CHAPTER XXVI
THE FUGITIVE
In dynasties, as in politics, the pendulum pursues its immutable law. Those who, or whose immediate ancestors, had applauded the tragedy of fifteen years ago, were now to be seen in the very forefront of the rejoicings at the fair Estrato who had come out of the blue to rule over them.
The editor of the Imparcial had at last had his great chance, and the Marinoni he had purchased second-hand from a Madrid printing office was working overtime. For edition after edition he drove home the praises of the rising stars of San Pietro. With the true journalistic spirit he had seized on the high lights of the romance, points which he knew would delight the gossip-loving patrons of his sheet, and the café loungers on the promenade of Corbo were regaled with stories of the love of Galva and Armand, which, if not strictly true, were at least richly garnished with the roses of romance and were well worth the reading.
As a counterblast, El Dia had appeared the morning following the death of the king, with a heavy, wordy, black-bordered leading article in which the influence of Spain was barely disguised. It had pointed out to the inhabitants of San Pietro that they would do well to move warily in the crisis now before them, and that, at least, they should stay the celebrations of joy until after the vault in Corbo Cathedral had closed over the remains of the late king, whose small virtues they unearthed and glorified.
But your Corbian is not given to moving warily, and neither can he pretend to a sorrow he does not feel. It is small wonder, therefore, that the gala colours of rejoicing should outweigh the trappings of woe with which a few axe-grinding friends of the late monarch bedecked their sorrowing persons.
From an attic window high up in a small and dirty hotel facing the Cathedral Square, and well shielded by the faded and torn curtains, a man had sat for days watching the animated scenes beneath him. He sat with his chin moodily resting in his hand, in his eyes the haunted look of a man who is hard pressed.
*****
Gabriel Dasso and the lieutenant had, after the encounter with Edward Povey in the shrubbery of the palace grounds, made their way to the house in the old town. The ex-dictator did not consider all was lost until Spain had had her say in the matter; he relied, too, on the army, a hope which would have been fully justified had he had only Prince Armand as an opponent.
But he well knew the natures of the gay-hearted youths who held commission in the San Pietran army, and, knowing this, he sighed, and a vision of a lovely face rose up before him, a face in which the dark eyes shone serenely and fearless, and luminous with fascination. He felt that only too readily would the swords fly from their scabbards to do service for Queen Miranda.
The men let themselves into the house in the old town and made their way to the dining-room. Dasso went over and drew the heavy curtains across the windows. There was wine on the table and he drank greedily. Mozara was standing dejectedly before the fire, jabbing viciously at the logs with his heel. The sight of the spur reminded him of something, and he gave a hard little laugh.
"We might have brought away our horses, Gabriel—we may need them," he said meaningly.
"Pshaw, we'll win yet." But Dasso's tone was not hopeful as he said it, and the hand that held the wineglass trembled a little, which was not usual with the hand of the ex-dictator.
"What! You have been busy with your schemes, Dasso; you have not noticed the eyes of the Queen, perhaps. Win!"—and the lieutenant snapped his fingers—"impossible."
Gabriel Dasso leant over the table and he spoke in a low whisper. Perhaps it was the wine that caused the huskiness to come into his voice.
"I saw eyes, Gaspar, like those fifteen years ago—and I won then. What is to prevent our doing now what we did then?"
He remained silent for a moment, his eyes never leaving Mozara's face.
"——now, what we did then," he repeated; "the people know nothing of this girl, and before the story can leak out it will be all over. I can get the captains from the barracks, Luaz and Pinto, and—oh, they'll all come with me. The girl shall not be mentioned; they will think there is only Armand there, and you know what they think of him. But it must be now; I will not count on their help when once they have seen her. I myself will find the girl and deal with her as I dealt with her moth——"
With an oath the lieutenant started forward; the glass he had been holding crashed to the floor, and his breath came in little painful gasps.
"You devil—you—Oh, I knew the downward path was broad, I did not think it was so short. Only a few months since that evil day when I fell under your thumb. Before the night of the cards I had been no worse than the others, now—— What's that, Dasso?"
The lieutenant had broken off suddenly and stood in the attitude of listening, his face grey and set. For a moment there was a strained silence in the room, then there came to the ears of the men a confused distant murmur. Dasso reached out a hand and extinguished the lamp.
Cautiously the two men, brought together now by a common danger, moved to the window; the flicker of the logs in the grate lit up the fear on their faces. Gabriel drew the blind aside for about an inch and stood waiting.
All seemed quiet again now, and the men told themselves that they had heard some drunken roysterers on their way home from the Casino. After a few moments they returned to the fire. There was a sneer on Dasso's face as he turned to the younger man and took up the quarrel where it had been interrupted.
"So you prefer to remain here and be disgraced, eh? My plan is the only one left and to-night is the only time for the doing. If we succeed Spain will gloss over the affair; if we fail——"
"Stop, Gabriel, I won't listen to you, and I'll do no more of your hellish work. A few mouths ago my life was at least decent. I'll have no dealings with you after what you have said. I can only thank God that I was with you in this, else that poor girl would have had no mercy shown her and would now be dead. Perhaps that will atone a little when I meet my Maker. I'll expose you, Dasso—you—you murderer."
The spring that Dasso made took the lieutenant unawares and bore him heavily to the ground, his head striking one of the carved iron firedogs as he went down with a dull crash, and he lay still where he had fallen. The face of the elder man was livid with passion.
"You'll expose me, eh? Murderer, eh? Many have thought that, but no one has called me it to my face." The fingers were tightening round the throat of the unconscious officer.
"When—you—meet—your—Maker, you said. That will be to-night, my friend." He pressed more heavily, leaning his weight full upon the body.
And when all was over and the form beneath him no longer made any movement or sound, he stood up. There were great beads of moisture on his face, and the decanter clinked pitifully against the glass as he poured out more wine.
He took the cloth from the long sideboard and dropped it over the face of the man on the floor.
Now the sound that they had heard came to him again in little bursts, and he walked unsteadily to the window. Pieces of the glass dropped by Mozara crunched under his heel.
The lamp had not been relit, and the murderer was able to see clearly into the moon-bathed street. The Three Lilies was in darkness—evidently the sound had not come from that quarter.
Again. This time it was more pronounced, and Dasso could make out a dark patch, dotted with lantern light, moving towards the house from the direction of the town. As the murmur grew more distinct, the watching man could make out a word here and there; they were calling his name, and the epithets attached to it were not flattering.
Dasso left the window, and crossing to the fire peered into the steel face of the clock that stood in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then in the half light he went over to the little safe embedded in the wall.
He unlocked it with trembling fingers and took from it package after package of papers and carried them over to the fire, and placing them on the seat of a chair began his task of sorting. Some were put upon the burning logs without a second glance; others, including a large roll of paper money, he placed in the breast pocket of his coat.
There were other documents, too, which caused a furrow to take shape between the evil brows, and which were held to the glow and read through from their first word to their last before they were finally pocketed or sent to swell the growing pile of grey ash on the smouldering logs.
Only once did the man look towards the thing that lay still and sinister on the great bearskin rug not two feet from where he knelt. This was when he picked up the envelope containing the hand at cards which had been the downfall of the man who now was dead.
Dasso held the package for a moment in his hand, the custodian of a dead man's honour. He seemed to be debating whether Mozara could in any way further serve him. Then as the noise outside grew louder he thrust the envelope between the bars and rose to his feet. Now there came a knocking at the great oaken door, and Dasso heard his name called by angry voices. He knew why the mob had come seeking him, and he knew the temperament of the Corbians, that they were creatures in whom civilization and barbarism were separated by the faintest of lines, and who knew no restraint or reason once their passions were aroused.
A stone hurtled through the window-pane and checked by the blind fell down with a clatter on to the polished floor and rolled almost to his feet. For the first time Dasso showed signs of haste.
He made his way from the room and through many passages to the servants quarters at the back, taking, as he ran, from a peg in the lower hall, a wide-brimmed hat and a common brown cloak which had belonged to old Pieto.
There came a crashing and splintering from the front of the house, and the man told himself that the stout oak had given at last. He opened a door beside the great dresser shutting it behind him and shooting home the heavy metal bolts. He descended a short flight of steps that lay there, and which led down to the cellars of the old mansion. At the foot he waited, and feeling out with his hands he found and lit a horn lantern.
Through cellar after cellar he made his tortuous way, past bins and racks of wine, between casks and cases stacked high to the groined roof. The air was thick and musty and great rats scampered away at the approach of the flickering yellow light and the hurried footsteps.
Then the air grew cooler, and Dasso stopped and, raising his lantern, searched the walls round him. A few stone steps led up to an opening, through which with stooping shoulders the man passed. Here he was in a tunnel, a narrow tube, that rose gradually until the fugitive could feel the cool airs of the night upon his face, and he found himself in front of an iron gateway. He took from the pocket of his coat a key, and after a few attempts the gate was thrust open, tearing its way through the mass of vegetation with which the iron-work and hinges were choked, and Dasso stood in the moonlight of the vegetable garden of his house. A thick belt of trees separated him from the building itself, and in the distance he heard the cries of the mob who had now gained an entrance. He clenched his fists and turned away. As he did so, through the trees a light splashed redly, then another—and another, and the man knew that they had set fire to the building.
A curse spluttered out between his teeth as, dropping the lantern into a water butt that stood at hand, he started to run along the path that led away from the house.
For perhaps a hundred yards he ran, the path leading between beds of celery and fruit bushes. The moonlight cut the garden up into sharp black-green shadows, which were illuminated now and again by flashes of light from the burning house behind him.
At the foot of the garden a high wall, spiked with broken glass, barred his way, and turning to the left he ran along at its base till he came to a door, bolted and barred. In a few moments he had this open, and was out in a small lane that ran behind the house.
Following this he emerged into a broader road, and again into the main street in which stood what was left of his home. Here, disguised as he was, he was safe, and he stood in a doorway and looked up towards the burning house.
The fire had by now obtained a firm hold, and the old worm-eaten woodwork was blazing vividly. Silhouetted against the glow were the dark figures of the incendiaries, like imps of the netherworld, leaping and howling in drunken joy, and Dasso guessed, and rightly, that some of the choice vintages it had been his whim to lay down had fallen into their unappreciative hands.
Higher and higher leaped the flames, casting a glow as of burnished copper on the dark violet of the sky. Higher, too, rose the voices of the mob; they were singing now a song of the Estratos, and one which had not been heard in the streets of Corbo for many a long day.
For perhaps half-an-hour the man stood in the doorway watching the downfall of his home and of his hopes. Then, drawing his cloak round him and pulling his hat well over his face, he made his way to the Cathedral Square.
He had to stop many times on the way to slip into the friendly shadow of some porch. Late as it was, the town seemed en fête on this night when their king lay dead in the Palace. The cafés were open and crowded with revellers, and bands of youths rushed madly past the homeless man, attracted by that beacon shining in the sky which promised devilment and plunder. It took Dasso, perhaps, half-an-hour before he emerged into the comparative quiet of the square facing the Cathedral.
At the side door of a dirty little hotel he stopped and rapped. The door was opened by the landlord himself, an evil-looking ruffian, who held the candle he carried up high to see who it was who came knocking at this late hour. Dasso took off his hat. The innkeeper fell back.
"Señor Dasso—why, what brings——"
"Don't stand there talking, fool, I'm coming in." He smiled cruelly. "You won't refuse a lodging to me, Gambi, surely."
The old man drew aside, and the hand holding the candle trembled. The visitor made his way into the kitchen of the hotel.
For a fortnight now the man had been sitting almost incessantly at the window looking down into the Cathedral Square. He had seen many happenings—the State procession of the new King and Queen when they attended Mass, the shouts of the multitude, and the smiles of the royal beauty in the carriage.
One night, too, a huge bonfire had been lighted in the square, and an effigy, whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, had been burnt to the accompaniment of drunken jeers and savage howls of execration.
The innkeeper, whose many misdeeds made him loath to offend his unwelcome guest, to whom they were well known, told him that the people were searching high and low for him, and that they had now come to the conclusion that he had left the island.
"In another week or two, Gambi, when my beard has grown more, their conclusion will be justified," Dasso had remarked, and the innkeeper had been very relieved indeed to hear it.