CHASE COMES FROM THE CLOUDS
For many minutes, the watchers in the château stared at the burning bungalow, fascinated, petrified. Through the mind of each man ran the sudden, sharp dread that Chase had met death at the hands of his enemies, and yet their stunned sensibilities refused at once to grasp the full horror of the tragedy.
Genevra felt her heart turn cold; then something seemed to clutch her by the throat and choke the breath out of her body. Through her brain went whirling the recollection of his last words to her that afternoon: "They'll find me ready if they come for trouble." She wondered if he had been ready for them or if they had surprised him! She had heard the shots. Chase could not have fired them all. He may have fired once—perhaps twice—that was all! The fusilade came from the guns of many, not one. Was he now lying dead in that blazing—She screamed aloud with the thought of it!
"Can't something be done?" she cried again and again, without taking her gaze from the doomed bungalow. She turned fiercely upon Bobby Browne, his countryman. Afterward she recalled that he stood staring as she had stared, Lady Deppingham clasping his arm with both of her hands. The glance also took in the face of Deppingham. He was looking at his wife and his eyes were wide and glassy, but not with terror. "It may not be too late," again cried the Princess. "There are enough of us here to make an effort, no matter how futile. He may be alive and trapped, up—"
"You're right," shouted Browne. "He's not the kind to go down with the first rush. We must go to him. We can get there in ten minutes. Britt! Where are the guns? Are you with us, Deppingham?"
He did not wait for an answer, but dashed out of the garden and down the steps, calling to his wife to follow.
"Stop!" shouted Deppingham. "We dare not leave this place! If they have turned against Chase, they are also ready for us. I'm not a coward, Browne. We're needed here, that's all. Good God, man, don't you see what it means? It's to be a general massacre! We all are to go to-night. The servants may even now be waiting to cut us down. It's too late to help Chase. They've got him, poor devil! Everybody inside! Get to the guns if possible and cut off the servants' quarters. We must not let them surprise us. Follow me!"
There was wisdom in what he said, and Browne was not slow to see it clearly. With a single penetrating glance at Genevra's despairing face, he shook his head gloomily, and turned to follow Deppingham, who was hurrying off through the corridor with her ladyship.
"Come," he called, and the Princess, feeling Drusilla's hand grasping her arm, gave one helpless look at the fire and hastened to obey.
In the grand hallway, they came upon Britt and Saunders white-faced and excited. The white servants were clattering down the stairways, filled with alarm, but there was not one of the native attendants in sight. This was ominous enough in itself. As they huddled there for a moment, undecided which way to turn, the sound of a violent struggle in the lower corridor came to their ears. Loud voices, blows, a single shot, the rushing of feet, the panting of men in fierce combat—and then, even as the whites turned to retreat up the stairway, a crowd of men surged up the stairs from below, headed by Baillo, the major-domo.
"Stop, excellencies!" he shouted again and again. Bobby Browne and Deppingham were covering the retreat, prepared to fight to the end for their women, although unarmed. It was the American who first realised that Baillo was not heading an attack upon them. He managed to convey this intelligence to the others and in a moment they were listening in wonder to the explanations of the major-domo.
Surprising as it may appear, the majority of the servants were faithful to their trust, Baillo and a score of his men had refused to join the stable men and gardeners in the plot to assassinate the white people. As a last resort, the conspirators contrived to steal into the château, hoping to fall upon their victims before Baillo could interpose. The major-domo, however, with the wily sagacity of his race, anticipated the move. The two forces met in the south hall, after the plotters had effected an entrance from the garden; the struggle was brief, for the conspirators were outnumbered and surprised. They were even now lying below, bound and helpless, awaiting the disposition of their intended victims.
"It is not because we love you, excellencies," explained Baillo, with a sudden fierce look in his eyes, "but because Allah has willed that we should serve you faithfully. We are your dogs. Therefore we fight for you. It is a vile dog which bites its master."
Browne, with the readiness of the average American, again assumed command of the situation. He gave instructions that the prisoners, seven in number, be confined in the dungeon, temporarily, at least. Bobby did not make the mistake of pouring gratitude upon the faithful servitors; it would have been as unwise as it was unwelcome. He simply issued commands; he was obeyed with the readiness that marks the soldier who dies for the cause he hates, but will not abandon.
"There will be no other attack on us to-night," said Browne, rejoining the women after his interview with Baillo. "It has missed fire for the present, but they will try to get at us sooner or later from the outside. Britt, will you and Mr. Saunders put those prisoners through the 'sweat' box? You may be able to bluff something out of them, if you threaten them with death. They—"
"It won't do, Browne," said Deppingham, shaking his head. "They are fatalists, they are stoics. I know the breed better than you. Question if you like, but threats will be of no avail. Keep 'em locked up, that's all."
Firearms and ammunition were taken from the gunroom to the quarters occupied by the white people. Every preparation was made for a defence in the event of an attack from the outside or inside. Strict orders were given to every one. From this night on, the occupants of the château were to consider themselves in a state of siege, even though the enemy made no open display against them. Every precaution against surprise was taken. The white servants were moved into rooms adjoining their employers; Britt and Saunders transferred their belongings to certain gorgeous apartments; Miss Pelham went into a Marie Antoinette suite close by that of the Princess. The native servants retained their customary quarters, below stairs. It was a peculiar condition that all of the native servants were men; no women were employed in the great establishment, nor ever had been.
Far in the night, Genevra, sleepless and depressed, stole into the hanging garden. Her mind was full of the horrid thing that had happened to Hollingsworth Chase. He had been nothing to her—he could not have been anything to her had he escaped the guns of the assassins. And yet her heart was stunned by the stroke that it had sustained. Wide-eyed and sick, she made her way to the railing, and, clinging to the vines, stared for she knew not how long at the dull red glow on the mountain. The flames were gone, but the last red tinge of their anger still clung to the spot where the bungalow had stood. Behind her, there were lights in a dozen rooms of the château. She knew that she was not the only sleepless one. Others were lying wide awake and tense, but for reasons scarcely akin to hers; they were appalled, not heartsick.
The night was still and ominously dark. She had never known a night since she came to Japat when the birds and insects were so mute. A sombre, supernatural calm hung over the island like a pall. Far off, over the black sea, pulsed the fitful glow of an occasional gleam of lightning, faint with the distance which it traversed. There was no moon; the stars were gone; the sky was inky and the air somnolent. The smell of smoke hung about her. She could not help wondering if his fine, strong body was lying up there, burnt to a crisp. It was far past midnight; she was alone in the garden. Sixty feet below her was the ground; above, the black dome of heaven.
She was not to know till long afterward that one of her faithful Thorberg men stood guard in the passage leading up from the garden, armed and willing to die. One or the other slept in front of her door through all those nights on the island.
Something hot trickled down her cheeks from the wide, pitying eyes that stared so hard. She was wondering now if he had a mother—sisters. How their hearts would be wrenched by this! A mute prayer that he might have died in the storm of bullets before the fire swept over him struggled against the hope that he might have escaped altogether. She was thinking of him with pity and horror in her heart, not love.
A question was beginning to form itself vaguely in her troubled mind. Were all of them to die as Chase had died?
Suddenly there came to her ears the sound of something swishing through the air. An instant later, a solid object fell almost at her feet. She started back with a cry of alarm. A broad shaft of light crossed the garden, thrown by the lamps in the upper hall of the château. Her eyes fell upon a wriggling, snakelike thing that lay in this path of light.
Fascinated, almost paralysed, she watched it for a full minute before realising that it was the end of a thick rope, which lost itself in the heavy shadows at the cliff end of the garden. Looking about in terror, as if expecting to see murderous forms emerge from the shadows, she turned to flee. At the head of the steps which led downward into the corridor, she paused for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at the mysterious, wriggling thing. She was standing directly in the shaft of light. To her surprise, the wriggling ceased. The next moment, a faint, subdued shout was borne to her ears. Her flight was checked by that shout, for her startled, bewildered ears caught the sound of her own name. Again the shout, from where she knew not, except that it was distant; it seemed to come from the clouds.
At last, far above, she saw the glimmer of a light. It was too large to be a star, and it moved back and forth.
Sharply it dawned upon her that it was at the top of the cliff which overhung the garden and stretched away to the sea. Some one was up there waving a lantern. She was thinking hard and fast, a light breaking in upon her understanding. Something like joy shot into her being. Who else could it be if not Chase? He alone would call out her name! He was alive!
She called out his name shrilly, her face raised eagerly to the bobbing light. Not until hours afterward was Genevra to resent the use of her Christian name by the man in the clouds.
In her agitation, she forgot to arouse the château, but undertook to ascertain the truth for herself. Rushing over, she grasped the knotted end of the rope. A glance and a single tug were sufficient to convince her that the other end was attached to a support at the top of the cliff. It hung limp and heavy, lifeless. A sharp tug from above caused it to tremble violently in her hands; she dropped it as if it were a serpent. There was something weird, uncanny in its presence, losing itself as it did in the darkness but a few feet above her head. Again she heard the shout, and this time she called out a question.
"Yes," was the answer, far above. "Can you hear me?" Greatly excited, she called back that she could hear and understand. "I'm coming down the rope. Pray for us—but don't worry! Please go inside until we land in the garden. It's a long drop, you know."
"Are you quite sure—is it safe?" she called, shuddering at the thought of the perilous descent of nearly three, hundred feet, sheer through the darkness.
"It's safer than stopping here. Please go inside."
She dully comprehended his meaning: he wanted to save her from seeing his fall in the event that the worst should come to pass. Scarcely knowing what she did, she moved over into the shadow near the walls and waited breathlessly, all the time wondering why some one did not come from the château to lend assistance.
At last that portion of the rope which lay in the garden began to jerk and writhe vigorously. She knew then that he was coming down, hand over hand, through that long, dangerous stretch of darkness. Elsewhere in this narrative, it has been stated that the cliff reared itself sheer to the height of three hundred and fifty feet directly behind the château. At the summit of this great wall, a shelving ledge projected over the hanging garden; a rope dangling from this ledge would fall into the garden not far from the edge nearest the cliff. The summit of the cliff could be gained only by traversing the mountain slope from the other side; it was impossible to scale it from the floor of the valley which it bounded. A wide table-land extended back from the ledge for several hundred yards and then broke into the sharp, steep incline to the summit of the mountain. This table-land was covered by large, stout trees, thickly grown.
The rope was undoubtedly attached to the trunk of a sturdy tree at the brow of the cliff.
She could look no longer; it seemed hours since he started from the top. Every heart-beat brought him nearer to safety, but would he hold out? Any instant might bring him crashing to her feet—dead, after all that he may have lived through during that awful night.
At last she heard his heavy panting, groaning almost; the creaking and straining of the rope, the scraping of his hands and body. She opened her eyes and saw the bulky, swaying shadow not twenty feet above the garden. Slowly it drew nearer the grass-covered floor—foot by foot, straining, struggling, gasping in the final supreme effort—and then, with a sudden rush, the black mass collapsed and the taut rope sprung loose, the end switching and leaping violently.
Genevra rushed frantically across the garden, half-fearful, half-joyous. As she came up, the mass seemed to divide itself into two parts. One sank limply to the ground, the other stood erect for a second and then dropped beside the prostrate, gasping figure.
Chase had come down the rope with another human being clinging to his body!
Genevra fell to her knees beside the man who had accomplished this miracle. She gave but a passing glance at the other dark figure beside her. All of her interest was in the writhing, gasping American. She grasped his hands, warm and sticky with blood; she tried to lift his head from the ground, moaning with pity all the time, uttering words of encouragement in his ear.
Many minutes passed. At last Chase gave over gasping and began to breathe regularly but heavily. The strain had been tremendous; only superhuman strength and will had carried him through the ordeal. He groaned with pain as the two beside him lifted him to a sitting posture.
"Tell Selim to come ahead," he gasped, his bloody hand at his throat. "We're all right!"
Then, for the first time, Genevra peered in the darkness at the figure beside her. She stared in amazement as it sprang lightly erect and glided across to the patch of light. It was then that she recognised the figure of a woman—a slight, graceful woman in Oriental garb. The woman turned and lifted her face to the heights from which she had descended. In a shrill, eager voice she called out something in a language strange to the Princess, who knelt there and stared as if she were looking upon a being from another world. A faint shout came from on high, and once more the rope began to writhe.
The Princess passed her hand over her eyes, bewildered. The face of the woman in the light, half-shaded, half-illumined, was gloriously beautiful—young, dark, brilliant!
"Oh!" she exclaimed, starting to her feet, a look of understanding coming into her eyes. This was one of the Persians! He had saved her! A feeling of revulsion swept over her, combatting the first natural, womanly pride in the deed of a brave man.
Chase struggled weakly to his feet. He saw the tense, strained figure before him, and, putting out his hand, said:
"She is Selim's wife. I am stronger than he, so I brought her down." Then looking upward anxiously, he shouted:
"Be careful, Selim! It's easy if you take your time to it."