: + +"For Austria! For Austria! He bade me do something for the Empire!" + +Beyond the cedars the trio held their fire, watching with fascinated eyes +the two riders, every instant drawing closer, and the runner who followed +them. + +"They can't jump this--they'll veer off before they get here," shouted +Chauvenet to his comrades. "Wait till they check their horses for the +turn." + +"We are fools. They have got us trapped;" and Durand's hands shook as he +restlessly fingered a revolver. The big Servian crouched on his knees +near by, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. All three were hatless +and unkempt. The wound in Zmai's scalp had broken out afresh, and he had +twisted a colored handkerchief about it to stay the bleeding. A hundred +yards away the waterfall splashed down the defile and its faint murmur +reached them. A wild dove rose ahead of Armitage and flew straight before +him over the barricade. The silence grew tense as the horses galloped +nearer; the men behind the cedar-lined wall heard only the hollow thump +of hoofs and Claiborne's voice calling to Armitage and Oscar, to warn +them of his whereabouts. + +But the eyes of the three conspirators were fixed on Armitage; it was his +life they sought; the others did not greatly matter. And so John Armitage +rode across the little plain where the Lost Legion had camped for a +year at the end of a great war; and as he rode on the defenders of the +boulder barricade saw his white face and noted the useless arm hanging +and swaying, and felt, in spite of themselves, the strength of his tall +erect figure. + +Chauvenet, watching the silent rider, said aloud, speaking in German, so +that Zmai understood: + +"It is in the blood; he is like a king." + +But they could not hear the words that John Armitage kept saying over and +over again as he crossed the field: + +"He bade me do something for Austria--for Austria!" + +"He is brave, but he is a great fool. When he turns his horse we will +fire on him," said Zmai. + +Their eyes were upon Armitage; and in their intentness they failed to +note the increasing pace of Oscar's horse, which was spurting slowly +ahead. When they saw that he would first make the sweep which they +assumed to be the contemplated strategy of the charging party, they +leveled their arms at him, believing that he must soon check his horse. +But on he rode, bending forward a little, his rifle held across the +saddle in front of him. + +"Take him first," cried Chauvenet. "Then be ready for Armitage!" + +Oscar was now turning his horse, but toward them and across Armitage's +path, with the deliberate purpose of taking the first fire. Before him +rose the cedars that concealed the line of wall; and he saw the blue +barrels of the waiting rifles. With a great spurt of speed he cut in +ahead of Armitage swiftly and neatly; then on, without a break or a +pause--not heeding Armitage's cries--on and still on, till twenty, then +ten feet lay between him and the wall, at a place where the cedar +barrier was thinnest. Then, as his horse crouched and rose, three rifles +cracked as one. With a great crash the horse struck the wall and tumbled, +rearing and plunging, through the tough cedar boughs. An instant later, +near the same spot, Armitage, with better luck clearing the wall, was +borne on through the confused line. When he flung himself down and ran +back Claiborne had not yet appeared. + +Oscar had crashed through at a point held by Durand, who was struck down +by the horse's forefeet. He lay howling with pain, with the hind quarters +of the prostrate beast across his legs. Armitage, running back toward the +wall, kicked the revolver from his hand and left him. Zmai had started to +run as Oscar gained the wall and Chauvenet's curses did not halt the +Servian when he found Oscar at his heels. + +Chauvenet stood impassively by the wall, his revolver raised and covering +Armitage, who walked slowly and doggedly toward him. The pallor in +Armitage's face gave him an unearthly look; he appeared to be trying +to force himself to a pace of which his wavering limbs were incapable. At +the moment that Claiborne sprang upon the wall behind Chauvenet Armitage +swerved and stumbled, then swayed from side to side like a drunken man. +His left arm swung limp at his side, and his revolver remained undrawn in +his belt. His gray felt hat was twitched to one side of his head, adding +a grotesque touch to the impression of drunkenness, and he was talking +aloud: + +"Shoot me, Mr. Chauvenet. Go on and shoot me! I am John Armitage, and I +live in Montana, where real people are. Go on and shoot! Winkelried's in +jail and the jig's up and the Empire and the silly King are safe. Go on +and shoot, I tell you!" + +He had stumbled on until he was within a dozen steps of Chauvenet, who +lifted his revolver until it covered Armitage's head. + +"Drop that gun--drop it damned quick!" and Dick Claiborne swung the butt +of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet's head; +then Armitage paused and glanced about and laughed. + +It was Claiborne who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received +the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was +quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, +cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill +fortune of the fight. + +"It's all over but the shouting--what's next?" demanded Claiborne. + +"Tie him up--and tie the other one up," said Armitage, staring about +queerly. "Where the devil is Oscar?" + +"He's after the big fellow. You're badly fussed, old man. We've got to +get out of this and fix you up." + +"I'm all right. I've got a hole in my shoulder that feels as big and hot +as a blast furnace. But we've got them nailed, and it's all right, old +man!" + +Durand continued to curse things visible and invisible as he rubbed his +leg, while Claiborne watched him impatiently. + +"If you start to run I'll certainly kill you, Monsieur." + +"We have met, my dear sir, under unfortunate circumstances. You should +not take it too much to heart about the potato sack. It was the fault of +my dear colleagues. Ah, Armitage, you look rather ill, but I trust you +will harbor no harsh feelings." + +Armitage did not look at him; his eyes were upon the prostrate figure of +Chauvenet, who seemed to be regaining his wits. He moaned and opened his +eyes. + +"Search him, Claiborne, to make sure. Then get him on his legs and pinion +his arms, and tie the gentlemen together. The bridle on that dead horse +is quite the thing." + +"But, Messieurs," began Durand, who was striving to recover his +composure--"this is unnecessary. My friend and I are quite willing to +give you every assurance of our peaceable intentions." + +"I don't question it," laughed Claiborne. + +"But, my dear sir, in America, even in delightful America, the law will +protect the citizens of another country." + +"It will, indeed," and Claiborne grinned, put his revolver into +Armitage's hand, and proceeded to cut the reins from the dead horse. "In +America such amiable scoundrels as you are given the freedom of cities, +and little children scatter flowers in their path. You ought to write for +the funny papers, Monsieur." + +"I trust your wounds are not serious, my dear Armitage--" + +Armitage, sitting on a boulder, turned his eyes wearily upon Durand, +whose wrists Claiborne was knotting together with a strap. The officer +spun the man around viciously. + +"You beast, if you address Mr. Armitage again I'll choke you!" + +Chauvenet, sitting up and staring dully about, was greeted ironically by +Durand: + +"Prisoners, my dearest Jules; prisoners, do you understand? Will you +please arrange with dear Armitage to let us go home and be good?" + +Claiborne emptied the contents of Durand's pockets upon the ground and +tossed a flask to Armitage. + +"We will discuss matters at the bungalow. They always go to the nearest +farm-house to sign the treaty of peace. Let us do everything according to +the best traditions." + +A moment later Oscar ran in from the direction of the gap, to find the +work done and the party ready to leave. + +"Where is the Servian?" demanded Armitage. + +The soldier saluted, glanced from Chauvenet to Durand, and from Claiborne +to Armitage. + +"He will not come back," said the sergeant quietly. + +"That is bad," remarked Armitage. "Take my horse and ride down to Storm +Springs and tell Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne that Captain +Claiborne has found John Armitage, and that he presents his compliments +and wishes them to come to Mr. Armitage's house at once. Tell them that +Captain Claiborne sent you and that he wants them to come back with you +immediately." + +"But Armitage--not Marhof--for God's sake, not Marhof." Chauvenet +staggered to his feet and his voice choked as he muttered his appeal. +"Not Marhof!" + +"We can fix this among ourselves--just wait a little, till we can talk +over our affairs. You have quite the wrong impression of us, I assure +you, Messieurs," protested Durand. + +"That is your misfortune! Thanks for the brandy, Monsieur Durand. I feel +quite restored," said Armitage, rising; and the color swept into his face +and he spoke with quick decision. + +"Oh, Claiborne, will you kindly give me the time?" + +Claiborne laughed. It was a laugh of real relief at the change in +Armitage's tone. + +"It's a quarter of seven. This little scrap didn't take as much time as +you thought it would." + +Oscar had mounted Armitage's horse and Claiborne stopped him as he rode +past on his way to the road. + +"After you deliver Mr. Armitage's message, get a doctor and tell him to +be in a hurry about getting here." + +"No!" began Armitage. "Good Lord, no! We are not going to advertise this +mess. You will spoil it all. I don't propose to be arrested and put in +jail, and a doctor would blab it all. I tell you, no!" + +"Oscar, go to the hotel at the Springs and ask for Doctor Bledsoe. He's +an army surgeon on leave. Tell him I want him to bring his tools and come +to me at the bungalow. Now go!" + +The conspirators' horses were brought up and Claiborne put Armitage upon +the best of them. + +"Don't treat me as though I were a sick priest! I tell you, I feel bully! +If the prisoners will kindly walk ahead of us, we'll graciously ride +behind. Or we might put them both on one horse! Forward!" + +Chauvenet and Durand, as they marched ahead of their captors, divided the +time between execrating each other and trying to make terms with +Armitage. The thought of being haled before Baron von Marhof gave them +great concern. + +"Wait a few hours, Armitage--let us sit down and talk it all over. We're +not as black as your imagination paints us!" + +"Save your breath! You've had your fun so far, and now I'm going to have +mine. You fellows are all right to sit in dark rooms and plot murder and +treason; but you're not made for work in the open. Forward!" + +They were a worn company that drew up at the empty bungalow, where the +lamp and candles flickered eerily. On the table still lay the sword, the +cloak, the silver box, the insignia of noble orders. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +"WHO ARE YOU, JOHN ARMITAGE?" + +"_Morbleu, Monsieur_, you give me too much majesty," said +the Prince.--_The History of Henry Esmond_. + + +"These gentlemen doubtless wish to confer--let them sequester +themselves!" and Armitage waved his hand to the line of empty +sleeping-rooms. "I believe Monsieur Durand already knows the way +about--he may wish to explore my trunks again," and Armitage bowed +to the two men, who, with their wrists tied behind them and a strap +linking them together, looked the least bit absurd. + +"Now, Claiborne, that foolish Oscar has a first-aid kit of some sort that +he used on me a couple of weeks ago. Dig it out of his simple cell back +there and we'll clear up this mess in my shoulder. Twice on the same +side,--but I believe they actually cracked a bone this time." + +He lay down on a long bench and Claiborne cut off his coat. + +"I'd like to hold a little private execution for this," growled the +officer. "A little lower and it would have caught you in the heart." + +"Don't be spiteful! I'm as sound as wheat. We have them down and the +victory is ours. The great fun is to come when the good Baron von Marhof +gets here. If I were dying I believe I could hold on for that." + +"You're not going to die, thank God! Just a minute more until I pack this +shoulder with cotton. I can't do anything for that smashed bone, but +Bledsoe is the best surgeon in the army, and he'll fix you up in a +jiffy." + +"That will do now. I must have on a coat when our honored guests arrive, +even if we omit one sleeve--yes, I guess we'll have to, though it does +seem a bit affected. Dig out the brandy bottle from the cupboard there in +the corner, and then kindly brush my hair and straighten up the chairs a +bit. You might even toss a stick on the fire. That potato sack you may +care to keep as a souvenir." + +"Be quiet, now! Remember, you are my prisoner, Mr. Armitage." + +"I am, I am! But I will wager ten courses at Sherry's the Baron will be +glad to let me off." + +He laughed softly and began repeating: + +"'Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir apparent? +Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as +Hercules; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. +Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the +better of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou +for a true prince.'" + +Claiborne forced him to lie down on the bench, and threw a blanket over +him, and in a moment saw that he slept. In an inner room the voices of +the prisoners occasionally rose shrilly as they debated their situation +and prospects. Claiborne chewed a cigar and watched and waited. Armitage +wakened suddenly, sat up and called to Claiborne with a laugh: + +"I had a perfectly bully dream, old man. I dreamed that I saw the ensign +of Austria-Hungary flying from the flag-staff of this shanty; and by +Jove, I'll take the hint! We owe it to the distinguished Ambassador who +now approaches to fly his colors over the front door. We ought to have a +trumpeter to herald his arrival--but the white and red ensign with the +golden crown--it's in the leather-covered trunk in my room--the one with +the most steamer labels on it--go bring it, Claiborne, and we'll throw it +to the free airs of Virginia. And be quick--they ought to be here by this +time!" + +He stood in the door and watched Claiborne haul up the flag, and he made +a mockery of saluting it as it snapped out in the fresh morning air. + +"The Port of Missing Men! It was designed to be extra-territorial, and +there's no treason in hauling up an alien flag," and his high spirits +returned, and he stalked back to the fireplace, chaffing Claiborne and +warning him against ever again fighting under an unknown banner. + +"Here they are," called Claiborne, and flung open the door as Shirley, +her father and Baron von Marhof rode up under the billowing ensign. Dick +stepped out to meet them and answer their questions. + +"Mr. Armitage is here. He has been hurt and we have sent for a doctor; +but"--and he looked at Shirley. + +"If you will do me the honor to enter--all of you!" and Armitage came out +quickly and smiled upon them. + +"We had started off to look for Dick when we met your man," said Shirley, +standing on the steps, rein in hand. + +"What has happened, and how was Armitage injured?" demanded Judge +Claiborne. + +"There was a battle," replied Dick, grinning, "and Mr. Armitage got in +the way of a bullet." + +Her ride through the keen morning air had flooded Shirley's cheeks with +color. She wore a dark blue skirt and a mackintosh with the collar turned +up about her neck, and a red scarf at her throat matched the band of her +soft felt hat. She drew off her gauntlets and felt in her pocket for a +handkerchief with which to brush some splashes of mud that had dried on +her cheek, and the action was so feminine, and marked so abrupt a +transition from the strange business of the night and morning, that +Armitage and Dick laughed and Judge Claiborne turned upon them +frowningly. + +Shirley had been awake much of the night. On returning from the ball at +the inn she found Dick still absent, and when at six o'clock he had not +returned she called her father and they had set off together for the +hills, toward which, the stablemen reported, Dick had ridden. They had +met Oscar just outside the Springs, and had returned to the hotel for +Baron von Marhof. Having performed her office as guide and satisfied +herself that Dick was safe, she felt her conscience eased, and could see +no reason why she should not ride home and leave the men to their +council. Armitage saw her turn to her horse, whose nose was exploring her +mackintosh pockets, and he stepped quickly toward her. + +"You see, Miss Claiborne, your brother is quite safe, but I very much +hope you will not run away. There are some things to be explained which +it is only fair you should hear." + +"Wait, Shirley, and we will all go down together," said Judge Claiborne +reluctantly. + +Baron von Marhof, very handsome and distinguished, but mud-splashed, had +tied his horse to a post in the driveway, and stood on the veranda steps, +his hat in his hand, staring, a look of bewilderment on his face. +Armitage, bareheaded, still in his riding leggings, his trousers splashed +with mud, his left arm sleeveless and supported by a handkerchief swung +from his neck, shook hands with Judge Claiborne. + +"Baron von Marhof, allow me to present Mr. Armitage," said Dick, and +Armitage walked to the steps and bowed. The Ambassador did not offer his +hand. + +"Won't you please come in?" said Armitage, smiling upon them, and when +they were seated he took his stand by the fireplace, hesitated a moment, +as though weighing his words, and began: + +"Baron von Marhof, the events that have led to this meeting have been +somewhat more than unusual--they are unique. And complications have +arisen which require prompt and wise action. For this reason I am glad +that we shall have the benefit of Judge Claiborne's advice." + +"Judge Claiborne is the counsel of our embassy," said the Ambassador. His +gaze was fixed intently on Armitage's face, and he hitched himself +forward in his chair impatiently, grasping his crop nervously across his +knees. + +"You were anxious to find me, Baron, and I may have seemed hard to catch, +but I believe we have been working at cross-purposes to serve the same +interests." + +The Baron nodded. + +"Yes, I dare say," he remarked dryly. + +"And some other gentlemen, of not quite your own standing, have at the +same time been seeking me. It will give me great pleasure to present one +of them--one, I believe, will be enough. Mr. Claiborne, will you kindly +allow Monsieur Jules Chauvenet to stand in the door for a moment? I want +to ask him a question." + +Shirley, sitting farthest from Armitage, folded her hands upon the long +table and looked toward the door into which her brother vanished. Then +Jules Chauvenet stood before them all, and as his eyes met hers for a +second the color rose to his face, and he broke out angrily: + +"This is infamous! This is an outrage! Baron von Marhof, as an Austrian +subject, I appeal to you for protection from this man!" + +"Monsieur, you shall have all the protection Baron von Marhof cares to +give you; but first I wish to ask you a question--just one. You followed +me to America with the fixed purpose of killing me. You sent a Servian +assassin after me--a fellow with a reputation for doing dirty work--and +he tried to stick a knife into me on the deck of the _King Edward_. I +shall not recite my subsequent experiences with him or with you and +Monsieur Durand. You announced at Captain Claiborne's table at the Army +and Navy Club in Washington that I was an impostor, and all the time, +Monsieur, you have really believed me to be some one--some one in +particular." + +Armitage's eyes glittered and his voice faltered with intensity as he +uttered these last words. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket, +stepped back, and concluded: + +"Who am I, Monsieur?" + +Chauvenet shifted uneasily from one foot to another under the gaze of the +five people who waited for his answer; then he screamed shrilly: + +"You are the devil--an impostor, a liar, a thief!" + +Baron von Marhof leaped to his feet and roared at Chauvenet in English: + +"Who is this man? Whom do you believe him to be?" + +"Answer and be quick about it!" snapped Claiborne. + +"I tell you"--began Chauvenet fiercely. + +"_Who am I_?" asked Armitage again. + +"I don't know who you are--" + +"You do not! You certainly do not!" laughed Armitage; "but whom have you +believed me to be, Monsieur?" + +"I thought--" + +"Yes; you thought--" + +"I thought--there seemed reasons to believe--" + +"Yes; and you believe it; go on!" + +Chauvenet's eyes blinked for a moment as he considered the difficulties +of his situation. The presence of Baron von Marhof sobered him. America +might not, after all, be so safe a place from which to conduct an Old +World conspiracy, and this incident must, if possible, be turned to his +own account. He addressed the Baron in German: + +"This man is a designing plotter; he is bent upon mischief and treason; +he has contrived an attempt against the noble ruler of our nation--he is +a menace to the throne--" + +"Who is he?" demanded Marhof impatiently; and his eyes and the eyes of +all fell upon Armitage. + +"I tell you we found him lurking about in Europe, waiting his chance, and +we drove him away--drove him here to watch him. See these things--that +sword--those orders! They belonged to the Archduke Karl. Look at them and +see that it is true! I tell you we have rendered Austria a high service. +One death--one death--at Vienna--and this son of a madman would be king! +He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!" + +The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Ambassador's +gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out +upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered: + +"He would be king; he would be king!" + +Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne. + +"That will do. The gentleman may retire now." + +As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the +little company, smiling. + +"I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl," he said +quietly; "nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on +in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble +at Mr. Claiborne's supper-party belongs to me. Here it is." + +The old Ambassador snatched it from him eagerly. + +"This device--the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to +explain, Monsieur." + +"It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to +Frederick Augustus, Karl's son; and this sword was his; and these orders +and that cloak lying yonder--all were his. They were gifts from his +father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly." + +The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver +box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, +held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no +longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the +Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, +swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold--the familiar device of the house of +Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed +Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion +of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from +triple anchors--the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of +the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Ambassador's fine old +hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles +again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia +shores, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus. + +The Ambassador closed the silver box the better to examine the white +falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage. + +"Where is he, Monsieur?" he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes +sweeping the doors and windows. + +"The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these +conspirators have imagined me to be--he, too, is dead." + +"You are quite sure--you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?" + +"I am quite sure." + +"That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!" + +"No, it is not enough," replied Armitage quietly. "Let me make my story +brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke--his dislike +of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living +a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal +estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years +ago." + +"Yes; he was mad--quite mad," blurted the Baron. + +"That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into +exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers +sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South +Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In +truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in +western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died +within the year." + +Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused. + +"What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?" + +"I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His identity I may +establish by various documents which he gave me for the purpose. For +greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and +Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly +with myself as entitled to the contents of that box. Here is the key." + +As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his +old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand +shook, and Dick begged him to sit down. + +"Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?" said the Baron kindly. + +"No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those documents +to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that +unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain +emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not +a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons--for the reason +that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new +Emperor-king, _is not his son_!" + +"What!" roared the Baron. + +"It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, +drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry +it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by +half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though +they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore +him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the +consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim +humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of +his own country, and the consul-general assumed that it was a document of +mere commercial significance." + +The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested +for a moment on the sword. + +"It is a marvelous story--it is wonderful! Can it be true--can it be +true?" murmured the Ambassador. + +"The documents will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in +twenty-four hours," said Judge Claiborne. + +"You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir," said the Baron, "but +it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners--" + +"They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus. +Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus," and Armitage smiled. "I was +within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet +and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case--it had +belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me--and my troubles +began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to +cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, +Karl's reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne." + +"Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I--" + +"And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that +door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should +now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to +Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I +gave Karl's repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von +Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the +Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this +house." + +The Ambassador's eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one +by one from Armitage's lips; but Armitage went on: + +"I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your +approval. They have chartered the _George W. Custis_, a fruit-carrying +steamer lying at Morgan's wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected +to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some +idea of kidnapping me; and it isn't my fault they failed at that game. +But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, +however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser +_Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be +suggestive." + +He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and +Judge Claiborne. + +Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the +minds of all. + +"Who are _you_, John Armitage?" + +And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had +used throughout: + +"I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and +of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke's son and I were +school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father's place +near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New +World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my +story short--I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them. +It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies." + +"Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father--you +never went to him?" + +"I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my +father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had +not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria--Austria, always +Austria!" + +"Yes; that was quite like him," said the Ambassador. "He served his +country with a passionate devotion. He hated America--he distrusted the +whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against +you--that you should have chosen to live here." + +"Then when I saw him at Geneva--that last interview--he told me that +Karl's statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for +the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours +before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had +given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again--never to +claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to +Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it +hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had +wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the +whole idea of such labor as his. And now--" + +He faltered, his hoarse voice broke with stress of feeling, and his +pallor deepened. + +"It was not my fault--it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, +and, by God, I've got them in the room there where they can't do any +harm!--and Dick Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and +the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to +sleep; for I'm sick--yes, I'm sick--and sleepy--and you'd better haul +down that flag over the door--it's treason, I tell you!--and if you see +Shirley, tell her I'm John Armitage--tell her I'm John Armitage, John +Arm--" + +The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand +erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he +sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, +sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +DECENT BURIAL + +To-morrow? 'Tis not ours to know + That we again shall see the flowers. +To-morrow is the gods'--but, oh! + To day is ours. + +--C.E. Merrill, Jr. + + +Claiborne called Oscar through the soft dusk of the April evening. The +phalanx of stars marched augustly across the heavens. Claiborne lifted +his face gratefully to the cool night breeze, for he was worn with the +stress and anxiety of the day, and there remained much to do. The +bungalow had been speedily transformed into a hospital. One nurse, +borrowed from a convalescent patient at the Springs, was to be reinforced +by another summoned by wire from Washington. The Ambassador's demand +to be allowed to remove Armitage to his own house at the Springs had been +promptly rejected by the surgeon. A fever had hold of John Armitage, who +was ill enough without the wound in his shoulder, and the surgeon moved +his traps to the bungalow and took charge of the case. Oscar had brought +Claiborne's bag, and all was now in readiness for the night. + +Oscar's erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne +down from the stars. + +"We can get rid of the prisoners to-night--yes?" + +"At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to +travel with them to Baltimore to their boat. The Baron and my father +arranged it over the telephone from the Springs. The prisoners understand +that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly. The +government agents are discreet men. You brought up the buckboard?" + +"But the men should be hanged--for they shot our captain, and he may +die." + +The little man spoke with sad cadence. A pathos in his erect, sturdy +figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne. + +"He will get well, Oscar. Everything will seem brighter to-morrow. You +had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train." + +Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper. + +"I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go +unburied. You are not a Catholic--no?" + +"You need not tell me how--or anything about it--but you are sure he is +quite dead?" + +"He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly," said Oscar, and +he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead. "I will tell +you just how it was. When my horse took the wall and got their bullets +and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that +we were all coming over after them, and ran. He kept running through the +brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we +might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get +away. It was our captain who said, 'We must take them prisoners,' was it +not so?" + +"Yes; that was Mr. Armitage's wish." + +"Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not +use, there at the deep ravine. I had crossed it once and knew that it was +weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him. He kept on, and just +before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow +runner--yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his +revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on. His feet +struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he +kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks. +He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, +and come back for a little fight. The wires of the bridge hummed and +the bridge swung and creaked. When he was almost midway of the bridge the +big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held +them--though I had not touched them--and it seemed many years that passed +while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and +the creek down below laughed at that big coward. I still heard his hoofs +thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him +for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air. Yes; it was +very horrible to see. And then his great body went down, down--God! It +was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die." + +And Oscar brushed his hat with his sleeve and looked away at the purple +and gray ridges and their burden of stars. + +"Yes, it must have been terrible," said Claiborne. + +"But now he can not be left to lie down there on the rocks, though he was +so wicked and died like a beast. I am a bad Catholic, but when I was a +boy I used to serve mass, and it is not well for a man to lie in a wild +place where the buzzards will find him." + +"But you can not bring a priest. Great harm would be done if news of this +affair were to get abroad. You understand that what has passed here must +never be known by the outside world. My father and Baron von Marhof have +counseled that, and you may be sure there are reasons why these things +must be kept quiet, or they would seek the law's aid at once." + +"Yes; I have been a soldier; but after this little war I shall bury the +dead. In an hour I shall be back to drive the buckboard to Lamar +station." + +Claiborne looked at his watch. + +"I will go with you," he said. + +They started through the wood toward the Port of Missing Men; and +together they found rough niches in the side of the gap, down which they +made their way toilsomely to the boulder-lined stream that laughed and +tumbled foamily at the bottom of the defile. They found the wreckage of +the slender bridge, broken to fragments where the planking had struck the +rocks. It was very quiet in the mountain cleft, and the stars seemed +withdrawn to newer and deeper arches of heaven as they sought in the +debris for the Servian. They kindled a fire of twigs to give light for +their search, and soon found the great body lying quite at the edge of +the torrent, with arms flung out as though to ward off a blow. The face +twisted with terror and the small evil eyes, glassed in death, were not +good to see. + +"He was a wicked man, and died in sin. I will dig a grave for him by +these bushes." + +When the work was quite done, Oscar took off his hat and knelt down by +the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. +Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known +as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of +chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he +uttered, his voice rising mournfully among the rocks. + +_"From all evil; from all sin; from Thy wrath; from sudden and unprovided +death, O Lord, deliver us!"_ + +Then he was silent, though in the wavering flame of the fire Claiborne +saw that his lips still muttered prayers for the Servian's soul. When +again his words grew audible he was saying: + +_"--That Thou wouldst not deliver it into the hand of the enemy, nor +forget it unto the end, out wouldst command it to be received by the Holy +Angels, and conducted to paradise, its true country; that, as in Thee it +hath hoped and believed, it may not suffer the pains of hell, but may +take possession of eternal joys."_ + +He made the sign of the cross, rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and +put on his hat. + +"He was a coward and died an ugly death, but I am glad I did not kill +him." + +"Yes, we were spared murder," said Claiborne; and when they had trodden +out the fire and scattered the embers into the stream, they climbed the +steep side of the gap and turned toward the bungalow. Oscar trudged +silently at Claiborne's side, and neither spoke. Both were worn to the +point of exhaustion by the events of the long day; the stubborn patience +and fidelity of the little man touched a chord in Claiborne. Almost +unconsciously he threw his arm across Oscar's shoulders and walked thus +beside him as they traversed the battle-field of the morning. + +"You knew Mr. Armitage when he was a boy?" asked Claiborne. + +"Yes; in the Austrian forest, on his father's place--the Count Ferdinand +von Stroebel. The young captain's mother died when he was a child; his +father was the great statesman, and did much for the Schomburgs and +Austria; but it did not aid his disposition--no?" + +The secret service men had come by way of the Springs, and were waiting +at the bungalow to report to Claiborne. They handed him a sealed packet +of instructions from the Secretary of War. The deportation of Chauvenet +and Durand was to be effected at once under Claiborne's direction, and he +sent Oscar to the stables for the buckboard and sat down on the veranda +to discuss the trip to Baltimore with the two secret agents. They were to +gather up the personal effects of the conspirators at the tavern on the +drive to Lamar. The rooms occupied by Chauvenet at Washington had already +been ransacked and correspondence and memoranda of a startling character +seized. Chauvenet was known to be a professional blackmailer and plotter +of political mischief, and the embassy of Austria-Hungary had identified +Durand as an ex-convict who had only lately been implicated in the +launching of a dangerous issue of forged bonds in Paris. Claiborne had +been carefully coached by his father, and he answered the questions of +the officers readily: + +"If these men give you any trouble, put them under arrest in the nearest +jail. We can bring them back here for attempted murder, if nothing worse; +and these mountain juries will see that they're put away for a long time. +You will accompany them on board the _George W. Custis_, and stay with +them until you reach Cape Charles. A lighthouse tender will follow the +steamer down Chesapeake Bay and take you off. If these gentlemen do not +give the proper orders to the captain of the steamer, you will put them +all under arrest and signal the tender." + +Chauvenet and Durand had been brought out and placed in the buckboard, +and these orders were intended for their ears. + +"We will waive our right to a writ of _habeas corpus_," remarked Durand +cheerfully, as Claiborne flashed a lantern over them. "Dearest Jules, we +shall not forget Monsieur Claiborne's courteous treatment of us." + +"Shut up!" snapped Chauvenet. + +"You will both of you do well to hold your tongues," remarked Claiborne +dryly. "One of these officers understands French, and I assure you they +can not be bought or frightened. If you try to bolt, they will certainly +shoot you. If you make a row about going on board your boat at Baltimore, +remember they are government agents, with ample authority for any +emergency, and that Baron von Marhof has the American State Department at +his back." + +"You are wonderful, Captain Claiborne," drawled Durand. + +"There is no trap in this? You give us the freedom of the sea?" demanded +Chauvenet. + +"I gave you the option of a Virginia prison for conspiracy to murder, or +a run for your life in your own boat beyond the Capes. You have chosen +the second alternative; if you care to change your decision--" + +Oscar gathered up the reins and waited for the word. Claiborne held his +watch to the lantern. + +"We must not miss our train, my dear Jules!" said Durand. + +"Bah, Claiborne! this is ungenerous of you. You know well enough this is +an unlawful proceeding--kidnapping us this way--without opportunity for +counsel." + +"And without benefit of clergy," laughed Claiborne. "Is it a dash for the +sea, or the nearest county jail? If you want to tackle the American +courts, we have nothing to venture. The Winkelried crowd are safe behind +the bars in Vienna, and publicity can do us no harm." + +"Drive on!" ejaculated Chauvenet. + +As the buckboard started, Baron von Marhof and Judge Claiborne rode up, +and watched the departure from their saddles. + +"That's the end of one chapter," remarked Judge Claiborne. + +"They're glad enough to go," said Dick. "What's the latest word from +Vienna?" + +"The conspirators were taken quietly; about one hundred arrests have been +made in all, and the Hungarian uprising has played out utterly--thanks to +Mr. John Armitage," and the Baron sighed and turned toward the bungalow. + +When the two diplomats rode home half an hour later, it was with the +assurance that Armitage's condition was satisfactory. + +"He is a hardy plant," said the surgeon, "and will pull through." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +JOHN ARMITAGE + +If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a +king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will +become a possibility; but not otherwise.--Marius the Epicurean. + + +June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof's cottage at +Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton +Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The +representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that +tinkled the ice cheerily. + +"He's as obstinate as a mule!" + +Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron's vehemence. + +"He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing +under similar circumstances." + +"What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest +title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as +carrying democracy too far!" + +"I suppose there is; but he's of age; he's a grown man. I don't see what +you're going to do about it." + +"Neither do I! But think what he's putting aside. The boy's clever--he +has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position--the home +government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna +and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous +fashion. And with his father's memory and reputation behind him--" + +"But the idea of reward doesn't appeal to him. We canvassed that last +night." + +"There's one thing I haven't dared to ask him: to take his own name--to +become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn't want his +father's money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too." + +"It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage." + +"It's simply providential that he hasn't become a citizen of your +republic. That would have been the last straw!" + +They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by. + +"Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together +on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger." + +He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop +of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligee shirt and +duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by +Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his +illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened +temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was +regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He +thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near +gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed +hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free. + +"Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger +every day that we can't be sure of you long," said the Baron. + +"You have spoiled me,--I am not at all anxious to venture back into the +world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really +quite true." + +"Something must be done about your father's estate soon. It is yours, +waiting and ready." + +The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously. + +Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and +held it across his knees. + +"No,--no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel +comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his +country--something that we may hope pleases him if he knows." + +The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of +the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed. +The Baron was afraid to venture his last request. + +"But the name--the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has +known--a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe--surely +you can at least accept that." + +The Ambassador's tone was as gravely importunate as though he were +begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and +walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that +morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow. +The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm +Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian +boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs. +Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden, +beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark +green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until +Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the +rose trees; and he saw--or thought he saw--the sun searching out the gold +in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the +straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of +a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of +crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron. + +"How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?" he asked, +sitting down. + +"Nothing,--absolutely nothing. The presence of the _Sophia Margaret_ off +the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several +correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers +made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion. +You were hurt while cleaning your gun,--please do not forget that!--and +you are a friend of my family,--a very eccentric character, who has +chosen to live in the wilderness." + +The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a +little constraint upon them all. The Baron's question was still +unanswered. + +"You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were +sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe +some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely." + +"That was very generous of them;" and Armitage shifted his position +slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he +was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he +wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone +to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward +Armitage--for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people +of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him. + +"The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough," remarked Armitage. He had +not yet answered the Baron's question, and the old gentleman grew +restless at the delay. "I read in the _Neue Freie Presse_ a while ago +that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is +reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is +only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs." + +"Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate." + +"We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile," remarked Judge +Claiborne. "We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in +the safety box at New York to be as he described them." + +"They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk +in destroying them than in preserving them," said the Baron. + +Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed. + +"They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further +custody." + +A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read. + +"It's from the commander of the _Sophia Margaret_, who is just leaving +Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good +health." + +"It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian +coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two +scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have +forgotten they ever lived. But"--and Judge Claiborne shrugged his +shoulders and smiled disingenuously--"as a lawyer I deplore such methods. +Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two +men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out +to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an +Austrian battle-ship! That's what we get for being a free republic that +can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political +offense." + +Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had +no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue +Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the +eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland +meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,--before such things +as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of +man's desire. + +The Baron's next words broke harshly upon his mood. + +"The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to +Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in +Austria,--you could make yourself the younger--the great Stroebel--" + +The mention of his name brought back the Baron's still unanswered +question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling. + +"I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little +later,--if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get +the answer,--that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back +with me." + +He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows +of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the +Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance +as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same +side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest +proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did +not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically +refilled their glasses. + +Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron's +grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was +pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his +heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with +the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate +aim. + +At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain +_vestigia_ that interested him deeply,--a pink parasol, a contrivance of +straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine. +He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a +person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the +landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he +came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had +waited for Zmai that he found her. + +"They told me you wouldn't dare venture out for a week," she said, +advancing toward him and giving him her hand. + +"That was what they told me," he said, laughing; "but I escaped from my +keepers." + +"You will undoubtedly take cold,--without your hat!" + +"Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia +sunshine. I take my chances." + +"You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can +not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero." + +"Please!" He held up his hand. "That's what I came to talk to you about." + +"About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to +send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow." + +She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur +against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they +scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and +vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy's whistle, gave emphasis to the +country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally +of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at +each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands +were-already brown,--an honest brown won from May and June in the open +field,--not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere +devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but +the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful +who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly. +They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding +them upon her knees that charmed him. + +"I didn't know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that +morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct +you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must +have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my +right mind I shouldn't have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and +run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I +made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the +Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn't +careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall." + +"Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that +the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It's hard enough to get a man +arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You +haven't your hat--" + +"Neither have you; you shan't outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your +hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near +seizing it as spoil of war,--the loot of the pergola!" + +"There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so +much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can't be responsible +for you." + +"The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that's what I +have come to ask you about." + +"Then I should say that you oughtn't to quarrel with a dear old man like +Baron von Marhof. Besides, he's your uncle." + +"No! No! I don't want him to be my uncle! I don't need any uncle!" + +He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh. + +"I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in +these hills were not to be mentioned. But don't worry; the sheep won't +tell--and I won't." + +He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished +to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air +was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field +stole sweetly upon them. + +"Shirley!" + +He touched her hand. + +"Shirley!" and his fingers closed upon hers. + +"I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,--before +the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of +the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and +romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful +world. I understood--I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those +things meant to you;--but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life +for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will +take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not +take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be +thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I +bore as a boy and disgraced in my father's eyes,--his name that he made +famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the +name I flung away in anger,--they wish me to take that." + +She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills. + +"The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it +all over,--in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the +herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne; +but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a +shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me +except dominion and power,--it can serve no purpose for me to take it +now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham +and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great +defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right +of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me +force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man's right to live and +do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the +old name unless,--unless you tell me I must, Shirley!" + +There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He +looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips. + +"It was that way,--you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley, +with the dreams in your eyes." + +He caught her hand and kissed it,--bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as +he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its +warmth and color lay against his face. + +"I do not know,"--and he scarcely heard the whispered words,--"I do not +know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,--but I love--John Armitage," she +said. + +Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet +garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron's +question. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORT OF MISSING MEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 13913.txt or 13913.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13913 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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