COUNT ZARKA

“In a moment their light rapiers had touched.” (Page 235.)

“The plan I have in my mind,” said Gersdorff, the Minister, “is so full of delicacy and danger that I hesitate to propose it to you.”

The young man sitting opposite to him smiled. “At least, Excellency, let me hear it. May not the man before whom the danger will lie be the best judge of whether he can undertake it. As to the delicacy involved——”

The Minister made a deprecating gesture.

“I have no fear on that score, so far as you are concerned, my dear Herr Galabin. In fact you are the only man in the Bureau whom I would trust to undertake the affair. The only question is,” he continued, as Galabin bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, “whether I have any right to risk a valuable life in an undertaking where the very courage which points you out as the right man for the business is likely to minimize the dangers, dangers[8] which I cannot disguise from myself may be very great.”

“Nevertheless, I am impatient to hear your Excellency’s plan.”

The Minister leaned back in his chair thoughtfully stroking his mouth with his long white fingers. “Shortly, it is this,” he said. “The mystery surrounding the extraordinary disappearance of Prince Roel of Rapsberg deepens every day. I say deepens, because, as you know, the agents of our Bureau, all the machinery which we have set working to elucidate it, have given us absolutely blank results. Had it been a mere piece of eccentricity on the Prince’s part, the result, as has been hinted, of disappointment in a love affair, we must have found him, or at least some clue to the direction in which he had disappeared. A man, let alone a prince, cannot vanish from the face of the earth without leaving some trace.”

“That is obvious, Excellency, at any rate in a well-watched community.”

“Just so. Now—and I doubt not you will have come to the same conclusion as myself—the result which our exhaustive inquiries leave us is the inevitable conclusion that the Prince has been spirited away.”

“You think that, Excellency?”

Gersdorff nodded. “I do. And my supposition[9] has the deeper colour in that I can easily account for it. Now, in suggesting, my dear Herr Galabin, that you should take this matter in hand and endeavour to follow up the mystery on political, that is altogether higher, lines, I feel it is only due to you to point out the danger of playing the detective, seeing that we accept the theory that this is not a mere ordinary case of a person’s disappearance, due to eccentricity or commonplace foul play. Behind it I fear we have a strong, ruthless, political motive. And a motive springing from one of the strongest, most Napoleonic brains in Europe, and at the back of that policy the might of a great Power.”

“It is fighting against tremendous odds, certainly, to follow the matter up,” Galabin remarked.

“True. Still, we have no alternative. We may be comparatively weak and insignificant in the European concert, but for all that we cannot allow this outrage to pass. Here is one of the richest and most influential of our great territorial nobles kidnapped under our very noses. For the sudden disappearance of such a man can scarcely be accounted for otherwise. Now are we to leave this young Prince to his fate? Supposing, that is, he has not already met it. Although my own idea is—and that is the reason, Herr Galabin, I am anxious to enlist your services—that the Russian, strong though he be, will scarcely venture to put Prince Roel to death,[10] at least until he has ascertained with some certainty the effect such an outrage would produce and the consequences he would have to face. No, he will not burn his boats until he is sure how the land lies in front of him.”

“And the motive for making away with Prince Roel?”

Gersdorff gave a shrug. “The old, wearisome motive that is responsible for ninety-nine hundredths of the world’s unrest. The policy of aggression. The Prince owns an immense territory on the very borders of the debatable land between Baratora and Sorusk, a province which is kept in a ferment by Karatieff’s agents with a view to its ultimate annexation in the interests of peace.”

“I see.”

“Now Prince Roel is, I can quite understand, a stumbling-block in the way of our friend’s policy. For, young as he is, he wields great power; he is practically an independent sovereign on his own territory; moreover he has, it is known, imbibed from his father a hatred of Russian aggression. Gorodov has tried to get round him, but with no success.”

“And so he falls back on force majeure.”

“It is a bold stroke, and one which I should dearly like to defeat,” Gersdorff said with a touch of professional rivalry and zeal which the other could well[11] understand. “If once we can make sure what has become of Prince Roel his restoration to liberty will follow as a matter of course. It will be the price of our secrecy over the affair. Karatieff cannot afford to stand convicted to-day of such mediæval tactics.”

“No, clearly.”

“There is bound to be a storm of some sort,” Gersdorff proceeded. “Karatieff no doubt is prepared for that, and the only question which he has to calculate is the degree of its severity. It is already breaking out in Prince Roel’s own country. Urgent representations have already reached this Bureau; the poor fellow’s mother has given me a painful hour this morning. There is much talk of vengeance if a hair of his head is injured. The Magyars are a dangerous race when roused, but what can they do against Karatieff? No; their attitude may be heroic, but it is eminently unpractical. We must play the fox, not the lion. Let me only find out what has actually become of the Prince, and I will engage to bring Karatieff to his knees. Now, may we count on you, Herr Galabin? I can promise you that the royal gratitude will take a very practical shape, and as for expenses, why, you have carte blanche. You know the country and the language, you have courage and savoir faire, and I could not choose a better man for what is, I admit, a rather forlorn hope. I don’t want your answer at[12] this moment. We can give you a few hours. It is hardly an affair to be entered upon lightly, although at the same time a too serious frame of mind is to be avoided. Now, will you give me the pleasure of your company at luncheon?”

They went in together to the dining-room. At the door Gersdorff laid his hand on his guest’s arm and said quietly, “It will be well perhaps not to allude to this matter before the servants. Experience has taught me the impossibility of being too cautious. We have a saying in our Service, ‘Three pairs of ears, one spy.’”

After luncheon they lighted cigars and sat in the bow window looking down on the busy Königstrasse, the principal thoroughfare of the city. The old Minister’s casual comments on the details of the moving, thronging life beneath them were shrewd and amusing, and the idle half-hour passed agreeably enough.

“Do you see this man riding up the street towards us on the roan horse?” Gersdorff asked, suddenly breaking off from the general to the particular. “Now there is a fellow who is rather a puzzle to our intelligence department.”

“In what way?” Galabin asked, looking curiously at the object of the remark as he drew nearer.

The rider was a dark, well set-up man about thirty-five[13] or forty with something of a Greek cast of countenance. Certainly at a casual glance an undeniably handsome fellow, with a lithe figure and a perfect seat on horseback.

“He is a Count Zarka,” Gersdorff answered. “He lives right away on the eastern borders of the country among the mountains, but he is often here, staying sometimes for several weeks together and living in expensive style. Now the curious thing about him is that he seems suddenly and strangely to have become rich—no one knows how. His father, the last Count, was poor, living in a half-ruined castle among the mountains; this man has, we hear, turned the dilapidated old place into an almost palatial residence where he keeps a certain state. He appeared suddenly a year or two back in society here with a great flourish and all the surroundings of large wealth. Whence does it come? Report says he has been singularly lucky at the gaming-tables; but that would hardly account for more than a temporary state of affluence. Yes,” he continued musingly, “I shall have to find out the real source of the Herr Count’s wealth as soon as we have discovered Prince Roel. Another mission waiting for you, my adventurous young friend. Ah! here he comes back again.”

The sharp ring of the horse’s hoofs sounded on the stones below them; then abruptly ceased.[14] “He is coming in,” Gersdorff exclaimed in some surprise, not unmingled, however, with a certain astute satisfaction. “Now I wonder what he can want here with us.”

Galabin had glanced round in time to see the Count dismount and saunter up the broad steps of the Chancellerie. Presently one of the secretaries came in and told his chief that Count Zarka was anxious to see him for a few moments on an urgent private matter.

“To see me?” Gersdorff repeated.

“No one else, Excellency. The communication the Herr Graf has to make is for your private ear. If your Excellency is engaged——”

“No, no. I will see the Count—in my room. Now,” he observed to Galabin as the secretary left them, “I may, perhaps, be able to find out something of this matter. I have my suspicions of the Herr Graf, and should not be surprised if he comes to hoodwink me. Do me the favour to smoke another cigar here till I can rejoin you. I may be able to set an explicit plan before you.”

With a courtly bow he left the young man and passed through to his private bureau. As he entered, the Count, who was scrutinizing an engraving on the wall, turned sharply. He had the easy vivacious manner of a polished man of the world, and his appearance was prepossessing enough except that[15] the beauty of the face was spoilt by the wolfish expression of the restless eyes.

“To what cause am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Count? What is the important matter you wish to communicate?” Gersdorff never wasted time in preliminary small-talk unless he had an object in such trifling. And here with this man there was none.

“The matter, Excellency, on which I have called to give you certain information,” replied the Count with a self-possession which the experienced reader of men noticed with a certain dubious admiration, “is one to which I fancy the Government will attach great importance. I refer to the mysterious disappearance of Prince Roel.”

“Ah, yes. We shall be glad to have any tangible explanation of that.”

The diplomatic mask was impenetrable, and the sharp eyes saw nothing in the old Minister’s face beyond a calm official interest, courteously inviting him to proceed.

“I should preface such evidence as I can produce,” the Count continued, “by mentioning that during the Prince’s last stay in this city I saw much of him, indeed I may say that we were fairly intimate.”

“A doubtful advantage to the Prince,” was the other’s mental comment, but his visitor detected[16] nothing beyond the slight bow with which the statement was acknowledged.

“During our companionship,” Zarka proceeded, “it came to my knowledge that the Prince had fallen in love, or at least was deeply fascinated by a lady he was in the habit of meeting in society.”

Gersdorff raised his bushy eyebrows in quiet surprise. “You know the lady’s name?”

The Count gave an evasive shrug. “Only so far as a guess will serve. The Prince gave me none of his confidence on the subject, and my knowledge was gathered simply from observation.”

“The man is lying,” Gersdorff said to himself. Then aloud, “Your observation, Count, surely did not stop short of the lady’s identity?”

“I must repeat I have no positive information on that point,” Zarka maintained with a smile that rather gave the lie to his words. “The Prince was most reserved and secretive in the matter, and I could not pretend to do more than hazard the merest guess as to the lady.”

Gersdorff bowed as forbearing to press the question. “Possibly the point is not essential,” he said. “I will not interrupt you.”

“That, however, the poor Prince was greatly smitten,” Zarka continued with a fluency which seemed to his hearer the result of preparation, “was clear to me. From a young man of high spirits he[17] became gloomy, melancholy, with intervals of unnatural excitement. The usual signs of a certain state of mind.”

Gersdorff nodded him on in more curiosity than the other suspected.

Zarka paused for a moment before proceeding, as, having completed the preamble, he came to the real point of his communication.

“In my mind there is no doubt,” he said slowly, giving weight to his words, “that the Prince’s disappearance is directly due to the failure of his love affair.”

The Minister’s face assumed a look of bland inquiry.

“Indeed? That is a strong assertion, Count. You have proof?”

Zarka smiled, and his smile strengthened the other’s dislike.

“Proof absolute, to my mind. Documentary evidence.” He took out a gold-bound letter-case emblazoned with an heraldic device. “A tangible clue which I have felt it my duty to hand to your Excellency,” he said, as with deliberation he opened the case, took out a paper and carefully unfolded it. “You know Prince Roel’s handwriting?”

“Personally, no. But that is easily proved.”

“I knew it well,” Zarka returned. “And there without the suspicion of a doubt is a specimen of it.”

[18]He rose as he spoke and handed the paper to Gersdorff. It contained only a few words, and the Minister read them, half aloud.

“‘I send you herewith two bunches of roses, white and red. The white signify love and life: the red hate and death. Those which you will wear to-night must decide my fate. R.’”

Gersdorff turned the paper, and finding the other side blank, turned it back slowly and read the words over again. Then he laid the paper down on the desk before him, and looked up inquiringly at Zarka.

“The paper tells its own story, does it not?” the Count said in reply to the look.

“To a certain point, yes. May I ask how you came by it?”

“From the Prince’s servant who found it in the pocket of his master’s smoking-jacket,” Zarka answered readily.

“And he brought it to you?”

“To me as a friend of his master’s. It is evidently a blotted draft which the Prince intended to destroy. You notice, Excellency, the ink is spilt on it?”

Gersdorff nodded. “I do not know that this proves very much,” he observed doubtfully.

The Count drew back his lips, showing his teeth in a characteristic but utterly mirthless smile. “Not of itself, Excellency. But I should say that if it[19] were known that a certain lady to whom the flowers were sent wore the red roses, why then——” he finished the sentence by an expressive shrug.

Perhaps had Count Zarka been able to read the significance of the look which the old diplomatist’s keen eyes fixed on him he might not have been quite so glib. But clever man as a glance would recognize the Count to be, he was here, perhaps, a little too anxious to appear quite fluent and at his ease.

“Quite so, Count,” Gersdorff said, almost coldly. “You can give me the lady’s name or not, as you please. If not, no doubt we can find it out for ourselves. It is merely a question of saving the Bureau trouble.”

Zarka affected to hesitate, then to make up his mind.

“It is my desire,” he said, with a bow, “to be of every service to your Excellency. So I must break what was my first resolve, namely that no lady’s name should pass my lips in connexion with the affair. You are welcome to know my suspicion so far as it goes. I can at least tell you the name of the lady who wore red roses at the Margravine von Reuspach’s ball the night before Prince Roel disappeared. Your Excellency may possibly be acquainted with General Hainfeld?”

He paused, with lips drawn back and his glittering eyes fixed on Gersdorff, awaiting his answer.

[20]“I have met the General. Has he a daughter?” the Minister answered doubtfully.

“A step-daughter, Fräulein Philippa Carlstein.” He spoke the name with a curious staccato intonation.

“Oh,” Gersdorff made a mental note of it. Then he waited, his intuition telling that the Count had something to add.

“The General and Fräulein Carlstein,” Zarka proceeded when he found the other did not seem inclined to question him further, “have left the city, I hear, for Switzerland and Paris. That is all the information I have to give, Excellency. You must take it for what it is worth; but I must say it seems to me significant.”

Gersdorff rose.

“Quite so, Count,” he said curtly, as ending the interview; “we will look into the matter——”

But his visitor did not depart without a flourish. “I trust, Excellency, you will consider that what you have done me the honour to allow me to communicate has been a sufficient excuse for taking up so much of your valuable time.”

“Certainly,” Gersdorff answered a little stiffly; “I am obliged to you for your information; your theory of this unfortunate young fellow’s disappearance may be worth following up. You will leave the paper with me? Good-day.”

[21]The Count could only grin again, bow, and take his leave.

Gersdorff returned to Galabin, who rose and looked inquiringly at his face, which, however, from habitual diplomatic schooling, told nothing.

“A lucky visit for us,” Gersdorff said, resuming his seat by the window. “I fancy it has at least narrowed the field of your proposed search, my young friend. For unless I am greatly mistaken the man who is there,” he nodded down towards the street, “mounting his horse with such swagger knows as much as anybody of Prince Roel’s disappearance.”

“He came to tell you so?”

The old diplomat smiled. “He came to throw dust in my eyes. How foolish men are!” he exclaimed reflectively. “When will they learn to hold their tongues? A false scent is very well if only you are dealing with people stupid enough to follow it. Otherwise it is simply a negative clue, since we know the object we are hunting has not gone that way. Now, Herr Galabin,” he continued, resuming his more business-like manner, “in the interests of our State I want you to spend a holiday in the great forest at the foot of the Carpathians.”

He touched a bell. “Ask Herr Botheim to come to me,” he said to the man who answered it.

In a few moments Herr Botheim made his appearance, a small, astute-looking man, with an intensely[22] secretive manner. He was the head of the intelligence department.

“Botheim, how long has Count Zarka been in the city?”

“Since 7.40 this morning only, Excellency. He left the city eight days ago presumably for Rozsnyo.”

“Ah, Rozsnyo. Yes? Was his departure seen?”

“No, Excellency. It appears to have been sudden and secret. We only heard of his departure some hours afterwards. There seemed no reason for suspecting——”

“No, no, my good Botheim,” Gersdorff interrupted; “there is no blame attached to your department, but I fancy we have hardly studied the Count closely enough.”

Botheim could only give a shrug.

“I do not blame you,” the Minister proceeded; “we have hitherto looked upon him, politically, as a mysterious nonentity. But now we may have reason to change our views. You have, of course, information about the Count’s home, the Schloss Rozsnyo? Its situation, I mean, and so forth?”

“Certainly, Excellency. I can obtain all the information in two minutes.”

“Do so,” Gersdorff returned, “and furnish Herr Galabin with it. I will send him to your room at once.” Botheim bowed and withdrew. “You will undertake this mission?”

[23]“I am only too much honoured, Excellency, by your confidence.”

“I am sure it is well placed. You have two objects, remember. First, to discover, if possible, what has become of Prince Roel; and secondly, to find out what you can about this Count Zarka. Now, good-bye. Be wary. I do not trust the Count. Botheim will give you all available information; we shall look to you to add to it materially.”

The nearly horizontal rays of a setting September sun, red with the promise of a brilliant resurrection on the morrow, struck full against the great elevated timber-line, where, at any rate for a space, European civilization seems to be held in check by the appalling ruggedness and grandeur—the insurmountable wildness of self-assertive nature. The parting glory falling directly on the fringe of the great coniferous belt, threw into more striking relief the blue-black intensity of the forest depths. The day had been hot—sultry for the time of year, for September days are, as it were, the Parthian cohort of Summer’s retreating array: the air was still and silent with the languor which comes of hours of steady, windless heat. Only occasionally there rose from the impenetrable blackness of the woods the lazy cry of a pigeon or the whirr of a tree-partridge, so infrequent as to be almost startling in contrast with the prevailing stillness.

The nibbling hares, dotted at picturesque intervals[25] over one at the tufted and sparsely wooded lawns which here and there broke the continuity of the interminable woods, munched and leaped peacefully and comfortably enough. Presently by common consent, not simultaneously, but by twos and threes, and batches, they stopped their feeding, raised their heads, and pricked their ears until the whole company was at attention. A few tree-partridges, preening their grey feathers, paused and looked round inquiringly towards the black wood into which they could see but a few yards, yet perhaps further than any other living thing. The pause—of alert expectancy—lasted but a few seconds. A fox came with slinking trot out of the wood, and made across the best covered corner of the lawn towards the thickets opposite, increasing his pace as he crossed the open, his eyes redder than normal, for the sun struck full into them. Most of the hares reassured, resumed their eclectic nibbling; a few, impressed by Reynard’s gait and manner, leisurely put a less distance between themselves and the covert, plucking an occasional tempting blade on the way.

There is a subtle magnetic influence acting from animal life upon animal life. Unknown as its cause is to us—for all our researches can never take us beyond the border-line of half-knowledge, at least this side of the grave—and imperfect as our conjectures[26] are, we see clearly enough its influence the more unmistakable in direct ratio to the sharpness of the senses of the creature upon which it acts. We feel it ourselves in the same proportion, keeping time with our individual sensitiveness; but with most of us, at any rate, distance attenuates the subtle power. So, not without the grosser signs of the sudden lifting, this time with one accord, of scores of furry heads and ears, the warning cry of pigeons behind the dark foliage, and the sudden swift rush of the lately indolent tree-partridge, would a human being have felt constrained to look expectingly towards the fringe of the wood, the natural line of which was now broken by the figure of a man.

He had stopped on emerging from the covert, and now stood, set off picturesquely against his dark background, perhaps admiring the romantic scene suddenly opened before him, perhaps uncertain as to his whereabouts. So motionless was his attitude, so striking his appearance, that he hardly seemed to lend a human interest to the fairy spot; an onlooker from the opposite side of the valley would have expected him to vanish as mysteriously as he had come. Presently, however, he moved forward and began to descend the slope. The hares, which had begun to wonder whether there was any harm in him, scampered away on all sides. The man at once halted and made a quick movement of pointing the[27] gun he carried under his arm, but it seemed to be merely the sportsman’s instinct, for he checked the action ere he had aimed, and replacing the weapon in its former position, resumed his way across the now deserted valley.

A handsome man, of fair complexion and athletic frame, dressed in a dark-green shooting suit, whose easy swinging gait had nevertheless a suggestion of military precision and alertness. His figure, standing out against the dark background, was picturesque enough; even the modern fashion of his clothes scarcely detracted from the suggestion of romance in his appearance; his coat was thrown open, and there seemed a characteristic touch of a bygone age in the dress which harmonized so perfectly with his old-world surroundings.

Ascending the lesser elevation on the farther side of the valley he passed in again among the great firs; but now the woods grew lighter as he walked, his course after a while tending downwards. Soon he emerged again into the red sunlight, and upon a far greater extent of comparatively open country than the gap in the woods he had lately crossed. Here he came upon a third essential of perfect beauty in scenery—a rushing stream of water, dancing and sparkling between its sedgy banks as though rejoicing in the change from the barren blackness of its mountain source to the warm luxuriance at[28] which it had now arrived. A short distance below, as its bed grew wider and smoother, the stream became less turbulent, and soon subsided into a placidity marred only by the leaping fish.

The sportsman, however, had for the moment turned the other way, walking some two hundred yards to where it was possible to cross the stream, using the boulders in its course as stepping-stones. On reaching the other side he walked down the bank, not very far before halting to light a cigar. Having done this he still lingered, curiously attracted by a movement of the water under the opposite bank, now some distance off, for the stream had suddenly widened. It was a slight regular splashing, not natural to the spot, for the movement of the water seemed objective not subjective. He could not see whence it proceeded, the cause, in foreign, being hidden by the reeds and sedge which luxuriated along the bank. To resolve his doubts he took up his gun, quietly slipped a cartridge into it, and carelessly fired at the spot. Almost simultaneously there rose the cry not of bird or beast, but of a human being, and above the tops of the rushes directly appeared the head of—a woman.

In a moment the quiet imperturbability of the man vanished. Startled and shocked, he shouted vehement apologies; then set off running back to the place where the stream was fordable. Here in[29] his hurry, he made a false step on the uneven surface of the stones and only just saved himself from falling into the water. He scrambled up and across and, running down the bank, soon pushed his way through the reeds and reached the lady whom he had unwittingly fired at.

That she was young and good-looking accounted, perhaps, for his precipitate haste; when he came face to face with her he told himself that his rush and scramble were fully justified.

A tall distinguished-looking girl stood before him; the handsomest specimen of female humanity he had seen for many a long day, glancing at him with an expression of half annoyance, half curiosity, but with the perfect self-possession that only a high-bred woman is capable of. There was no self-consciousness, no aiming at effect. She seemed to trouble herself very little about the man by whose act she might at that moment be lying dead where she now stood; vouchsafing him little more than a casual glance, and receiving his profuse apologies with no reciprocal excitement.

“But I have hit you, mad fool that I was! That is blood on your dress?”

There was a dark stain on the girl’s brown travelling skirt.

“Yes; some shot hit my hand,” she replied coolly, bringing forward her left hand bound with[30] her handkerchief the delicate texture of which was absorbing blood like blotting paper.

“Oh! What can I say! Do let me——”

“And ruined my gown,” she went on in the same calm voice, contrasting curiously with his excited tone. “Or perhaps it was my fault. I should have held my hand out of harm’s way.”

He pulled out a folded handkerchief.

“Let me offer you this. Can you staunch the bleeding till I fetch a doctor?”

She reached for the handkerchief without looking at her companion.

“Thank you. I will take that. But you need not bother about a doctor.”

“But surely you will allow me——”

She interrupted him with the same equable voice.

“If you will direct me to the nearest road to Gorla’s Farm, I won’t trouble you any more.”

His look of concern was gradually changing to one of puzzled surprise. He could not make her out, nor tell whether she was seriously offended with him or not, so little emotion, or even expression, did she evince. His self-reproaches and vehement apologies seemed to go for nothing. The girl made even less of them than she did of her wounded hand, and she regarded that coolly enough. But a man does not, even unwittingly, inflict bodily harm on another, still less on a woman, without feeling genuine regret[31] for it, and this man could not at once check his expressions of sorrow, cavalierly as they were received.

“You are not to blame,” the girl said at last with decision. “It was a pure accident; it was my own fault. I had no business to play hide and seek in a shooting ground. I ought to have known better and may be thankful the affair is no worse. And if it had been——. Now, as it is getting late I must be making my way homewards.”

He looked surprised. “Do you live in these wilds?”

She laughed. “You did not think there was any habitation, perhaps.”

“Except Rozsnyo.”

He thought her face changed curiously. At any rate the smile died out of it. “I am not bound there,” she replied. “We are living for the time at an old farm, the Meierhof Gorla. My father has come for sport.”

“That, too, is my reason for being here,” he said. “But I am a gipsy—for the time. I have a travelling cart and a tent, pitched over yonder”—he pointed across the valley—“my name is Osbert Von Tressen, and I have the honour to hold the rank of lieutenant in the second regiment of cavalry.”

“My father’s name,” she told him in return, “is Harlberg. We live, when we care for civilization, in town. But I love forest life.”

[32]“You have enough of it here,” he returned drily. “I thought perhaps you had come from the Schloss Rozsnyo. You know Count Zarka?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Yes, we know him. Do you?”

“No; only by—reputation.”

She gave a quick glance at him as though to detect a significance in the last word. If she seemed tempted to ask him what that reputation was, she refrained.

“I hope,” he asked sympathetically, “your hand is not very painful?”

“It hurts very little. I had no idea shot was so painless.”

They had come to the crossing-place over the stream; Von Tressen, going first and stepping backwards, handed her safely across.

“Take care,” he warned her midway. “I slipped on that stone myself just now.”

“You did not fall in?”

“I saved myself at the expense of a wet foot.”

She looked at him in a little amused commiseration. “How uncomfortable you must be! Do not let me keep you. I had rather lost my bearings, but if you can tell me the point to make for I can easily find my way home.”

He laughed. “I should have felt infinitely more uncomfortable if I left you now. I had really forgotten[33] my damp boot. I hope my company is not offensive to you as, after all my folly, I fear it ought to be.”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “I am not vindictive enough to send you away.”

“Then you have forgiven me?”

“For what? I brought the accident on myself. I was tired and hot and thought it would be pleasant to lie down among the cool rushes and paddle my hand in the water, forgetting I ran the risk of being taken for a water-fowl or water-rat. There is nothing to forgive.”

“I shall never forgive myself.”

“You may easily,” she returned.

They walked on in silence for a time over the thick, springy, plush-like turf. The girl seemed preoccupied, and her companion had too much tact to force her to talk. Presently she asked, “Have you had good sport to-day?”

“A big bag of small game which my man has taken to the tent. I have been obliged to shoot alone, as a brother officer who was to have joined me cannot get leave just yet.”

They were passing now through a little wood, their talk languishing strangely; it was, in fact, awkward and disjointed, the girl was distraite, and a strange spell seemed to be on the man.

As they emerged from the wood a glorious landscape[34] lay before them. A great valley, broken up into a thousand tints of light and shade by the setting sun which played among rock and thicket, here and there catching a bend of the glinting stream which wound its way through it. Beyond rose a purple backing of millions of pines, and above and beyond them again the snow-capped mountains in all their stern grandeur.

The girl stopped for a moment. “How lovely!” She spoke without the least suspicion of gush; it was a genuine expression of delight, perhaps curbed by the presence of her companion.

“Yes,” he agreed, “the valley looks beautiful to-day, but, to my thinking, it looks grandest under a stormy sky.”

She was looking towards a spot where, high up on the pine-clad hill a great splash of crimson fire sparkled and glinted, glowing with a brilliancy which tinged the woods around it with its own blood-red colour.

“The Schloss Rozsnyo stands well,” he observed.

“Like a fairy palace,” she commented.

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “Quite a show place, built half upon, half inside the rock, I am told. Most romantic, but singularly out of the way in these regions. It seems sheer waste. But then the Count, no doubt, is a man of peculiar ideas.”

His last remark was half a question, but the girl[35] did not answer it. He was not exactly sorry to notice that her interest in Rozsnyo and its owner did not seem to be altogether of an agreeable nature.

They turned and walked on. She was busy with her thoughts now, he could see; and he forebore to interrupt them. As they turned into one of the broad glades that intersected the forest, he said:

“This is an afternoon of surprises after my week’s solitude. Who comes here?”

The girl’s look followed his. A few hundred yards away, coming towards them at a leisurely trot, was a horseman.

As they and the rider drew nearer, an idea struck Von Tressen.

“I wonder if by any chance this is the man we have been speaking of—Count Zarka?”

He was quite within recognizable distance now. But it seemed from her absence of curiosity—for she kept her eyes from the advancing figure—that Fräulein Harlberg had known him at once.

“Yes it is,” she answered curtly.

Von Tressen, in the glance which he could not resist, saw her face set with a peculiar look of suppressed feeling, almost of defiance. Next moment the Count was reining up in front of them. The two men raised their hats, but Zarka’s eyes were upon the girl. They had probably already taken in her companion during the approach.

[36]“Fräulein Harlberg,” he said with a certain suavity of manner, “I just did myself the honour to call at the farm and found your father a little concerned at your long absence. Knowing the danger of losing one’s way in the forest I offered to go in search of you.”

“It was very good of you, Count,” the girl replied almost indifferently. “But I was hardly in danger of being quite lost.”

The Count now turned his attention to Von Tressen, looking at him with a peculiar wolfish smile, which was at the same time no smile at all, but just the mask of one. “I see, Fräulein, you have already found an efficient escort. You have been shooting in the forest, mein Herr?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Unfortunately?” The Count took up the word quickly, with a snap, as it were, and glanced with a smile of protest at the girl.

“Most unfortunately,” the Lieutenant repeated. “I have unhappily hit the Fräulein.”

Again Zarka echoed his words, drawing back his lips into an expression of incredulity.

“It is nothing,” the girl said a little impatiently.

But it had occurred to Von Tressen that it would be just as well to mention the accident. Zarka looked to him the man inevitably to find it out; besides which it seemed due to the girl that their[37] chance acquaintanceship should be accounted for.

“The Fräulein is good enough to make light of it,” he said. “But it is desirable that a doctor should see her hand without delay. Therefore, perhaps, the Herr Graf will pardon me if I suggest that we move on.”

The Herr Graf did not look exactly in a pardoning mood, although the suave smile was still on his face. He wheeled his horse. “I will do myself the pleasure of bearing you company to the Meierhof,” he said in a tone which had in it less of a suggestion than a determination. “Perhaps then I may be allowed to ride into Kulhausen for a doctor. It will be quickest.”

They had moved on together, the Count walking his horse abreast of them and in his insinuating way trying to draw out a circumstantial account of the accident. At a turn in the forest road Von Tressen said, “It is properly I, the culprit, who should go for the doctor. I cannot allow you, Count, to take the trouble. I have a horse at my camp and——”

As he spoke he felt a pressure on his arm. The girl had given him a warning touch. Zarka signified by an indifferent bow that he accepted Von Tressen’s suggestion. But his face grew a shade darker as Fräulein Harlberg said:

“There is really no hurry. We can easily send[38] from the farm. My father will naturally think it right, Herr Lieutenant, that you should come and make his acquaintance.”

The Count gave a tolerant smile, which probably served to mask some darker expression, and the three went on together a short half-mile to the house, Zarka chatting volubly and Von Tressen wondering why the girl had so manifestly objected to his leaving them.

Gorla’s Meierhof, or Grange, was a picturesque house which had been converted into a kind of shooting-box from a farmhouse, which, in turn, had been adapted from the ruins of an ancient building left centuries before by the Turks. It was a rough and primitive abode, but one which in that wild country would be considered comfortable enough and a not undesirable summer mountain residence, situated as it was on the fringe of the vast hill forests and commanding a view along the great sweep of the valley.

As the three approached the house they saw a man sitting before it smoking and reading a newspaper. At the sound of their voices he turned his head, then rose and sauntered to meet them. He was small but well set-up, somewhat dandified even in the loose lounging suit he wore; there was a good deal of the town man, Von Tressen thought, in his appearance and manner, and, what struck him forcibly, a decided military air in his carriage.[40] This rather surprised him, for had the other been a soldier he would surely at his age have borne a high military title, whereas the Count had distinctly alluded to him more than once as plain Herr Harlberg. But that he had seen enough soldiering to have acquired a manifest military bearing was to the Lieutenant’s mind a certainty.

“At last!” Harlberg exclaimed, a little peevishly Von Tressen thought. “My dear Philippa, where have you been wandering?”

“Not so far, father,” she answered, with a laugh, and she introduced Von Tressen, who had been the object of his rather suspicious scrutiny.

The accident was related and the Lieutenant’s apologies accepted not ungraciously; the Count, who had dismounted and led his horse up the ascent to the house, standing in silence with his lips drawn back in the inevitable smile. At length he spoke, and it was to the purpose.

“The Herr Lieutenant has most kindly offered to ride into Kulhausen for a doctor to see Fräulein Philippa’s hand. Dare one suggest that the sooner it is professionally examined the better it will be?”

“There is no hurry; it hardly pains at all,” the girl protested.

For an instant the expression on the Count’s sharp face was not a pretty one. But he replied[41] merely by a shrug of mingled protest and annoyance.

“Certainly. I am going at once,” Von Tressen said, watching the girl’s face involuntarily for a sign. “I only came so far, sir,” he added to Harlberg, “at the desire of the Fräulein, who was good enough to express a wish to present me to you.”

“But how will you get to Kulhausen?” Harlberg asked, with what seemed to the young man a rather too suggestive glance at the Count’s horse.

Anyhow Zarka accepted it with some alacrity. “If the Lieutenant will honour me by making use of my horse, it will be the quickest way, and I shall be only too charmed.”

As he turned to the animal to bring him over, Von Tressen instinctively glanced at the girl. She was biting her lip, and as their eyes met she gave a little, almost imperceptible, shake of the head.

“The Herr Lieutenant,” she said, “tells us he also has a horse close by. If he is kind enough to ride over to Kulhausen it would be perhaps a pity to deprive the Count of his means of getting home.”

The Count, however, did not seem to look at the proposed arrangement in that light. “I should be only too content and pleased to wait,” he protested. “There, Herr Lieutenant——”

He brought the horse round for Von Tressen to mount. But the hint had not been lost.

[42]“I could not think of inconveniencing the Count,” he objected resolutely. “And it is absurd when my own horse is so near.” He made as though to move off. Zarka for a moment forgot his somewhat oppressive politeness.

“It is waste of time, man!” he hissed rather than spoke. “Take the horse; he will carry you well.”

But the other was resolved he would not be forced. He could not quite guess the reason of the girl’s anxiety, but he did not like the Count, and could understand that he might not be singular in his antipathy.

“No, no! Not for the world!” he cried, backing off. “Herr Harlberg, Fräulein, I have the honour. Auf Wiedersehen!” He turned and ran off, divided between amusement at the Count’s furious disgust and pleasure at the look of thanks in Fräulein Philippa’s eyes.

Zarka smoothed the strong muscles of his expressive face.

“An obstinate young Bursche,” he observed spitefully. “I hope the dangers of our forest are not to be increased by these mad marksmen.”

“It was entirely my own fault that he fired and hit me,” the girl said emphatically, as though annoyed at his tone. “You, Count, or any other sportsman, would have fired under the same provocation.”

[43]The Count could smile again; he had evidently quite recovered his equanimity. “Then I can only congratulate myself that I was not in a position to inflict harm on you,” he returned. “You are not going, Fräulein?” for, with a slight bow as disdaining further argument, she had turned towards the house.

“Yes. I am tired with my long walk. I bid you good-evening, Count.” And she left them.

The two men did not speak till she was out of earshot. Then Harlberg remarked:

“It might have been an awkward contretemps, Count. As it is, I used to know this young fellow’s father. He was a cavalryman.”

Zarka gave a shrug. “It is nothing. The Lieutenant is of no account and an unsuspecting”—soldier, he was going to say, but substituted—“young swaggerer. I shall keep my eye on him. I gather that he is camping in the forest alone.”

“I hope he likes it,” Harlberg said wearily. “I find it dull enough.”

The Count laughed unsympathetically. “You miss the Königstrasse, my friend. Patience! It will not be for long. The grass will soon have grown over this excitement.”

“You have heard no news?”

“None. Except that the search is active. Naturally. A prince is a prince even though he[44] be a fool, and cannot be allowed to disappear like a rag-picker. Well, good-evening, General——”

“Hush!” Harlberg held up a silencing hand.

“Oh, it is all safe here,” Zarka laughed in his masterful fashion. “There is no one to overhear us. You may trust me not to make a slip at the wrong time. I shall see you to-morrow, and, I hope, Fräulein Philippa.”

So with a sweeping glance at the house he mounted and rode off.

Harlberg went in and, lighting a fresh cigar, took up a novel and proceeded to make himself as comfortable as the place permitted. He had scarcely settled himself in the easiest chair the room afforded when his step-daughter came in.

“The Count has gone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered casually, glancing up from the book. “He talks of coming again to-morrow. He is an agreeable fellow and will enliven our exile. By the way, my dear girl,” he went on in a voice of languid expostulation, “you must take care of yourself in the forest. How foolish of you to play the water-rat. Lucky the fellow was a bad shot and only hit your hand.”

“It was hardly a question of his being a bad shot,” the girl replied indifferently. “He could see nothing to aim at except the movement of my hand, and he hit that.”

[45]“It is unfortunate.”

“No; the wound is absurdly slight.”

“I meant,” he said a little querulously, “the fact of the Lieutenant’s breaking in upon our privacy.”

“I do not see,” she returned, “that we have anything to fear. I thought you would be glad of company beyond our own.”

“Quite so. But under the circumstances, perhaps the fewer acquaintances we make the better. We have always the Count.”

“Yes,” she repeated, “we have always the Count. Father,” she added suddenly with a change of tone, “I do not care for Count Zarka’s attentions.”

His look of surprise was rather obviously unreal. “Have they been very marked?” he asked.

“No,” she answered drily, “because I have not given him the chance. Only I think it well you should know I do not care to see very much of Count Zarka.”

He threw out his hands deprecatingly. “Of course you know best, my dear. Only,” he added, changing from a resigned to a persuasive tone, “I should have imagined you would not have slighted the chance of an alliance with a man of the Count’s wealth and position.”

“And character?” The sharp question made him feel uncomfortable.

[46]“Do you know anything against his character?” he inquired blandly.

“Nothing definite,” she answered quietly. “But I am not a fool, and Count Zarka’s personality does not seem to me to belie a certain evil reputation which I believe he enjoys.”

“Philippa——” he began, but she cut him short.

“Apart from this, father, I do not like Count Zarka, and I think he knows it. Anyhow, I have told you now so that there may be no misunderstanding or cross purposes between us on the subject.”

Philippa spoke quietly, but with a slight tremor in her voice which betrayed the feelings she repressed. She knew well how little affection her step-father really had for her. A handsome, vivacious girl, much admired wherever she appeared, her companionship was far less irksome to her sole guardian than might have been the case had she been plain and uninteresting. She knew all this, and although she accepted it as the inevitable logic of her step-father’s character, which was to have a real affection for no one outside his own skin, yet she rebelled at the idea of being disposed of to suit his convenience.

Harlberg spread out his hands in a gesture of protestation. “I have nothing to do with it, my dear,” he said, almost petulantly. “You are quite old enough to choose for yourself; and if our[47] friend Count Zarka wishes to marry you, why, he has a tongue in his head, and a pretty glib one too.”

“I only wish you not to encourage him in that idea,” Philippa said.

“You may be sure I shall not,” he replied, taking up his novel again with a suggestion that argument was fatiguing, and he did not feel just then in the humour for it. The girl was far from sure, but, realizing the uselessness of further discussion, she said no more.

Meanwhile Lieutenant Von Tressen had saddled his horse and ridden post haste in search of the doctor. Having found the only practitioner of which the little place boasted, and arranged for him to come out to Gorla’s Farm without delay, he was starting back again, when he saw on the other side of the street a face which he recognized.

“Galabin!” he shouted. “So it is, by Jupiter. Why, Horaz, my friend, what on earth brings you here?”

The other man, on hearing his name called out, had glanced up quickly with a look of mingled suspicion and annoyance. But on recognizing Von Tressen his expression changed to a smile; he went across and shook hands.

“What on earth are you doing in these outlandish parts?” the Lieutenant repeated.

[48]“Is it only in the military service that men take holidays?” Galabin retorted.

“A holiday?”

“Why not, my friend? Do we spend our leave in town?”

“But here? Why, Horaz, you are never married?”

“And on my honeymoon? No, thank you. I have come for the mountains and a little sport in the forest.”

“So? That is good to hear. I, too, am staying in the forest under canvas for sport. You must join me. The deer-stalking will begin in a few days. It will be glorious. You know Molvar of my regiment? He has deserted me. We arranged the expedition together, and at the last moment he cried off. Ah, well, he could not help it. If you are in earnest you shall take his place. I can promise you fine sport.”

Galabin’s face had become thoughtful, almost business-like. “You are camping in the forest?” he asked. “Anywhere near the Schloss Rozsnyo?”

“At present I am within half an hour’s walk of it. By the way, do you know Count Zarka?”

“Not I. Perhaps you do?”

“I met him just now for the first time.”

“An agreeable fellow, eh?”

[49]“H’m! Yes, doubtless. Now, my dear Horaz, will you join me?”

“To-morrow? Yes, I shall be delighted.”

“Very well. I will come in the morning and fetch you and your traps.”

Next morning, as in duty bound, Von Tressen stopped on his way to Kulhausen to inquire after Fräulein Harlberg’s injury. The surgeon had pronounced it to be trifling, had extracted a shot and answered for a speedy healing.

“So you see,” Philippa said to the Lieutenant, “you have nothing to reproach yourself with.”

She had come out of the house to greet him, her father not being visible.

“I have indeed,” he returned, “when I think how awful the result might have been.”

“It was a curiously informal introduction,” she said laughingly.

“That is to me the only pleasant aspect of the affair. I feel inclined never to fire a gun again.”

“You must not say that. You should have good sport to-day if my wishes were of any avail.”

“I don’t deserve,” he said self-reproachfully, “that you should be so forgiving.”

[51]“A woman,” she replied—and as she spoke her eyes rested on him with a sort of wistful trust—“can afford to overlook in a man slight failings in consideration of qualities she respects.”

He coloured a little at the implied compliment.

“You are good to say so,” he murmured.

“Oh,” she said lightly, “it is nothing. You are a soldier; I am sure you are brave and true and loyal, that you have a sense of duty. What is a moment’s carelessness to set against that? There! Perhaps I have said too much for the proprieties, but I can’t bear to see you weighed down by unnecessary self-reproach. Now you must go and shoot away with a clear conscience.”

Respecting her motive for frankness, he only gave her a grateful bow.

“I am not going to shoot this morning,” he informed her. “I have been lucky enough to find a companion.”

“Ah!” She turned quickly to him with a look of something more than curiosity. “Here in these wilds?”

“Not exactly here,” he laughed. “But in Kulhausen last evening. An old friend of mine. I am going now to fetch him over to my gipsy camp.”

“A brother officer?”

“No, a civilian. His name is Horaz Galabin.[52] He is one of the secretaries in the Chancellor’s Bureau.”

He spoke quite carelessly, as though his friend’s identity were scarcely a matter to interest his companion, and he was surprised to notice a rather anxious look on her face.

“What in the world,” she asked—and he could not help thinking her voice rather betrayed an unsuccessful attempt at indifference—“is a secretary of the Chancellerie doing out in these uncivilized parts?”

“He comes for sport, he tells me.”

“Ah! And you both by lucky chance find a companion.” She had regained her self-possession now. “Come! Here is another reason why you need not regret that mistaken shot. If you had not ridden into town for the doctor you would not have met your friend.”

A chance which he had been hoping for had presented itself, and he seized it.

“If I had taken the Count’s horse,” he said with a reminiscent laugh, “I should have got to Kulhausen sooner, and thereby should have probably missed Galabin.”

“No doubt,” she agreed. “I am glad you did not take it.”

“Not for that reason alone, Fräulein?”

For a moment her eyes rested on him searchingly[53] as though to determine whether she might trust him. Evidently the result of the scrutiny was favourable, for she answered:

“No; I did not want you to take the Count’s horse.”

“I gathered that,” he said with a smile; “and I have been puzzled for a reason, which perhaps I have no right to seek.”

“The explanation is quite simple,” she replied, smiling now in her turn. “I did not wish the Count detained here till you could bring his horse back.”

“The Count,” he said, “did not seem to share your idea that it would be inconvenient to him.”

“To him? Did I say so?”

“Ah, then to you. You do not like Count Zarka?”

Without looking at him she gave a little impatient shake of the head. “Not very much.”

“I thought so yesterday.” The girl was silent. “Perhaps,” he added, “I can guess why.”

“It is scarcely worth speculating about,” she said with a touch of pride. “Ah, here is my father.”

Herr Harlberg had sauntered from the house, and now came towards them with a not particularly gracious look on his discontented face. Von Tressen paid his respects, explained the object of[54] his call, and expressed his relief at the doctor’s favourable report. Then, accepting a hint from Harlberg’s manner that he had stayed long enough, he took his leave.

“Tell me about this Count Zarka,” Galabin asked Von Tressen as they drove out to the forest together. “A wonderful fellow, is he not?”

“My dear man, I know little more than you. He has at least a wonderful house. Why are you so curious about the fellow?”

“Oh, I have heard of him in town,” the other answered carelessly. “He is reported to have become rich in an astonishingly short time, and no one can tell how.”

“He has the reputation of being a great gambler, and, what seldom follows, a successful one.”

“So I have heard.”

“And do you not believe it?”

Galabin gave a shrug. “I have no grounds on which to form an opinion. Yet I confess a man may well be sceptical. The gambler’s trade hardly pays so prodigiously—at least when he plays fair.”

They soon reached Von Tressen’s encampment, and after luncheon took their guns and strolled out.

“If it is all the same to you,” Galabin suggested,[55] “suppose we shape our course in the direction of the Schloss Rozsnyo. I am rather curious to see the place.”

“I think, my friend,” Von Tressen returned slily, “you are very anxious to see it, and are much interested in Count Zarka. Why, I do not know. To me he is not an attractive person.”

Galabin gave a shrug. “I am a student of human nature, my dear Osbert. This man is a curiosity. At least you will allow that. Most men are negative characters. I love a positive, whether it be good or evil.”

“The positive characters in general are evil, are they not?”

“True. And I imagine our friend over there in particular. Still he will be a study.”

“Mark!” Von Tressen’s gun rang out, and a black-cock fell twenty yards in front of them. “But, my good Horaz,” he said as he reloaded, “you did not come out here to study character. You came for sport, did you not?”

Galabin pointed to the fallen bird. “There are more kinds of sport than that, my friend,” he returned.

Von Tressen looked at him sharply, and, as the eyes of the two men met, the light of a mutual understanding seemed to fill them. “Now, Horaz,” he said with a laugh, “is it worth while wasting[56] time by playing at cross purposes? We are old comrades; you can trust me.”

“Yes,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation, “I can trust you. We both serve the same master, and it is on his business that I am here. Besides, you should be able to help me; there is no reason why we should not work together.”

“State service? My dear Horaz, you may be sure I shall only be too ready.”

“We diplomats,” Galabin observed cautiously, “have to be more than ordinarily careful. Gersdorff would say it is a mistake to trust one’s dearest friend. The very essence of our work is secrecy. Still, confidence here is less dangerous than the risk of our playing at cross purposes; for there, my friend, you might easily and quite unwittingly spoil my game.”

“No doubt,” Von Tressen agreed. “Nevertheless, you must not take me into your confidence against your better judgment.”

“I would not. Still I feel sure you can help me here if you will. It is a business where pluck and nerve are likely to be needed. You will give me your word of honour to be secret?”

“Certainly. You have my word of honour. Beyond that, if, as I understand, it is a state affair, and no private business, I am already bound by my oath of service.”

[57]“Of course, my dear Osbert, I know you would be loyal to the death.”

“Now what is this mysterious undertaking?”

“Principally to find out all about your friend at Rozsnyo.”

Von Tressen laughed. “As I had already guessed. He is suspect?”

Galabin nodded. “There is an idea that he is in the pay of Russia. And, incidentally that he knows as much, or rather more, than anybody else about the disappearance of Prince Roel of Rapsberg.”

“And your mission is to convert the conjecture into a certainty.”

“Precisely. Now, tell me what you know.”

He threw himself down on the natural bank which rose towards the trunk of a great pine, and Von Tressen followed his example.

“Very little,” the Lieutenant replied. “And about Count Zarka, except that I have made the man’s acquaintance, probably much less than you. My meeting him was the result of a rather curious adventure yesterday.”

“Tell me.”

Von Tressen thereupon related the story of his unlucky shot, and his meeting with Fräulein Harlberg, telling everything with perfect frankness. When he had come to an end Galabin remarked:

[58]“So you were not favourably impressed with the Herr Graf, and the young lady shares your repugnance. Harlberg? H’m! It is curious that an elderly man should drag his daughter out to a lonely farmhouse in these wilds for sport. You have come across him in your shooting excursions?”

“No. But I have been here only a few days.”

“You have no corroborative evidence that he does shoot?”

Von Tressen laughed. “No. Nor can I say that he looks a keen sportsman. One thing I did notice about him, though.”

“That he had the air of a military man?”

The Lieutenant stared. “Why, Horaz, how did you guess that?”

“You shall know before long. I have an idea. These people are intimate with the Count, and mein Herr comes here for sport. The Count, their friend, has a great house quite near. Why does he not invite them to stay at Rozsnyo instead of allowing them to undergo the discomforts of an old farmhouse?”

He seemed to be arguing the matter with himself rather than putting the question to his companion.

Von Tressen shook his head. “It is very singular.”

“Not so very strange,” Galabin returned with a laugh. “If you are an admirer of Fräulein[59] Harlberg, my dear friend, I dare say there is no reason why you should not continue your admiration.”

Von Tressen was silent for a few moments.

“Why are they here?” he asked.

“Ah! That is a question which perhaps no one could answer so satisfactorily as Count Zarka. But if we have patience we may find it out for ourselves. At present I can only hazard the merest guess.”

“And that is——?”

“That the Count may share your and Prince Roel’s admiration for the young lady. Is it too improbable?”

Von Tressen shook his head resentfully. “No; I fear it is quite likely.”

“At least it supplies a motive. I fancy Rozsnyo is the central point of a very pretty series of conspiracies, public and private, one within the other, which it will be my task to unravel.”

“I shall only be too glad to help you,” Von Tressen declared heartily.

“Very well, then. We will make a reconnaissance of Rozsnyo to-night.”

At about nine o’clock that evening the two friends set out through the forest for the Schloss Rozsnyo. They had been careful to utter no hint of their intention which might be overheard by Bela, Von Tressen’s soldier servant, and their nocturnal expedition was ostensibly to the feeding grounds of the deer, which in those regions are stalked at night.

A cloudy sky with occasional bright intervals suited their purpose well, and the forest paths had become sufficiently familiar to Von Tressen to enable him to guide his companion without difficulty across the wooded valley to the elevation on which Rozsnyo stood.

As they drew near the castle the moon shone out brilliantly for a few minutes, affording them, from their dark covert, a magnificent view of the romantic building perched high above them. A curious edifice blending, as it did, antique and modern styles of architecture, the rough solidity of the ancient fortified dwelling with the fantastic pretentiousness[61] of the Gothic of yesterday. But the whole effect was picturesque enough, especially as seen by moonlight.

“A fine lair for a beast of prey,” was Galabin’s comment. “What if the inside should be as foul as the outside is fair?”

“Not an easy place to reconnoitre,” Von Tressen observed, having taken in with a professional scrutiny the situation of the castle and its points of approach.

“No,” Galabin replied; “the undertaking is by no means easy or safe, as the Chancellor gave me clearly to understand. Still, I mean to go through with it, although there is no reason why one need act with precipitation.”

Keeping within the dark fringe of the wood, they began the ascent of the hill and soon had reached the small plateau on which Rozsnyo stood. As the castle came into view from the side approach the two men could get a very good idea of its real size and form. It was a large rambling structure, covering far more space than apparently its real size and capacity would warrant. Indeed, the idea in its construction seemed to have been distance; for one part, that is, to lie as far from the other extremity as possible. From their point of observation in the valley below, the two men had noticed a light in one of the windows; here on the[62] inner side all was dark: there seemed no sign of life about the place.

The principal approach to the castle was by a great bridge of wood and iron thrown over a moat drained of its water and planted with flower-beds in curiously modern contrast to the grey massive walls which rose from it.

All was still and silent save for the rustling of the pines as an occasional gust swept through them. The two men emerged boldly into the open which divided the surrounding wood from the castle precincts.

“We are doing no harm in strolling round the place,” Galabin said. “Let us make a tour of inspection and keep our eyes open.”

Keeping on the outer edge of what had been the moat, they followed the circuit of the building until they came round again on the farther side of the declivity of rock which dropped almost sheer down to the valley. Nothing but a general idea of the castle rewarded their scrutiny. All was dark and silent.

“Not a very promising place to investigate,” Von Tressen laughed. “We had better go back again as we came. To try and get down into the valley from this side looks like breaking our necks.”

“Yes,” Galabin assented grimly. “The vulture has well chosen his eyrie. But for a great house[63] there seems to be a singular absence of life about the place.”

A heavy bank of clouds had now drifted over the moon, and the darkness, intensified by the wall of pine woods, was so thick that the two men had some difficulty in finding their way round the moat again, at least without stumbling down the grass-grown bank.

Suddenly Von Tressen, who was in front, stopped, so abruptly that Galabin cannoned against him.

“Look!”

A ray of light had shot out across the moat at a point some twenty yards in front of them. It came from the castle, and was rendered more vivid by the intense darkness elsewhere. The two diverged from the path now until they came opposite to the spot whence the light proceeded. It streamed from a window at some distance from the ground in an otherwise blank wall which connected two Gothic towers. There was nothing, of course, mysterious or even remarkable in the appearance of the light, which was, indeed, rather to be expected than the utter darkness in which all the back part of the castle had been shrouded, yet somehow both men felt that there was an element of mystery about it. For one thing, the room whence it came was situated at about the most distant point from that other lighted window they had seen from below,[64] while all the intervening block of buildings seemed dark and silent as a ruin.

“I should like,” said Galabin, “to take the liberty of looking inside that room.”

“Impossible, so far as one can see,” Von Tressen replied. “There is nothing but sheer wall. Still, we might creep across and examine it.”

Keeping well outside the band of light which stretched slantwise across the moat, they descended into its hollow and crept up the other side. So much of it, that is, as they found practicable. For the angle made by the inner bank only rose about eight or ten feet from the bottom and then continued in sheer, straight stone wall. The two men were now directly underneath the window from which the light passed high over their heads; but, although they listened intently they could detect no sound from the room above them. To think of climbing the wall was absurd. At that part, at any rate, the stones were smoothly laid and faced, no hold for hands or feet was possible. After a thorough examination both men agreed that it was not feasible.

“If only some of yonder trees grew this side of the moat,” Von Tressen observed.

“Ah!” An idea occurred to his friend. “Suppose we climb one as it is and try what we can see. We shall at least get on a level with the window.”

[65]Von Tressen nodded, and they stealthily recrossed the dip and regained the shelter of the wood.

“Let me go up and take an observation,” Von Tressen proposed. “I used to be a good climber.”

Selecting the foremost tree opposite the window, the Lieutenant with some little difficulty swarmed up the bare trunk. Galabin stood below eagerly watching his progress, which became easier as he got higher and the stem grew narrower. At length he calculated that Von Tressen must be on a level with the window, and drew back to measure the distance with his eye. As he did so, suddenly and silently the light vanished. He turned quickly, only to see nothing but a mass of black wall rising indistinct in the darkness. It was some minutes before he heard his companion descending; perhaps he had lingered in the hope that the light might re-appear, for assuredly nothing was to be seen in its absence.

“Just too late,” Von Tressen exclaimed regretfully, as he reached the ground. “It was provoking; but, never mind, we may have better luck another night.”

“Yes; we will come to-morrow,” Galabin said. “Although, after all, there may be nothing worth troubling to see. But I must confess——”

He stopped as Von Tressen knocked his arm sharply. An extraordinary thing had happened.[66] For the moon coming out in its full brightness showed the wall blank now, without a trace of the window whence the light had shone.

At first neither man could realize it nor believe his eyes. Then, as they became certain of the strange disappearance they looked at each other in amazement.

“Where has the window gone to?” Von Tressen exclaimed, with a short laugh.

Galabin shook his head. “Rather mysterious, is it not? Let us cross over again and make sure that it is not an optical delusion.”

In a few seconds they were under the wall, looking in vain for a sign of the window.

“It was directly above us here,” Von Tressen said. “I would swear to that. I marked it by the triangular flower-bed. But where is it now?”

The dark wall above them presented an unbroken surface of stone. The moon shone out for a moment and proved it clearly. There was no window.

“Well,” observed Galabin, as they turned away from their puzzled search, “at least we have found something mysteriously interesting to follow up. Count Zarka is evidently a man worth the trouble of watching. We will come again to-morrow night, and may have better luck.”

So without seeing anything further to excite their curiosity they returned through the forest to their camping-ground.

Next day, as the two friends were preparing for a morning’s sport, they were surprised by a visit from no less a personage than Count Zarka himself. He came in, all smiles, to invite them to Rozsnyo.

“I really cannot allow you to live here like gipsies,” he said, “when I have a great, almost empty house, within a stone’s throw. You must be my guests while you stay in the forest.”

His manner was polished and civil to a degree which with some people would have seemed charming, yet somehow to the two men it was in the matter of sincerity absolutely unconvincing. The invitation was declined as gracefully as possible, but without hesitation. They liked the free life of the forest, Von Tressen said, the novel change in their mode of existence. Moreover, they were not prepared for visiting, and would feel uncomfortable in a big house.

Zarka forebore to press the invitation beyond[68] the slight combating of their excuses which the appearance of sincerity demanded.

“At least,” he said with his somewhat sinister smile, “you must let me make you free of that part of the forest which is my preserve. I can promise you good sport there.”

They thanked him and could not well refuse.

“Now,” he continued, “if you will not stay at my somewhat formidable house, you will at least not refuse to come and see it. You have doubtless an hour to spare this afternoon. I have some curiosities which may interest you, and the view from my Belvidere is magnificent. I may expect you? Yes?”

Von Tressen glanced at Galabin, who, without hesitation, accepted the invitation. Whereupon with a parting volley of polite remarks and small-talk the Count wheeled his horse and with a flourish rode off.

“An interesting specimen of character,” Galabin observed as they stood watching him down the forest road. “I wonder why he wanted us to stay at Rozsnyo; that is, if he did want us, which I doubt.”

At that moment the Count turned in his saddle and, looking back, saw they were watching him. He waved his riding whip. It was a mere flourish to cover his action of curiosity, and as such the two[69] men recognized it. Then he put his horse to a trot and was quickly out of sight. The two looked at each other and laughed.

“I am glad, anyhow, he asked us up there,” Galabin said. “I want to take every opportunity I can get of examining the place. And I have a curiosity to see what our mysterious window looks like by daylight.”

Count Zarka rode on to Gorla’s Farm and announced himself with, for a ceremonious person, scant ceremony to Philippa Harlberg, whom he found in the house. Perhaps he had an idea that a more formal entry might result in his not seeing her.

“My father is smoking his cigar outside,” she said, as they shook hands.

He returned a protesting smile.

“I did not come particularly to see the General. I came to see you.”

Her reception of the announcement was hardly encouraging, yet she had to submit to the visit with as good a grace as possible.

“I have had news to-day from town,” he observed; then stopped, watching her.

“Ah, yes?” There was repressed apprehension in her tone which he was too clever to fail to notice.

“Prince Roel has not yet been found—dead or alive.”

[70]“Poor fellow!” Her pity was genuine enough, yet there was something behind it.

“The search,” Zarka continued, still eyeing her keenly, “is being energetically carried on by his family as well as by the Government. It is just as well that you did not stay in the city.”

“Yes.” She responded mechanically without conviction.

“A great friend of Prince Roel’s is reported to have set out for Paris.”

“Ah!” She looked at him enquiringly, yet unwilling to show how great her curiosity was.

“Yes,” he proceeded with his evil smile. “Perhaps after all you may have been very wise in changing your intention of going to Paris.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed in the same preoccupied tone. Then with a flash her manner changed. “No. I was wrong to leave town. You should know perfectly well, Count, that I was neither directly nor indirectly the cause of Prince Roel’s disappearance.”

She spoke vehemently, as though lashed by the man’s insinuations into taking a stand against him. He merely smiled, more inscrutably than ever.

“Of course if you will tell me so I am bound to believe it,” he replied. “Only, other people might not be so easily convinced.”

[71]“And why not, pray?” she demanded, with a touch of haughtiness.

“The Prince was well known to be rather more than an admirer of yours, Fräulein.”

“Absurd!” she burst out. “An admirer, perhaps, but nothing more, and you have no warrant for supposing such a thing. Do men make away with themselves for unreturned admiration? I am not to be at the mercy of such a suggestion, Count.”

Behind the tolerant smile of a strong-willed man who holds, or thinks he holds, a winning card, there was a look of intense, hardly disguised admiration in Zarka’s eyes. The girl had at last roused herself to face him; instead of mere avoidance she had sounded now a bold note of open defiance. He realized that, perhaps he had expected it, anyhow he was prepared to meet it.

He replied quietly, veiling the sentiment her outburst had called up—

“It is most unfair,” he said insinuatingly, “that you should be the victim of an unfortunate suspicion; particularly hard that the crime of which you stand accused is simply that of exciting in this man an admiration which you were unable to return. My dear Fräulein, it must often have been your fate—and will be—to commit that offence, if it be one.” As she was not looking at him, he[72] saved himself the trouble of pointing his compliment with one of his characteristic smiles. “But in this case,” he went on suavely—“you will, I am sure, forgive my hinting at it—have not Prince Roel’s friends perhaps something more to go upon than a mere suggestion?”

She turned upon him sharply, and met the insinuating smile she so detested.

“What do you mean, Count?”

He spread out his hands deprecatingly.

“I mean,” he continued in the same quiet voice, subdued because the words themselves carried sting and point sufficient, “have they not evidence of a pre-determination on the Prince’s part not to survive your cruelty?”

“My cruelty!” she cried, and her face went white. “What evidence?”

“The evidence,” he answered quietly and unhesitatingly, “of the roses.”

She was at a loss, that was plain. And the idea of a false underhand accusation struck more fear to her than the certainty of her visitor’s determined persecution.

“The roses?” she repeated.

“The red and the white,” he answered, with an almost mocking seriousness. “The white signifying life, and the red, death. It was perhaps a cruel choice to force upon you.”

[73]“Choice?” she exclaimed in blank amazement. “I know of no choice.”

“Surely!” he insisted blandly. “And you wore the red roses at the Margravine von Reuspach’s ball.”

“I wore——” she replied. “Yes, I remember wearing red roses which Prince Roel sent me. I hesitated whether I should put them in my dress, and only did so because I thought it would be ungracious to refuse.”

Zarka raised his eyebrows in affected astonishment.

“Ungracious, Fräulein? To refuse to send your lover to his death?”

“Prince Roel was not my lover,” she retorted indignantly. “And how could wearing his roses send him to his death?”

“The red ones, Fräulein,” he answered with suave insistence. “The red were for death, the white for life. And you chose to wear the red.”

The girl looked at him half in doubt, half in consternation.

“I know nothing of any white roses,” she replied steadily, although her heart began to be full of a sickening fear of treachery, “nor of any particular significance attached to my wearing red ones.”

The Count looked incredulous.

“Indeed! But Prince Roel is known to have sent roses of both kinds, with a note intimating[74] the significance to turn of which colour you should choose to wear that night.”

She shook her head.

“I know nothing of this. All I received was a bunch of red roses.”

“And no note?”

“And no note. Perhaps, Count,” she went on, with a touch of scorn, “as you know so much more of the affair than I, you will tell me the words of the note.”

Zarka gave a slight bow of acceptance.

“A copy of the note addressed to you is in the hands of the Chancellor, as having been found among Prince Roel’s papers,” he replied. “I have, as you know, had to interest myself in the matter from political reasons. So far as my memory serves me, the words were these:

“‘I send you herewith two bunches of roses, white and red; the white signify love and life; the red, hate and death. Those which you will wear to-night must decide my fate. R.’ Those,” he added with a smile, which seemed to deprecate further denial on her part, “were the words. And you wore the red roses.”

She met his look and replied, unfalteringly—

“Count, I can only repeat I never got the note you speak of, nor the white roses. You, who seem to know so much, should at least know that.”

[75]Her manner was one of defiance rather than defence or explanation, and Zarka felt that intimidation here would hardly serve his purpose. Accordingly he changed his tone.

“I am very glad to hear it,” he said sympathetically, “and more especially for your own sake. But it seems to me that some hideous mistake has been made, possibly by an enemy of the Prince’s, a mistake which is likely to have cost him his life. It strikes, as I have hinted, a particularly cruel blow at you, Fräulein. For the world will hardly believe that you wore the red roses by accident, not design. And—I do not wish to alarm you, but it is necessary to realize and face the situation—the effect on the Prince’s family and friends must be bitter enough to lead to danger to yourself.”

“Danger!” the girl echoed scornfully. “I am not afraid, knowing that I have done nothing to deserve their ill-feeling. What do you mean by danger, Count? It is, as you say, best to know how one stands.”

Zarka affected to hesitate, as shrinking from a truth which might alarm her.

“These Eastern Huns,” he replied slowly and with an assumed deliberation, “are a peculiar race, given to fits of ungovernable passion, and actuated by a blind spirit of revenge for a wrong, fancied or real. They are dangerous people to cross,[76] hot-headed and unreasoning, and there is no knowing to what length their vindictiveness may carry them.”

“I understand your suggestion,” the girl said almost coldly. “Do these people wreak their vengeance on women? I always thought they were chivalrous.”

Zarka’s eyes were fixed on her like those of a snake, ever ready to dart in the direction his prey might try to escape.

“You have never heard,” he replied, almost softly, “of the Blutrache, the blood vengeance?”

“A kind of vendetta,” she replied, in a tone approaching indifference. “Yes. But you will hardly expect me to stand in terror of that.”

“Ah!” he returned. “Then you know little of it.”

“If I knew everything I should not fear it.”

“Indeed, Fräulein?” His exclamation was an incredulous protest.

“No. For two reasons,” she went on. “In the first place, I am entirely innocent of Prince Roel’s death, and in the second, even did it lie at my door, I can hardly suppose that the most blood-thirsty of his avengers would seek retribution against a woman.”

Zarka gave a shrug of doubt.

“Perhaps not. Although I have never heard[77] that these people allowed the sex of their wronger to stand in the way of their vengeance. What I wish to say, Fräulein,” he continued with a change of tone, “is, that I hope I shall be permitted to stand between you and any danger which may exist. Let me assure you of my devotion both to your safety and happiness as to yourself.”

He spoke earnestly, with a touch of repressed passion in his voice. Before she could reply, to her great relief her father came in, and no more on the subject could be said.

That afternoon, as arranged, Von Tressen and Galabin paid a visit to Rozsnyo. Count Zarka received them with every sign of hospitality, and led them through a wide corridor lined with statues and bronzes, to an octagonal belvidere room where, somewhat to the visitors’ surprise, they found two ladies. The Count presented them to his cousin, Madame d’Ivady, a stately, picturesque woman, and her daughter, Fräulein Royda, a dark, rather handsome girl.

“My cousins,” Zarka said, with his easy, tactful, man-of-the-world air, “are kind enough to take compassion on my loneliness in this rocky stronghold, and give me as much of their company here as my conscience will allow me to take, knowing as I do that I am thereby depriving them of the joys of the outer world of gaiety and fashion, and that world of their presence.”

The elder lady swept her hand towards the[79] windows which filled nearly three-quarters of the side of the room.

“We have at least nothing like this in Paris or Vienna,” she said with a sort of stately patronage, which made the two visitors struggle with a smile.

Perhaps the girl noticed their repressed amusement, for she moved to the window, saying—

“I don’t know where in the whole of Europe another view like this is to be found. Is it not magnificent?”

She turned her head in invitation to the young men to join her, and they moved to her side. There was no gainsaying the paramount loveliness of the panorama beneath and around them; the multitudinous shades of colour, ranging from the purple black of the pine woods to the red gold of the mountain tops; the spray of the torrent catching the sunlight, the deep glassy mirror of the lake, the luscious, restful green of the valley, and the brilliant flower-clad bank from which the castle rose—all made it indeed a position of surpassing beauty.

“Before we go over the place,” Zarka said, “you must have some refreshment. Walking in the forest is so fascinating that one is apt to forget how exhausting it may be. Now you shall try some Imperial Tokay.”

A large salver with cakes and flasks of wine had[80] been brought in, and Zarka did the honours with a flourish and excess of politeness which hardly left room for the suspicion of a grim nature beneath.

“I tried to persuade our friends to take up their abode here for a while,” he observed to the ladies. “But they preferred the simplicity of a tent in the forest.”

“More natural than gallant,” Madame d’Ivady commented, in her grand manner.

“Hardly ungallant,” Galabin objected laughingly, “since we did not know of the presence of ladies at Rozsnyo.”

“And now you are aware of it,” the old lady said with the same pompous rigidity, “will you not change your mind?”

Zarka interposed.

“We must not worry our young friends, Cousin Gertrud. It is only natural that they should like the free life of the forest, and it would be unfair to make them lead, even here, the very existence from which they have for the time emancipated themselves.”

The girl laughed.

“Mother can hardly understand any one preferring life in a tent to being snug in a house.”

Certainly the imagination would fail to picture the majestic, formal Madame d’Ivady roughing it under canvas, and they smiled at the idea.

[81]“Now,” exclaimed Zarka, as having finally disposed of the subject, “shall we stroll round and see the few curiosities my poor house has to show? Come, Royda. I suppose we cannot tempt you, Cousin Gertrud?”

The old lady excused herself with a dignity out of all proportion to the matter, and they went off on a tour of inspection, the host leading the way, and keeping up a running description of the place as they proceeded, explaining how he had, so to speak, grafted a new house on the remains of the mediæval castle. All the rooms through which they passed were decorated and furnished in a manner suggestive of considerable wealth.

Presently they crossed a small inner courtyard, and Zarka paused before a door of ecclesiastical design.

“This,” he said, “is a necessary adjunct to a house so isolated as mine.” He threw open the door, and they found themselves to their surprise in an elaborately fitted private chapel. It was perhaps as well that their voluble host did not catch the glances exchanged between his two visitors; he might not have felt flattered by the implied sarcasm on his religious arrangements. Perhaps their silence was significant; anyhow the Count did not detain them in the chapel longer than was needed to glance round it.

[82]“Now,” he said, as they turned from the door, “one more room, and I will not bore you by playing the showman any longer, at least indoors. I must take you down into the rock and show you my armoury. I think you will admit it is worth seeing.”

Indeed it was. The Count led the way down a broad winding staircase cut between walls of solid rock. Deep loopholes, lined with reflectors, gave light at intervals, and the roughness of the steps, evidently hewn in the rock-bed, was covered with thick carpets of Oriental design. Arrived at the bottom the Count pressed a knob, and the great barred doors in front of them opened, disclosing an unexpected sight.

It was a great room, constructed deep in the rock; its stone walls, hewn smooth and polished, were hung with arms and trophies of the chase. Suits of armour of various descriptions and ages were arranged on stands round the room, from regal suits of mail to the habergeons of humble pikemen and arquebusiers. Above were suspended helmets, the crested, gold-inlaid casques of warrior kings and knights, as well as the sallet of the free-lance and the plain skull pieces and morions of foot-soldiers. Shields of various shapes and emblazonry formed a frieze round the upper part of the walls; below were swords, rapiers and daggers, lances gay with pennons, murderous pikes, daggers, gauntlets, all[83] in artistic array. The great room, hewn out almost to the face of the rock, sloping almost sheer down from beneath the castle, was lighted by deep windows opening on to the side of the precipice, and commanding the sunlit valley which stretched away below.

Zarka watched his visitors’ surprise with his habitual smile, a smile which seemed to serve as a mask for possibly darker thoughts behind.

“This room,” he observed, “is my favourite toy, and it has afforded me more amusement than most toys.”

“An innocent amusement,” Galabin thought; “yet, truly with a grim significance behind it.”

“The room was made before my time,” Zarka continued, in answer to a question of Von Tressen’s. “It was excavated by my great-grandfather and used as a sort of strong room; perhaps”—he gave a shrug—“who knows? a hiding place in those troublous times. All I have done is to have it enlarged and fitted up as you see. Yes; it is my hobby. I have fallen a prey to the collector’s mania, and I fear have wasted much time and good money over it.”

Presently, when they had gone round the room, and cursorily inspected its contents, their host proposed, what his visitors were really eager for, a stroll round the outside of the castle.

[84]“You have a most interesting abode,” Galabin remarked, as they found themselves in the hall again. “I suppose there are further curiosities to be seen above stairs?”

The Count’s urbane smile widened into a half comic grin of apology.

“All modern! Alas! all modern,” he exclaimed. “The lower part of the castle alone is old. I will not destroy the effect of the few quaint things you have seen by contrasting them with the bedroom appointments from the Königstrasse. Unless, that is, you shall change your mind and care to spend a few nights here. Perhaps if the weather breaks I may have the pleasure of being your host.”

They strolled out and made the circuit of the castle. It was with no small curiosity that the two visitors sought the window where they had seen the light, and which had seemed to disappear so mysteriously. It had vanished indeed. A blank wall ran from tower to tower without an opening or break of any kind. Unseen by Zarka the two men exchanged glances of wonder. Surely, they thought, the window itself with the light streaming from it across to the very spot where they were standing had not been a delusion of their brain. At any rate, now in the broad sunlight, there was no sign of it to be detected. The wall, massive and thick,[85] seemed to put out of the question the idea of an opening into it. No particular examination could, of course, be hazarded, but a glance was enough to show how unaccountable was what they had seen the night before.

As they strolled on, Fräulein d’Ivady lingered behind to point out to Von Tressen a rare species of flowering plant which was growing in the old moat. This manœuvre, for it seemed designed, threw them a little way behind the other pair.

“You have been long encamped here in the forest?” the girl asked as they turned to follow.

“Hardly a week.”

“I heard,” she seemed to lower her voice guardedly, “I heard of your adventure the other day.”

“My adventure?”

“Surely!” she laughed, “The rare game you flushed and hit. The mysterious lady who has taken up her abode at the old farmhouse.”

“Ah, yes. That was an unfortunate mistake of mine.”

“Tell me of this Fräulein Harlberg,” she said quickly. “I have never seen her.”

“I have only seen her twice,” he replied, “and know nothing about her except that she is staying there with her father.”

“For what reason?”

“For sport, I understood. But I am sure the[86] Count could tell you far more about them than I.”

“Aubray?” She nodded at Zarka. “He is there often? He knows them very well?”

“I think so,” Von Tressen answered. “He seemed the other day on quite familiar terms with them. I imagined they were old friends.”

He was a simple, straight-forward fellow, Von Tressen, and innocently saw nothing beyond curiosity in his companion’s questions. Perhaps, though, had he looked in her face during his last words he might have realized that there was something more serious in those almost breathless inquiries.

“This Fräulein Harlberg,” she went on; “is she very handsome?”

“Yes; very good-looking, I think.”

He hesitated a little awkwardly over his answer, and, woman-like, she instantly divined the reason.

“Ah,” she returned, with an affectation of banter in her tone, “I understand, do I? The romance is not to end with the healing of the lady’s wounded hand?”

He laughed.

“You go too fast for me, Fräulein.”

“At least you are interested in—your victim?”

“Could I be otherwise? Still I regret that my[87] knowledge is not equal to my interest, or I could better gratify your curiosity.”

“Curiosity about what?”

The Count had turned suddenly—he evidently vibrated with alertness and had quick ears. The restless, glittering eyes and wolfish teeth faced them.

“Curiosity about what?” he repeated, as each hesitated for the other to reply.

“Nothing, Aubray,” the girl answered quickly, as though to anticipate Von Tressen. “I was asking the Lieutenant about his adventures in the forest.”

The eyes fixed on them seemed to grow stern, although the smile did not relax.

“Has the Lieutenant had any adventures, then?”

“Nothing worth relating,” Von Tressen answered. Somehow he felt he did not care to allude to the one episode the girl and he had been speaking of.

Zarka’s grin widened as his eyes looked more insistent. “What is the mystery?” he demanded, addressing his cousin rather than Von Tressen.

“No mystery, Aubray,” she replied, with a little show of impatience, “but what you already know. Lieutenant Von Tressen’s unlucky shot.”

“Ah? You do not deserve to hear tales if you allude to them so indiscreetly, my good cousin.”

[88]He spoke playfully, but there was an evil gleam in his eyes. The girl bit her lip in self-annoyance, and said nothing. Von Tressen interposed.

“I can assure you, Count, that so far as I am concerned, there was no reason why Fräulein d’Ivady should not allude to that unlucky episode. At least I deserve to be for ever reminded of my carelessness.”

Zarka made a gesture of protest. “You are my guest, Herr Lieutenant, and I do not wish you, here, at any rate, to be twitted with a mistake which might have had very serious consequences.”

It seemed to Von Tressen that his host was making much more of the business than had the girl. There was a scarcely veiled sharpness in Zarka’s tone which seemed meant to sting his cousin.

“But I assure you, Count——” Von Tressen began, when Zarka interrupted him.

“Let us dismiss the subject, please,” he said almost peremptorily. “It is happily at an end.”

“I cannot make out our friend the Count,” Galabin observed, as the two walked back to their temporary home. “The whole business is a puzzle, but I must say an interesting one, and I am not sorry for having set myself to unriddle it. He is sharp and clever—unpleasantly so—but I do not think he has any idea that I am here less for sport than to keep an eye on him.”

“No,” Von Tressen agreed. “I could have kicked the fellow, though, for the bullying suggestion in the way he spoke to that girl. I fancy, by the way, one of the hardest riddles you have to solve, my friend, is whence he, lately a poor man, has got all the money of which that place gives evidence.”

“Yes; the Herr Count is interesting game to stalk, and not easy. But a slight chance may show us a way of coming close to him and getting in a shot. We must go back there to-night for a further[90] examination of that mysterious window. You’ll come?”

“Decidedly. I shall not rest till I have found out at least that secret.”

When they got to the tent it was already dusk, and they found Von Tressen’s man Bela lamenting an over-cooked dinner. During the meal their talk was guardedly of a simpler kind of sport than they were in reality pursuing. Presently Bela, who was waiting on them, observed—

“There is another gentleman shooting in this part of the forest. Yes,” he went on, in answer to their exclamation of surprise, “he passed by here this afternoon.”

“Herr Harlberg, no doubt,” Von Tressen said to Galabin. Then to Bela: “A short, elderly, gentleman, with a military air, was it not?”

The man shook his head. “Military, perhaps,” he replied. “But not old or short; he was tall and fierce looking, with black eyes that looked through one.”

The two men glanced at one another. “Who can this be? A sportsman, you say, Bela?”

“Yes, mein Herr; he had a sporting gun.”

So the stranger’s identity was a puzzle. “After all,” Von Tressen said at length, “we have no monopoly of the forest; it is open to all as to us. There may be other sportsmen about.”

[91]Darkness having fallen by the time the meal was over, they lighted their cigars and strolled off again towards Rozsnyo. The sky had become cloudy and threatened rain; it was, however, a night well suited to their purpose. This time they made their way directly to that side of the castle where they had seen the mysteriously lighted window. No; not a trace of it was to be noticed; the wall was dark and presented the blank, unbroken surface they had seen there in the afternoon. Even in the darkness an unlighted window could not have escaped their scrutiny, and there certainly was none. They had the bearings exactly from the tree which Von Tressen had climbed; but opposite to it now was nothing but bare wall.

“I cannot understand it,” Galabin said.

“Could we have made a mistake about the light?” Von Tressen suggested.

“Both of us? Impossible! And yet—ah!”

He was looking towards the spot as he spoke, and now, breaking off suddenly, clutched his companion’s arm. The Lieutenant turned eagerly.

“What is it?” he asked, after looking in the direction for a few moments. “I can see nothing.”

“Wait! Watch!” Galabin returned in an excited whisper. “There! Look! Above the wall,” he continued as Von Tressen made no response. “There! again!”

[92]“It was nothing but a bird flying over——”

“Yes, a bird. You saw it plainly?”

“Quite.”

“For how long?”

“For a second.”

“Why no longer?” Galabin asked, with the triumphant satisfaction bred of a discovery.

“The bird was lost in the darkness.”

“And yet it flew nearer to us. Ah, there is the same thing again! How did we see it at all, my friend? I’ll tell you. The bird was attracted by and flew over a light. A vertical shaft of light this time; not strong enough to be apparent of itself from here, and only to be detected by the evidence of an object passing through it. Now, watch again.”

They remained intently looking for a few seconds when the phenomenon was repeated. A large bird became suddenly visible for an instant out of the darkness and then disappeared.

“Now are you satisfied, my good friend?” Galabin asked.

“Perfectly. And the light——?”

“Must come from a skylight. There is a room below there. And if a room, why not a concealed window? though how contrived in that thick stone wall, I cannot tell. At the same time that is to me less interesting than to discover what the room is[93] used for, who inhabits it, since it clearly is inhabited.”

“If we could only get up there and look down,” Von Tressen said. “But it hardly seems possible, at least from this point.”

“No,” his friend agreed. “Our only chance will be to scale the wall at some place farther along if we can find one practicable, and so make our way to where the light shines.”

“Come,” Von Tressen said; “let us set about finding a likely place. Who knows what discovery may be in store for us? It is an altogether unjustifiable liberty we are taking with our friend the Count’s domestic arrangements, but State service must over-ride that consideration.”

“You may take my word for that,” Galabin replied. “The Chancellor would blame us if, having seen this much, we were to neglect to find the explanation. In these secret services the authority cannot give explicit instructions; nearly everything must be left to one’s own discretion and enterprise.”

Cautiously they crossed the disused moat, and began a close inspection of the walls in search of a place where a climb might be feasible. They had not proceeded far when Von Tressen turned and held up his hand with a warning gesture.

“Hist! I thought I heard something,” he said[94] under his breath. “It sounded like a man’s footstep in the wood.”

They listened intently, the stillness preceding the threatened storm making it easy to hear a very slight sound.

“There!” ejaculated Von Tressen, in scarcely a whisper.

Now from the other side of the moat came distinctly a slight cracking noise of footsteps on the twigs and dead leaves that carpeted the wood. They strained their eyes in the direction of the sound, but could make out nothing. The person, whoever it was, seemed to be stopping and then moving on, for the footsteps would cease for a time and then be heard again. Presently they could just see a black figure moving against the dark background of trees at the edge of the wood. Then it seemed to come boldly forward, and stood out in the open space between the trees and the moat. A man evidently, a tall man; that was all they could discern. He remained there for a while motionless as the two, who watched him with intense curiosity. Soon he moved and began to walk slowly along the edge of the moat, as though making the circuit of the house. The two men looked after him until he disappeared in the darkness, then Galabin said in a low voice—

“I think we had better abandon our attempt for to-night. I do not know who our friend may be;[95] one of Zarka’s men on the watch, most likely. Anyhow, it will not do for us to be caught. The sooner we get across the wood the better.”

“He evidently did not suspect we were here,” Von Tressen said.

“No; and should we be seen it will be less suspicions if we are found over there than here under the wall. Now, as quietly as we can.”

They crept for a short distance round by the wall in the opposite direction to that which the man had taken. Then, stooping, they ran across the moat and gained the shelter of the wood.

“I should like to see what that fellow’s game is,” Galabin said, as they halted under cover of the trees. “After all, we are doing no harm here, and have a right to an evening stroll even in the precincts of our friend Count Zarka’s stronghold.”

Accordingly they began to move slowly and alertly after the man. They had not gone far when they stopped simultaneously, for his figure had suddenly appeared out of the darkness a few yards in front of them. Luckily he was just outside the edge of the wood, they just within, consequently he was much more easily visible to them than they to him. The two friends stood still, pressed close against a tree. Evidently the man had no idea of their presence, for he passed slowly on without any sign of suspicion, and they could hear his footsteps[96] until he had gone some distance. Then Galabin touched his companion.

“Did you make him out?”

“Hardly. Could you?”

“I think I know something,” Galabin answered. “It is the fellow your man saw passing the tent this afternoon.”

“I am going,” said Von Tressen to his friend next morning, “up to the farm to ask Herr Harlberg to shoot with us.”

Galabin laughed. “And the Fräulein?”

“It would only be polite,” the Lieutenant replied in the same tone, “to make a point of enquiring whether her hand is healed.”

“Good! You can do no less.”

“You will come, too?”

“I shall be in the way.”

“Nonsense! You don’t want to rouse suspicion by making yourself mysterious.”

So they set out together for the farm.

“I wonder if we shall come across our friend of last night,” Von Tressen observed, for while the servant, Bela, had been near they had not spoken on the subject.

“Ah,” Galabin replied thoughtfully. “I have been thinking it over, and have come to the conclusion[98] that the fellow is a patrol, a spy of Zarka’s. What else could he have been prowling about for?”

“That might be said of us. We were doing the same.”

“True. But it is hardly likely that another man would have the same purpose as ourselves. No; the other solution is far more probable. Now, what does Count Zarka, ostensibly a rich nobleman living on his country estate, want with a patrol, or a spy?”

Von Tressen shook his head. “The Count is deeper than I can fathom.”

“Or I. We must wait for eventualities, and meanwhile keep our eyes open.”

They soon reached the farm, and found father and daughter in the little enclosed shrubbery before the house. Herr Harlberg excused himself from joining their sport on the plea of a gouty foot, but welcomed his visitors and insisted upon their drinking a glass of wine with him. Presently Von Tressen found himself strolling with Philippa Harlberg in the half-cleared woodland which surrounded the old farm, Galabin, with an eye to the situation, having plunged deep into a political argument with his host.

“So you have found another friend to join your gipsy life,” she remarked. “The attractions of the[99] forest must be great indeed, or is it the charm of friendship?” she added banteringly.

“The charm of the forest life is delightful,” Von Tressen replied. “One cannot wonder at its being an all-powerful attraction. If my friend only enjoys it half as much as I he will not repent having cut himself off for a time from cities and civilization. I am so glad, Fräulein, that the hand is well again.”

She held it out. “Yes; quite healed. Look. Already scarcely a mark to be seen.”

He took it, and by an impulse, natural enough, raised and pressed it to his lips.

“All’s well that ends well,” he murmured. “Ah, I hate myself for having hurt you, Fräulein.”

As she withdrew her hand their eyes met. It gave him a thrill of delight to see there was no anger or offence in hers, only a touch of restraining sadness. She gave a little sigh as she replied, hardly above a whisper: “If no one might ever hurt me more than that!”

To his chivalrous nature her words were as a call to arms, for there was manifestly something behind them. “Who would dare to harm you, Fräulein?”

With an effort, it seemed, she recovered her gaiety. “Who, indeed,” she laughed, “would be so unmanly? I only meant to tell you how lightly[100] I regard that little wound.” But she had meant more than that, he was sure.

“All the same, if the unchivalrous man should ever cross your path,” he said with a touch of youthful romance in his tone, “I only hope it may be my privilege to be there to defend you.”

She laughed again. “Perhaps you may be. Who knows?”

“My friend and I were at Rozsnyo yesterday,” he observed, following the train of thought suggested to his mind by her words.

She turned quickly in surprise. “You went to Rozsnyo?” He nodded. “At the Count’s invitation?”

“At his pressing invitation. Is that strange?”

“Oh, no. Why should it be?”

“You seemed surprised.”

“No. Perhaps—I—” she stopped in some confusion.

“The Count is a peculiar man, you meant, perhaps?”

“You may know him now as well as I,” she returned with a forced smile. The mention of Zarka seemed to chill her.

“I do not know him at all well,” he rejoined. “I should much like to know him better.”

She started in apprehensive surprise. “To know him better? Count Zarka?” she repeated.

[101]“Yes,” he answered. “For there seems a mystery about the man which, between ourselves, Fräulein, I should like to solve.”

“Oh, no, no!” She glanced round instinctively, as though in fear that the man they spoke of might be lurking near them. Then as she turned again to her companion, he saw in her eyes a look of dread which did not tend to mitigate the feelings he entertained towards the lord of Rozsnyo.

“You had better not be curious about Count Zarka,” and as she spoke the name she lowered her tone almost to a whisper. “He is a dangerous man and, I fear, unscrupulous. You will only bring harm on yourself by seeking to know too much of him.”

The feeling of terror with which Zarka had evidently inspired her roused the young soldier’s indignation.

“I am not afraid of Count Zarka,” he returned boldly, “and I hope I never shall be. You may trust me, Fräulein, to take care of myself—and you,” he added tenderly, “if you will let me.”

She coloured a little. “I am sure I could trust you,” she said softly. “But I hope,” she added with more vivacity, “there will be no need for me to enlist you as my defender.”

“Not even against Count Zarka?” he asked searchingly.

[102]She met his eyes unfalteringly now. “Not even against him.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said slowly, “for I had an uncomfortable idea in my head.”

“Pray what was that?” She seemed quite to have regained command over herself.

“I have of course,” he replied, “as a comparative stranger no right to interfere or show curiosity in the matter. Still, I could not help fancying that the Count persecuted you. Am I right or wrong?”

For a moment she looked serious, then she smiled.

“Hardly right, Herr Lieutenant; and if you were, why, a woman can usually protect herself from persecution.”

“When the man is dangerous and unscrupulous?”

“Ah, perhaps that is different. But my case is scarcely as bad as that.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said gravely. “Will you pardon one question, Fräulein? It is, perhaps, impertinent, but you need not answer it.”

“Yes?”

“This Count Zarka—is there any warrant for his pretension? Is he your lover?”

She was looking away, perhaps half anticipating what he would ask. For a moment or two she did not reply, then without turning she said in a low[103] voice: “My lover? No. He never could be that—with my consent.”

Von Tressen’s face brightened. “I am glad,” he said, “for I feared.”

The path had led them back to the house, and in another moment would bring them in sight of the two men whom they could hear chatting in front of it.

“You are not offended, Fräulein, at what I am afraid must be my unwarrantable curiosity?” Von Tressen asked hurriedly, before they should turn the angle of the house and confidential talk should be at an end.

“If you had offended me,” she replied with a look which was yet more convincing than her words, “the question would have been unnecessary.”

Their steps had lingered, had become slower and slower, till now they stopped by the corner of the house which just screened them from Harlberg and Galabin.

“You are too good,” Von Tressen said in a half whisper, “to let me speak to you like this. You will not forget, Fräulein, if ever you are in trouble, you owe me the privilege of coming to your help.”

She gave a little laugh which stopped short of gaiety. “Let us hope,” she said, “it will not be necessary.”

“And if it be?”

[104]“Then I shall call you.”

There was earnest beneath the half jest, and each intuitively recognized it, although perhaps neither quite imagined how near the surface it lay. As Philippa spoke the last words she put out her hand to emphasize, as it were, the promise. Von Tressen grasped it in both his, and was lifting it to his lips, when he suddenly raised his bent head almost in dismay. Philippa had snatched her hand back. A shadow darkened the angle of the wall, and Count Zarka stood before them, the ever-ready smile on his face, this time a smile of detection.

“You are fond of playing hide and seek, gnädige Fräulein,” he said.

“Your taste, my dear Osbert, is unimpeachable,” Galabin remarked as they left the farm; “the Fräulein is delightful. And yet——”

“And yet, Mr. Secret-Agent? A new mystery?”

“Perhaps. For I do not quite make out your friends. Herr Harlberg comes for sport, here to a wild farmhouse, yet he does not shoot, nor does he seem very keen about it. For I made a point of talking sport and he yawned; he was as bored as a man can well be. Then their connexion with our amiable friend from Rozsnyo.”

“What do you make out of that?” Von Tressen asked eagerly.

“Nothing,” was the blunt answer; “nothing as yet, that is. But I shall hope to unriddle that little enigma before long. For I fancy there is some peculiar bond between them. They are rather more than acquaintances or even friends, or my faculty of observation is less than I take it to be.”

“What reason have you for that idea?”

“Merely certain signs that came under my[106] observation, slight enough in themselves, but together quite significant. I am accustomed to putting two and two together, and I don’t want to boast, but if I had been a dense numskull, who could not take in what was going on before his eyes, why, our Chancellor would hardly have chosen me for the business. I can tell you one thing, my friend. The Count looked black when he heard you had strolled off with the young lady. Yes; there was murder in his eye, for all the grin on his lips.”

“And he immediately came after us?”

“Like a panther. I called him back, just for the fun of the thing, and as he turned impatiently I saw the face without the grin. It was not pretty.”

The subject was broken off by an exclamation from Von Tressen.

“Look! Is not that yonder our friend of last night?”

From the glade along which they were sauntering a track led up to a small eminence, beyond which was a space of lawn and underwood extending to the house they had just left. On the summit, at the edge of the wood, leaning against a tree, stood a man; the same, they felt sure, whom they had seen at Rozsnyo in the darkness. He held a gun by his side, the butt resting on the ground, and by his attitude he seemed to be watching the[107] farm. His face was set in that direction as he stood motionless, except that once or twice he moved his head as though following some object with his eyes, or to get a better view.

For a while the two friends stood observing him, then by a common impulse they stepped back out of the line of the path, so that if the man turned he should not see that he was being watched.

“What is he doing there?”

“Watching the farm.”

“Why should he watch it?”

The question was not to be so easily answered. For a few moments neither man spoke. Then Galabin said—

“We must inquire into this, and find out who the fellow is. It is absurd to continue in our present ignorance without making an effort to dispel it.”

Von Tressen nodded his agreement. “Let us accost him now, eh?”

“Yes; but not from behind. Don’t let him suspect we have been watching him. We had better stalk him round and come upon him along the ridge of the hill.”

“We may frighten him away.”

“I hardly think so. In that case we must follow him up or wait for another opportunity.”

Galabin’s anticipation was correct. When they had reached the high ground by a detour, they could[108] see through the trees the man still standing there in his watchful attitude.

“Now,” Von Tressen murmured, “let us get almost up to him without attracting his attention, and then show ourselves. It will be too late for him to run away then.”

The plan was carried out with perfect success. The man was evidently too absorbed in his watching to be aware of their approach; giving no sign of alertness or of moving from his station. Only when they suddenly emerged into the open did he withdraw his gaze from the farm lying below in the valley, and turn it quickly, with a kind of fierce suspicion, on the figures which had come within its focus. He made a quick movement and instinctively lifted his gun from the ground, only to replace it and resume his attitude, as watching till the two should have passed on.

But that was scarcely their intention.

“Good-day, mein Herr,” Galabin said as they both saluted the man. “You are a sportsman like ourselves. May we hope that you have been more successful than we?”

They rather expected a churlish reply; but, as Galabin spoke, the somewhat fierce, stern expression on the man’s face relaxed, and he answered almost laughingly—

“We are companions in ill-luck. I, too, have[109] nothing to show. Perhaps in my case it has been bad markmanship, want of skill rather than of luck. What I have hit has not been worth the picking up. But then the forest is so beautiful that it repays one for bad sport.”

He made a sweep with his hand towards the valley stretching away below them.

“You are staying in the forest, mein Herr?” Galabin enquired with careless politeness. “At the Schloss Rozsnyo, perhaps?”

The man darted a keen glance at him. “At Rozsnyo? No. My quarters are at a little inn. A wretched place frequented only by woodcutters and charcoal burners. But what would you have?” he added with a shrug. “Sport does not always go with comfort.”

“Its absence makes the zest for sport all the keener,” Von Tressen remarked.

“If that is your opinion,” the stranger returned, “I shall not perhaps be wrong in hazarding a guess that the tent I have seen hereabouts forms your shooting quarters.”

“You are quite right,” Galabin replied. “We follow our pleasure gipsy fashion. If you would stroll back with us and join our mid-day meal we should be honoured. Our little encampment is but a stone’s throw from here, and your inn must be some distance.”

[110]The man bowed with an excess of courtesy. “The honour is mine,” he responded. “I shall be charmed, if I am not putting you to inconvenience. My inn is far from here, and, apart from that, to a lonely man the chance of a chat in congenial company is not to be despised.”

He shouldered his gun and they turned down the hill again. Walking with a quick, impatient stride, their new acquaintance seemed now a restless, energetic man, and this made his late motionless, patient attitude the more unaccountable.

“The Schloss Rozsnyo,” he said presently, in his abrupt quick way, “it is a fine place, but in a curious situation here in this wild forest. You know it?”

“We have been there,” Galabin answered.

“Inside?”

“We spent a couple of hours there yesterday.”

“Ah, then you know Count Zarka?”

The man turned with a fierce eagerness to him as he put the question.

“We know him slightly from a casual meeting in the forest.”

“So!” He said no more, for they were within a few yards of the tent. But after luncheon, when they were sitting with their cigars and coffee in the open, their guest, who had told them his name was[111] Abele d’Alquen, brought up the subject again, as, indeed, both men felt sure he would.

“This Rozsnyo,” he began, waving his hand in the direction of the Schloss, “it is a very wonderful place?”

They gave him a simple description of its principal objects of interest. He listened with a sort of sharp curiosity, and seemed particularly struck by their account of the underground armoury.

“An extraordinary place,” he exclaimed. “Quite a curiosity; you are fortunate to have seen it. I suppose there are other rooms dug out in the rock, eh?”

“There may be,” Von Tressen replied. “We did not see any.”

“Unheard-of labour to construct them, eh?” D’Alquen continued, in the fierce abrupt way which seemed more natural to him than the tone of somewhat exaggerated courtesy he had used when they had originally accosted him. “You think, though, there might be other apartments down there?”

“Possibly,” Galabin replied. “Why? Are you particularly interested in underground dwellings?” he added with a laugh.

“Oh, no—yes, I am fond of engineering,” the other answered. “Did you see doors or passages in the rock?”

His two hosts glanced at each other, repressing[112] a smile. Galabin replied: “I noticed nothing of the sort; did you, Von Tressen?”

“Nothing,” the Lieutenant corroborated.

For a few moments their guest was silent. Then he suddenly asked: “You went all over the Schloss?”

“Hardly all over; but we saw everything which, according to the Count, was worth seeing. I do not think we told you of the beautiful private chapel in the——”

A loud laugh from D’Alquen made him stop short. It was a curious laugh of derision on a single sustained note, and it rang through the forest, so as to be almost startling in the silence around.

“A chapel!” he exclaimed in reply to their stare of astonishment. Their guest was every moment becoming more of a puzzle. “A chapel! That is a comical idea. The Count is pious, then?”

“We can hardly answer for that.”

D’Alquen laughed again, this time not so loudly, but with a jarring, sarcastic note.

“No; we can answer for no man outside our own skin, not even for the honourable Count Zarka. And if my estimate of that nobleman is not wrong, the man would be rash indeed who would answer for his piety.”

“You know him, then?” Galabin asked, still more mystified.

[113]D’Alquen threw out his arms with a gesture of protest. “Not I. Only by sight, that is, unless I have set down the wrong man for the Count. A dark man, handsome, yes, if it were not for a sinister expression and the grin of a wolf. He rides a roan horse often in the forest.”

“That is the Count,” Von Tressen assented.

“I saw him,” the other continued, “this morning, shortly before I had the pleasure of meeting you gentlemen. He rode over to that old house in the valley.”

“Yes; we saw him there.”

“Ah!” The intense, fierce curiosity seemed to surge back into their guest’s face. “You were there, at that curious house? You have friends there?”

Galabin hesitated a moment, then, judging it safest to be straight-forward, he answered: “We happen to know the people who are staying there.”

“Ah, yes?” The man’s curiosity was insatiable; it seemed to increase with every fresh point it seized upon. “An old gentleman and a young lady. May one without offence ask who they are?”

He had suddenly checked the vehemence of his manner, and the last question was put almost carelessly.

“I do not suppose there is any harm in my mentioning their name,” Galabin replied. “It is Harlberg.”

[114]“Harlberg? So! Harlberg. Herr and Fräulein Harlberg? The lady is his daughter?”

“Yes.” D’Alquen had repeated the name curiously. There was hardly offence in his intonation, but it brought a frown to Von Tressen’s face.

“They live here? No?”

“Herr Harlberg stays in the forest for sport.”

“For sport? Indeed?” The exclamation was almost offensive in its suggested incredulity. “He is a great friend of the Count Zarka—or the lady is, eh?”

“I really cannot tell you, mein Herr,” Von Tressen answered sharply, with rising irritation as the other’s inquisitiveness now touched him more nearly. “I made the acquaintance of Herr Harlberg and his daughter only a few days ago, and my curiosity is hardly as keen as yours.”

For an instant D’Alquen seemed as though he would be provoked to a hot retort; his eyes had an angry gleam, but he checked the impulse, and his expression changed to a smile as he made a deprecating wave of his hand.

“Pardon, Lieutenant. I did not intend that my curiosity should exceed the bounds of good taste. I cannot afford”—he gave a laugh—“to risk giving you offence. Only here in this wild part everything seems so strange that one feels bound to ask questions of the rare human beings[115] one meets. Let me not abuse your hospitality by asking another.”

Von Tressen could but make a good-humoured reply, even though he felt the guest’s explanation was hardly convincing, and after a little desultory chat D’Alquen rose and took his leave, saying he had a long walk to his inn, but would hope to meet and shoot with them on the morrow or the day after.

“I cannot make him out,” Galabin said when they were alone, in answer to Von Tressen’s question. “He is another enigma added to our stock awaiting solution. But of one thing I am quite certain.”

“What is that?”

“It is that our new acquaintance had as little thought of sport when he came to the forest as had Herr Harlberg or even I myself.”

Next morning Philippa, taking a book with her, set off for a quiet stroll in the forest. The unaccustomed monotony of her life at the old Grange, shut up with her step-father, whose temper, always inclined to peevishness, the boredom of the situation did not improve, was irksome to her. But beyond and above this negative evil was the positive one of Zarka’s constant visits and veiled persecution. Against the idea that he had any hold over her she fought strenuously; she would not allow it, even to herself, yet she had an uneasy consciousness that the Count’s language was apt to take the form of a scarcely disguised threat. And here, in the vast lonely forest, under the dominating seigniory of Rozsnyo, it seemed difficult to fight against the strong hand backed by the resolute will. Civilization here hardly counted; might was still right as in feudal days, and the only chance of safety seemed to lie in temporizing and not driving the enemy to[117] extreme measures. The oppressive vastness, the weird silence and gloom of the forest lay on her nerves; Zarka seemed to be the evil genius of that great region of mountain woodland, and nature here to be his ally.

Anyhow that morning, she told herself, she would be free from him, and with that object she avoided the open tracks along which he was wont to ride, and kept well within the thickness of the wood where never even a bridle-path was to be found. The Count’s favourite roan would hardly thread its way amid that tangle of brushwood and maze of trees. When Philippa felt she had wandered far enough, she chose an inviting bank with a tree to lean against and sat down to read. She had turned but a few pages when she looked up with a start. There was a stealthy rustling in the undergrowth near. After a few moments of alarmed expectancy Philippa sprang to her feet with a look of terror. Two fierce eyes were glaring at her from behind the fringe of brushwood some ten yards away. She kept sufficient presence of mind, however, to be able to tell that, for good or ill, they were not human eyes. A snarling grunt confirmed this; the intruder was a wild boar. Philippa instinctively gathered up her dress and turned to run; at the movement the animal with a louder growl broke through into the open space. She caught one[118] glimpse of his ugly tusks, his bristling hair and ears, his savage little eyes, and in utter terror rushed in a panic away through the trees. Escape from the brute seemed out of the question; she felt it was coming on in hot pursuit, could hear it brushing through the leaves, and its peculiar savage cry, ever nearer, made her sick with fear. It was close on her; she darted to one side, and, facing the animal, hopelessly tried to dodge it among the trees. Furious at being thus baffled, the boar made deadly charges, running round the trees with head lowered, and hunting the girl viciously from one to another. She was becoming exhausted with the unequal strife; it was a wonder she had avoided the fatal tusks so long, every fresh rush she felt must end the business. She cried out despairingly, sending up shriek upon shriek. Faint with the terror of death, now so imminent, she had actually ceased to try and avoid the brute, when suddenly a man’s voice cried out with startling clearness—

“Get away from him! Quick! I am going to shoot!”

With a supreme effort Philippa made a vigorous spring, by which she put a yard or so between her and the boar just as his tusks had come within striking distance. A shot rang out, the brute rolled over, not killed outright, but at least disabled from further attack.

[119]With a gasping cry of relief and thankfulness Philippa sank down half fainting, as the man who had fired the shot ran quickly forward. It was Abele d’Alquen.

His first act was to satisfy himself that the boar’s power for harm was at an end. Perhaps he forebore giving the animal its coup-de-grâce out of consideration for the girl’s presence. Taking out a flask, he dropped on one knee beside her.

“A narrow escape, Fräulein. Drink this; it will revive you.”

“Thank you,” she said, declining the flask with a slight motion of the hand. “I shall be all right again directly. But it gave me a terrible fright.”

D’Alquen laughed. “Small wonder. You were not far from death, Fräulein, and hardly a pleasant one. Ah!” he looked round at the writhing animal. “It was a pretty shot; I was glad to have the chance of making it.”

“How can I thank you?” Philippa said gratefully, sitting up now and passing her handkerchief over her face.

“There is no need to thank me,” he returned with what seemed a strange brusqueness. “All the same, you may as well thank fate that decreed I should be passing this way in the nick of time.”

“You have saved my life,” she said warmly, setting down his deprecation to a natural modesty.

[120]“Let us hope,” he replied, in the same almost ungracious tone, “that it has not been preserved for a worse misfortune.”

The sentiment was obvious and unanswerable, but hardly gallant. His manner seemed to check rudely the flow of her gratitude. Still she made yet another effort to thank him.

“Anyhow,” she said, “I hope you will believe that I am very, very grateful to you.”

“I can believe it,” he returned curtly, with an almost formal bow.

Philippa had risen to her feet now, and for a few moments they stood together in an awkward silence. Then D’Alquen spoke, in his quick, fierce way.

“You are Fräulein Harlberg, living at the old farm in the valley?”

“Yes,” she answered, with a touch of surprise.

“Your father, Herr Harlberg, comes here for sport, does he not?” She nodded an affirmative. “Has he shot much?”

“Not much,” she answered, in rising wonder. “My father’s health has not been very good.”

D’Alquen smiled, and the incredulity in his smile left, on the score of politeness, something to be desired.

“You are great friends of Count Zarka of Rozsnyo?”

[121]A strange, not yet accountable apprehension was beginning to steal over her. But she answered the man’s catechism unfalteringly, feeling that he had perhaps a right, since she owed him her life, to put questions which nothing but his manner suggested were prompted by more than simple, if insistent, curiosity.

“We know Count Zarka.”

“Yes.” His tone indicated that he was sure of it. “You know Count Zarka,” he repeated. Then his manner changed abruptly, and for the better. With an apologetic smile he said, “I ought to ask pardon for all these rude questions. I have only one more, mein Fräulein.”

She glanced at him as he stood before her, almost with a suggestion of barring her way. The smile was still on his lips, but the reassurance caused by his last speech died away as she noticed that his eyes were not in accord with it. Their expression was stern and malignant.

“And what is the last question?” she asked, smiling to cloak her uneasiness.

D’Alquen drew a deep breath, as a man will before taking a plunge or dealing a blow.

“You know—you knew Prince Roel of Rapsberg?”

His eyes were fixed on her face with a glittering eagerness. Somehow, by a strange prescience, she had felt that the question would refer to the[122] vanished prince. So, fortunately, she was hardly taken by surprise, and could answer steadily—

“I have met Prince Roel in town and have danced with him.”

“You know he has mysteriously disappeared?”

“Mein Herr,” she returned, with a touch of bantering reproof, “you said there was only one more question to conclude your catechism.”

“You cannot answer this?” he demanded sharply and fiercely.

His manner gave her a thrill of fear, but she fought against betraying it. “Answer it, mein Herr? There is not much to answer. I have heard the report like the rest of the world.”

He gave a toss of the head. “Yes, yes. Before you left the city?”

“Yet another question? Certainly. One hears nothing here?”

“Not from Count Zarka?” His questions flashed out like the quick thrusts of a rapier.

“Will the examination be much longer?” Philippa asked with a little grimace of impatience. “For I must be going homewards; my father will be anxious.”

“Herr Harlberg—that is your father’s name?” he asked with dart-like suddenness. Philippa nodded assent. “Herr Harlberg may be glad that he sees you at all.”

[123]“That is true.”

“Shall I tell you,” he continued, in the same sharp, masterful tone, “why I have detained you to ask these questions?”

Had she dared she would have declined to hear the reason, but she was in the power of this strange questioner, and knew it would not serve to ignore the curiosity which, indeed, she felt.

“You at least owe it to me to tell that,” she replied with a smile.

He drew a step nearer to her and fixed his dark eyes piercingly on her face. His manner was not rough; hardly, in its outward form, uncivil; yet there was in it a suggestion of a wild purpose, a strong reckless will that overmastered her. Still she fought against her fear and his indefinable mastery, facing him boldly for the explanation which she dreaded.

“Yes; I will tell you.” As he spoke there came through the wood the sound of an approaching presence. Both looked quickly round, and D’Alquen caught up his gun. It was, however, no wild animal this time, but a man, Osbert Von Tressen.

He greeted them in surprise. “Fräulein Harlberg! Herr D’Alquen!” he exclaimed.

There was genuine relief on the girl’s face, a lowering annoyance on her companion’s, who, however, met the situation unhesitatingly.

“You are well met, Herr Lieutenant,” he cried with a half sneer. “But you would have come too[125] late. You are surprised at finding us here together. The explanation lies there.”

With a slightly theatrical action he pointed to the boar. “I have had the honour of relieving the honoured Fräulein from the too pressing attentions of that fellow,” he continued, in reply to Von Tressen’s exclamation of surprise. “Half an hour ago three were better company than two; that exigency is past, and now two are preferable to three. I bid you good-day.”

He raised his hat, made them each a ceremonious bow, turned abruptly, and walked resolutely away. For some moments they both watched him in astonished silence; although his face had betrayed no feeling, his manner of leaving them was altogether strange; very soon the depth of the wood hid him from sight, and they could look round inquiringly at each other.

“I am so glad you came,” Philippa said.

“I came?” Von Tressen returned a little ruefully. “No; he. He saved you from that ugly brute.”

She nodded. “Yes; he saved my life. And frightened me horribly afterwards.”

“He did? Yes, I can understand it. He is a queer fellow.”

“You know him?”

He told her of their meeting on the previous day.

[126]“Neither Galabin nor I could make him out,” he added. “How did he frighten you?”

“Oh, perhaps I ought not to have been afraid,” she answered with a laugh. “Only he asked me questions in such a fierce, strange way.”

“Ah! As he did yesterday when he was with us. If he did not frighten us, at least he puzzled us horribly. I fear that, what with that fellow and this,” pointing to the boar, “and Count Zarka, you will be glad when your stay in the forest comes to an end, Fräulein.”

“Perhaps. And yet, how lovely it would be if one might only enjoy it unmolested.”

“By man and beast,” he laughed. “I would take your hint, Fräulein, if I did not consider it my duty to stay near for your protection.”

“I did not mean it as a hint,” she replied simply.

“Then you do not wish me to go?”

“No,” she said, “stay. At least, no; it is getting late, and I must go.”

“Not for a few minutes,” he urged. “You are hardly recovered from the shock of your danger. Sit down here and rest first.”

A bank rising to the gnarled tree-roots made an inviting couch, and they sat down.

“I wish,” Von Tressen said, “I had come along this way half an hour earlier.”

“I, too, wish you had,” she replied frankly.[127] “Still I ought to be thankful that some one was at hand to save me.”

“And may I not be thankful, too?” he said warmly. “Only, if it had been my luck to have been the man, it might have expiated the wound I inflicted by saving you from a worse.”

“I have told you that your act is already expiated,” she said softly.

“It might have been wiped out, forgotten.”

“If I do not want to forget it?”

“Fräulein! You like to remember that I gave you pain?”

“Are we not told that pain often brings good in its train?”

“Ah, if you thought that!”

“A sting on my fingers has brought me a friend.”

“More than that, if you will see it.”

“More than a friend?”

He took her hand. “Much more, unless that is enough.”

She let her hand stay in his, although her head was turned from him as she sat looking away into the thick phalanx of trees. A weasel ran out into the little open space before them, looked inquiringly at Philippa, as though wondering what her answer would be, and then with a zig-zag flash vanished into covert again. Every added moment of silence strengthened Von Tressen’s hope.

[128]“Philippa,” he pleaded, drawing her hand to him, “may I be no more than that?”

Now that she turned her face to him he was sure of her answer, for he could see nothing but love in her eyes. Next instant he was on his knees by her side kissing her.

“You love me, Philippa? You must tell me that.”

“I love you,” she whispered; “could I help loving you?”

Then suddenly she rose and stretched out her hands to keep him from her. “Ah, but this is madness,” she cried. “The passing romance of a forest holiday.”

“No, no,” he protested. “Philippa, my love, how can you say that?”

“What could you do,” she went on, “but make love to me, after our first strange encounter and our meetings in the glamour of the forest. And then under the shadow of the dragon’s castle of Rozsnyo. Is not Perseus bound to imagine himself in love with Andromeda? Ah, Osbert Von Tressen, do not deceive yourself.”

So fearing, questioning, protesting, she kept him, all to prove his love, at arm’s length, till at last conviction was so insistent that she could no longer even pretend a doubt.

“Ah, love me, dear one,” she whispered, as his[129] arms were round her again, “for my love is more than I can tell.”

“Not the romance of the forest,” he murmured slily.

“Ah, darling, yes; for that is you. I should hate the forest instead of loving it had you not been in it. Now, dear,” she continued with a serious face, “our love must be a secret—hush! only for a little time; just while we are here.”

“A secret?” he exclaimed in surprise. “From your father?”

“Yes, even from him. It is only for a little while. You will not mind, dear?”

He was troubled at the idea of a secret where no mystery should be. Galabin’s suspicions about Philippa and her father came to his mind; and yet, when he looked into her eyes they seemed to give the lie to any suggestion of wrong or deceit.

“Of course, dearest,” he replied, “it shall be as you wish.” She gave him a little grateful nod and smile. “Shall I not be allowed to know why?”

Rather to his surprise Philippa did not withhold a reason. “My father,” she answered with a touch of diffidence, “has views for my future; he makes plans——”

“Is Count Zarka comprised in them?”

She laughed. “My father likes the Count better than I do. There! is not that enough, Osbert?[130] We need only keep our secret till we leave here. In the city Count Zarka’s power will go for little.”

“I do not allow him to be omnipotent even in the forest.”

“Ah, but,” she remonstrated with fearfulness, “you do not know how great his power for evil is.”

“No more than any other man’s.”

“No, and yes,” she replied. “For he is false and unscrupulous, and lets nothing stand against his will. Osbert,” she laid her hand beseechingly on his shoulder, “you must promise not to be rash, not to offend Count Zarka. I know you are brave and care nothing for him, but your very straight-forwardness makes you no match for his methods. Promise me, dearest. You must not run into hidden danger like that.”

Impatient as he was to lay bare the mystery, he yet felt that patience was the wiser course, and he could but give his word not to come to open defiance of the Count. So the promise was given and sealed.

Count Zarka had paid his accustomed visit to Gorla’s farm, and was far from pleased to find Philippa absent, and no hint left behind of her whereabouts. He chatted for a while with her father, but the talk on either side was hardly of an exhilarating nature, both men having in their hearts a cause for annoyance.

“Has your friend, the Lieutenant, been over here this morning?” Zarka asked unceremoniously.

Harlberg shook his head ill-humouredly. “No. I have seen nobody, but Philippa for a moment. This is exile, indeed.”

His guest gave a shrug. “Unhappily a necessary evil, although one which you may hope need not last much longer. But we will try and make it as pleasant as you will allow us. My cousin Royda d’Ivady is anxious to come over and see your daughter. Fräulein Philippa seems to avoid company, and we do not like to intrude.”

[132]Perhaps it occurred to Harlberg that his guest was hardly the man to let any diffidence on that score stand in the way of his pleasure; but he merely replied by a few words of protest.

“I had, indeed, a message from my cousin,” Zarka said, rising to conclude an interview which bored him. “Have you any idea which direction Fräulein Philippa took?”

“No. She said nothing to me, except that she was going. Will you leave your message, Count?”

No; it was hardly worth while. The Count would probably meet the Fräulein, as he was going to ride home by the forest. So, with an impatience he scarcely troubled to disguise, he took his leave.

But he did not meet Philippa as he expected. She and her lover avoided the open rides on their walk homewards, for interruption was just then the last thing they courted. Within a radius of a good mile from the farm the Count cantered, up one path, down another, ever keeping his sharp eyes on the alert, but all to no purpose. Not a sign of her whom he sought was to be seen. He was, assuredly, not a man who took baffling well, and his expression as he urged his horse in and out the woodland tracks was not an amiable one.

Suddenly something happened which intensified his alertness. As he rode down a somewhat wilder and more intricate path his horse jibbed and shied[133] slightly, showing unmistakable signs of uneasiness. Knowing that the well-trained animal would not behave thus without good cause, Zarka took notice of the side from which the disquieting influence proceeded, and then, dismounting, he pushed his way through the undergrowth to discover the reason. It lay but a few paces before him—the wild boar which D’Alquen had wounded, and which now lay dead where he had fallen. A very cursory glance enabled the Count to take in the fact that the animal had been shot. He looked round for farther evidence; he listened eagerly for voices. Nothing unusual was to be seen or heard. To his sportsman’s eye the track of the boar was plainly indicated. He followed it for a short distance and came upon a book lying on the ground. He eagerly picked it up. It was a novel, and on the fly leaf was written in pencil “Philippa Carlstein.” He shut the book with an impatient flick, and looked round with lowering face. For a while he stood in thought, as though imagining what had occurred there. The fancy was not a pleasant one, to judge by the deepening frown and the set jaw; presently he roused himself to action, thrust the book into his pocket, went with quick, purposeful step back to where he had tied his horse, mounted and rode off towards the grange. He trotted his horse up to the door at a pace which spoke of haste and importance.

[134]“Herr Harlberg!” he shouted. “Herr Harlberg!”

Harlberg hurried out with more eagerness than he was used to show about anything. “What is the matter, Count?”

“Fräulein Philippa? Has she returned?”

“Not five minutes ago.”

“Heaven be thanked,” Zarka exclaimed with simulated relief. “I feared an accident had befallen her. General, you ought to warn her against solitary strolls in the forest.”

“Why, what made you think anything was wrong, Count?” Harlberg asked, in a tone which did not indicate that he was absolutely convinced of his visitor’s sincerity.

But Zarka knew both his man and the power of a surprise. He was not going to discount the effect of his discovery upon Philippa by allowing the knowledge of it to filter through her father.

“Ask Fräulein Philippa to come to us,” he said almost peremptorily, as he swung himself out of the saddle and entered the house, “and you shall hear.”

Harlberg called her, and she came into the room where Zarka stood impatiently playing with his riding whip. His quick eye detected a certain only half hidden radiance in her face, and he felt that he could guess its cause. Harlberg turned to him invitingly for his explanation.

[135]“I think,” Zarka began, “I have to congratulate you, Fräulein, on a lucky escape.”

He told himself that he was right to have taken her by surprise, for she looked at him with a start of obvious discomposure.

“How, Count?” she asked.

“From the tusks of one of the most formidable wild boars I have come across for many a day.”

“Ah, you know?” she said with a smile, having recovered command of herself.

“Yes,” he returned almost viciously, “I know. Know enough to be sure that I might easily at this moment be condoling with the General rather than congratulating you.”

She was puzzled to know how he had found it out, and he intended that she should be in the dark till he was master of the facts. He turned to Harlberg.

“Fancy, General. A monstrous brute, with fangs as long as that”—he indicated a length on his riding whip. “No unarmed man would have had a chance against him. It was a providential escape, Fräulein, and one which might hardly happen twice.”

“You told me nothing of this, Philippa,” Harlberg said, in a tone of aggrieved reproach.

“I had not seen you, father,” she replied. “My[136] dress was torn and I had to change it. Of course I was going to tell you.”

Zarka laid his hat and whip on the table. “Pray let us hear the full account of it now,” he said.

Philippa told the story shortly, and had the satisfaction of seeing that the Count’s conjectures as to her preserver were upset when she described him as a stranger. Indeed, D’Alquen’s identity seemed to concern him more than her safety, or the danger she had courted.

“But the man who shot the brute?” he asked, as the story came to an end and Harlberg had rounded it off with a reproving comment. “A stranger, you say? You had never seen him before?”

“Never,” she answered. “Nor, but for the fact that he saved my life, should I wish to see him again.”

Zarka was all curiosity. “Why not?”

“His manner was disagreeable.”

“My dear child,” Harlberg objected, “under the circumstances you can hardly criticise his manner.”

“I do not,” she replied; “only, when it was all over, he frightened me almost as much as the boar had done.”

“Ah! Will you describe the fellow to me,” Zarka said, “that I may know him if we meet, as is probable?”

Philippa did so, relating also the way in which[137] D’Alquen had questioned her. The Count was darkly suspicious.

“Anything to do, think you, with the Prince Roel affair?” Harlberg asked, impressed by the other’s gravity.

“Hardly,” Zarka replied with a tolerant smile. He was not playing the game with this dull, uninteresting old soldier, but with his step-daughter. Presently the opportunity came for which he had waited. Harlberg left them together.

“You have passed through a great danger to-day, Fräulein,” Zarka said, changing his manner to one of intensely sympathetic interest. “I blame myself that it is I who am indirectly responsible for it. I wish you would give me the right to protect you from all these risks in future.”

“I am not likely,” she replied coldly, ignoring his tone of caress, “to put myself in the way of such danger again.”

“From wild animals, no; let us hope not. But from men hardly less dangerous. You cannot feel safe there.”

“I hope,” she rejoined, “my life will not be passed in a place like this, where protection seems so necessary.”

He leaned forward. “Why should it not?” he asked earnestly. “Why should it not, much of it, be passed here, as mistress of Rozsnyo?”

[138]She rose, not trusting herself to look at him. “No, no,” she answered. “That cannot be.”

“It may be, easily,” he persisted, following her. “You have only to say the little word, Yes. You will say it, Philippa? You must know how devotedly I love you. Dearest, you will be my wife?”

She shook her head. “I cannot be.”

“Ah!” he cried impatiently, “you do not know what you say. You will be my wife, be queen of this great forest, and of all that is mine.”

He took her hand but she drew it away. “No,” she said. “It is good of you, Count; I appreciate the honour you offer me. But I cannot accept it.”

“Cannot be my wife?” he exclaimed, with the evil gleam in his eyes which opposition to his will ever brought there. “You do not think what you refuse.”

“A great honour; yes.”

“A man who loves you truly with heart and soul.”

“But whom I cannot love.”

“Cannot?” The draught he was swallowing was not a pleasant one, and his face showed it. “Not for your father’s sake, if not for your own?”

“My father,” she replied, “will hardly wish me to marry a man I cannot love.”

[139]He knew, even better than she, that her step-father was the last man in the world to trouble about that side of the question, providing other considerations were favourable; but he could not say so.

“Your father, I know,” he returned positively, “would be glad to see you Countess Zarka.”

“I am sorry,” she replied simply, leaving the unsatisfactory topic of Harlberg’s views, “but it cannot be.”

“And why not?” he demanded, hardly keeping down his chagrin. “There can be but one reason. Your love is, or you fancy it is, given to another man. Tell me if it is so,” he added sharply, as she kept silence.

“It is useless to discuss that,” she answered, meeting his persistency with a touch of dignity. “You must be content with the knowledge that what you wish cannot come to pass.”

“Content!” he echoed. “Content is scarcely the doctrine to preach to me. You might know that, Philippa, and my character better than to suggest it. I do not take your refusal, for it is not logical; it is—I know, though you may not—it is against your best interests. No,” he continued, with the set tone of a determined will, “I am not the man to be content to let another snatch the[140] prize I covet. You will reconsider your answer, Philippa? Yes?”

She shook her head. “No, Count.”

He laughed. “Then let your lover look to himself. He will need great resources and the Devil’s luck into the bargain who enters the lists with Aubray Zarka.”

She looked at him, half fascinated by the power of his remarkable personality. But she did not falter when he held out his hand.

“I do not despair, Philippa,” he said with mock deference.

“I should be sorry to think you did,” she returned, meeting his eyes boldly.

“Ah!” he rejoined, understanding the words as she meant them. “We shall see.” Against her will he kept her hand in his. “It is a pity,” he added suddenly, “that, instead of your uncivil preserver, the gallant Lieutenant Von Tressen did not come along and shoot the boar. That shot would have paid for the other. Is the finger healed?”

He bent down as though to examine her hand, and suddenly, before she could prevent him, pressed it to his lips. Then he laughed again. “Don’t be offended, mein Fräulein; I shall kiss your lips before this day week,” he said.

On leaving the farm Count Zarka rode straight to Rozsnyo. In the hall he encountered Royda d’Ivady, and they went into the library together.

“I, too, have been riding in the forest,” the girl said, “and met your friend, Lieutenant Von Tressen.”

Zarka looked at her sharply. “Ah? Where?”

“He was coming from the direction of the farm, where your friends the Harlbergs are staying.”

Watching him expectantly, she saw his face grow dark. “He had not been to the farm,” he said, for once off his guard.

“Ah, then you have been there, Aubray?” she returned, forcing a laugh.

“I had good reason to go there,” he replied. “A serious thing has happened to Fräulein Harlberg. She was attacked by a wild boar in the forest.”

“So! Then that is what the Lieutenant meant.”

“The Lieutenant?” Zarka exclaimed sharply. “What did he know? What did he say?”

Jealous herself, Royda divined the same feeling[142] in him, and, though it stung her, she rejoiced at it.

“Only that I was wise to ride rather than walk, since there was danger from wild boars.”

“You think he knew that the Fräulein had been attacked?”

She delighted in feeding his jealousy since it soothed her own and seemed, vaguely, to work towards the end she desired.

“I did not understand then,” she answered, “but now have no doubt the Lieutenant knew all about it. Who was privileged to rescue the poor Fräulein?” she went on, with a touch of banter. “You or he?”

“Neither,” he returned curtly.

“She vanquished the animal herself, unaided?”

“What nonsense, Royda!” he exclaimed impatiently. “A stranger shot the brute.”

“A stranger!” she echoed incredulously. “A providential stranger. Did the Fräulein tell you so?”

“Certainly,” he snapped. Then suspiciously: “Did the Lieutenant say he shot it?”

“Oh, no. He said nothing about the affair, except to warn me.”

“But you think he knew of it?”

“I am sure of that,” she answered. All the same she was not quite so sure as her tone implied.

Zarka walked to the window and stood looking[143] out. For a while there was silence, then Royda said, half timidly—

“Aubray, what is this mystery about the Harlbergs?”

He looked round sharply, then turned his head away again. “Mystery? There is no mystery. What makes you think so?”

“It is odd for them to live at that half-ruined farmhouse.”

“They are poor.”

“But none the less attractive.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are there every day, Aubray.”

“I have business with Herr Harlberg.”

She gave a sigh. “It is a strange business——”

“How?” he interrupted sharply.

“That can change you and make you so unkind to me.” A tear glistened in her eye; her pride made her dash it away swiftly ere he turned. He came towards her, the deceitful face smoothed into tenderness, although the irritation was not quite successfully obliterated.

“Unkind, little one?” he protested caressingly. “You are mistaken. I could not be that. Only I have been worried lately by political matters. A man who plays for a great stake must not expect to have command either of his time or his moods. You must forgive me, Royda.”

[144]He spoke in a tone of easy confidence, very different to his strenuous pleading with Philippa Harlberg. He put his arm round his cousin’s shoulders, drew her to him and kissed her. “Am I forgiven, little one?” To a third person the tone of the question would have sounded indifferent as to its answer.

“Aubray, I feared she was trying to take you from me.”

“No; you are utterly wrong,” he assured her quite truthfully. “That is the last thing she would try to do! I swear it, Royda. There is no love between us.”

She gave a sigh of relief.

“Now I must be off again,” he said, releasing her. “You need not be afraid,” he added with a smile. “I am going in the opposite direction to the farm.”

Royda would have liked him to stay, but she knew by experience that he was not to be turned from his intentions, and so forbore to try and keep him. When the door had closed behind him she walked to the window, intent on watching his departure. On a table lay his riding whip. Impulsively she caught it up and kissed it, pressing to her lips that part where his hand must have held it. Then from the window she waved her hand to him, and stood watching till the wood hid him from sight.

[145]“Aubray, Aubray, my darling!” she cried, as she turned away; “you shall be mine. If this woman had come between us and taken your love I would have killed her.”

Gun on shoulder, Zarka had set off on foot towards the higher mountain range which backed with abrupt and majestic elevation the dark forest uplands as they rose towards it. He strode resolutely on, soon leaving the warmer and more smiling valley behind him, following a scarcely perceptible path through the superb terraces of woods, making his way through dense thickets, and taking all the while little heed of the furred and feathered inhabitants of those regions as they scampered or whirred away on his approach. His course was continually on an ascending gradient, and after a good half-hour’s walking it became quite steep. Presently the woods grew thinner and lighter, the air cooler. A quarter of an hour more brought the Count to the verge of the forest on the greatest height at which it grew, and he emerged into the blood-red sunshine and keen, cold air above the summit of the great timber-line. Beneath him, as he stood for a few moments to gain breath, stretched away downwards the vast pine forests, like a green velvet robe reaching to the bosom of the mountain; above him majestically towered[146] the bust and head in the dazzling complexion of their eternal snows, and just then brilliantly decked with prismatic gems under the glittering sunlight.

But Zarka seemed in no mood that day for sight-seeing. After his impatient halt he went on, no longer straight upwards, but by a jagged path formed by a ledge on the side of the mountain. There was no fear about the man; his nerves were as strong as the rock he was climbing. Taking his way up the slippery and uneven mountain track, having on one hand a wall of rock and on the other space with a sheer precipice below him, he never seemed in any danger even when most surrounded by it: his character manifestly dominated the inert threatenings of Nature around him. He was master of his fate and, humanly speaking, could defy it to run counter to his will.

Presently his path broadened, descended abruptly, and finally led on to a mountain road evidently the approach to a pass, one of the few points of communication from one side of the great range to the other. Here were, at least, some signs of life and occasional traffic, although dreary and primitive enough. A walk of a few hundred yards towards the pass brought Zarka to a wretched building which served in that desolate region for an inn. He walked into its one public room, called for a glass of brandy, and threw himself on a bench. A[147] bearded man in a rough country dress, sitting with his head resting on his arm, seemingly half asleep over his glass, was the only other occupant of the room.

“A fine autumn day, friend, but cold,” Zarka observed to him carelessly.

Scarcely troubling to change his attitude, the man replied: “On the mountains, where ’tis never hot, we know not cold.”

When he had spoken he raised his head, and the two men glanced keenly at one another. Then they nodded significantly, resuming their indifferent attitude as the innkeeper came in with the Count’s refreshment. When they were alone again the man rose, crossed the floor with heavy step, and flung himself down on the other end of the bench on which Zarka was sitting. He slid his hand stealthily along the space between them; the Count’s came out furtively to meet it, both men the while looking in front of them across the room. When the hands were raised a little two small envelopes lay on the bench. Talking the casual gossip of an inn, each man moved his hand to the paper which the other’s had held, and so drew it back and slipped it into his pocket. The Count sipped his brandy, or at least made a pretence of doing so, for the rough spirit was not likely to be to his taste.

[148]“We live in dangerous times,” observed the man in a casual tone, which, however, was contradicted by the intense meaning in the look he gave his companion; “dangerous times, and there are many events happening and going to happen which may not be written.”

“That is true enough,” Zarka assented, responding to the look, but speaking in the same phlegmatic tone. “When once it is certain that it is nobody’s business to inquire into matters, why, anything, be it ever so desperate, may be done with impunity.”

“You are right, friend,” the man replied. “But not till then. They who take forbidden paths must walk warily. They know better than to hurry. To rush forward is to court discovery and its consequences.”

Looking straight in front of him Zarka nodded twice, and the action was calculated to leave no doubt in his companion’s mind that he comprehended the drift of his somewhat general remarks, and was fully able to apply them to a particular case. “Whereas,” he said with a half-yawn, “by taking his time a man may tire out the vigilance of his watchers and get through unseen. Yes, my friend, that is very true, and is, no doubt, perfectly understood by those whose secret actions make our history.”

[149]The man, affecting to change his position, touched him sharply. Zarka glanced at him, and then at the door. Probably none but an eye sharpened by suspicion would have detected a form behind it as it stood slightly open. With an alert movement of the arm Zarka knocked over his glass.

“Landlord!” he called, watching the door.

It was pushed open and the man who had stood behind it came in, followed by the innkeeper. Zarka ordered his glass to be refilled, then carelessly turned his attention to the newcomer, and conceived a shrewd idea as to his identity. The astute Count was right in his surmise. It was the man who had shot the boar, he who called himself Abele d’Alquen.

“I always maintain,” Zarka observed, as though resuming a subject interrupted by the accident with the glass, “that the less a man speaks the safer he is. It is best to know nothing; it is next best to keep others ignorant of what we know.”

“A wise saying, friend,” his companion responded. “Since we never know who are our friends and who are our enemies.”

Zarka turned quickly to him, his mouth drawn back in a sinister smile. “Sometimes we do,” he remarked, and the other understood him.

D’Alquen had taken his seat at the long narrow table opposite. He was clearly watching them[150] with hardly a pretence of doing otherwise; there was nothing furtive about those fierce, eager, reckless eyes. Zarka took out a cigar and lighted it.

“How long,” he asked his companion, as he lay back lazily puffing the smoke to the low ceiling, “may we expect the present unsettled weather to last?”

“Who knows?” the other answered. “Come back here this day week, then ask me again,”—he laughed—“and I may tell you for certain.”

After a few casual remarks Zarka rose. “I must be going,” he observed, “if I would be home by nightfall. Luckily my way is downhill. Good-day to you, friend.”

As the Count took up his gun, D’Alquen spoke for the first time. “Have you had sport, sir?”

“Very fair,” Zarka answered, with a particularly courteous bow. “In the forest.”

“You have not brought your bag with you!” D’Alquen remarked, and Zarka thought he understood the half sneer on his face.

“I shoot for sport, not for food,” he retorted. “Good-day.”

As he came out upon the wild road the autumn sun was already well on its downward course, and the mountain peaks had begun to grow indistinct in the gathering mist. Walking at a brisk pace,[151] he soon reached the rocky spur which interposed between him and the great forest. Gaining the precipitous path that led round the chasm he followed it as familiar ground in its windings, its sudden falls and rises. At one point it ran for a few dozen paces across an open plateau where for a short space the wall of rocks was broken. As Zarka advanced across this, suddenly there rose from the great abyss a gigantic figure terrible in its size, awful in its weirdness, a very horror in its human image yet ghostly form, more terrible still in its spectral likeness to the man whom it confronted.

Zarka, startled by the suddenness of the apparition, stopped dead with an involuntary gesture, then laughed aloud, and his laugh was half that of self-derision, half of greeting; a laugh in crescendo, and it seemed as though the spectre joined in and flung back its loud ending.

“An omen!” Zarka cried, and his voice was carried and re-echoed far away, in and out of the rocks and chasms. “My alter ego! Have you come to bid me take courage in answer to my prayer? Have you known my thoughts, and risen to the bidding that was in my heart? Then you are more than mere shadow of mortal man, bugbear of timid ignorance; you are more than this, you must be. You are he that serves us when we have the courage to call you; you are myself![152] Zarka—Aubray Zarka in the forces of Nature, outside this puny flesh; you are my ministering familiar to give me my heart’s desire. Now you will grant it! Give this girl to me in the teeth of my rival, in spite of herself. Turn her heart to me, and let her will be as nothing matched with mine!”

The wild reckless spirit of the superstitious gambler was on him. The habit of speculation, added to the fire in the blood, had changed the sane shrewd schemer to an almost childish omen-seeker.

He stretched out his hands passionately towards the spectre. “Am I not your child—your very self on earth? Shall I not be merged in you, and be as you are when this clay lies cold in the ground? I have power; power of will, power of gold! And my power shall not be mocked. In me the heart to desire is one with the power to have. So, my genius—angel—devil, whate’er you be, in these desperate passes, give me my desire; the brain, the will, the courage—for fair or foul, harden my heart, strengthen my hand. Be with me now, as I shall be with you hereafter. Zarka!”

He shouted the last word in half mocking exaltation, and as he ended the apostrophe the spectral form seemed to bend over him and the cloudy presence to surround and envelop him. It was but the vapour descending as the sun gradually lost[153] its power, just as the apparition had been but the familiar spectre of the mountains.

Nevertheless Zarka seemed, with a gambler’s superstition, to regard it as an omen and an answer to his profane prayer. He threw back his head and stretched his arms as though he would embrace what was but his own shadow. Then, with a more practical impulse, he snatched up his gun, and ran quickly on along the path, racing the great cumuli which were rolling down from the mountain tops. He had started only just in time, and, familiar with the way, was able to keep in front of the pursuing obscurity. Soon he reached in safety the dividing ground between the snow and the commencing line of vegetation. Here all was bright and warm once more. Zarka, pausing with the air of a man who has won his race, looked backwards up towards the rolling mists and laughed.

“Just in time! A few seconds more of apostrophizing, and not even my tutelar deity or demon could have saved me from an uncomfortable night. Well, I shall enjoy my dinner all the more from the knowledge that I very nearly missed it. May I be as lucky elsewhere!”

He went on, soon plunging down into the sloping forest, and leisurely making his way homewards.

The giant trees of the great forest streaked the velvety glades with their lengthening shadows as the autumn sun touched the broken outline of the mountain screen and sent the last of its blaze sweeping through the valley and flooding its alleys with purple light. A solitary ray, finding, as it were, the clue to the maze where the forest was thickest, stretched with insistent brilliance across a natural arbour which lay in the most sheltered recesses of the woodland depths. This somewhat abnormal feature of the sylvan region reared itself in a hollow a score of paces from one of the forest paths, and was formed in the largest of the rocks which here for a space of perhaps fifty yards square bulged out and reared themselves, a rough excrescence on the plush-like ground, and, as it might seem, an outpost of the huge battalions towering in their grandeur but a short league away.

On one side of this rocky dell the overhanging escarpment formed a shallow recess, and in this, on the rough bench afforded by a ledge of[155] rock, sat Philippa and Von Tressen. The light falling athwart the retreat and intercepted and split up by the sharp angles of the projecting roof, just tinged with a stray glimmer the girl’s gold-brown hair and sparkled in the jewel on the hand which lay on her lover’s arm. They had met that afternoon by arrangement, and Philippa had chosen the way to that secluded spot as lying in a part of the forest where riding was hardly practicable, and so out of Count Zarka’s beat. Von Tressen had divined the reason and gently taxed her with it.

“Why need you seek so far for a motive,” she returned with laughing evasion. “Is this all the thanks I get for bringing you to see this romantic dell? It is the beauty spot of, at any rate, this part of the forest. I found it out by accident the other day, and——”

“Thought it wanted only one thing to complete its romance,” he laughed.

“No, sir; I thought nothing of the sort. It was before——” she stopped suddenly.

But it was too late. “Before you knew me, Philippa?” he supplied, with all an accepted lover’s confidence. “Yes? Now you shall not deny it. Did it seem as delightful then as it does to-day?”

“Hardly,” she returned archly. “There was no sun that day; it was grey and dull, but the place was lovely nevertheless.”

[156]“Nothing like this?” he urged.

“I am glad to see it in the glory of the sunlight,” she said, still baffling him.

“And with me, Philippa?”

“I wanted to bring you to see it,” she replied fencingly, although her eyes played traitor to her tone of laughing indifference. “It has been a long walk, and I hope you are grateful. You know, sir, you would probably never have discovered it for yourself; or if you had passed by, your mind would have been so full of partridges and hares that you would never have noticed it.”

“And so Count Zarka has nothing to do with our coming here?” he persisted, only half convinced, and still unable to feel happy on the subject.

“Why must you harp on the Count?” she protested with a little natural impatience. “Can you not enjoy the short hour we have without letting that shadow come between us? Is it not as well that we took this secluded way, or would you rather we went where the Count would be likely to light upon us? I did not know you thought so much of him.”

“I think very little of him, dearest,” he replied. “I only wish you regarded him as indifferently as I. It is because I feel you do not that I confess I am not satisfied.”

“You silly boy!” she laughed. “I tell you the Count is nothing to me.”

[157]“You are not afraid of him?”

“No, no,” she protested.

“You are, Philippa,” he maintained. “Do tell me why,” he added persuasively.

“No,” she replied, with an effort to mask the troubled thought which lay behind her words. “How can I, when I tell you it is not so? Count Zarka is nothing to me.”

“An object of fear?”

“No; why should he be?”

“That is what you must tell me.”

“Osbert,” she said impetuously, “you are determined to make me wretched. Can you not, to please me, dismiss the subject of Count Zarka? I hate it as I hate him.”

“Yet you are always with him?” he persisted dubiously.

“Can I help it if he comes every day to the farm? He has business with my father.”

Von Tressen’s face was troubled. It was clear he felt far from satisfied. But what more could he urge? His expression darkened as though a cloud of gloom had drifted over him. For some moments there was silence. Then Philippa laid her hand lovingly on his arm.

“Osbert,” she pleaded; “you are unkind to me; unkind to let these suspicions run in your mind. Can you not trust me? Is your love so shallow that[158] it cannot believe my word against all appearances? Does it ask so much that I must prove to you that I love you and hate Zarka? How can I do that?”

His answer was ready. “Will you tell your father and the Count that we are betrothed?”

She met his eyes steadfastly. “In a week,” she answered without faltering.

“Not now?”

“Osbert, is this fair?”

His innate chivalry ousted his jealous suspicion. “Forgive me, darling,” he said, as love lighted up his face and its gloom vanished; “forgive me that I am so unkind. I do not deserve that you should love me when I torment you so. But I distrust this man Zarka; I know him to be bad and unscrupulous, and, worst of all, to be in love with you. Is it a wonder that I am troubled when I see the fear he inspires you with?”

“No, no; not fear,” she protested.

“I am sure you fear him, dear one.”

“Then you are wrong. Avoidance does not necessarily imply fear. Why will you persist in thinking that? You must have faith in me, Osbert.”

He could hardly resist that appeal backed by the love that was in the look she gave him. “I am offending again; how can I ask for pardon?” he said lovingly. “Only if you knew how I long for[159] the end of this mystery—for there surely is a mystery, Philippa—to call you mine before the world, to defy and triumph over this scheming fellow, Zarka, you would not be hard on me. I want the sunshine for our love, not to have to lurk with it in the shade.”

“And it shall be,” she returned in the same tone. “Only one week, and the mist shall clear away, if indeed there be one?”

“Is there not?” he asked, smiling wistfully.

“Need there be?” she rejoined. “Is not the sun upon us now. Ah, how lovely, it is! Osbert, why will you torment yourself by seeing nothing but gloom?”

“I am a fool,” he said, as his trouble seemed to vanish. “At any rate, if there is a little cloud over us, I might know that the sun is behind it. My sun my glorious love, Philippa, my darling.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. Suddenly she gave a cry and started up pushing him excitedly from her.

“Philippa!” he cried. “What is it?”

Her eyes were fixed on the irregular wall of rock which ran along the opposite side of the dell. “There,” she exclaimed under her breath, in terror as though not daring to raise her voice, “there, in that cleft, a man’s eyes; so horrible! Ah!”

[160]She shuddered in fear.

“I can see nothing, dearest,” her lover said, reassuringly.

“They are gone now,” she returned, hardly daring to look towards the place. “But I saw them; they were there, glaring at us.”

“I will soon satisfy you,” he cried, leaving her and hurrying forward.

But she followed and clung to him. “No, no! Osbert, my love, stay here! Do not go; there is danger,” she implored.

It was scarcely the argument to avail with a soldier, and with a confident smile he released himself.

“I must go and see,” he insisted. “I will not have you frightened, dear one.”

He ran to a spot where the rocks shelved down and afforded a possibility of climbing. It was not by any means an easy ascent, but to an active man it was quicker than going by the level outlet round to the back of the rocks. Philippa followed him half way across the hollow; then stopped, watching him breathlessly. In a few seconds he stood on the rocky escarpment and looked all round.

“No one here; no one to be seen,” he called to her encouragingly.

But the fear did not leave her face: she was not reassured.

[161]“Come back, Osbert,” she exclaimed, “You will find no one there now.”

He stayed a little, making a cursory examination of the place, and then rejoined her.

“Nothing to be seen,” he announced cheerfully, “Not a sign of man or beast.”

“I am certain there was some one there,” she insisted. “Ah, those hateful eyes!”

He put his arm round her protectingly. “Dearest, you must not alarm yourself so. It was not another of your wild boars, was it?”

“No, no. It was a man.”

“Need you be afraid of him? It was not the only man in the world, or in the forest,” he added with a confident smile. Then his face darkened a little as he said, “Was it the Count?”

“Count Zarka?” She spoke with an effort, “I could not tell. No. How could it have been he? Osbert, you are sure you saw no one?”

“Quite sure,” he answered. He could see that it needed all her self-command to restrain the betrayal of her fear. “Let us go back to our seat,” he said, “and watch for the mysterious eyes to re-appear, I promise you their owner shall not escape me a second time.”

“No, no,” she objected, “I must be going homewards now. It is getting late, and my father will wonder at my absence.”

[162]“Must you go so soon, Philippa?” he protested.

“Yes, indeed,” she answered, evidently anxious to get away from the place. “We can walk slowly,” she added with a smile that bore down his protest. “I love sauntering through the forest, it is a shame to hurry; but you know we have a long way to go.”

With that they went up out of the dell, Von Tressen looking round him sharply as they gained the level ground outside, but seeing nothing that could account for Philippa’s fright.

“Why did you ask me whether it was Count Zarka?” she said presently.

“Your fear put it into my head,” he answered frankly.

“Are there no other living things to fear in the forest?” she demanded, regaining a more confident tone as they left the somewhat eerie dell behind them. “You forget how lately my life was in peril, and can hardly wonder if my nerves are shaken.”

“I dare say it is to be accounted for by that,” he said reassuringly. “You have plenty of courage, Philippa, more than most women, and that makes me wonder at your evident fear of the Count.”

“It is you who make a bugbear of him,” she objected, although not very convincingly. “Ah——”

With the exclamation she caught her lover’s arm and drew him back from the glade they had been about to cross. Von Tressen had seen nothing and[163] looked at her for an explanation. The fear had returned to her face, which had now gone white to the lips.

“What is it?” he asked, trying to bend forward and see. But she held him fast, as, with an effort, she recovered herself.

“The very man we were speaking of,” she answered in a hurried undertone. “Don’t let him see you. Do we want a third person on our walk home?”

“Hardly,” Von Tressen laughed, as they slipped back among the thick underwood. But it was too late, for the Count came down the ride at a hand gallop and hailed them. His quick eyes had doubtless detected their presence at the moment Philippa saw him.

There was a note of jeering exultation in the Count’s voice as he called to them, as it were a warning that it was no use their trying to escape him. They were clearly in view and could but come forward.

“So our forest has even now no terrors for you, Fräulein,” the Count cried, hiding, as was his wont, any particular feeling that may have been uppermost in his mind. “I trust—— Ah, I see you have a protector. It is good. Well met, Lieutenant.”

His greeting was suave, almost hearty, a good deal too polite, both the lovers thought. He met Von Tressen’s salute with his characteristic fixed smile, and turned to Philippa.

“You are coming back to Gorla’s? Yes? You will let me bear you company.”

Intention rather than request was suggested by his tone. The proposal could not well be refused, and although Von Tressen looked doubtfully at[165] Philippa, as though he rather expected her to decline the additional escort, she made but a feeble demur.

“We shall be taking you out of your way, Count.”

Zarka waved his arm deprecatingly. “My way,” he returned readily, “when I can choose it, is always the pleasantest.”

There was no further objection to be made after the flourish of that compliment. Zarka had turned his horse, and all three went down the glade abreast, Von Tressen scarcely hiding his disappointment at the intrusion, the Count chattering volubly with an excess of small-talk in which Philippa joined with an effort. Zarka was quite amusing, although neither of his companions quite appreciated either his witty turns of speech or his more obvious jokes; but he kept up the flow, as it seemed quite spontaneously, and insisted from time to time upon drawing Von Tressen into the conversation by direct appeals to his opinion, very much to the Lieutenant’s disgust. Chafing at the man’s intrusive presence, Von Tressen presently saw his opportunity for an attempt to get rid of him. As they reached a certain point in the forest path he stopped.

“Our nearest way to Gorla’s Farm is through here,” he said, indicating a way amid the trees. “We must bid you good-evening now, Count.”

“The path is quite as short,” Zarka declared,[166] checking an ugly look. “I am sure you will not deprive me of the pleasure of your company.”

“The Fräulein is tired,” Von Tressen maintained. “It would scarcely be fair to ask her to walk all the way round by the road.”

“I tell you that way is equally short,” Zarka insisted, with a grin such as the wolf may have used to mask his feelings towards Little Red Riding Hood.

“You must pardon me, Count,” Von Tressen replied sturdily, “I know this part of the forest well. We cut off a good quarter of a mile by taking the way I suggest. Were we all three mounted the longer route would be of no account.”

The suggestion of selfishness was so obvious that the Count found a direct answer inconvenient.

“The other would be impossible, then,” he remarked curtly.

“But now,” Von Tressen pursued, “as we two are on foot and the Fräulein has walked far, I feel I ought to insist upon her taking the short cut.”

Zarka gave a scornful laugh. “You insist?” Then he snarled, “I tell you there is no difference.”

“Pardon me, Count, you are mistaken.”

“And you are somewhat presumptuous, Herr Lieutenant,” Zarka flung back with a vicious flash in his eyes, “to think to teach me my way about the forest.”

[167]All this time Philippa had remained silent; the veiled altercation had been so rapidly carried on as to give her scarcely an opportunity of interposing. But now, when it was evident that neither man would give way, and that a quarrel was imminent, she spoke.

“Let us keep to the path. It is good of you, Herr Lieutenant, to wish to spare me fatigue, but I am not so very tired.”

The look she gave Von Tressen as she appealed to him was such that he could no longer continue to insist upon the shorter way. There was in it entreaty and distress which, even putting aside his love, he could not ignore. So, distasteful as it was to yield to such an adversary, he could only bow and acquiesce.

“After all, the Fräulein is the judge; we forget that, Lieutenant,” Zarka observed, with a little exulting laugh as they moved on again.

The talk was now not quite so easy. Zarka addressed his whole conversation to Philippa, by his manner ignoring Von Tressen altogether. It was a great relief to her when the house was reached, and at the gate she turned to her lover and bade him farewell, the words she spoke and which Zarka could hear being but an inconsiderable part of the message which her eyes gave, and which that amiable noble could not see. It was naturally most[168] distasteful to Von Tressen to have to leave them together, and he chafed at the idea that the Count was free of the house while he remained an outsider; but he told himself that for a week to come he must bear it, and was too high-minded and chivalrous to attempt to stay against Philippa’s wish. But as he walked away, after exchanging formal salutations with the Count, his mind began again to dwell bitterly on the mystery which lay between him and his love, and which he so longed to bring to an end.

He was roused from thoughts which at every step were becoming more tormenting, by the thud of a cantering horse behind him. Feeling somewhat happier in the knowledge that Zarka had not stayed at the farm, he resolved not to turn or take any notice of him, but to let him ride on, which doubtless after what had passed between them, would be the other’s intention. But it was not so. As he drew level, Zarka reined in his horse, and addressed Von Tressen in a sharp tone which was more of a novelty than a surprise.

“I should like a few words with you, Herr Lieutenant.”

“I am at your service, Count,” he responded, with as much show of indifference as he could command.

“We need not stop,” Zarka proceeded, for the[169] Lieutenant had halted and faced round. “What I have to say,” he continued, “is a simple affair. It is merely to warn you off forbidden ground. You understand?”

“Hardly.” The sternness of Von Tressen’s face as he answered showed that he had at least a suspicion of what the other was driving at. “I should like to know where I have trespassed.”

“I am referring to Fräulein Harlberg,” Zarka said bluffly. The suave manner was gone, politeness was a negligible factor now.

“Kindly explain yourself, Count,” Von Tressen said, with a touch of defiance.

“Certainly,” Zarka returned, with a confident smile. To be forced to speak out was manifestly nowise distasteful to him. “I have to request, Lieutenant,” he proceeded in a sharp tone of authority, “that you will discontinue your woodland rambles with the Fräulein.”

Von Tressen flushed hotly. “By what right, do you make that demand?”

“I have a perfect right to do so,” Zarka returned coolly. “But for the moment it is enough that I am commissioned by Herr Harlberg to convey this request to you.”

“If Herr Harlberg objects to my escort for his daughter,” Von Tressen retorted warmly, “he may tell me so himself. As for your demand,[170] Count, I regard it as an insult. I am a soldier and noble, and——”

“No doubt,” Zarka interrupted with a deprecating wave of the hand. “We need not go into that. It is not the question. If you choose to ignore the communication of Herr Harlberg’s wishes, so be it. Now, Lieutenant, I have to inform you that I object.”

“You?”

“I. Aubray, Count Zarka.” The teeth were showing now in the wolfish grin as he reined up his horse, and the two men faced each other.

“On what ground, pray, Count Zarka?”

The lord of Rozsnyo gave a shrug of haughty indifference. “Is it necessary to explain that—even to you?” he asked with a sneer.

“If you please.” The young man insisted sternly.

The Count met his look with a scornful smile. “There can be but one reason. If you are so dense that you cannot comprehend it, I must leave you to find out. Only I have warned you, and you will do well not to slight my warning.”

“I shall do as I please, Count,” Von Tressen replied, longing to refute his suggestion by proclaiming himself Philippa’s betrothed husband, and yet restrained in honour from violating his implied promise to her. “As a man of the world, you must be aware that the Fräulein herself is the[171] proper person to determine who her companion shall be. And I shall certainly not avoid her society unless she bids me do so.”

“So!” Zarka’s exclamation was not unlike a bark. “If you do not take warning when it is given you, my young friend, you may find yourself in trouble—or worse.” There was an evil blaze in the fierce eyes as he spoke, like the light in those of a thwarted beast of prey. “My intention was not to argue but to warn you off.”

“And I,” Von Tressen retorted, “have no intention of submitting to any interference, even from Count Zarka.”

“Then you defy me?” the Count cried, with an ugly scowl.

Von Tressen smiled. “I hope there is no question of defiance, Count,” he replied coolly. “But if you mean to suggest that you expect me to be afraid of you, I must ask you to excuse me.”

“You are a bold fellow,” Zarka returned, with, at any rate, the semblance of coolness. “No man has ever yet successfully defied Aubray Zarka. If you think it worth while to try to be an exception do not blame me for the consequences. You do not know my power. I have warned you.”

“I am a soldier, Count,” Von Tressen rejoined simply, “and my profession admits fear of nothing but dishonour.”

[172]“We shall see,” Zarka sneered, as he saluted and rode on.

He had, before riding after Von Tressen, spoken but a few hurried, darkly resentful words to Philippa, judging, perhaps, that it was hardly a favourable moment for making headway with his suit.

“Let me thank you, Fräulein,” he had said, “for coming my way instead of the Lieutenant’s. I hope you are not very tired?”

“I am rather,” she answered coldly.

“And yet,” he said significantly, “your walk was broken by a long rest, and doubtless a pleasant one.”

She looked up bravely at the dark face bent insinuatingly down to her.

“A long rest, Count?” she repeated, as though not comprehending.

“Among the rocks,” he replied meaningly.

Then she knew for certain that the eyes that had glared at her from between the rocks were those of no wild animal, but of a being far more evil-minded and quite as pitiless.

That night Von Tressen and Galabin agreed to make a determined attempt to solve the mystery they had found at Rozsnyo.

“There seems no object in delay,” Galabin had argued. “If the place is watched by Zarka’s people, the patrol will continue as long as there is any reason for it. No; our friend the Count is certainly a highly suspicious character, and the sooner one tries to find out something more about him the better. For I cannot pretend that as yet there is anything very tangible to report to Gersdorff.”

So after dark the two friends set out once more, taking this time an indirect route so as to approach Rozsnyo from the depth of the wood, not by the customary path from the valley. Their object was, naturally, to elude the vigilance of the man D’Alquen whom they rather expected to find there, and whom they imagined to be in some way connected with Zarka and his proceedings.

[174]They made their way cautiously through the darkness of the wood till they calculated they were near the castle. With increased wariness they now went forward, careful to give no sign of their approach to any one who might be on the look-out. A half-smothered exclamation from Galabin made his companion start and look round on the alert, Galabin pointed straight in front. Von Tressen could see nothing; he crept to his friend’s side, and so, coming within the same line of vision, saw plainly what the trees before had intercepted. A light.

“If it should be from that mysterious window?” Galabin whispered.

They went forward now quickly and silently, anxious to get a nearer view of the light before it should disappear. Quickly they came to the edge of the wood. Yes; they were in luck. There, in the midst of what was usually a dead, blank wall, was the open window, and from it through the darkness streamed evidence of a lighted room within.

“Quick! Up into the tree!” Galabin urged his companion in a whisper. Von Tressen was already preparing to climb, and was soon hidden in the branches. “At any rate the window has stayed for him this time,” Galabin muttered to himself, as he waited with eyes fixed on the light which showed no sign of disappearing.

Presently a slight rustling above announced that[175] the Lieutenant was descending. “Well?” Galabin asked anxiously, as the other alighted beside him.

Von Tressen shook his head with a disappointed look. “Nothing to be seen,” he answered. “One can look into the window well enough; only a kind of low screen runs before it, which effectually hides everything but the cornice round the walls of the room. But that it is a room, and that some one is in it, I am certain, for once I saw a shadow move along the wall.”

“You are sure there is no chance of seeing who is there?”

“Positively none at all; that is, from the tree.”

“The screen before the window makes it more suspicious than ever,” Galabin observed thoughtfully.

“Assuredly it does. Especially as it seems, so far as one could make out, a fixed affair.”

“Osbert,” Galabin said suddenly, “we are bound to see what is behind. We must get to the bottom of the mystery. And if we cannot see through the window, we must get a sight from above.”

“Is it possible?” the Lieutenant asked doubtfully, as he surveyed the high massive walls looming black in front of them.

“I think so,” Galabin answered. “I took the liberty of reconnoitring the walls from the wood to-day, as you know, and believe I have discovered a[176] place where at least the attempt to scale them may be made. But where is our inquisitive friend, Herr D’Alquen?”

“No sign of him.”

“We must not rely on that. Now let us keep in the shadow thrown by this light, creep across the dip as though he were watching for us, and so make our way round the walls. I took the bearings of the point where our chance seems to lie.”

Accordingly they crossed stealthily to the walls, and then made their way round with the utmost caution till Galabin, who went first, made a sign that the point he had indicated was reached. Here the wall dropped considerably and was grown over with ivy. It seemed a disused, half-ruinous, certainly neglected, part of the building.

“We ought to be able to reach the top from here,” Galabin whispered. “Whether it will be possible to work our way along when we are up there is another question, but in the daylight I could see nothing to forbid it.”

“At any rate we will make a good attempt,” replied Von Tressen, eager for the adventure. “Let me go first.”

“I have brought a long strap with me,” Galabin said, unbuckling it from his waist. “It may give us just the help we want. Take it with you; you are the better climber.”

[177]Winding the stout strap round him, Von Tressen began, without more ado, to work his way up the ivy-grown wall. Noiselessness being imperative, the business was not easy, especially as many of the branches on the line of ascent were not strong enough to bear a man’s weight. However, with some difficulty he reached the top of the wall, and by the aid of the strap Galabin was soon up beside him. Then began a long crawl, not without danger, along the uneven wall, which at that part formed a sort of battlement rising to a considerable height above the roof. Carefully feeling their way as they went, the two were making steady though tedious progress towards their goal when it was checked by a sudden rise in the wall, of such a height and angle that its ascent was almost impossible, certainly most hazardous. Galabin had not failed to notice this, but had scarcely realized what a bar to their attempt it was likely to be.

“We cannot manage this,” Von Tressen said, after standing up and examining the obstacle as well as he could. “It would be sheer madness to attempt it, at any rate until we have failed in every other way. We must let ourselves down to the roof and try our luck there. In any case we should hardly be able to pass the tower.”

Promptly lowering himself till he hung from the wall by his hands, he took hold of the strap and[178] his companion let him slowly down. Galabin’s own descent was naturally less easy; he had to hang at arm’s length and so drop on to Von Tressen’s shoulders, and had not the Lieutenant been an athlete the feat might have had a disastrous ending. However, the descent was accomplished in safety, and now began their progress along the edge of the roof under the parapet. It occurred to them both they had been foolish not to have tried that way from the first, since their advance was easier and they were securely hidden from any one who might be watching from outside.

A few yards on Von Tressen whispered back—

“There is the light! You were right, Horaz.”

They had reached and were passing the tower flanking the wall in which was the mysterious window. The roof rose higher there, but a little way above and beyond them was to be seen a hazy brightness as rising from the skylight of a room below. The climb to the higher roof presented little difficulty, and as the two men reached it each felt a thrill of excitement at the thought that the solution of the mystery was now about to be theirs. What were they going to look down upon? Noiselessly now, with the utmost caution, they crept forwards on hands and knees, nearer to the light, nearer still, checking their impatience with the thought that a slip or the slightest noise might mean[179] failure, and more, might cost them their reputations if not their lives.

Foot by foot they drew themselves towards the lighted roof, till at last they could make out how it was contrived. Above the level rose an iron frame about six inches high and perhaps ten feet square. As they reached the structure they found it crossed and recrossed by stout iron bars bolted to the frame, and beneath there was a skylight of opaque glass. So their curiosity was baffled, for, although a light shone from the room below, it was impossible to distinguish any object in it.

They held a whispered consultation.

“We are not going to be beaten like this,” Von Tressen said. “We must get a look down somehow.”

It was not so easy. The roof window had evidently been constructed to guard not only against admittance either way, but also against observation.

“The only thing to do is to examine it closely,” Galabin whispered. “We may find a peephole.”

Silently they crawled round the edge of the framework examining every pane they could reach. All to no purpose; the painted glass tantalizingly refused to reveal the secret it covered. When they had completed the circuit of the frame Galabin suggested that he, as the lighter man, should venture out on to the cross bars and try for better luck[180] in the centre. This was not an easy task, especially as it had to be effected without noise.

“Take care how you come back,” Von Tressen warned him. “That will be the most difficult part.”

Very slowly Galabin crawled out, snake-wise, upon the bars, gently feeling, as he went, the glass below each interstice. The Lieutenant watched him anxiously, rather chafing at his own inaction. Presently his attention was quickened as he became aware that Galabin was resting longer than usual over a certain square. Then as he anxiously watched, he saw his companion raise his arm and motion him to join him, but from the side running at right angles, no doubt to distribute the strain on the bars. Von Tressen at once began to crawl round and so towards his companion, his eagerness being restrained only by the warning hand which was still uplifted. It did not take long, however, to bring their heads close together, and Von Tressen could see that Galabin’s search had been rewarded.

Almost in the centre of the skylight a pane of glass was defective. It moved slightly in its leaden casing, and one corner had either been left clear through carelessness, or a scrap of the colouring with which it had been covered had by some means been removed. Anyhow there was left practically a peephole through which nearly the whole of the[181] room beneath was clearly visible. Galabin raised his head, and signed to Von Tressen to look down.

This is what he saw.

A fair-sized room, comfortably furnished, the walls surrounded with heavy curtains, the floor covered with a Turkey carpet. At one end the curtains were looped back, showing an alcove in which was a small bed. In the outer wall was also an uncurtained space containing the mysterious window, and before this ran the screen which had prevented their seeing into the room. It was a substantial affair of painted iron, which appeared to be securely fastened to the wall by bars at either end. In the room, at a table on which stood a lamp, sat a man reading. His head was bent over the book, and he seemed to be wearing some curious kind of cap, but from his position it was not possible to see his face. So he sat almost motionless, as the two men by turns observed him, reading steadily with one elbow resting on the table, his head on his hand, while with the other he occasionally turned the leaf.

For a long time they watched him, half fascinated, for, apart from his surroundings, there was a suggestion of strangeness and mystery about the figure. Suddenly he closed the book and pushed it from him, then threw up his hands, stretching back in an attitude of weariness. As he did so Galabin, who[182] was at that moment in possession of the spy-hole, started back in amazement. Von Tressen in wonder looked through, and saw the cause of his action. The man below in throwing up his head disclosed a strange sight. For the face which the watchers had expected to see was covered by a mask, a white mask, bearing some resemblance to a ghastly human face, and fastened on by the curious head-piece which had puzzled them.

The man lay back in his chair with limbs stretched out, and the hideous face upturned for several minutes, during which the two men above watched him in uncomfortable fascination. Presently he sat upright, and turned his head towards the farther end of the room. Although of course there was a hideous absence of expression, yet the action was one of expectancy. The curtains moved, then parted, and a man came into the room, a short, thick-set, determined-looking fellow, in Magyar costume. He moved quickly across the room, carrying a pistol in his hand. Taking from his pocket a small winch he fitted it to a keyhole by the window and turned it. As he did so the mystery of its disappearance was solved, for, from the side an iron shutter moved noiselessly across the window, completely closing the aperture. This was, no doubt, on the outside made to match the stone wall, and so give no hint of an opening.

[183]Having returned the winch to his pocket, the man went to the table and spoke a few words to the masked prisoner, for such he evidently was. Whether the other replied or not it was impossible for the watchers to tell. The jailor then left the room, and the prisoner, turning down the lamp, rose and went towards the alcove where the bed stood. The lamp flickered out, and only the faint flame of a candle remained. Galabin touched his companion, and withdrawing from the grating as silently as they had come, they made their way back along the roof, lowered themselves to the ground, and reached the wood without incident.

Next morning Count Zarka received a letter which occasioned him a considerable amount of uneasiness. It reached him by the hand of a peasant from the mountain district, and its perusal caused the thin lips to be drawn back, and the cruel teeth displayed in a grin which was very far from suggesting pleasure. Written by the man whom he had met at the mountain inn, the letter contained very few words, and those simply words of warning. But they caused the noble Count to meditate deeply. For he was playing a double game, and it presently occurred to him that if the information hindered him in one direction he might turn it to his advantage in the other. So after a hurried breakfast he ordered his horse and rode off towards the farm. He did not take the shortest path though, but one which led him past Von Tressen’s encampment. With his inscrutable grin he gave the two friends good morning, and made them wonder whether he had found out anything of the night’s doings.[185] So they waited expectantly through his airy small-talk for a clue to the real object of his visit, which they felt sure was not paid for nothing.

They had not to wait long.

“By the way, talking of sport,” their amiable visitor observed carelessly, “have you come across another sportsman, almost as solitary as yourselves, who haunts this part of the forest?”

“Yes,” answered Galabin, to whom Von Tressen looked to reply; “there is a man who shoots about here.”

“Ah!” Zarka was still almost indifferent. “I have heard of him but never seen him. A dark, fierce-looking fellow, eh? A forbidding appearance, I am told.”

“Not half as forbidding as some one I know,” thought Galabin, but he said: “Dark certainly, and rather fierce looking.”

“You know him? Yes?”

“Slightly.”

“Ah!” In spite of his patent indifference the Count was becoming interested. “It is curious that a man should wander about here in that fashion. What is your idea of his object? Is he really a sporting enthusiast?”

“He says so,” Galabin answered guardedly.

“Ah, it is singular,” Zarka observed meditatively. “You have seen much of him?”

[186]“No, very little. We asked him to join us at luncheon one day.”

“So! And what opinion did you form of the mysterious one?”

Galabin laughed, as much at their visitor’s curiosity as the recollection of its object. “That he was the most inquisitive person I had ever had the honour to meet.”

The Count raised his eyebrows, and plunged forward his head in surprise. “Inquisitive? About sport?”

“About everything.”

“So? A strange fellow, almost suspicious. May I ask if so humble a person as myself had the honour of awakening his curiosity?”

“Oh, yes,” Galabin answered pleasantly, “The mysterious one asked several questions about you, Count.”

The grin widened, as usual not with mirth.

“So? And doubtless about the only other dwellers in these parts—our friends at the farm?”

“A question or two.”

Between scheming thought and an affectation of amused indifference Zarka was a study.

“I am inclined to be suspicious of the man,” he said. “Did his questions seem merely prompted by idle curiosity, or to have some intent behind them?”

[187]Galabin laughed; he was rather enjoying their visitor’s uneasiness. “It is hard to say, Count,” he answered slily, “since many people have a trick of pretending to be less in earnest than they really are. Certainly your friend seemed eager to know all we could tell him, but that may have been the effect of an exaggerated manner.”

“Just so,” Zarka replied, in a tone which showed he hardly accepted the suggestion. “Did he tell you his name?”

“He called himself D’Alquen.”

“D’Alquen?” The Count was evidently fixing it in his memory. “Perhaps if I have the pleasure of meeting Herr D’Alquen I may be able to satisfy his curiosity on my own account.”

That there was an ugly threat behind his words both his hearers agreed.

“I wonder,” Von Tressen laughed, when their visitor had departed, “what he would think of our somewhat practical curiosity if he knew of it?”

Galabin smiled grimly. “There would probably be two vacancies forthwith in his Majesty’s service, one in the civil department and one in the military. The forest over which our gallant Count rules as Obergespan would make an admirable oubliette: no trace of either of us would be seen again.”

Zarka rode on to the farm, and with the luck of[188] which he often boasted met Philippa at a little distance from the house. Perhaps the smile with which he received her rather blank greeting was occasioned by the idea that she was probably going out to avoid his visit.

“I do not want to worry your father,” he said, “but I have a piece of bad news for you.”

With her insight into the man’s character, a thrill of apprehension ran through her at the words. True or not, she felt this was his first move in the game against her, and if the bad news had its origin in him alone, it was none the less to be dreaded.

“What is it?” she asked, striving bravely to show no sign of alarm.

“We are threatened by what I feared,” he answered, taking from his pocket the letter he had received that morning. “Read that.”

She took it and read the few words it contained.

“Man who followed to inn dangerous. Tried afterwards to rob me. On a peculiar track. Beware.”

Philippa looked up blankly. “I do not understand it.”

Smiling mysteriously, Zarka held out his hand for the paper. “Hardly,” he replied; “it is meant to be obscure, since the sender, a trustworthy friend of mine, did not know into whose hands it might fall. But I will explain the meaning. It refers[189] to a dangerous person who is just now haunting the forest for no good purpose.”

“A robber?”

He shook his head. “Not a robber. The word rob is used to mislead. What he really means is that the man tried to get information out of him. I was shooting in the mountains, and he was following and watching me, as he is constantly watching you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. And for the purpose hinted at here,” he answered, tapping the letter. “You know the man.”

His identity had not occurred to her, but now she realized who it must be. “The man who shot the wild boar?”

Zarka nodded. “No other. You guess his purpose?”

Philippa shook her head. He took a newspaper from his pocket and pointed to a column devoted to Prince Roel’s disappearance. She glanced at a few lines of exaggerated language and then asked: “Need I read all this?”

“Not all,” he answered with a shrug. “But at least a passage here which will explain the object of my visit and my friend’s letter.”

He indicated a paragraph, and she read—

“The theory that the unfortunate Prince’s mysterious disappearance and much-to-be-feared[190] death is attributable to an unhappy love affair, in which he was made the victim of a lady’s caprice, still holds ground, and it is terrible to think of the dire results to which a woman’s thoughtlessness, or worse, may lead. It is reported, although we do not vouch for the truth of the news, that a near kinsman and close friend of Prince Roel has left Markaynar with the object of seeking out and taking vengeance on those who may have been responsible for his death.”

Zarka watched her as she read, and as she came to the end of the paragraph their eyes met. “You understand now?” he said.

“This is the man?”

“None other. You may be certain of that.”

She hardly needed his assurance, since D’Alquen’s manner to her after the boar was killed was stronger evidence than Zarka’s word. She recalled his strange words and felt sure.

“But how comes he here?” she asked.

It was a question that Zarka found it inconvenient to answer by more than a shrug.

“How could he tell that I was here?” she went on. “Why should he watch me? How connect me with Prince Roel’s death?”

“I fancy,” he replied, noting her rising fear, “that he is not certain of your responsibility or——” He paused, still watching cat-like.

[191]“Or what?”

“He would not need to watch. He would strike.”

“A woman?” she exclaimed, betwixt fear and indignation.

“You who know the man can tell better than I,” he replied significantly. “I should say his notions of chivalry are not exactly occidental.”

“Then,” she said, “the sooner we escape from this place and go back to civilization and protection the better.”

He had expected her to suggest that expedient, and laughed.

“Civilization and protection are scarcely synonymous terms,” he said. “Are crime and lawlessness confined to the mountains and forests? To return to such a city as ours, nay, to seek refuge in any capital in Europe would be to court, to facilitate the blow. Wait one moment,” he continued, with an abrupt change of tone. “I have a suspicion.”

Leaving his horse, he walked stealthily to the edge of the clearing just beyond where they stood. She followed him with her eyes, her mind full of dark anxious thoughts. He turned and beckoned, holding up his hand to warn her to come cautiously. When she joined him he, without a word, leaned forward and pointed. Above, on the brow of the rising ground, on the outskirts of the wood, in[192] almost the very place where he had been accosted by Von Tressen and Galabin, stood D’Alquen, gun in hand, like a sentry, watching the farm. After a glance at him Philippa drew back, and her companion’s face said plainly, “Did I not tell you so?”

For the moment her indignation got the better of her fear. “What right has he to stand there watching?” she exclaimed.

“None,” Zarka replied. “He is the very genius of suspicion. He watches to make sure.” His tone was more curt and determined now. The preamble was finished; the real business that he had come about was to begin.

“To make sure?” Philippa returned. “Then let him make sure—that I am entirely innocent of Prince Roel’s fate, whatever it may be.”

Zarka’s eyes, contradicting the smile, had the look of a snake’s that is about to strike.

“Does he know the story of the roses, I wonder?” he observed significantly.

“If he does,” she returned, “he knows what, so far as I am concerned, is false.”

“Unhappily it is a story which is much more easily shown to be true than proved false. But,” he added, as his smile deepened, “I fancy we may be sure he does not know it—yet.”

If she recognized the threat in the pause before[193] the last word she chose to ignore it. “Why,” she asked simply, “how is he likely to know it, then? Hardly from you, Count?”

The boldness of her direct question for a moment turned the point of his threat. “I think,” he said, “that there is only one sure way of escaping that fellow’s intention, whatever it may be.”

“And that is——?”

“By letting Aubray Zarka be your protector.”

She met him with an innocent trick of his own subtlety. “Why, surely, Count, I hope I may expect you to defend me from a design which you say threatens my life. You cannot think me so ungenerous as to suppose you would refuse.”

She was not taking it quite as he wished. “I want you,” he urged, “to give me the right to protect you.”

Her face clouded. “I cannot reverse the answer I gave you yesterday,” she said firmly.

At last they were fairly in open conflict. He pointed to where D’Alquen was standing. “You prefer that to me; death to love?” he said, with a gleam of thwarted passion in his eyes.

“Love?” she retorted. “I have told you love is out of the question.”

“And yet,” he rejoined, “it is well to love the man who can protect you.”

[194]His urgency and want of consideration provoked her. “Am I so helpless?” she said.

“More than you fancy,” he returned. “Perhaps, you think,” he continued viciously, “this dashing young Lieutenant can protect you. A fool’s paradise, indeed! The whole of his regiment would not keep that man’s knife or bullet from your heart were he minded to drive it there. You do not know the savage patience and determination of these men. And your lover will doubtless share your fate.”

Whatever her feelings were, she repressed them and kept silence.

“One word,” he pleaded more vehemently as he thought her yielding, “one little word, promising to be my wife, and this awful danger shall pass from you. I swear it! Yes; if I have to shoot that mad fellow yonder with my own hand. I have power here and men who live but to do my will, men who would not hesitate at the risk of their lives to sweep danger and fear from the path of their queen and mistress. My wife! Philippa, you cannot refuse. Give me but hope, and you shall have an earnest that I am promising no more than I can accomplish. That man, who in his mad revenge seeks your life, shall never trouble you again. Only tell me I may hope.”

But she shook her head. “I cannot,” she[195] replied. “And were it possible for me to love you, do you think I could consent to the death of the man who saved my life?”

“In order to reserve you for a worse fate,” he sneered.

“That could hardly be,” she rejoined, “unless it were to be the wife of a man I could not love.”

Zarka’s face was dark now. “You can scarcely expect him to ward off this danger in order that you may marry a rival. A rival! Bah! I make no rival of this flirting Lieutenant. Only—I tell you that you shall not marry him.”

Before Philippa could utter the indignant words that rose to her lips there was a sound of an approaching presence. Owing to the peculiar deadening effect of the wood, the steps were only heard just as three men emerged into the path where Zarka and Philippa stood. Both had looked round with a start. The Count smiled, and Philippa flushed with vexation as she recognized the three. They were Von Tressen, Galabin and D’Alquen.

That afternoon, Abele D’Alquen, prowling about the forest in his fiercely watchful mood, was startled and brought up suddenly by the report of a gun close behind him, and the sharp whizz of a bullet so near as to touch his sleeve. He turned with a loud exclamation of rage, and levelled his gun at the direction whence the shot must have come. His cry was returned by another of “Hold! Do not shoot!” then there was a rustling in the undergrowth, and next moment a man appeared, no less a person than Count Zarka. Count Zarka, with hand extended warningly, eyebrows elevated, and a grin of concern and apology.

“A million pardons, mein Herr!” he cried, coming eagerly forward. “I am too stupid. Heaven be thanked that I missed you. I deserve for my carelessness never to touch a gun again. But I have been watching for a boar that has its lair hereabouts, and I had no idea that any human being but myself was within a league of the place.”

[197]D’Alquen stood eyeing him, as he made these effusive protests, with fierce incredulity. “It is a strange idea of sport,” he said with manifest restraint, “to fire at game before one sees it.”

The Count gave a shrug, and, with a sweep of the arm, indicated the thick underwood around them. “It is not easy to see here,” he returned, with a deprecating grimace. “I took a chance shot at what I thought was the animal before he should come to close quarters. It was appallingly foolish of me, I admit, and I am terribly distressed at having brought you into such jeopardy.”

Now it was perfectly obvious that no sane man would have dreamt of shooting through brushwood without a sight of the object fired at; more than that, it would certainly be patent to a less suspicious person than D’Alquen that the shot had been fired not at a boar, but at himself, and with the intention of getting rid of a dangerous presence. For a moment he looked as though he were meditating a return shot which would have rid the world of one of its most singular devotees, but the impulse was checked, and D’Alquen merely observed, keeping alertly on the defensive, “One carries one’s life in one’s hand here in the forest. It is as well not to forget it. I shall profit by your wanting, mein Herr: I might not escape a second time.”

There was a significance enough, in all conscience,[198] in his words, but the Count found it convenient to ignore it.

“I can only repeat,” he protested, “my most heartfelt apologies already offered to you, mein Herr. But for this truly unhappy occurrence, it would have given me the greatest pleasure to have asked you to join me in a day’s sport, and to have made you free of my own preserved ground in the forest. I am Count Zarka of Rozsnyo, and have the honour to be always most humbly at your service.”

Although perfectly aware that the other knew well who he was, no one would have guessed as much from his bland manner.

“As it is,” he proceeded, with a concern so well simulated as nearly to hide the wolfishness beneath it, “I am almost afraid to offer my hospitality after my terrible carelessness. But if you will shoot with me it will at least prove that my assurances are accepted, and that I have your pardon.”

It is hardly likely that D’Alquen was deceived by this elaborate piece of dissimulation; all the same, however, he, perhaps a good deal to Zarka’s surprise, accepted the invitation, although not by any means so cordially as to cover the fierce distrust in his eyes. But then he was neither so complete a man of the world nor so good an actor as the Count, nor again had he such constant[199] practice in giving expression to sentiments which were the very opposite of his real feelings.

Zarka seemed, and probably was, immensely relieved, as D’Alquen fell in with his proposal. “Good!” he exclaimed, with an excess of almost boisterous satisfaction. “You are truly kind and forgiving, mein Herr. Now I shall hope to make some slight atonement for my blunder by showing you good sport.”

Without any corresponding cordiality in his face, D’Alquen, with a sharp glance of suspicion, bowed, shouldered his gun, and they set off together. Zarka, chatting volubly, suggested that they should make for the high ground and try for ibex, as affording more interesting sport, and afterwards that his companion should dine at Rozsnyo. So they strode on shoulder to shoulder towards the mountains.

“You come from far?” Zarka asked presently.

“From Sorusk, in the Province of Rapsburg.”

The Count’s eyebrows went up in expressive surprise. “Sorusk! that is indeed far. Ah, you have lost your Prince. It is sad. What may be the opinion in the province as to his disappearance? That he is dead, poor fellow, eh?”

“That may be the idea in the province,” D’Alquen resumed, “but it is not mine.”

“Ah!” Zarka was all polite curiosity. “You[200] think he is alive? How, then, do you account for his disappearance?”

Although the piercing eyes were on him the question was asked in a tone and with an expression of the blandest interest. For all sign of guilty knowledge on his face Zarka might have had no greater concern in the affair than the most casual lounger on the Königstrasse.

“I account for it,” D’Alquen answered in his abrupt fashion, “by an obvious move in the political game played yonder.” He nodded towards the mountains.

Zarka smiled incredulously. “A vague motive, surely,” he objected. “I fancy that society in town could furnish one far more probable.”

D’Alquen turned to him sharply. “And that is——?”

Zarka gave a shrug and smiled meaningly. “A very common and obvious cause for a man’s eccentricity. A lady. It is well known that Prince Roel was smitten by one who, incomprehensibly perhaps, did not return his admiration.”

“You know the lady’s name?” The question was flashed out quickly, fiercely, only to be blunted against the shield of Zarka’s inscrutable smile.

“Not with any degree of certainty that would justify my mentioning it,” was the guarded answer.

[201]For a few steps they went on in silence. Then D’Alquen resumed.

“I am aware there was a lady in the case. But that does not disprove a political influence behind the lady.”

Zarka deemed it enough to give a deprecating shrug.

“I mean,” the other went on, as though irritated by his companion’s non-committal manner, “she may have been used as a decoy.”

“I am not,” Zarka said coolly, “in a position to contradict you, beyond saying that your theory seems to me in the highest degree improbable. After all,” here the teeth showed in an ugly grin of deprecation, “after all we can but theorize, and theorizing is unprofitable unless we have a practical object in view.”

“I quite agree with you there, Count,” D’Alquen returned, with a touch of curt significance.

As he spoke—something—a slight action of Zarka’s—made him suddenly halt and look round quickly. As he did so the Count altered the position of his gun, but not before D’Alquen had seen that the muzzle had been held a few inches from his head. After that significant discovery D’Alquen never let his eyes wander from his companion, although he betrayed, and probably felt, no sign of fear. Whether Zarka noticed the sharp observation[202] under which he was kept it was impossible to tell from his manner, but he was assuredly too acute and watchful to be unaware of it.

Presently their ascending course brought them to a wild and rocky opening in the forest. Zarka, pointing in front of them, directed his companion’s attention to a magnificent view of the glittering, undulating range of the mountain’s tops. But D’Alquen was too wary to be caught by what, to his suspicious mood, seemed a trick. Before looking in the indicated direction he stepped back, thus bringing Zarka in front of him, and still under his eye. “Yes,” he agreed with a grim laugh, hardly called up by the scenery; “it is magnificent.”

He held his gun ready for bringing up on the slightest provocative sign, and seemed rather to enjoy the game of checkmating the Count’s amiable moves. The ascending path now became too narrow to allow of their walking abreast. Zarka stopped and motioned his companion to precede him.

“No, Count,” D’Alquen said; “I follow you.”

His tone was so decisive that Zarka evidently saw the uselessness of pressing the matter. “I shall have the honour of showing you the way,” he said, covering his discomfiture with the politest of grins.

So they wound their way up till the open mountain plateaus were reached. Zarka now halted[203] and turned with an affectation of breathlessness.

“We should soon get a sight of some game here,” he observed. “We can now go forward together, at least as far as the rocks yonder.”

He pointed, as he spoke, to the base of some high peaks which shut in the plateau.

“I have had fine sport here with ibex and chamois,” he remarked, as they walked on side by side, D’Alquen ever on the alert, and amusingly distrustful of his urbane and voluble companion. “Two guns should, however, have a better chance than one, since between us, up yonder, we can cut off the animals’ escape. It has been usually my lot to hunt here alone, and many a good stag have I lost through not having a comrade to get a second shot on the retreat.”

The situation was certainly growing in grim interest; either D’Alquen’s nerves were abnormally strong, or he held the lord of Rozsnyo cheaper than that potentate was wont to value himself. What would the next move be? For certainly the stranger had been brought up there for a purpose not altogether connected with the slaying of ibex. Very soon the manœuvring for the plan, whatever it might be, began. They had warily crossed the plateau and readied another narrow path running round the base of the rocky peaks. There was no[204] hesitation now about precedence. “May I show you? Yes?” Zarka grinned and sprang up the path. D’Alquen kept his gun handy and followed. There was an equally curious, though less sinister, smile on his face.

The Count led the way through a narrow passage formed by a cleft in the rocks. The path was rough and steep, but both men made light of its difficulties. Suddenly they passed out on to the side of a broad mountain gorge, high up on which the path still ran, having on the one hand a wall of rock, on the other sheer precipice. A gleam of grim intelligence sprang into D’Alquen’s eyes as he took in the situation. When they had gone on perhaps a hundred paces, Zarka held up his hand, halted and turned. D’Alquen had stopped too, evidently ready for eventualities. But the Count’s intentions seemed all for sport.

“Round the next shoulder,” he said in a low voice, as he pointed forwards, “we shall probably come upon ibex. I propose that one of us should go forward while the other stays here, for the first shot will probably send the rest of them back along the opposite side, yonder, of the chasm. So there will be a chance of two fine running shots. Now, will you go forward, or shall I?”

As he had doubtless anticipated, D’Alquen answered shortly—

[205]“I will stay here.”

“As you please,” Zarka returned with an acquiescent bow. “After you hear my first shot, it will pay to keep a sharp eye on the rocks over there.”

With that he went off along the path, to all appearances absorbed in the sport. D’Alquen stood with the sharp eye Zarka had advised fixed steadily on the retreating figure and his gun ever ready. “If he turns,” he muttered, “I shall shoot, and then—Heaven help the better man.”

But the wily Count did not turn or halt in his stealthy pace along the rocky path. Perhaps he had a shrewd idea that such a notion might be attended with a certain risk. So he continued to steal on, in true stalker’s fashion, till a curve hid him from sight.

Then D’Alquen was at liberty to turn and survey his situation. It was simple enough. On each side of him was the narrow path, in front the precipice, and behind him a wall or rock some thirty feet high. Now what was Zarka’s game? Not ibex; D’Alquen laughed aloud at the idea. What should he himself do? Clearly not stay there, since that was what the Count expected. He must either retreat by the way they had come or go forwards. He certainly would not turn back; the game was interesting enough to provoke him to[206] follow his worthy guide, so, after, another good look round, he went slowly on.

He came to the bend, round which Zarka had disappeared, without seeing anything to quicken his alertness into action. As he rounded the turn, however, his vigilance increased, and every step was taken with caution.

No sign of Zarka was to be seen, although the path was visible for a considerable distance ahead, and this was the more remarkable as away on the right the forms of several ibex were to be observed. Was Zarka stalking them in hiding? That was scarcely possible, since the course he must have taken afforded no chance of concealment. On D’Alquen crept, his gun almost at his shoulder, and his fierce restless eyes taking in everything round and above him. Suddenly he stopped with a subdued exclamation. The mystery was solved.

He had arrived at a point where a deep fissure in the rocky wall opened upon the path at such a sharp angle as to be invisible from the side of his approach till he was fairly opposite to it. Through this cleft a sort of rugged path ran back, as it seemed, behind the rock, the face of which he had just skirted. Doubtless Zarka had doubled back by this means. D’Alquen hesitated a moment. The narrow way might be a complete death-trap set by the cunning man, who had calculated that his[207] intended victim would follow him. D’Alquen gave another look round, and then seemed resolved to risk it. With his gun ready to fire he sprang up the path and made his way quickly along it. The few seconds it took him to reach the other end of the defile were calculated to make his blood tingle, since he would have been practically at the mercy of a raking shot from above. However he emerged upon the open without this experience, and in another instant his quick eye had detected what it sought, the form of Count Zarka creeping stealthily along the top of the rocks. Keeping well down, and so out of sight, D’Alquen immediately began to follow. When he had gone, as he judged, far enough, he turned and began to crawl upwards, stalking the Count with more than a sportsman’s wariness and zest. Zarka was evidently so intent upon his design that he never glanced behind, at any rate while D’Alquen was in sight. The way he was taking would bring him to the edge of the rocks above the spot where he supposed the other to be waiting, and as his intended victim realized the treacherous scheme a light gleamed in his eyes that boded mischief for the Count. So he followed him, keeping as much as possible under cover of the rocks, stooping as he ran, sometimes crawling, from one shelter to another; ever, when he was exposed, keeping his enemy covered by his gun.

[208]But now Zarka had reached the edge of the rocky wall and stepped cautiously to the very brink with his gun ready to fire down upon the path below. D’Alquen, watching him from behind a jutting rock, laughed, and, walking quietly into the open ground, made quickly towards him. The Count looked up and down the path below; the other thought he heard an exclamation of annoyance from him as he found himself baulked in his benevolent design. Zarka peered over; the temptation to put a bullet through him must have been almost irresistible, but D’Alquen did not pull the trigger of his covering gun. There was now a look of grim amusement in his eyes; having the game in hand, he was evidently loath to spoil it. Zarka drew back, then lay face downwards looking over the rocky wall. D’Alquen gave a little run and came within half a dozen paces of him. With another utterance of disgust Zarka rose to his feet, and, naturally, turned, to find himself covered by D’Alquen’s rifle.

Before he could get up his own weapon the other cried: “Drop it! Throw your gun over, or I fire. Over with it, I say, or you are a dead man!”

Zarka’s face had gone grey, his eyes blazed with impotent hate. By a great effort he assumed a look of surprised protest, but his ever-ready smile was[209] hardly a success, if, that is, it was meant for anything more than a diabolical grin.

“Herr D’Alquen!” he cried. “What do you mean, my good friend? Are you mad?”

But his good friend showed no sign of relaxing his attitude. “Drop your gun over, or I swear I’ll shoot,” he insisted.

The Count hesitated, and for a moment looked as though he were calculating his chances in an impromptu duel. But D’Alquen’s rifle covered him pitilessly; he could see that the aim was straight on his heart. Probably his wonder was that his intended victim had not fired without parley. After all, his opportunity was lost, and to lose his gun was to gain time. So with a protesting shrug he turned and threw the weapon ringing down the rocks below.

“Are you satisfied, mein Herr?” he demanded, with almost insolent blandness.

“Hardly, Herr Graf,” D’Alquen returned. “But that is something. It was lucky I did not wait for the stags, or my patience would have been exhausted. You did not mention that another matter claimed your attention first.”

The man’s mocking tone was not pleasant to the lord of Rozsnyo, possibly because it was precisely what he would himself have been pleased to indulge in had the tables been turned. However, he was[210] forced to content himself with a remark, rather weak, considering the intensity of the situation.

“I was not aware that I had come out for sport with a madman.”

“As I was that my companion was an assassin,” D’Alquen retorted. “Now, Herr Graf, shall I send you after your gun?”

As he spoke he levelled his rifle again full at Zarka. The Count was not lacking in courage, or at least in a gambler’s recklessness, nevertheless a look of something very like the terror of death spread over his grey face. He threw out his arms.

“Shoot me if you will, madman,” he cried. “I am unarmed and at your mercy.”

The words may have been spoken almost at random, or he may have shrewdly felt that his adversary was a man of honour, of instincts very different from his own. Anyhow he could scarcely have hit upon a speech more to the point. D’Alquen did not fire.

“I should be sorry to cut short an interesting career,” he said with almost savage mockery, “or to anticipate its more formal and judicial ending. You undertook to show me some sport, Herr Graf, and I cannot deny that you have fulfilled your promise. You were right; it is much more interesting with two guns than one, and I am sorry that in your ardour for sport you have lost yours. But[211] we must accept the fortune of the chase, and when we hunt big game we cannot have it all our own way. Now, as I have far to go, I must do myself the honour of bidding you good-day, with thanks for an entertaining afternoon. I fear I cannot trespass upon your hospitality at Rozsnyo, having already experienced my full share of it here. I should be afraid of putting your good nature and patience to too severe a test. Count, I have the honour.”

He touched his hat and, with a mocking bow, turned and strode off down the rocks, leaving Zarka standing there the picture of baffled malignity and speechless rage.

Philippa spent the rest of that day in a state of anxious indecision. Everything seemed against her. On all sides danger threatened, and her situation was made doubly distressing from the knowledge that there was no one with whom she could take counsel. Her lover, Von Tressen, would be ready enough to advise and protect her, but somehow she shrank from giving him the necessary explanation of her presence in that out-of-the-way region, and her intimacy with Zarka. The thought that they had been seen together in the forest alley filled her with angry shame; she longed for an opportunity of explaining her confidential relations with the Count, yet in the first flush of her love she dared not. What, she asked herself, would Von Tressen think of finding her there with the man she professed to fear and hate? Chance itself seemed to have joined her enemies; if only she had some friend from whom she could frankly seek advice. Her step-father, she felt, was absolutely untrustworthy;[213] selfish and indifferent, he would be only too glad to play into Zarka’s hands. No. She must go through the fight single-handed, unless she could bring herself to call Von Tressen to her aid. Zarka had left her that morning, after the three men had passed, as her open and declared enemy, for she had remained firm in her rejection of his suit. His was one of those positive characters which gather strength from opposition: the blood of half savage, turbulent ancestors ran in his veins; his courtly manner was but an assumed mask, behind which was a strong, unscrupulous, vindictive will. Sooner than admit the success of a rival, he was capable, Philippa felt sure, of betraying her to D’Alquen. Ah, there was danger indeed, when once that fanatical avenger had resolved to strike. Towards sunset she had looked out and fancied she saw the man again watching the farm from his post of observation on the hill. It was horrible in that lonely region to be ever under that wild malignant eye, never knowing when the blow the watcher meditated might fall. Then a maddening thought came to her. What if this man had slandered her to Von Tressen? How much did he know? What tale might he not have told? The Lieutenant had not been to the farm that day. Why was that? Yesterday’s avowal of love should have brought him to her; and yet a whole day had passed[214] and, but for that chance unfortunate rencontre, she had seen nothing of him. Everything seemed in a vortex of doubt and danger. It was more than Philippa could bear, and at last she resolved that, come what might, she would make a bold effort to see her lover without delay. Might not he be in danger too? Zarka had boasted of his power, and of his unscrupulous people. If he could put one man out of the way, why not another? Yes, she would seek Von Tressen at all hazards.

Once her resolve taken she waited impatiently for nightfall, for it was under cover of darkness that she judged it safest to make her way to the encampment. Then, giving the excuse of a headache she bade her step-father good-night, and went to her room, whence she easily slipped out of the house unobserved. She knew pretty well the direction in which the encampment lay; it was not far off, but the night was dark and thundery, and her progress was naturally slow. But she never hesitated or faltered, although the oppressive gloom and silence of the forest, the thought of danger from man or beast, might well have made her nerves play the traitor. On she went steadily, warily, threading her way through the great trees, on and on without a thought but of her purpose, for her situation had made her almost reckless save of one thing, the danger of losing her lover.

[215]She had gone a good distance when the disquieting idea came to her that she had missed her way. The darkness was so impenetrable that it was almost impossible for her to tell in which direction she was going; she had boldly set out and held her course in a straight line, but now she suddenly realized that in that black mass of trees to follow a direct route was, certainly to her inexperience, almost impracticable. For a moment the danger of being lost in the forest rose to her mind; then she beat the thought down, and went on resolutely, trusting that chance would bring her safely to her destination. But chance was not her friend that day.

She calculated that, had she gone direct to the encampment, she must by that time have reached it. So she had evidently missed her way. There was nothing to be done but to keep on, in the hope of lighting upon the camp, since to attempt to retrace her steps would be futile. So she persevered for a while, but all to no purpose. She seemed only to get more hopelessly lost. Becoming desperate at length, and her fears beginning to rise now that her purpose seemed frustrated, she determined as a last resort to try and strike into the valley. Once there she could at least find her way home without much difficulty.

It must lie on her right hand, she thought, so,[216] turning in that direction, she set off once more through the black wood.

Happily the guess at her bearings was correct. Ten minutes of rough groping brought her, greatly to her relief, to the end of the trees on that side of the valley and to clear ground. Here progress was comparatively easy, and the darkness not so paralyzing. As she stood debating whether she should make her way up the valley to the Grange and thence try the path again, or attempt to find her way direct to the encampment, she saw before her at some distance a light. It was very small and lasted but a moment or two, like the striking of a match. Was it some one lighting a cigar? she thought. Von Tressen, perhaps, or Count Zarka? If only it were the Lieutenant. It was not unlikely. The spirit of reckless adventure was on her, and she resolved to go forward and see. So she ran cautiously towards the point whence the light had shone, slackening her pace as she calculated she must be near it, and creeping along so as not to attract attention. Presently she stopped and listened. She was certain she heard men’s voices, and fancied she recognized Von Tressen’s. She quickly followed the sound, but progress now was not so easy; the ground rose steeply on the other side of the narrow valley and the wood was thick again. Still she pressed on, with many a stumble, encouraged by[217] the thought that her lover was so near. Soon the wood became as dark and bewildering as that from which she had lately escaped. Still up and up the girl panted, hoping every moment to hear the welcome voice again, but, though she often stopped to listen, she could not be certain that she heard it. Suddenly a strange phenomenon rose before her sight; the forest, thick as it was, seemed now to present a great, black, impassable wall. Philippa stopped in amazement. Then, as the air grew lighter, the explanation flashed upon her. The great black mass in front of her was not wood but stone; she was outside Rozsnyo.

Scarcely had Philippa realized her whereabouts when she saw a dark object moving in the obscurity a few yards away. She was now standing by the slope of the dry moat. Instinctively she crouched down beside one of the shrubs with which it was planted. The moving figure was a man. He came slowly on, passed close to where she was hidden, and so disappeared in the darkness. But an uncontrollable fascination had made her look up in spite of her fear as he passed, and she recognized him even under those conditions. It was D’Alquen.

The danger of her situation flashed upon her. It was this man, then, who must have struck the light she had seen. What an escape she had had. If he found her there alone would not so apt an opportunity overcome any hesitation in his mind? He would kill her, if only for the impunity with which the deed might be done. Her one thought now was to escape, but how? D’Alquen had cut her off from the valley; she dared not venture into the wood which lay between it and the castle for fear of encountering him. As she crouched there, fearful of the man’s return, desperately reviewing her chances of escape, a vivid flash of lightning, accompanied almost simultaneously by a crashing peal of thunder, announced that the threatened storm had burst over Rozsnyo. In panic the girl rose and fled across to the shelter of the wall, and shrank against it, panting and terrified. The rain now poured down in a deluge, the lightning played round her in almost incessant flashes, and the[219] thunder pealed deafeningly. It was a typical mountain storm of the fiercest kind. Driven both by fear and the pelting rain from the inadequate protection of the bare wall, Philippa looked round in desperation, and seeing what seemed a sheltering buttress at some little distance, made a rush for it. Even this provided but a poor screen against the storm’s fury; a blinding flash seemed to strike the ground but a few feet from the place, and in terror Philippa abandoned her position and ran on, seeking a safer refuge. To her intense relief she came to a deeply recessed doorway, and in this at last she found complete shelter. Here she stayed, recovering from her fright, until the violence of the downpour abated, and she could think of venturing upon her return. A short way from where she stood a bridge spanned the hollow, and seemed to lead to a path through the woodland beyond. To adventure upon it was risky, yet to stay where she was would be to court falling into Zarka’s hands, and of the two she felt she feared D’Alquen the less. The rain had now nearly ceased, although the darkness, save for an occasional flash, was as great as ever. After some hesitation Philippa resolved to make a run for it and trust to chance to find her way home again. Gathering her skirts round her she ran to the bridge, just discernible in the night’s blackness. She was half way across it when a great[220] flash lighted up for a second the open space against the dark background of the wood, and showed her two men on its outskirts, Von Tressen and Galabin.

Philippa’s first impulse was to call to them and run forward. Her second thought checked this, and made her crouch beneath the railing of the bridge, then turn and retreat to the walls again. If her lover found her there what would he think? How could she account for her presence? Easily enough—and yet—. Coupled with the mystery of her relations with Zarka, how could she expect that Von Tressen’s mind would not be full of suspicion? Here she was, coming from the Count’s very door, and her poor excuse was that she had lost her way and been frightened. After having been surprised in that equivocal situation with him that morning she dared not add this compromising evidence to the doubt she felt sure must be in her lover’s mind. No; she must wait till the path was clear. Her life’s happiness was at stake, and Fate was cruelly her foe just then.

So she went back to the doorway, where she could stay securely hidden in its recess without fear of betrayal from a chance flash of lightning. Here she waited for a while, and then, just as she was preparing to set out again, she felt with a thrill of terror that a hand grasped her arm, and a voice said in her ear—

[221]“So! I have caught you!”

With a terrible start Philippa turned. The small, iron-studded door behind her had opened silently, and a woman stood there. Philippa could just see the flash of her eyes; the nervous vicious clutch on her arm told her that the presence was not a friendly one.

“I came here for shelter,” she began.

“Shelter!” There was a bitter laugh in the voice that echoed the word. “Shelter?” it repeated. “Yes; you shall have shelter. Come in!”

The grip on her arm pulled her towards the door, but she resisted.

“No, thank you,” she replied, trying to release herself. “The storm is now nearly over. I will find my way home.”

But the hands held her strongly. “Not yet,” her captor returned. “You must come in, I have something to say to you.”

Philippa was now almost within the doorway. “What do you want?” she demanded, with an effort to keep under her agitation.

“Come in,” replied the other, “and I will tell you. It is useless to resist. I could kill you where you stand if I chose.”

The words were hissed out in the very boiling heat of passion. Bewildered and frightened, yet[222] conscious of no offence, Philippa had suffered herself to be drawn a foot or two over the threshold. By a quick movement the other woman contrived to close the door, which shut noiselessly as though protected from banging. “Come with me,” she said; “I must speak to you.”

It was pitch dark, but the grip on Philippa’s arm, which never relaxed, guided her along what seemed to be a passage, till a sudden turn brought them to a stop. Then her arm was released, and the other’s voice said—

“Stay, till I strike a light.”

Next moment a match blazed and a candle was lighted. It showed to Philippa’s look of anxious, breathless wonder a small oak-panelled room and the form of a girl like herself, the dark, resentful face of Royda d’Ivady.

As the candle burnt up Royda raised her head, meeting Philippa’s gaze defiantly. So for some moments the two stood eyeing each other in silence, but with very different expressions.

At length Royda spoke. “You know me, Philippa Harlberg?”

“I suppose,” she answered, “you are Fräulein d’Ivady.”

“You are quite right,” Royda said with a sneer, “and I think I could make an equally good guess as to why you are here.”

[223]The girl, it was evident, was wild with rage, which only by a great effort she kept from bursting forth.

“Why have you brought me here?” Philippa said, with a calmness in strange contrast to the other’s excitement. “I should like to know that.”

“You expected some one else to open the door,” Royda said, in a voice which passion rendered scarcely audible.

If Philippa understood the taunt she ignored it. “I did not expect the door to open at all,” she returned quietly.

“What?” Royda burst out, no longer able to repress the passion that shook her. “Not by your lover, Aubray Zarka?”

“My lover?” Philippa dashed out. “Count Zarka is very far from being my lover.”

“Then why are you here?” Royda hissed rather than spoke. “Why did I see you creeping like a thief across the bridge? Yes; like a thief, a thief, as you are!”

“I ran into the doorway for shelter from the storm,” Philippa replied, meeting the other’s violence with dignity, yet conscious of her false position.

“The storm?” Royda laughed mockingly. “Does that account for Rozsnyo being your nearest place of shelter? It is a long evening stroll for a young lady from Gorla’s farm.”

[224]“Your suspicions,” Philippa said, repressing the indignation she felt at Royda’s manner, which was more insulting than her words, “are altogether wrong and most unjust. I lost my way in the forest before the storm began. I had no thought of coming here, much less a wish to see Count Zarka. I hate him.”

For a moment Royda looked at her without speaking. Such a look it was. Her eyes seemed to contract and coruscate with spite and rancour.

“You hate him!” she repeated slowly. “You hate him? Is that why he visits you every day? Why I find you here at his private door? Lucky the flash of lightning showed you to me before he saw you. Aubray will hardly expect you in this storm,” she continued mockingly. “He does not suspect what danger his dear Philippa would brave for his sake. But you are not at the end of your dangers yet, madame, let me tell you that.”

Philippa’s patience was exhausted, besides which she feared that any moment might bring Zarka upon the scene. She comprehended the jealousy of this angry girl, and cared little for her fury, but the other danger made her sick with fear and impatience.

“I have listened to you long enough,” she said haughtily. “If you do not accept my explanation, I cannot help it. I can stay no longer.”

[225]As she moved to the door Royda sprang forward and reached it first. Then turned to Philippa, her dark face livid with hate and passion.

“You shall go,” she said in a low voice. “I will show you the way.”

She took the light, opened the door and went out, motioning Philippa to follow her. They traversed several softly carpeted passages, and at length arrived at a great door. Royda turned the handle and it opened noiselessly, disclosing, not, as Philippa expected, the open air, but the broad flight of steps leading down into the rock. She drew back. “That is not the way,” she said, full of suspicion and fear of a trap.

“Not the way you came in,” Royda replied sharply under her breath. “It is a private passage out of the castle.”

The dark, grim, rock-hewn stairway was not inviting, especially when dimly seen by the light of a solitary candle.

“I will not go down there,” Philippa said.

Royda stood eyeing her in resentful impatience.

“No,” she sneered. “You would doubtless rather take your departure by a more open way that Aubray Zarka might catch sight of you. This is the only outlet for you. Fool! What are you afraid of? I will go first. Now, come!”

Philippa felt that almost any risk was preferable[226] to that of encountering Zarka, and at least she might trust this jealous girl to keep her from that. So, after a moment’s hesitation, she followed Royda warily, resolved to be on the alert for a trick.

The descent into the rock was not reassuring, but Philippa by an effort kept up her courage, feeling herself, at any rate physically, a match for her guide. At length the end was reached, and the great door of the armoury pushed open. As she saw the immense room with its rows of ghostly mailed figures Philippa started in horrible fear and stopped on the threshold.

“Where is this? What is in there?” she demanded.

“You need not be afraid,” Royda answered, with a touch of exultant scorn at her rival’s terror. “It is only the armoury. We are in the heart of the rock. But there is a passage from here leading out into the valley. I will show you.”

There was something in her manner, the indication of a set purpose, which made Philippa doubt whether her intention was merely to get rid of her. On a table near the door stood a set of candelabra, a portion of those used when the great room was lighted up. Royda, from the candle she carried, set herself to light some of these. The action struck Philippa as suspicious. “Why are you doing that?” she asked apprehensively.

[227]“In case this little one should go out by accident,” was the ready answer, given without looking at her questioner. “We should never find our way then in this great dark place.”

The explanation was plausible enough, Philippa thought, as she glanced round the room and the labyrinth of its contents.

“Now!” Royda said, as she set down the candle she had carried and closed the door. Then she turned again to Philippa and, without warning of her intention, dealt her a swift, vicious blow in the face.

“Ah!” Philippa caught her arm, but Royda, struggling like a wild animal, freed herself and sprang back out of reach.

For a few seconds neither spoke, but they stood eyeing each other, Royda in the momentary ebb preparatory to the next dash of her fury, Philippa in astonished anger, not unmixed with relief at this declaration of the other’s intention.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded indignantly.

With the breaking of the pause, Royda’s passion blazed forth at last without restraint.

“Mean? I mean that I hate you, vile thief and trickster. I thank you for coming here to-night, for you shall give me satisfaction.”

“Satisfaction?” Philippa repeated, almost inclined[228] to laugh at the girls’ exhibition of fury. “For what?”

“For what?” Royda burst out. “For having—ah, that I should live to say it—for having robbed me of my lover. You, who think your power so great that you can play with hearts as you like. I know now it was you who sent Prince Roel to his death. I have found that out, and Aubray is fool enough to admire you. He shall not admire you long. Yes; I thank Heaven for its lightning that betrayed you to me to-night. You shall not have come to Rozsnyo for nothing! May be you have found your match at last, Philippa Harlberg, if that is your name and not another of your lies. At least we will try which is the better woman in another way, where lying shall not serve. Look!”

She glanced round quickly, then ran to a stand and snatched from it two light rapiers.

“See!” she cried, trembling with excitement. “They are both exactly the same length. There is yours!”

She threw one down at Philippa’s feet. But the other made no suggestion of taking it up.

“What nonsense! What madness!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Please show me the way and let me go. I have had enough of this place.”

“Not till I please,” Royda flung back. “You shall never go, if I can help it, for I mean to try to kill you. I tell you,” she went on, in an access of fury provoked by Philippa’s calmness, “you shall fight. If men can, why not we? I have no skill in fence, so we may be equal there, unless you have, and even then I am content. No one will interrupt us here. I am not one of your cold blood. You have crossed my love, ruined my life, and must take the consequences.”

“If,” Philippa returned, with a touch of haughtiness, “as you say, I am cold-blooded, you will understand my refusing anything so ridiculous[230] as a duel. And, apart from its absurdity, I have no feeling against you or wish to hurt you.”

“So you take my blow and will not resent it, coward that you are.”

“I can make allowances for your excitement,” Philippa replied calmly, “and the error into which it has led you concerning my presence here.”

“Thank you,” Royda retorted scornfully. “You are very kind, so kind that your kindness is an insult. You shall fight me, Philippa Harlberg.”

“I will not.”

“But you shall. Or at least I will fight you, and if you do not choose to defend yourself——”

Philippa looked at the girl standing before her in the white heat of passion, impatiently bending the light rapier in her hands. The situation was absurd and yet serious. Philippa had quite her sex’s share of courage when it came to the point of action, but she felt utterly nonplussed by the extraordinary turn the night’s events had taken. She was practically a prisoner, alone with a girl whose naturally excitable nature was inflamed almost to madness against her.

“A duel is ridiculous, monstrous,” she protested. “I am ready to give you any other satisfaction.”

“What satisfaction?” Royda broke in passionately. “When two men love the same woman they fight. When two women love the same man——”

[231]“But we do not,” Philippa interrupted. “I hate him.”

Royda gave an incredulous laugh. “You hate Aubray Zarka? Well, then one of us loves him and he loves the other. That is enough.”

“Because he won’t care for you I am to fight you?”

“Yes,” Royda answered savagely between her teeth, as though slung by the taunt, pushing with the point of her sword the other on the floor towards Philippa.

“I absolutely refuse.”

“Then you are a coward. As cowardly as you are treacherous.”

“At least I am not a romantic fool.”

“As I am?”

Philippa gave a shrug and turned away, weary of the scene. Instantly she heard a quick movement behind her and felt across her shoulders the sharp sting of a blow. Turning she found Royda close behind her with rapier uplifted in the act of striking her again. Her first impulse was to rush at her assailant and try to disarm her, but Royda, anticipating this, sprang back a pace and levelled the point of her weapon at her breast.

“Coward! You shall fight me, or I will kill you! Take up that sword and defend yourself.”

[232]“I am no coward,” Philippa retorted. “You say you have no knowledge of fence. I have. I used to practice it in town. A contest between us would not be equal, and I have no desire—”

“I care nothing for that,” Royda broke in impatiently. “Nor for your advantage in being taller and having a longer reach. I mean to fight you. At least I cannot come off worse than I stand now, and it will be some sort of satisfaction. Now will you take that sword? You shall!” For Philippa had made an impatient gesture. “The world has not room for us both.”

“I tell you again it is monstrous,” Philippa insisted, regaining her composure. “I have no wish to touch you. How have you harmed me?”

Royda was calmer now, but her determination was none the less keen and unshakable. “That is nothing in affairs of honour,” she returned impatiently. “There is seldom grievance on both sides. But to prick that bubble of excuse—have I not given you two blows? Refuse to fight me and I will utterly ruin and disgrace you. I will proclaim Aubray Zarka as your lover; I can easily prove your secret visit here to-night, and the world shall know it. You have come here as a thief and must take the consequences. You cannot escape except to absolute shame. I will talk no[233] more. I hate you. If you do not take up that sword I swear I will run you through the heart.”

The girl was in earnest, and Philippa could but realize the helpless position she was in. Escape was impossible. At night in that strange place, deep in the centre of the rock, from which she knew no way of escape, under the very roof of her dreaded lover, Zarka, there was nothing to do but to face her enemy. Expostulation was clearly useless before the fury of the jealous girl, and Philippa felt that she must act. She stooped and took up the rapier, and as she did so Royda drew a great breath of satisfaction.

“It is good!” she said between her teeth, and, leaning her own weapon against the nearest stand of armour, proceeded to divest herself of the upper portion of her dress.

“You had better do the same,” she observed quietly and coldly. “This will not be child’s play.”

Philippa was wearing a hooded cloak over her dress. Mechanically she unfastened and laid it aside. Shrinking from the absurd wrong and wickedness of the act they were about to commit, yet recognizing that she must make this desperate stroke as her only chance of escape, she felt no trace of fear, and her hope was that she might succeed[234] in quickly disarming her adversary and so bring the mad affair to an end almost as soon as it should begin. Still she lingered, as one naturally delays over the preparation for a distasteful act.

Royda had stood ready for many seconds before Philippa took her sword and faced her for that most extraordinary encounter. It was a strange sight. The great rock-hewn room, the array of still, mail-clad figures, standing like ghostly spectators of a more singular combat than the wearers of the armour in life had ever witnessed, the line stretching away into the obscurity of the farther end of the room, while the half light was reflected by the burnished plates of the nearest figures on to the two women, warm and panting with life and excitement, confronting each other in what might be deadly combat. Great was the contrast between them. Royda d’Ivady was dark complexioned, not much above the middle height, but exquisitely formed, the full contour of her arms and bust and the rich-blooded, olive-hued skin being shown to perfection now she had removed her bodice; her face set with determination and her pose full of watchful energy. Philippa, a good head taller, long-limbed, her skin dazzlingly white against the sombre surroundings, with magnificent arms and shoulders—one showing a great livid wale where the rapier had whipped her—her figure perfect in its natural lines and[235] mouldings, crowned by her royally set head and wealth of light brown hair glinting as the light fell on it. So she stood, a superb specimen of womanhood, with an expression of quiet courage on her face, handling her rapier with natural grace: it was as though a lion were opposed to a leopard; both were in earnest, yet perhaps hardly conscious that the result of this unwitnessed duel might mean murder.

In a moment their light rapiers had touched, and at the contact all Royda’s fury, which had lately been restrained, seemed to rush forth at her very sword’s point. It was clear at the first assault that both girls had some general idea of thrust and parry, although neither might have any practical skill in fence. After the first few passes both fenced warily as though the very touch of the steel had brought home to them the seriousness of their encounter.

Royda pressed Philippa, whose part was purely defensive, and who parried the vicious lunges as well as she could, thanking her stars for the few casual lessons which had taught her something of the art. Availing herself of her superior height, she tried several times to beat down the other’s guard and disarm her, but failed through Royda’s alertness and her own want of precise knowledge as to how the stroke should be accomplished. Her[236] natural coolness, however, stood her in a good stead; Royda was hot-headed, quivering with passion, and lunged so wildly that Philippa found no difficulty, by keeping her head, in putting aside the assailing point. So she continued on the defensive, hoping that Royda would soon tire; indeed, she felt confident of wearing her down if only she could keep untouched, for she was strong, and to her the slender sword was little heavier to wield than a riding whip. So they fought on; Royda, pressing forward, vindictive, panting with exertion and excitement; Philippa calm, watchful, keeping her adversary at bay by sheer cool-headedness and strength of wrist, retreating at each more furious thrust, but never taking advantage of an opening for attack when she saw one. Not a word was spoken: they moved silently over the smooth floor; the only sound that broke the silence of that great vault-like room being the subdued clash of the little rapiers and the panting of the combatants. It was unscientific sword-play, but the adversaries were well matched, and the contest none the less exciting and in deadly earnest. Royda’s point had drawn blood more than once. There was a deep graze on Philippa’s left shoulder, where she had let a lunge pass too near, and her sword arm was bleeding slightly. But neither of these trivial wounds was deep enough to be felt through the excitement of the[237] duel and Philippa continued to take the onslaught as coolly as when the fight began.

She had been gradually obliged to give ground till she at length found herself driven to the wall, where there was nothing for it but to attack or turn, the latter a perilous manœuvre, since she would have to fight her way round at close quarters. Royda, perceiving her intention, made several quick passes, trying to frustrate it by pinning her in a corner. She was, however, beginning to tire, and so Philippa, putting forth all her strength, was able to beat down her point, and by a quick movement slip round. But as she did so her foot caught in the beading of the raised platform on which the armoured effigies stood: she recovered herself, but in the act of letting go her long skirt it impeded her spring and she stumbled. Royda, quick as lightning, seized the opportunity, and lunging swiftly pierced the side of her neck. Stung by the pain Philippa sprang backwards, thereby disengaging herself from the rapier’s point. Royda, seeing the blood trickling over her enemy’s bosom, and probably thinking the wound she had inflicted worse than it really was, stood for a moment half paralyzed with her guard lowered. Philippa, excited and confused by the wound, struck down Royda’s sword sharply and lunged. Royda could not recover in time to parry the thrust, and the point[238] passed through the fleshy part of her sword arm. She gave a cry, dropped her rapier, and staggered back. Philippa, springing forward, caught her in her arms as she fell, and the sword, pulled by its own weight from the wound, dropped ringing to the floor.

“Oh, I am so sorry! What fools we have been!” Philippa cried, as she half carried Royda to a settee and tried to staunch the wound.

Royda said nothing, either through faintness or because she seemed overwhelmed with mortification and disappointment. She turned her face away and remained passive, as though utterly beaten and discomfited, with teeth set hard and the hand of the unwounded arm clenched.

“What madness it has been,” Philippa continued, not heeding her adversary’s sullen attitude. “Why would you not listen to my explanation? We are utterly ruined now.”

“You are hurt too?” the wounded girl asked, in a tone more of satisfaction than concern.

“It is not much,” Philippa answered, with a glance at the blood on her arms and breast. “But you, Fräulein, must have a doctor. What shall I do? How can we explain this?”

“I shall be all right,” replied Royda, raising herself with an effort and making a gesture of pushing[240] Philippa from her. “For Heaven’s sake, get away from this and leave me. Fate is on your side; I cannot fight against it, and the sooner I am dead the better.”

“Fräulein d’Ivady, if you knew——” Philippa began in her distress.

“I know enough, too much, of you, Philippa Harlberg. You bring me evil. I never knew what failure was till you crossed my path. Go, in Heaven’s name; I cannot bear the sight of you. There is a door behind that trophy. It leads to a passage through the rock and so out upon the side of the valley.”

“I cannot go and leave you like this,” Philippa protested. “Hateful as I may be to you, I shall not desert you now.”

“Then I must go,” Royda said, rising by sheer power of will. “You stay at your own peril. I have shown you the way of escape, if that is what you seek. At least you shall not see Aubray Zarka.”

“It is the last thing I wish,” Philippa returned.

“Then go. If you try to follow me you will regret it.”

Seeing her determination Philippa took up the articles of attire she had laid aside, and proceeded not without pain, to put them on. She offered to assist Royda with her garments, but was coldly repulsed.

[241]“You are wise to go,” Royda said significantly, as she pressed a handkerchief to her wounded arm. “There is the door. You cannot miss the way, and the outer door at the end of the passage opens by pulling the handle. The secret lock is from the outside. Now turn that knob; I cannot.”

Philippa did as directed, and the heavy door with its trophy of arms swung slowly open. She lingered. “Fräulein,” she said earnestly, as she pointed to the other’s wound, “that is the only harm I have ever knowingly done you. Will you not forgive me?”

Her tone was so gentle, so pleading, that Royda looked at her sharply and as though suspicious of hypocrisy. “Forgive you!” site repeated bitterly, drearily. “How can you ask me that? No,” she went on, with a swift change of tone as her resentment welled up again: “I cannot forgive you; no, never! You have ruined my life; innocently or not is nothing to me. But you shall not suffer for this night’s work if I can help it. Now, go!”

A peremptory gesture cut short Philippa’s hesitation. She took up a candle by Royda’s direction, and without another word went out through the doorway which was then closed upon her. For a moment a horrible fear of a trap came upon her. What if she were buried alive in the depth of the rock? But she took courage, as by the light she[242] made out the passage stretching before her, and she began to make her way along it as fast as she could, always descending, sometimes by a gentle slope sometimes by a few shallow steps. Expecting every moment to arrive at the outlet, the passage began to seem interminable; but at last she reached the end and the small iron-clamped door. In a moment she had unlatched it and passed through. She found herself in a shrubbery, so thick as to be almost impassable, but by dint of feeling her way she pushed along a concealed path which gradually grew less dense, and after a while led her into comparatively open woodland.

The storm had passed away, the stars were shining between the masses of light drifting cloud, and the air had never seemed to Philippa so fresh as now after the tension of the scene in the great rock-chamber, and the close atmosphere of the long passage. Making her way down the side of the valley she soon reached the path running along it, which would lead her home.

In that night of adventure Von Tressen little dream how near he and Philippa were to one another. The Lieutenant and Galabin had resolved to pay Rozsnyo another visit and, if they should find it possible, make a bolder attempt to solve the mystery of the masked prisoner. When[243] they arrived outside the walk they saw that the window was closed and hidden. Passing on, they reached their climbing place and were quickly on the roof. As they cautiously went forward they were somewhat exercised to notice that the ascending stream of light was not to be seen, and on coming to the barred skylight they found that the room below was in darkness. This in a moment frustrated their plans, for obviously it would be unsafe, if not absolutely useless, to try to attract the prisoner’s attention when they could not see him or know whether he was alone. So after waiting some time in the hope that a light might appear, they were reluctantly forced to the conclusion that there was nothing for it but to abandon the attempt for that night. They were accordingly making their way back when an unexpected thing happened. As Von Tressen quietly slid down the wall he suddenly found himself in contact with a moving body, and next instant was seized by the throat. A desperate struggle thereupon ensued between him and his unknown assailant; it was pitch dark, and the Lieutenant could make out nothing of the man’s face; all he knew was that he must put forth all his strength to hold his own. In the struggle they worked their way to the edge of the slope and then went crashing down together. By this time Galabin had descended, and, taking in the[244] situation, rushed to his friend’s assistance. Between them they quickly overpowered the unknown assailant, who continued to struggle desperately, and were able to hold him down.

“Keep a look-out for another attack,” Von Tressen said to Galabin.

“Lieutenant Von Tressen?” gasped the man they were holding down.

“Herr D’Alquen?” they both cried in surprise.

It was none other than their mysterious acquaintance. For some seconds he lay back panting, then he said:

“May one ask what you two were doing on that wall?”

“You may guess?” Galabin answered. “I fancy we have as much right here as you.”

Their prisoner laughed. “That can hardly be settled without explanation. At least you may tell me one thing. Are you here as friends of Count Zarka?”

“Hardly, perhaps,” Galabin replied.

“Nor I,” D’Alquen said. “It is singular that we should be both here like thieves from a different motive.”

An idea had occurred to Galabin, a probable explanation of D’Alquen’s movements. “Perhaps our motives may not have been so different,” he said.

[245]“I cannot talk on my back with two men throttling me,” D’Alquen growled. “Let me sit up, will you?”

A little suspiciously they relaxed their hold so that he could assume a more comfortable posture for conversation.

“Has your business,” he asked, in his characteristically fierce, eager manner, “anything to do with a mysterious window in the wall yonder?”

Galabin reflected a moment and then answered; “Yes; it has.”

D’Alquen’s eyes seemed to glitter through the darkness. “Ah!” he cried eagerly. “You know, then? There is——” He stopped abruptly. “But you are friends of the Count?” he said distrustfully.

“No, we are not,” Galabin replied. “You can speak quite freely to us.”

For a few moments there was silence as the two waited for D’Alquen to continue. At last he said: “You have heard, of course, of Prince Roel’s death?”

“Of his disappearance, certainly, and his rumoured death.”

“Yes, yes! You believe it?”

“That the Prince is dead? Hardly.”

“Why not?” D’Alquen demanded quickly.

[246]“We may have reasons.”

“Ah! Reasons, yes; to think that he is here—here?”

“He may be here—or anywhere else,” Galabin replied guardedly. “If he is not dead——”

“Ah!” D’Alquen seemed to read the other’s thoughts although he could not see his face. “You know more than you will tell. I have suspected it, but it seemed impossible for two sportsmen——. Now you may tell me what you know. I am Prince Roel’s cousin, and have sworn to clear up the mystery of his disappearance, and if necessary to avenge him. I regret that I was compelled to take the Herr Lieutenant by the throat; I mistook him for a spy of that fellow Zarka’s.”

“And we were inclined to set you down as the same,” Von Tressen laughed.

“Do not let us stay here talking,” Galabin suggested. “We may be overheard, with unpleasant results. We had better be moving back towards our tent, unless you have a plan to carry through to-night.”

“At least let us first compare notes,” D’Alquen replied. “If we act together the solution of the terrible mystery may be easy.”

Rising from the ground, the three men stole across to the wood, whence they shaped their course to the valley.

[247]“My idea is,” D’Alquen said presently, “that this fellow Zarka is responsible for my kinsman’s disappearance, for it is suspected at home that he is in league with the Russians. Whether poor Roel is alive or dead by now I cannot tell; if alive, it is because that villain dare not kill him, at least till he has made sure of the consequences.”

They told him of the masked man. He stopped and flung up his arms excitedly. “Roel! Roel!” he cried. “Thank Heaven, at last I can make an effort for your liberty, or at least give my life for it.”

“Is there any necessity for that?” Von Tressen observed. “If we are sure the Prince is there a prisoner, why not inform the Chancellor and let the authorities proceed against Zarka?”

“No, no; it would be too late,” D’Alquen exclaimed.

“Yes; our friend is right,” Galabin said. “We should run the risk of defeating our own ends. For before the Government could come to the rescue, the Prince would be dead and buried a hundred feet down in the rock. No; we must not force Zarka’s hand, especially as he has his friends over the mountains to look to. And, after all, we have no certain proof as yet that the man in the mask is Prince Roel.”

“No; no proof,” D’Alquen said feverishly;[248] “yet we may be certain of it. All the actors in the wretched affair are here in the forest: Count Zarka, the gaoler and prospective assassin, my kinsman, the poor victim, and the lady of the farm, the decoy.”

Galabin glanced anxiously at Von Tressen, who started as though he had been struck.

“Decoy?” he demanded hoarsely. “What do you mean?”

D’Alquen turned to him with a fierce excited vent of repressed knowledge.

“I mean nothing less than I say. This woman—lady, if you will—who is staying so unaccountably, so mysteriously at the old farm, is nothing less, or nothing more, than a creature of Zarka’s, whom he has employed to delude my poor cousin and betray him to his death.”

“It is impossible; it is a lie!” the Lieutenant cried hotly.

Galabin made a restraining gesture. “Let us hear what proof Herr D’Alquen has of his assertion,” he said quietly.

“Proof!” D’Alquen returned. “Is any proof necessary to one who is not blind? Why are these people living at the farm? Why is Zarka there so constantly and on such a confidential footing, if there is no understanding between them? Is it not known that a woman was the instrument[249] of Roel’s spiriting away? She has disappeared too, for a good reason, and I say she is here.”

He spoke in a tone of fierce conviction, and Von Tressen, surprised and recalling the scene he had witnessed that morning, for the moment could not reply. Galabin spoke.

“We are hardly in a position to disprove or even contradict what you assert——”

“But I do,” Von Tressen broke in warmly. “You have no proof, mein Herr, only surmise and suspicion. It is unchivalrous, unmanly, to take away a lady’s reputation on such grounds.”

“You are a fine champion, mein Lieutenant,” D’Alquen returned with a sneer. “But I maintain that to any one not blinded by partiality the evidence I have is conclusive. Let me—ah! Look,” he cried suddenly breaking off and pointing excitedly towards the valley which lay before them. “Yonder!—yonder! Who is that?”

The other two looked eagerly towards the spot he indicated. For a few seconds the drifting clouds let a stream of moonlight fall aslant the valley. And across this band of light a figure was moving quickly—a woman. Then a thick bank of cloud swept over the moon and all was darkness, as Von Tressen sprang forward with a cry almost of despair. D’Alquen laughed.

It took a great deal, in a general way, to astonish Aubray Zarka, nevertheless the frame of mind in which that enterprising nobleman rode to Gorla’s farm next day was one bordering on sheer amazement. And the cause of his wonder was the mysterious wound which had thrown his cousin Royda d’Ivady into a fever. The doctor who had been summoned was a discreet man, even for a physician, and he had promised his very interesting patient to abstain from all allusion to that puncture in the right shoulder; but face to face with Zarka, ever suspiciously on the alert, his resolution was swept away like thistle-down. Poor man! The countenance of the lord of Rozsnyo was more to him than the secret of a hysterical girl; so the existence of the rapier wound was disclosed. But Doctor Horvath could not tell his patron one thing, for he did not know it himself, although he found some difficulty in persuading the Count of that—how the wound had come to be inflicted. Neither could he find[251] this out from his patient, although, at a hint from Zarka, he tried to do so.

But Zarka found it out—at least enough to enable him to make a shrewd guess at the rest. How—probably no one but himself exactly knew—but the fact that Royda’s fever made her occasionally light-headed may furnish a clue to the means.

“You will be sorry to hear that my cousin Royda d’Ivady is seriously ill,” he remarked to Philippa when they met. She stole an apprehensive glance at him, but his face was even more smilingly inscrutable than usual.

“I am sorry to hear it,” she replied. “I hope it is nothing dangerous?”

“Yes; a severe accident on which fever has supervened. Her condition is grave, but she is in good hands.”

“An accident?” Philippa was forced to show some curiosity, but it needed all her self-command to keep the right tone and avoid a suspicion of guilty knowledge; above all, to repress the sickening fear and self-reproach which had come over her.

“Well,” Zarka answered, fixing his piercing eyes on her face, “perhaps we ought not to call it an accident. It is altogether a mysterious business, but I feel sure accident is the wrong word to use. My cousin has received a severe wound[252] in the shoulder; she has been stabbed—the arm run through with a sword.”

“Then where is the mystery, Count?” Philippa asked, boldly meeting the feline gaze. “Surely Fräulein d’Ivady can tell you how she came by the wound?”

“I have not asked her,” he replied significantly.

“You prefer to remain mystified?” she suggested, with a half smile.

For a moment he looked like a tiger on the spring, as though her manner and his guess at the cause of Royda’s wound were provocative beyond endurance, but he checked the impulse, merely replying: “It is, perhaps, not so much a mystery after all.” Then he added suddenly, shooting out the question like a dart: “You have a cold, Fräulein?”

For a moment she did not see what he was aiming at. “A cold?”

“Your throat is wrapped up,” he explained, pointing to the unusually high band of lace round her neck.

She did not recover from her disadvantage in time to prevent a slight flush. “My throat pained me a little this morning,” she said.

“Ah! Not from cold, perhaps?” There was the gleam of an underlying meaning in his sharp eyes. “Our valley is damp at night. You are wise to keep your throat wrapped up.”

[253]“It is nothing,” she replied, facing the fire of his scrutiny as steadily as she could.

He gave a little bow, as ending the subject.

“I came over, Fräulein,” he said, “to ask you a question.”

“What is that, Count?”

If she thought it had to do with her night’s adventure she was mistaken.

“A simple one,” he answered. “Whether you have yet seen proper to change your no into a yes?”

She shook her head.

“At least,” he continued insistently, “we are nearer to the happy word than we were yesterday?”

“No, Count, indeed.”

But he would not accept her denial. “Oh, yes, we are,” he maintained. “I gave you a week, Fräulein, and much of that has yet to pass. It will take less than a week for you to see the folly of your refusal, the wisdom of throwing in your lot with the only man who can rescue you from a terrible danger, and make you one of the most envied women in the land.”

Philippa made no response. She was sick at heart at the evidence of the man’s indomitable will, and the conviction of his utter unscrupulousness.

[254]Returning through the forest Zarka, as much, perhaps, by design as accident, encountered Von Tressen and Galabin. He gave the young men a salutation which bore no trace of the ill-feeling in which he had last parted from Von Tressen. His expression was serious without, for him, especial malevolence, and to the Lieutenant’s surprise he reined up and spoke to them, addressing himself, however, more particularly to Galabin. After a few casual inquiries as to their sport, he said:

“I am rather in trouble at Rozsnyo, and you will, I am sure, be sorry when you hear the cause. My cousin, Fräulein d’Ivady, is seriously ill.”

They expressed their regret at the news.

“Yes,” Zarka went on; “it is most unfortunate, and the more provoking as the illness is the result of an accident, the outcome of a foolish escapade.”

“Indeed?” Galabin responded, wondering how far the man was to be believed.

Zarka proceeded. “A most unheard-of affair. It is extraordinary to what lengths our country-women’s hot blood will sometimes drive them.”

“Dare we ask for an account of what has happened?” Galabin observed, curious to know what the arch schemer was driving at.

Zarka hesitated with a grin and a shrug. “As I am in the somewhat delicate position of being the indirect, even if not the direct, cause of the affair,[255] I fear I must not speak very plainly. I don’t pretend to be more modest than the average, but there is a code among men of honour which forbids boasting. But what do you think, gentlemen, of a duel, a serious duel, with rapiers at night between two ladies?”

Galabin glanced apprehensively from the sinister smiling face to that of his friend, and began to regret his curiosity. Von Tressen’s look was set, and he made no sign of joining in the talk.

“Between ladies? Absurd!” Galabin laughed.

“Absurd enough in one way,” Zarka returned, “yet very serious in another. I wish Fräulein d’Ivady’s wound were as absurd as its cause.”

It was Galabin’s intention to make an attempt to dismiss the subject, but before he could do so Von Tressen spoke.

“You say, Count, that Fräulein d’Ivady has fought a duel with another lady.”

Zarka smiled. “So it appears.”

“And you really believe it?”

“Unhappily the evidence is too strong to do otherwise.”

“Is the name of her opponent a secret?”

Galabin interposed. “My dear Osbert, what does it matter?”

But the Lieutenant made a gesture to silence him. His face was stern, and the eyes which met[256] the Count’s had an angry gleam. “It does matter,” he insisted. “There are not so many ladies in the neighbourhood capable of fighting a duel that the withholding of the name should hurt no particular reputation. Count Zarka has boasted that a duel was fought on his account——”

“No, no!” Zarka protested, hardly disguising his evil satisfaction at the way his rival was walking into the trap.

“You suggested it, Count,” Von Tressen returned, with a touch of contempt. “It seems to me you have said either too much or too little.”

Zarka gave a shrug. “Too much, if you will. So I will add no more. You say there are few ladies in the forest, then it should not be difficult for the Herr Lieutenant to guess the name of my cousin’s opponent.”

“It would be affectation to ignore your insinuation,” Von Tressen replied with spirit. “But if it points to Fräulein Harlberg, I can only tell you, Count, I take the liberty of disbelieving your story.”

Zarka gave an unpleasant laugh. “I know of no one else who could have been my poor cousin’s adversary. Nevertheless, not having been present at the encounter, I am as much in the dark as yourself, Herr Lieutenant.”

“Then let me tell you, Herr Graf,” Von Tressen[257] returned hotly, “that you have no right on mere conjecture to cast aspersions on a lady’s reputation.”

“The fighting of a duel,” Zarka objected with insolent coolness, “is, between women, ridiculous enough, but hardly a matter of dishonour.”

“It is,” Von Tressen retorted, “when it is fought for the reason your modesty allows you to suggest.”

Zarka smiled indulgently. “You are a young man, Herr Lieutenant, and your natural chivalry makes you incredulous. But if you lived a thousand years in the world you would still have much to learn of women’s ways.”

“Possibly,” Von Tressen returned; “but in this instance I am concerned only with one woman. And I say you have no right without proof to associate Fräulein Harlberg with this escapade.”

Zarka’s face began to darken. “The Fräulein has a zealous champion,” he sneered. “Perhaps, if it were worth while, I might challenge our Lieutenant’s right to that office.”

“You may,” Von Tressen cried; “and I——”

Zarka waved his arm. “For the moment we talk of proof,” he interrupted haughtily. “For that I must refer you to the lady herself.”

Galabin interposed. “This is waste of time. Von Tressen, is it worth while——?”

Zarka stopped him. “One moment, gentlemen.[258] My suggestion is not quite so useless as you imagine. The Lieutenant has asked for proof. I will tell him where to get it. If I am wrong then I will accept the consequences.”

“Where am I to find this proof?” Von Tressen demanded.

Zarka was very calm now. “Where I told you,” he answered. “From Fräulein Harlberg herself.”

“I shall not insult her by suggesting such a thing,” Von Tressen returned indignantly.

“You need not,” Zarka rejoined with a smile. “You have but to pay a visit to the farm and notice whether the Fräulein’s throat is bound up. I fancy she did not come through the encounter quite unscathed. That should be proof enough for a reasonable man. If I am wrong in my assertion I shall be happy to give you any satisfaction you may demand. For the present there is no more to be said. Good-day, gentlemen. Auf Wiedersehen.”

He gave a touch to the bridle, wheeled, and rode off, the very incarnation of triumphant, Satanic politeness.

For the few seconds which elapsed before Zarka was out of sight neither of the two men spoke. Then as Galabin glanced at his friend, the Lieutenant turned away with a gesture of despair.

“You don’t believe what that fellow says?” Galabin observed sympathetically. “What is this[259] but a new move in his game. He sees he cannot coerce or frighten you, that you mean to stand up to him, and so is attacking you from behind. I thought there was some object in his rather unnatural civility, considering, that is, the terms on which you stand with him. No, no; you must not believe it.”

But his friend was unconvinced.

“Believe it?” he cried miserably. “I would give my right hand not to believe it. But I fear it may be all too true.”

“My dear friend,” Galabin remonstrated; “which is more likely to deceive you, this man Zarka, whose ways we know are crooked, or the girl, whom you have every reason to trust?”

“I do not know; I cannot understand it,” Von Tressen replied desperately. “It is all so mysterious; our seeing her in the forest with the man she professes to hate: it tallies with D’Alquen’s account of her; then the woman we saw in the valley last night, going towards the farm—ah, I wish I could have caught her and known the truth!—and now this story of the duel. Horaz, I hate myself for the thought, but I must put this terrible uncertainty beyond a doubt at once. I am going to Gorla’s Farm to put it to the proof.”

Philippa, ever now on the watch, saw him coming[260] down to the valley, and went eagerly to meet him.

“I am so glad you have come,” she said, with a suspicion of reproach.

“I should have come before this,” he replied, “only I thought——”

“You thought?”

“That perhaps you were too much engaged to care to see me.”

She knew from his tone what she had already guessed from the manner of his greeting, that he was jealous and suspicious. That unlucky meeting in the forest had worked its effects.

“Osbert!” she returned reproachfully. “Indeed, I have wanted to see you very much.”

In the first excitement of their meeting he had had no thought of the proof which Zarka had bidden him look for. Now the delight called up by her words was checked as he noticed the high band round her throat. A chilling wave of despair seemed to flow over him, and he replied almost coldly; “You wished to see me? I hardly guessed that.”

If she ignored his coldness it was because she knew it to be natural. “I wanted to warn you.”

“To warn me?” he asked half suspiciously.

“To put you on your guard against Count Zarka.”

[261]“Your great friend?”

“Not my friend, Osbert.”

“Yet you seem to be on remarkably confidential terms with him.”

“Perhaps,” she replied. “But for all that we are not friends; far from it. One day I will explain it all to you, but not now.”

“Why not now?” he returned.

“Osbert, can you not trust me?” she protested.

Her tone and the look which accompanied the words would have surely convinced him had not the tell-tale bandage continued to accuse her. He hated himself for the words his suspicion made him speak, shrank from the dilemma he must force upon her: yet the horrible uncertainty could not go on. He must get at the truth, whatever the cost might be.

“You look pale, Philippa,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “Are you not well? Why is your throat wrapped up?”

“I have a little cold,” she answered.

“The band round your neck is not becoming,” he continued, hating himself for the falsehood. “Is your throat very bad?”

“No; not very,” she replied steadily.

“I wish,” he said, “you would take all that lace off for a moment.”

[262]“Take it off? Why?”

“That I may see you without it. See the difference it makes. Come, dear, let me unwind it.”

She shrank back. “No, no. Please do not touch it.”

“Philippa, only for a moment,” he persisted, hiding the bitterness that rose in his heart. “Do take it off. I do not like you in it. Let me see you for a moment without it.”

His insistence must have betrayed his suspicion. She met him boldly.

“I cannot take the band off,” she said. “I have had a slight accident. I have hurt my throat.”

“You said it was a cold.”

“I must keep the cold from it.”

“The wound?”

“Yes.”

There was silence between them for a while. Then Von Tressen said abruptly: “Philippa, I hate mysteries. Will you not clear up the one which stands between us?”

“There is none,” she protested.

“There is,” he returned.

“None that need trouble you.”

“But it does,” he insisted. “Will you let our betrothal be known?”

“Not yet, Osbert.”

“At least let Count Zarka know it.”

[263]She laughed. “Who else is there here? Count Zarka is all the world.”

“I will tell him,” Von Tressen said.

A look of fear crossed her face. “No, please, Osbert, not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“And yet there is no mystery. How did you hurt your throat, Philippa?”

She felt her happiness was slipping away from her, yet somehow she could not grasp and stay it.

“By a piece of stupidity too absurd to mention,” she answered. “You need not look suspicious, sir; the Count had no hand in it.”

“He was not the cause?” he asked searchingly.

“No, I tell you.”

“Philippa,” he said suddenly, “for Heaven’s sake tell me what this man is to you. It is not fair to let me imagine things. You must—ah! What is the matter?”

In his vehemence he had grasped her arm in the very place where Royda’s rapier had pierced it, and she had given a cry of pain.

“Nothing,” she replied, quickly recovering herself. “You hurt me.”

“Surely not?” Then in a fresh access of suspicion he asked: “You have wounded your arm, too?”

[264]“No—yes, it is tender,” she answered in distress.

He looked at her sadly, despairingly, yet with the gentleness of a noble-minded man who would spare her pain in the parting which now seemed inevitable.

“If I stay longer I shall hurt you more, it seems,” he said. “We had better say good-bye.”

“For how long?” The question was forced from her, almost piteously.

“Till I am worthy of your confidence as well as your love,” he answered coldly. “Till I know how far Count Zarka’s presumption is justified.”

“Osbert!” she cried. In another minute he might have learned the truth, but Harlberg came in and cut short the word that was on her lips. She felt faint with her weakness, bewildered by the cruelty of her fate.

Her step-father asked her to fetch a book from her room. As she went the great strain she had undergone and the pain of her wound brought on a slight faintness. When she had recovered sufficiently to return to the room, Von Tressen was not there.

“I pressed him to stay,” Harlberg said, “but he would go, and asked me to say good-bye for him.”

Meanwhile the Count had ridden on with his brain in a whirl of love, jealousy, and the rage of thwarted will. But, notwithstanding the hazardous double game he was playing, his was not a nature to admit the possibility of anything but ultimate success. His restrained fury which showed itself only in the lowering face, the set jaw and a certain savage impatience of gesture, was the result of the vexatious counterchecks and what he regarded as the temporary baffling in the plan which he had a few days before been confident of carrying through without the shadow of a difficulty. But that he had been thwarted from an unexpected quarter did not abate one jot of his fierce, ever-growing determination to gain his end. Still, whether it was policy or passion which prompted him, he told himself as he rode along that no time was to be lost, and that the sooner he resolved on a bold stroke the better it would be. Time is seldom a trusted ally to men of the gambler’s temperament; they play to win[266] or lose on the moment; delay is no factor in their calculations.

Zarka rode on through the wild forest region at a rate in keeping with his impatience, until, having gone perhaps some half dozen miles, he slackened his pace and turned along a rough bridle-path which would bring him by a circuitous way back to Rozsnyo. He had pursued this path for about a mile when he came to a clearing in the woodlands and upon an unexpected scene. In the midst of the open space stood a half-ruined building which, from a certain peculiarity in its architecture, had clearly been, at any rate at one time or another, designed for a chapel or oratory. It was, in fact, the remains of a place of worship, built centuries before for the celebration of the superstitious rites of a semi-barbarous people. Grouped round the little building with an air of expectancy were several men and women, decked out in all the elaborate finery of their picturesque native costume. They were members of a community of forest dwellers, their homes lying in various hamlets scattered sparsely over those regions of wood and mountain. A curious fierce race of grown-up children, whose customs and superstitions seemed too hardy to be ever withered by the breath of civilization.

So intent was the group on what it was evidently awaiting that Zarka’s sudden appearance on the[267] scene, which in an ordinary way would have caused some little commotion, passed almost unnoticed. The reason was immediately apparent. Almost simultaneously with his arrival the head of a quaint procession was seen emerging through the trees upon the open ground. The costumes of the peasants who composed the little train showed a strange mixture of sombreness and gaiety. The faces of most of them were sad, yet their manner and gestures seemed buoyant, almost joyful. All wore favours and nosegays, and the girls of the party carried wreaths of such bright flowers as were in season.

Zarka reined in his horse and stood by, watching the affair with an expression of cynical curiosity. He guessed by certain tokens what the rite was, a not infrequent ceremony in those wild parts, a strange, old Magyar custom, surviving from the Dark Ages—the Marriage of the Dead.

As the procession, followed by the onlookers, entered the chapel, Zarka, rousing himself from his scornful train of thought, touched his horse, as though with the intention of continuing his way, then suddenly seeming to change his mind, he reined up again, dismounted, and, leisurely making fast his bridle, strolled into the doorway of the chapel.

A singular spectacle was before him. The members of the procession had already taken their places[268] and were on their knees. In front of a draped and decked-out altar, which accorded strangely with the crumbling walls, the broken windows and the general dilapidated state of the building, in two rudely-fashioned open coffins, hung by loving hands with flowers, lay a young man and a young woman, dressed in their full native costume of the gayest colours, with which the deadly ashen hue of their faces and hands made a sad contrast. Death had so refined their features that they seemed of a superior class to the assembly of their relatives and neighbours; moreover that same kindly, awful touch gave their faces a beauty which life, more churlish, had denied. They had both died on the same day, and in the minds of their simple kinsfolk it seemed fitting that in accordance with an immemorial custom, the Great Divider should join those whom life would probably have kept apart in mutual indifference. The service, or, rather, the ethnical rite, proceeded, conducted by an old, grey-bearded man, whose strongly marked features and determined yet venerable expression of fierce authority easily accounted for the high position he seemed to hold in the community. He wore a dark blue robe ornamented by symbols and mystic characters embroidered down the front of the gown and round the edges of the hanging sleeves. Below this, incongruously enough, he showed a pair of[269] thick Hungarian buskins. He chanted with that peculiar melancholy inflection which is characteristic of the Magyar voice what seemed a rude hymn, in which at certain points the assemblage joined. Presently, amid a movement of suppressed excitement, he advanced to the bodies, and, taking a ring from the man’s rigid hand, placed it upon the girl’s cold finger. Then resuming his former place, he knelt and recited what was evidently a prayer, the whole congregation following him with a fervour which made it seem as though, even in their almost shocking ignorance and superstition, the spirit of the Divinity were not far away, nearer, indeed, to them than that lounging yet alert figure, the very incarnation of evil, standing with a cynical sneer in the porch.

When the strange rite was ended the officiating patriarch changed his tone to a more natural inflection and addressed to the relatives a few words of sympathy, paying a tribute to the simple virtues of the pair he had just wedded in death. Then the kinsfolk left their places and clustered round the bodies which were to lie there till next day, when they would be committed to the earth in one grave.

As Zarka, having satisfied his curiosity, was about to turn away, a unctuous, snuffling voice at his elbow said:

“Shocking superstition, is it not, Herr Count?”

[270]The speaker was a man in priest’s garb, who had been standing unnoticed behind him during the greater part of the ceremony. A man with a fat, sensual face, whose expression of professional gravity was clearly assumed, since his nature was obviously more worldly than ascetic.

Zarka gave a significant shrug. “A pathetic ceremony, father,” he observed, with a cynical grin which completely neutralized his words. “A memento mori does one good occasionally.”

“It should be helpful,” the other assented with professional unction, contradicted somewhat by a twinkle in his eye which seemed to want but little encouragement to become a wink.

Evidently Zarka knew his man, since he was at no pains either to moralize on the function they had just witnessed or to disguise his scoffing humour. He untied his horse, and throwing the bridle over his arm was affable enough to offer to walk with the priest for a part of the way home, a proposal which the other welcomed with alacrity. Whatever his private opinion of his companion may have been, the lord of Rozsnyo and Obergespan of the district was distinctly a personage of importance, and as such was to be cultivated whenever opportunity served.

“You have my sincere pity,” Zarka said presently, “in having your lot cast among these obstinately[271] benighted hinds. Your work must be discouraging.”

No one knew better than Zarka that whatever effect his work might have on the portly priest, discouragement could not be included in it, since the somewhat scattered duties of his office were scamped in the most flagrant way.

“It is, indeed, far from what I could wish,” the priest replied, with evasive meaning.

“Yes,” Zarka proceeded, speaking more seriously now as he drew nearer to the object he had in view, “I am sure of it. You are, if I may say so, my dear Hornthal, too good for your surroundings. You have,” he glanced at the ample figure of his companion, “you have a cathedral presence, and we find you in a barn.”

The priest acknowledged the compliment with a bow and a gratified smile. “A comfortable barn,” he smirked, “thanks to your lordship, with the chaplaincy of Rozsnyo.”

Zarka could be very pleasantly insinuating when it suited him to assume that manner. He laid his hand familiarly on the priest’s shoulder.

“Seriously, my good friend,” he continued, “are you not wasted in these wilds? Have I any right to try and keep you when I know you to be fitted for a larger sphere? Are we not both selfish, you because you are comfortable, I because I am[272] loath to part with my only pleasant and cultivated neighbour.”

“If you, Herr Graf, should be good enough to obtain preferment for me,” Hornthal responded, with a greedy smile and twinkle, “I should not hesitate to mortify the present selfishness both of the lord of Rozsnyo and the priest of Lilienthal.”

Zarka laughed appreciatively. “Hardly an equal penance, my good father,” he said, “but that shall not deter me from serving a friend. Seriously, I have greater influence in high quarters than you perhaps suspect, and it is entirely at your service in consideration of many a dull evening you have brightened for me.”

Whether or not Hornthal believed his patron capable of assisting his advancement, there was clearly no harm in allowing him to try. “You are too good and gracious, Count, towards my poor deserts,” he said with a courtier-like demeanour. “Apropos of your most kind promises, I may mention that I hear Canon Lakner of Kulhausen has had a second stroke.”

“You would naturally step into his shoes if you cared for them,” Zarka replied, his casual tone suggesting that it was a matter of course. “They are doubtless a serviceable pair, if a little homely. But I was thinking of something smarter for you than that.”

[273]Hornthal’s eyes glistened. “You are too good, Count. May I be worthy of your gracious opinion.” Then as, perhaps, doubting his own qualifications for still higher preferment or his patron’s ability to obtain it for him, he added: “All the same, Kuhlhausen is a snug, pleasant benefice.”

“Bah, man!” Zarka exclaimed, with an affectation of impatience; “you have no ambition. Abilities and social gifts like yours would be thrown away in a wretched commercial little place like Kulhausen. Pearls before swine, my dear Hornthal. Were I in your position with an influential friend at my elbow, I would never rest till I had exchanged that”—he tapped significantly the priest’s well-worn oak stick with his riding whip—“your parish cudgel for a pastoral staff. Or my patronage is worth nothing. Good men must be picked up when they are found, and not left to rust. You know the world; you have travelled and seen men and cities. You are simply mislaid among these superstitious boors.”

Doubtless the sanguine tone he assumed was infectious, for the priest exclaimed with an expression of genuine delight: “Count, you take my breath away!”

Zarka had produced the effect he had aimed at, and could dismiss the subject for the time with an appreciatory nod. “Come and dine to-night,”[274] he said, as he prepared to mount his horse. “I am quite alone, and we can discuss over a bottle of Imperial Tokay how far my intention of serving you fits in with your ambition. Only, do not let the idea of preferment take away your appetite as well as your breath,” he added, with a half sneer which his smile did not disguise. “You Church dignitaries, my good father, must show us you know how to live, or how shall we believe you when you take upon yourselves to teach us how to die? At seven then, to-night.”

So, with a laugh which had more meaning in it than the priest comprehended, he rode on.

“They tell me I am dying. I must see you. Come. You need not fear. R. d’I.”

These words scrawled in a note had been brought to Philippa. She had hesitated; then, in an access of grief and consternation, determined to go to Rozsnyo. She seemed to have no fear of Zarka now. The great joy of her life was gone, and she could defy this man at last, careless of consequences. So, telling her step-father that she was going to Rozsnyo to see the Count’s cousin, who was ill, she set out along the valley. Harlberg made no objection; the plan did not affect him, and he was, if anything, rather pleased at any sign of greater friendliness between Zarka and Philippa. Half an hour’s walk brought her to Rozsnyo.

As she approached the castle a man suddenly appeared in her path, and accosting her with a bow addressed her by name, and begged her to allow him to conduct her to Fräulein d’Ivady. He was dressed in plain livery and had the air of a confidential[276] body-servant, and, although instinctively mistrusting his keen, crafty face, Philippa could not do otherwise than follow him. He deferentially led the way across the bridge to the private door where Philippa had been surprised, thence into the castle and to the room which Royda used as a boudoir.

In answer to Philippa’s inquiry he told her that Fräulein d’Ivady was, he thought, asleep; but would the honoured Fräulein wait, and he would ascertain? If the gracious Fräulein would take some refreshment after her walk? He indicated a tray on which were some dainty cakes and a flask of Tokay. Without waiting for an answer he poured out a glass of wine, and with a ceremonious bow quitted the room.

Left alone, Philippa walked to the window and looked out upon the great valley beneath, fenced in by vine-clad hills, above which again, in darker contrast, stretched away the magnificent pine forests, then, still beyond, the snow-capped heights of the Carpathians. It made her unutterably sad to think that a life was ebbing away from a world that was so beautiful: that the young girl lying a few yards from that room might never look on that glorious scene again, nor roam through that fairyland. Done to death through a moment’s madness, and by her. How bitterly she regretted[277] the chance that had taken her to Rozsnyo that night, and led to her attracting Royda’s attention. Just as a ray of hope seemed to have pierced through the mist of danger which had enveloped her, a black cloud had shut it out again, and there seemed now nothing for her but despair. She leaned her face against the window in an agony of grief. Then she suddenly became aware that some one had entered the room. She turned; it was Zarka.

“I came,” Philippa said, “to inquire after Fräulein d’Ivady; if possible, to see her. How is she?”

She asked the question apprehensively, noticing that he looked very grave. He shook his head. His eyes, however, were at variance with his demeanour; the sight of Philippa always brought a peculiar glitter into them. It was there now.

“How can I tell you?”

“Count!”

“Royda is gone.”

“She is not dead?”

“By your hand.”

Philippa turned away with the bitterness of death at her heart. For many seconds there was silence in the room. But the man’s eyes never left her form, and the glitter was never quenched for an instant.

“Could I not have seen her?”

[278]“It would have been useless.”

“Then—for Heaven’s sake, let me go.”

As she turned the glitter fastened on her face, which was convulsed with tearless grief. It had seen scorn there and anger, but usually the calmness of self-control and indifference. Never a softer emotion. And as the glitter marked this it seemed to coruscate.

“You will make amends,” Zarka said, taking a step to intercept her.

She stopped short, as though to avoid coming in contact with him.

“How? What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Philippa. You know what you can do.”

“No, no!” she exclaimed in shocked repugnance. “How can you speak of that now?”

“Now, of all times,” he returned.

“Do you think,” Philippa replied, almost with a touch of her old disdain, “that I would so insult her dead memory? Count, have you no sense of decency?”

A dazed feeling came over her. It was only by an effort that she kept her mind clear. Although she spoke boldly she felt trapped and powerless.

“Is it nothing to me to lose Royda?” Zarka exclaimed passionately. “Girl, can you not recognize[279] your own work? That if I forget grief and decency it is for love of you? That I am not master of myself, have no feeling but my mad love for you? Philippa, will you kill me as you have killed her? I cannot live without you! If I am to be alive at sunrise to-morrow it must be as your husband!”

“Count, this is madness.”

“You have made me mad.”

“I must go.”

“And you take the consequences?”

“Yes. If I must.”

“Come, then! But you shall see her first.”

“Oh, no.”

“You shall.”

He laid his hand on her arm, but she shook it off and drew back. He opened the door; she went out in a confused, uncaring state of mind, he following. The anterooms and passages of the castle were lighted dimly, not much more than enough to enable them to see their way. No one was about, and the place was absolutely still. In the long corridor Zarka quickened his pace till he came a little in advance of his companion, showing her the way. As he stopped and laid his hand on a door, Philippa said:

“Where are you taking me? I wish to go back to the farm at once.”

[280]“You will see Royda first?”

“No. What good would that do? Am I not punished enough for my folly?”

“Come, then. I will obey you. We will go another way. The room where she lies is far from here.”

He threw the door wide open. Within was a stiffly furnished anteroom lined with bookcases, and containing simply a large round table with a jade top, and a dozen high-backed chairs.

“This is the shortest way,” he said, crossing the room and opening at the farther end a door masked by book-backs. “Here we are in the picture gallery.”

Philippa passed through the second door somewhat reassured. The same subdued light was over the great gallery, which seemed dreary and ghostly in its vast dimensions and semi-darkness. Zarka walked on towards the dimly-seen farthermost end, Philippa following as in a dream.

He unlocked a door, and they passed out of the gallery first into a smaller one fitted with sculpture and bas-reliefs, then across a marble pillared vestibule and through one of its many doors, not into the open air as Philippa expected, but into an apartment hung with pictures of sacred subjects. The decoration of this room was decidedly ecclesiastical; a Pieta occupied a prominent place, and[281] a great Scripture tapestry, projected on a rod, evidently covered another door.

“Philippa, you must marry me!”

The words, breaking the silence between them which had lasted for some time, startled Philippa out of her apathy.

“Count! No, never!”

Then shrinking back and noticing her surroundings, it flashed upon her whither he had brought her.

Zarka went to the tapestry and glanced behind it as though to see that they were alone.

“I am sorry to seem harsh,” he said, in the resolute tone of a man who has made up his mind to a plan and is going to put it into execution. “But if you knew the strength of my love for you, you would understand that I am bound to have my desire—if not by persuasion, then by force. I am no longer master of myself in the matter. Many a happy marriage has come of a rough wooing. Be sensible, dear, and accept the inevitable.”

“No, no!” Philippa cried. “Zarka, you coward! You shall never marry me against my will!”

“I hope not; but I am bound, much against my will, to bring some pressure to bear. It is for your good. I do you no harm; where is the dishonour in my proposal? That you shall be my wife, my queen?”

[282]“I tell you, no! I will never marry you.”

“You shall never marry any other man. Consider the position in which you stand. You leave Rozsnyo in custody as Royda d’Ivady’s murderess, or you stay here as my wife.”

“Then let me go! I am innocent, Heaven knows, but I would rather die than marry you.”

Zarka seemed to grind his teeth for very exasperation. “The girl is bewitched,” he said, more to himself than to her. “No woman ever spurned me like this. I cannot see you dragged away to jail,” he went on in a louder tone, “and I will not give you up. We must be married here and now.”

Whether it was from weakness or the apathy of despair, or some subtle essence in the atmosphere of the place, Philippa had felt dazed, and, with a strange inertness, incapable of exerting her will but as the full villainy of the trap flashed upon her, indignation acting upon her nerves cleared her brain, and gave her temporary strength.

“You dastardly ruffian!” she cried. “There was a lower depth, then. I might have known it. You think by force to make me your wife! I would rather go to prison a thousand times over, die a thousand deaths before I would give myself to a man I so loathe—ah, I cannot tell you how I loathe you! Now, you have your answer, do your worst.”

[283]“I will kill you, Philippa,” he returned with savage intensity, “if I cannot marry you.”

“Ah! you liar!” she cried, a new light breaking upon her. “Royda is not dead, and you know it; it was a vile trick. You dared not show her to me.”

Zarka laughed.

“So much the worse for you, dear. Say you are right and she is not dead, but alive a hundred leagues away, then why are you here? You are hopelessly compromised. Another alternative presents itself, and a worse one. To-morrow morning you are a disgraced woman—or Countess Zarka.”

Philippa could make no reply; her heart was over-full of indignation and bitterness. The man was too strong for her, and in his pitiless strength was driving her surely to her doom. She felt more and more her own weakness pitted against him, the futility of her struggles. All hope seemed to have vanished, and even could she beat this man, victory would only mean prolonged misery, since the zest of life was gone.

So she thought of her one feasible escape—death, and calmly balanced it against union with Zarka. This marriage would confirm Von Tressen’s opinion of her; death would give it the lie. So she began to contrive calmly how she could accomplish her end.

“The General would be delighted at the news[284] of our secret marriage,” Zarka said, breaking the silence which he misinterpreted. “He would only be too glad to hear it was all over, and welcome you to-morrow as queen of Rozsnyo. Philippa, you must take the step now. You cannot go back. Honour is in front, shame and absolute disgrace behind. If I have taken a mean advantage, think of the odds I have had to fight against. Come! Be sensible. If you leave here now you can never hold your head up again; stay, and hold it higher than any woman of your acquaintance—as the bearer of my title. Is it so very dreadful?”

“The name of one of the greatest villains in Europe,” she said, in a low but perfectly distinct voice.

Zarka made an exclamation of impatience, but with wonderful self-control he gave no further sign of anger.

“We have talked long enough,” he said, crossing the room. “We shall never understand one another till we are man and wife.”

As he spoke he pushed away the tapestry which ran noiselessly on its rod, disclosing a pair of Gothic doors of polished oak. At a push these swung silently back revealing the private chapel of the castle, lighted up as for service. Behind the altar rails stood a man in robes, and with book in hand.

The sudden flood of light and the startling sight[285] of these preparations dazzled Philippa, who felt sick and dazed, lying back half exhausted in the great carved chair where she had fallen in her misery.

Zarka made a step towards her and held out his hand.

“Come!” he said gently.

But she shrank away from him with an exclamation of repugnance. He lifted his finger to the priest, who left his place and came towards them. The two men exchanged significant glances, then the priest approached the miserable girl and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder.

“Come, my dear,” he said blandly. “Everything is in order.”

But she clung to the arm of the great chair.

“Are you, a minister of God, going to abet this man in committing an awful villainy?” she cried, looking up at the unctuous, placid face, in strong contrast to her own features, working with the tumult of her feelings.

“You are mistaken,” he replied soothingly. “I am here to ally you in the sacred bond of wedlock with Count Zarka. Surely that——”

“Will be a monstrous crime,” she broke in. “It is you who are mistaken, deceived by this vilely dishonourable man, who has lured me here and now proposes to marry me against my will.”

[286]“I cannot believe it,” the priest responded, while Zarka stood impassive a little way off with folded arms. “How can so illustrious an alliance be a crime? You are labouring under some delusion—perhaps imagining that, by this private ceremony, he means to act dishonourably. Let me give you my sacred word as a priest that this is not so. You will be his acknowledged wife, a title to which no other woman has the slightest pretension.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” moaned Philippa, hopelessly struggling. “But when I tell you that from the very depths of my soul I hate this man, to whom you think to wed me, that I would rather you stabbed me to the heart this instant than gave me his hated name, and him the right to——. Oh, sir, by the God you serve, save me from him, from misery worse than death, and refuse to utter one word of that office which must be now most awful blasphemy!”

She had sunk on her knees to him, and was clutching his gown in her agony. But her appeal had no effect on him—at least none that was apparent. Probably he judged her as a man of the world, and easily silenced his scruples by the reflection that, although she in her inexperience might not think so, he was doing her a rare good turn. Whatever his private opinion of his patron may have been,[287] he could hardly conceive a girl could be in her right senses to refuse his alliance. As well might he refuse the preferment which Zarka had taken care to dangle before his eyes. And then he had his own ideas of women.

“My dear young lady,” he said, taking her arm to lift her, “you will thank me one day for this night’s work. Come! In a few minutes you will hold one of the most enviable positions in Europe, in the world.”

As she did not rise Zarka came quickly forward and took her other arm. Between them they raised her, and half led, half dragged her into the chapel, and along the broad space up to the altar rails.

“Let me die!” she moaned, struggling against a great faintness. Then, though she felt that both her arms were held, the priest appeared in front of her before the altar he was desecrating. Turning her head she saw by her side the cunning-faced servant who had ushered her into the castle. He was to be the witness of this diabolical sacrilege.

As the priest began to read the marriage office the words, sounding in Philippa’s ears, gave warning of the imminence of her hateful doom. In a few seconds she would be irrevocably tied to Zarka. Crying out in her desperation, she made one last convulsive struggle to escape—to death, if she could only lay her hands on the means. By[288] a supreme effort she freed herself from her captors and made a wild rush towards the sacristy, hoping in her despair to find a weapon to turn against them or herself. But the servant, lithe and alert, was after her like a greyhound. Closely followed by his master, he caught her as she reached the door; they stopped her, and began to force her back to the altar. She struggled desperately and screamed, but it was of no avail; Zarka was a man of immense strength, and having gone so far, he was bound to carry his project through by undisguised force since persuasion was futile. Philippa was helpless in his arms, and as they reached the altar rails again she hung still in his hold, but leaning away from him, utterly exhausted.

The priest, with no more concern on his face than if he were marrying a couple of peasants at Easter, lifted his book at a nod from Zarka and resumed the recital of the office. Philippa heard him pronounce Zarka’s name, and then her own.

“No, no!” she almost shrieked, desperately protesting.

“Philippa!”

If she did not hear her name shouted the three men did. The priest suddenly stopped in his unctuous monotone, and his expression was not so bland as usual as he glanced inquiringly at the bridegroom. Before Zarka had recovered his surprise[289] sufficiently to take action the cry was repeated, this time close at hand. “Philippa!” and in another instant as the servant sprang to the sacristy door, it was flung open and, thrusting the man aside, Von Tressen rushed into the chapel followed by Galabin.

In a moment the two men had taken in the scene, and Von Tressen strode quickly towards Zarka. “You ruffian!” he cried. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Stand away!” was the Count’s defiant reply. “This lady is my wife, and you interfere at your peril.”

“It is a lie!” Philippa gasped, recovering from her half faint, and struggling to free herself from Zarka’s grasp. “This man is a villain. I have been lured to this place by a trick. Osbert, I hate and loathe the man. I am not his wife; I would rather die than marry him. Will you not——?”

Before she could say more, Von Tressen’s arm was round her, and his disengaged hand dealt the Count a blow such as he had never felt before, a square, well-placed hit, worthy of an Englishman, which broke his hold of Philippa and sent him staggering back, falling over the chairs ranged behind him.

[291]He recovered himself quickly and, facing them, white with rage and pain, seemed to be meditating a rush. But he thought better of it, seeing that the odds were against him. Von Tressen and Galabin supported Philippa to a seat, where she sank down overcome by fear and excitement.

In the few seconds this occupied Zarka had regained the mastery over himself and a certain amount of composure.

“You will answer for this outrage, Lieutenant Von Tressen,” he said, speaking in a loud harsh voice. “It is you who are the ruffian; this is my private chapel in which you are brawling, and that lady is my wife.”

“I think not,” Von Tressen returned quietly.

“I have witnesses to prove it,” cried Zarka.

“Witnesses! Who are they?” Von Tressen demanded contemptuously.

“This man is your servant,” Galabin put in, pointing to the valet.

“And this,” pursued Von Tressen, indicating the priest who had laid down his book, and was sitting in one of the altar chairs with as much dignity as he could retain, “Is this another of your servants? Cowardly villain! I will proclaim you from one end of Europe to the other.”

The priest, taking his cue to speak, rose and stepped towards Von Tressen.

[292]“You are mistaken, sir,” he said blandly. “I am not a suborned domestic masquerading as a priest. This is no mock marriage. I am Desider Hornthal, a graduate of the University of Buda, and priest of the parish of Lilienberg.”

“Then,” Von Tressen retorted, “if you are privy to this precious piece of villainy you are a disgrace to your cloth.”

“Will you leave my chapel?” cried Zarka.

“I will not,” Von Tressen answered. “Neither shall any man, till we have got to the bottom of this vile business. Galabin, make fast that door, there’s a good fellow. Now, sir,” he went on, turning again to Hornthal, “accepting your statement about yourself, have you the audacity to tell me and my friend that the Fräulein is that man’s wife? Stop! Before you answer I warn you. I am Lieutenant Von Tressen of the Second Regiment of Cavalry: my uncle is Staatssecretär Von Tressen. This gentleman,” he pointed to Galabin, “is Herr Galabin, in the Bureau of his Excellency Baron Gersdorff, and we intend this matter shall be fully brought to light. The reply you give us you will have to repeat before a tribunal of justice.”

“Of course she is my wife,” exclaimed Zarka angrily, as the priest hesitated. “The ceremony——”

“No, no! A thousand times no!” cried Philippa.[293] “I swear I am not his wife. Osbert, it was by force and fraud, and they know it. Even if——”

“Yes, yes, dear,” said Von Tressen reassuringly. “You need have no fear. You, father, do you confirm Count Zarka, or this lady?”

The priest had begun to fear he was on the brink of an ugly scandal. But he was astute enough to see in a moment on which side his bread was buttered, and that his line was stoutly to support his patron.

“The marriage is undoubtedly duly performed,” he answered, unctuously decisive. “The lady, although a little hysterical, was quite a willing party, until she heard you coming, when her manner altogether changed.”

“Do you, a professor of religion, standing at the altar, mean to tell me,” demanded Galabin sternly, “that this lady gave her consent to become Count Zarka’s wife?”

Hornthal was not troubled either by nerves or superstition, consequently his position, professional or local, made no difference to his answer.

“Certainly. That was my impression before you came upon the scene.”

But he looked scared as he had never been before, and all his suavity seemed to vanish in a guilty start as a voice, coming behind from the very depths of the altar, cried, “It is a lie!”

[294]The priest turned involuntarily, and all looked wonderingly towards the spot whence the voice proceeded. The altar-cloth, stiff and heavy with its elaborate embroidery, was disturbed, then lifted, and from beneath it appeared a figure at sight of which Zarka uttered an oath, and Philippa, transfixed by the apparition, gave a cry of mingled astonishment and fear.

“Prince Roel!”

Pale and with hollow, sunken eyes, he looked a weird apparition to their startled imaginations. For a few moments no one could speak, as the figure of the Prince stood clutching one corner of the altar and glaring at them, half fearful, half defiant.

“A lie! An impious lie!” he repeated. “I am a witness. It is no marriage.”

“Bah! Mad fellow!” cried Zarka. “What trick is this. He is mad; pay no heed to his raving!”

The Prince made a spring forward but stopped half way, and stood glaring at him, unable to speak through the working of his passion.

“You call me mad!” he gasped. “Yes; you have tried to make me so. But I have escaped from your diabolical trap.”

“I think,” said Galabin coolly to Zarka, “this is Prince Roel of Rapsburg, whom you, as a creature of the Russian, have kept here secretly a prisoner—”

[295]“That you might accuse Fräulein Harlberg of his death,” Von Tressen cried fiercely, “and, by working upon her fears, force her into a marriage with you. It was the act of a contemptible coward and a villain! Come, Philippa. We have had enough of this.”

He put out his arm half caressingly, half protectingly to lead her away. But as they made a move towards the door, Zarka came quickly forward and planted himself to intercept them, with an ugly, determined set to his face.

“You do not think I shall let you go like this,” he said. “She is my wife, and you touch her at your peril.”

“I can prove she is not his wife,” Prince Roel cried excitedly.

“I intend,” Von Tressen said quietly, “to take Fräulein Harlberg home to her father. If your assertion be true, you will have ample opportunity for claiming her.”

“You shall not dictate to me, Lieutenant,” Zarka cried in fury. “In any case you will answer to me for this insolent intrusion. Now, stand away, or take the consequences!”

For reply Von Tressen handed Philippa to Galabin and advanced towards the door in front of which Zarka was standing like a tiger at bay.

“Do you mean to let us pass, Count?”

[296]“Certainly not.”

In another moment Von Tressen had seized hold of him, and the two men were struggling fiercely. Strong and well-knit as Zarka was, he was hardly a match for his younger and more athletic opponent. A very few seconds’ time sufficed for the Lieutenant to get the upper hand. He forced Zarka from the door and then flung him heavily away.

Galabin and Philippa had by this already passed through the sacristy and out into the hall beyond. The valet had followed close upon them without showing any sign of what his intention might be, and as Von Tressen turned from Zarka to cover their retreat the Prince sprang before him and rushed after the man.

“Quick!” cried Galabin, seeing Von Tressen coming after them. “The sooner we are out of this place the better. Ah!”

The valet had rushed to the door for which they were making and locked it. Next moment Prince Roel’s fingers were round his throat from behind; he was pulled backwards and flung, half-throttled, to the floor.

“Good!” Galabin exclaimed, throwing open the door for Philippa. “Come with us, Prince; we must get you away from here.”

Philippa, passing out, drew back with a startled cry. In the doorway stood Zarka, with two swords[297] in his hand. He entered and shut the door behind him.

“You have reckoned without your host, Lieutenant,” he said. “You shall not leave my house without paying for this outrage, or at least till we have adjusted our differences. We have a score to settle. You are undeniable as a wrestler; now let us see if you are equally admirable with edged tools.”

“If you think I am going to fight a duel with you, Count, you are greatly mistaken,” answered Von Tressen.

“But you will have to fight me before you leave this place,” Zarka returned. “It is not the custom among Hungarian gentlemen to maul one another like drunken fishwives. We leave that to the tumblers at our fairs and the dancing dogs. The world is too small to hold us both. There is your sword.”

He threw one of the duelling swords down at Von Tressen’s feet.

“I am not in the least afraid of you,” the Lieutenant said, “and should be quite content to settle our quarrel according to your code. But I presume not even the custom among Hungarian gentlemen would sanction my crossing swords with a man who has flung away all right to be looked upon as a man of honour.”

[298]Zarka’s eyes blazed with fury.

“You swagger well, soldier-boy! But it shall not serve you. No man ever yet insulted me with impunity, nor shall you be the first. Pick up that sword and defend yourself, or take the consequences.”

“I must protest against anything of the sort,” interposed Galabin, leaving Philippa and coming forward. “The Lieutenant has a perfect right to refuse your challenge, and you touch an unarmed man at your peril.”

“I accept that,” Zarka retorted.

“You ignore the presence of the lady about whom you affect such interest——”

But Zarka would not listen.

“Take that sword and fight me, Lieutenant, or I swear I’ll run you through.”

“Have you not given proof enough of your cowardice?” returned Von Tressen, folding his arms.

Zarka sprang forward and slashed at him furiously with his sword. Von Tressen caught the blow on his arm, and tried to grapple with him, but Zarka was too alert, and stepping quickly back, kept him off at the sword’s point.

“Take your sword!” he cried, “or I’ll kill you!”

The situation was serious, for the man was mad with fury. Galabin reached for the sword and[299] put it into Von Tressen’s hand—with the warning—“Take care of yourself!”

He had hardly caught hold of it when Zarka set upon him furiously. Von Tressen had no time to get on his guard or even to grasp the weapon properly, and in an instant a pass from Zarka had sent it from his hand. With a cry of triumphant execration Zarka went forward to lunge at him; Philippa and Galabin both by a common impulse rushed towards them, but at the same moment Prince Roel caught up a massive silver candlestick from a stand by the wall, and flung it with all his might at Zarka. It struck him full in the face, and hurled him senseless to the floor.

Little doubt remaining in the minds of the three men as to the identity of the masked prisoner, it had been agreed that a determined attempt to release him should be made that night. Accordingly, in pursuance of a carefully devised plan, they set out together after dark, and making their way to Rozsnyo climbed the wall, and crawled along the roof until they reached the barred skylight. As they approached they saw that the light, without which their plan would have been frustrated, was there, and when they came to the grating and looked down, the figure of the masked man was sitting at the table reading. So absorbed did he seem in his book that for some time a tapping on the glass failed to rouse his attention. At length, however, he looked up with a start, listened eagerly, they could tell that, but whether in fear or joy the hideous mask effectually concealed. Without delay the three above began to unscrew the bolts of the bars with tools they had brought with them. This was[301] effected without difficulty, and three of the bars displaced. The more serious obstacle now was the glass; the only way to remove this was by breaking it. This was a business which required great care, and took what, to their impatience, seemed a long time, but at length a large piece was broken out, leaving an aperture large enough for the passage of a man.

With the removal of the glass it was at last possible to hold communication with the prisoner.

“Roel!” D’Alquen called, in a loud whisper.

The masked one threw out his hands in an impatient gesture.

“Ah!” he cried, in a voice trembling with excitement, “it is you, Abele D’Alquen, or am I dreaming? Heaven be thanked! You have come to release me.”

“If we can manage it,” his kinsman returned. “At least, if we do not my life shall pay for our failure.”

“Ah, you have others with you?” the Prince exclaimed.

“Yes; two friends who have been working for your release.”

“Thanks, thanks,” he cried, and the fervour of his tone contrasted oddly with the hideous stolidity of the mask. “You are good fellows to save a man from torture worse than death.”

[302]A hurried consultation was held and a plan decided upon. As the height of the room made escape by the skylight practically impossible, at least by such means as they could command, another and far more daring method of rescue had been hit upon. And this they now proceeded to put into execution. By the aid of the long stout strap D’Alquen was lowered into the room. At once after a quick hand-shake he began with a file to cut through the steel fastening of the mask. To impatient men it was a long operation, but at last the irksome covering was loose, and Prince Roel could pull it off with an action of eager relief. As he did so, the two, watching from above, saw D’Alquen start back with a look and an exclamation of horror. The face which was disclosed was, it seemed, almost that of a corpse. It was deadly pale, even livid, wasted and shrunken; the eyes in their great blue sockets blazed with a feverish light; it had never been a handsome face; now, in the tale it told of the unutterable torture of a living death, it was absolutely appalling.

“Poor wretch!” Galabin exclaimed involuntarily, averting his eyes. But there was no time for comment. After that one gasp of horror D’Alquen, according to their pre-arranged plan, took the mask and fitted it to his own head, then he changed coats with the Prince, telling him the while the details[303] of their scheme. The exchange of attire having been made, D’Alquen hastily removed the traces of the broken glass, and took his seat at the table in the prisoner’s usual attitude of reading. At the same time the Prince took his station behind the curtains near the door. The positions were assumed only just in time; indeed, the disturbed curtain was still moving when the door opened, and the man who acted as gaoler came in. For an instant, until he had satisfied himself of his prisoner’s whereabouts, he did not leave the door; then, closing it, he crossed the room with a surly nod to the mask. For the watchers it was an anxious moment, but the man’s casual glance, though keen enough, did not seem to detect any difference in the man who sat by the lamp, and indeed there was not much to be seen. The figures of the two men were not very dissimilar, and although D’Alquen was taller than his kinsman, this was not observable as he sat leaning over his book.

The gaoler had a flask of wine in his hand, and this he set down upon the table. D’Alquen had raised his head, and the two men above could tell that he was watching the fellow, who now crossed to the screen by the concealed window, and examined it as though to see whether it had been tampered with. It was impossible to tell what[304] made him do so, but suddenly the man looked up, and saw the great hole in the skylight. Simultaneously D’Alquen rose with the word “Now!” and swiftly moved to the door, before which he took his stand, covering the gaoler with a pistol. Before the astonished man could quite realize the situation, Prince Roel had slipped from his hiding place and out of the door, which D’Alquen shut and held, pistol in hand.

“If you call out or move I’ll shoot you dead,” was his warning to the gaoler, and the last view that Von Tressen and Galabin had of the scene was the sturdy ruffian standing paralyzed before the gleaming weapon with an ugly grin of discomfiture on his face.

For no time was to be lost, now that the first step in the rescue was safely accomplished, in being ready to help the Prince through its other and more perilous stages. So Von Tressen and Galabin, seeing all had gone well so far, made their way with all haste down from the roof and round to the door leading from the chapel, which in the plan they had worked out seemed the shortest and least hazardous way from the prison-room to open air and liberty.

To return to the chapel. When Zarka went down from Prince Roel’s blow the way of escape seemed cleared, but no time was to be lost. Leaving the Count to recover as best he might under the care of his servant, the party, keeping together for safety, made their way along a passage which they judged would lead them in the direction of the prison-room, where D’Alquen had been left. But to find this proved no easy business, and as it turned out, they might have sought the room for hours without finding it, had not a lucky circumstance shown it to them.

Galabin had, as well as he was able from the information he possessed, made a plan of the bearings of the room in relation to its position from the vestibule which led to the chapel and, on the other side, to the principal entrance of the castle. He had carefully calculated the distance as well as the direction, and although in that intricately constructed building it was far from easy[306] to make practical use of the plan, he judged after they had gone a considerable distance, and had found themselves in a dark stone corridor, that they were not very far from the room they sought. Galabin, anticipating its need, had provided himself with a small lantern, and by the light of this they searched for the prison chamber. There were three doors on the left-hand side of the passage; all of these were unfastened, and each led into an empty room. On the right-hand side there were no doors, the stone wall was unbroken. At the end was a small door admitting to a winding stairway, evidently leading up into the tower. Prince Roel seemed to recognize the neighbourhood of his prison, but his ideas on the subject were vague, and he was quite unable to point out where the entrance could be found. His escape from the room had been made in such excitement that he had noted nothing except the passage that lay in front of him.

Every moment, they felt, was precious, as the delay would give Zarka’s people time to gather and attack them, which certainly, but for their chief’s state of collapse, would have happened before this. In their extremity Galabin ventured to call, “D’Alquen! D’Alquen!” To their great relief there was an answering cry, coming as it seemed from the thickness of the wall, and next moment the apparently solid stonework moved[307] outwards, and a door, the grooves of which were secured from observation by depressed lines in the masonry, opened, and D’Alquen backed out, revolver in hand.

“Now, let us get out of this as quickly as we can,” Galabin exclaimed.

But how? A hurried consultation was held, and a plan of escape which seemed to offer least risk was quickly decided upon. They all passed into the room, shutting and locking the door behind them. The gaoler, again held up under the influence of D’Alquen’s pistol, was then compelled at the muzzle of the same weapon to work back the iron shutter which concealed the window. This done, he was pinioned and left securely helpless. Then by the aid of the long strap which had proved so useful, all the five let themselves down, one by one, from the window. There was no sound or sign of a pursuing party as they crossed the moat to the wood beyond, down to the valley, and so along its path towards Gorla’s Farm. It was imperative that they should push on to the town which lay a few miles beyond, in order to insure Prince Roel’s safety, and send word to Gersdorff. Von Tressen took Philippa by the arm and helped her along the rough ground. For a while the excitement and reaction were too great to allow her to speak, although there was in her heart an unspeakable[308] joy at the lifting of the shadow of death which had lain across it. At length she said in a low voice:

“You understand, now?”

“Hardly,” Von Tressen answered. “But at least this, that I have been led into a hideous mistake in the suspicions which have been forced upon me.”

“It was my fault,” Philippa replied, “in not daring to explain. Low as my opinion was of Count Zarka, I never suspected him of such a monstrous thing as this, that all this time he was keeping prisoner the man whose death he persisted at laying at my door.”

“And the duel? That was one of his lies?”

“No,” she answered quietly. “It was the truth.”

He looked at her in blank astonishment.

“The truth? But how——?” He stopped, as unable to see the light of a happy explanation.

“It is quite true,” she continued, “that Fräulein d’Ivady and I fought—she for the Count—I for my liberty. It was forced upon me.”

“But how came you there, Philippa?” he asked, hating himself for the question, yet forced to put it.

“I lost my way in the forest,” she explained. “I was coming to warn you against the Count, who had let fall evil threats against you, and I was[309] frightened by Herr D’Alquen and driven by his presence and the storm under the walls of Rozsnyo.” Then in a few words she related the story of her encounter with Royda d’Ivady. “I had a terrible dread of being caught there by the Count,” she concluded, “and preferred to fight that almost mad girl for a chance of escape. Ah, Osbert, if you had only known the strange fear with which the Count inspired me you would see how I must have hated him to have had the courage to refuse to be his wife.”

“That is all over now,” he said caressingly.

She gave a little shudder.

“If I could think so. But I fear.”

“You need not fear now, dearest,” he said reassuringly.

“It is not for myself, but for you,” she returned. “Zarka is vindictive and cruel; he will never rest till he has revenged himself for his defeat to-night.”

“He is utterly discredited now,” Von Tressen urged. “When this is known he will be a criminal and a fugitive.”

“But a desperate one.”

“Perhaps. But you will not make me afraid of him.”

They had now reached the farm, and giving the astonished Harlberg in a few words an account of[310] what happened at Rozsnyo, the four men made for the encampment, harnessed the horse, and pushed forward to the town. Having seen Prince Roel safely to the principal inn of the place, and leaving Galabin and D’Alquen with him, Von Tressen drove back to Gorla’s Farm.

All was quiet; there seemed to have been no further attempt on Zarka’s part, although, in his present desperate position, this had been far from unlikely. Securing his horse by the gate, Von Tressen kept watch over the place until well into the morning, when the inmates of the house were astir. Then he went in to talk over with Harlberg and Philippa the arrangements for their immediate departure from the forest. The General was in good spirits, rejoicing in his freedom to resume his real name and at the prospect of release from his exile, and quite content to accept the engagement between Von Tressen and Philippa, since the Count was now an impossibility.

After breakfast Von Tressen drove off to the encampment in order to have their things packed, as he intended to make the journey with Harlberg and Philippa. He had arranged to meet Galabin there, and as he drove up found his friend awaiting him.

The preparations for their departure were set about quickly. The servant, Bela, was busy filling[311] a basket with cooking utensils while Von Tressen and Galabin were packing their valises inside the tent. Suddenly the light was intercepted. Both men turned quickly, to see standing in the entrance the figure of Count Zarka. His lowering face was hideously disfigured by a great dark swelling across the cheek and forehead; his eyes, notwithstanding that one was half closed, seemed to sparkle with hate, and the teeth were displayed in a set grin. Neglecting all his customary parade of salutation he stood there quite still, moving nothing but his lip as he said:

“Good-morning, gentleman. I have come to settle an account with you. Before we proceed further will you have the goodness to send your man away?”

For a moment neither replied. Then Galabin said: “We can have nothing more to do with you, Count, and as our servant is busy we cannot interrupt his work.”

Zarka gave a shrug and came two steps into the tent. “As you will. It makes little difference. Last night, Lieutenant Von Tressen,” he continued, keeping back as he spoke the corners of his mouth so that the rows of white teeth seemed to snap out the words as though a wolf had found speech, “you refused to fight me. You will not refuse again.”

[312]The last words were not a question, but the expression of a purpose.

The Lieutenant faced him sternly.

“Indeed I shall,” he retorted. “I have too great a respect for my honour and that of my uniform to meet the man you have shown yourself to be.”

“So!” Zarka snarled. “You refuse finally?”

“Finally.”

“Then I tell you you are a coward!” Von Tressen laughed. “That I will proclaim you a coward all over Europe!” Zarka proceeded, his voice rising with each sentence. “That I will flog you in public whenever I shall meet you. That is nothing to you, my swaggerer, eh?”

“Nothing,” Von Tressen answered quietly, “from the man in Russia’s pay who kidnapped Prince Roel and planned a dastardly outrage on a defenceless lady.”

Zarka gave no sign that the words stung him. In a tone as quiet as Von Tressen’s he continued: “No; that is nothing to you, my brave fellow. But when I tell you,” and here his voice sank to a hissing whisper, “that unless you consent to face my pistol now, I will kill you, yes, kill you as assuredly as there is a sun in the sky, kill you within a month, you will perhaps, knowing something of my character and that there is nothing[313] on earth I dare not do, when once I am resolved, I say perhaps you will see the desirability of meeting me in fair fight without further delay.”

Von Tressen laughed scornfully. “Not even on the flattering grounds that I am afraid of you,” he replied. “And I must ask you, Count, to leave the tent, as we are busy.”

For an instant Zarka’s eyes blazed. Galabin watching keenly, saw the evil light and drew a step nearer. But the murderous impulse, for such it surely must have been, was stifled for the moment, and the Count stood silent as meditating his parting words. However, Galabin spoke first.

“I fancy, Count, instead of threatening honourable men you will have enough to do to look after your own safety. If you do not immediately quit this tent we shall consider it our duty to arrest you, in anticipation of those whom the law will have put upon your track in a few hours’ time.”

Zarka, who had not appeared to notice him before, now turned his savage glance from the Lieutenant. “You too, Herr Galabin,” he said with the same ugly grin. “You must pardon me if I seemed to ignore you. When I have settled accounts with your friend I shall have an opportunity of meting out to you the reward of—a spy. I will not detain you, gentlemen. The short time before you should be yours. The future and a certain lady are for[314] me. Au revoir, gentlemen.” He turned abruptly, and next moment was gone.

Galabin laughed, though not very confidently. “The sooner we are out of this forest, and the Herr Graf is in the safe keeping of the law, the better for us all, my friend. Bela,” he called, “which way did the Count go?”

“Towards Rozsnyo, mein Herr.”

“Then let us lose no time in making for Gorla’s and so for civilization,” Galabin observed to Von Tressen. “The man is desperate, and the symptoms are none the less dangerous for being suppressed.”

Meanwhile Count Zarka had mounted and ridden back to Rozsnyo. He knew that, for a time at any rate, the dangerous game he had been playing was up; his only chance now was to put the mountains and the frontier between himself and Gersdorff’s long arm. The mere failure of the political side of the business would have troubled him but little; he was a gambler who knew how to lose as well as win, and at most this discomfiture would mean but a year or two’s exile till the affair was forgotten, or crowded out of attention by more engrossing international movements. What made him clench his wolfish teeth, scowl as he rode along, and startle the forest denizens by loud ejaculations of rage, was the maddening thought of failure nearer to[315] his heart, that he had been worsted in the fight for Philippa Carlstein. It was that which made him vow and curse, and dig his heels savagely into the roan’s flanks.

On reaching Rozsnyo he went in by his private door, and for an hour was busy making secret preparations for his flight. Having put things in order and destroyed certain papers, he took a gun and went out. As he crossed the bridge he could see that he was being watched from a window; he waved his hand carelessly to Royda, cursing her in his heart all the while as the indirect cause of his discomfiture. The action, almost brutal in its perfunctoriness, nevertheless brought a flush to the pale face, which watched him till the wood hid him from sight. For she knew nothing of the last night’s fierce doings, and if she had known she might have welcomed the crisis as putting her rival out of reach.

Zarka’s way was one he had often traversed, that leading to the pass over the mountains. The afternoon was still brilliant as he reached the snow line, and turned to take breath after his rapid climb. For he had set forth in a state of vicious excitement for which action and waste of energy were the only safety-valves. Even when he had halted on the lower plateau he could not keep still, but restlessly paced to and fro in irregular strides, now stopping,[316] now starting forward again as his thoughts seemed to whip him into action.

The disfigurement of his face showed plainer now; the swelling and discoloration adding ugliness of feature to that of temper which blazed malignantly from his eyes.

He lighted a cigar and walked on scowling; his progress was slower now, for the track was rough and tortuous.

Suddenly in his walk he stopped, and flung out his arms with a cry of “Hail!” The giant shadow of the mountain had appeared with startling abruptness, and now towered with weird vastness above him, seeming to rise from the chasm below. The suddenness of the apparition seemed for a moment to have shaken his nerves, but it was merely a flash of fear.

“An omen!” he cried. “Ah, my good genius, have you come again to give me courage? Zarka of the cloud and storm, help this fettered, passion-tossed Zarka of blood and clay. Give me my heart’s desire, or at least a sign that I shall gain it. God or demon, do with me what thou wilt so thou grant me this. Zarka of the mist and mountain, give me my prayer. I have never known defeat, my guardian genius, let me never know it!”

Up from the profundity of the yawning abyss before him came a great suppressed sighing as the[317] wind swept through the fissured depths. A big bird of the vulture family flew suddenly down to the mouth of the chasm, circled about, and sighting the man there, wheeled off with a cry of angry surprise. The spectre of the mountain slowly faded as the sun dipped behind the topmost peak; the mist began to rise and roll, and the cloud to assert its sway.

Zarka, who had stood since his apostrophe in lowering meditation, started forward as though with a suddenly formed determination. His disfigured face lighted up with diabolical triumph, and he laughed aloud as he hastened back along the path. Such a laugh! The laugh of a gambler who throws his last coin on the green table, a laugh that flings defiance at God and man, and utters the old invocation, “Evil be thou my Good!” A laugh that was echoed back from across the abyss, and reverberated on and on through the rocky walls and chasms of the mountain, on and on, after the human voice that had uttered it was silent for ever. For the laugh had been crushed out of those lying lips into a scream by the rush of a sudden “lavine,” or avalanche, which swept with terrific swiftness down the sloping wall of rock, bounded on to the ledge which just perceptibly checked its sheer descent, then, crashing over the precipice, flung itself into the abyss with a thunder which the[318] echoes prolonged and redoubled till it seemed as though the very mountain would be rent.

And the path was empty. Count Zarka was never more to know failure as he lay a thousand feet below, swept out of the world by a force that would have annihilated a regiment. And as the echoes of the fall died away they were followed by that of a scream, the cry of the vulture, swooping back and hovering in baffled voracity over the grave of his human brother.

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