NEWS FROM ILLYRIA
The man was Fitz.
"A thousand apologies," he said. "So sorry to disturb you. But there's news from Illyria."
Such a very remarkable obtrusion enchained the attention of us all. And this was not rendered less by the self-possession of the speaker's manner.
"Ferdinand has been assassinated." Fitz's tone was slow and contained. "The Monarchy has been overthrown; Sonia is a close prisoner in the Castle at Blaenau, and her fate hangs in the balance."
"What is your authority?" said Coverdale.
"Reuter," said Fitz. "A telegram is printed in the evening papers. I happened to buy one at the book-stall as I left town."
He produced the Westminster Gazette from the pocket of his overcoat and handed it to the Chief Constable.
"You don't suppose," said Coverdale, frowning heavily, "that they are capable of personal violence towards the Princess?"
"At bottom they are only half civilised," said Fitz, "and when their passions are aroused they are capable of anything. You will see the telegram says the government is in the hands of a committee of the people. And no wise man ever trusts the people and never will."
This feudal sentiment was uttered in a tone of the oddest conviction.
"By Jove!" said the scion of the ducal house. "Here is the chap we are looking for."
But the intrusion of Fitz was too deadly serious for any side issue to be allowed to distract our attention.
"I apologise to you, Mrs. Catesby, for spoiling your dinner party like this," he said, "but it is my firm conviction that if the Princess is to be saved there is not a moment to lose."
"One is inclined to agree with you," said Coverdale, slowly and thoughtfully. "Has it occurred to you that anything can be done?"
Fitz's reply, given quietly enough, was characteristic of the man.
"To-day is Monday," he said. "By midnight on Thursday we shall have her out of Blaenau."
"Impossible, my dear fellow, impossible," said the Chief Constable, "if this account is correct."
"Nothing is impossible," said the Man of Destiny. "There is just time now to catch the ten o'clock to-night from Middleham. First thing to-morrow morning we will get our papers if we can, and if we can't we'll go without them. We shall be in Paris some time in the afternoon; and if all goes well by Wednesday evening we shall be in Vienna. By five o'clock on Thursday we ought to be at Orgov on the Milesian frontier, and six hours' easy riding over the mountains with a couple of baits will land us at Blaenau."
We who knew Fitz and had followed him in high affairs knew better than to venture upon criticism of this bald and unconvincing scheme. Those who did not know him could only smile incredulously.
"Sounds easy," said Lord Frederick, "but assuming, Fitzwaren, that you get to Blaenau like that, what can it profit you if the Princess is in the Castle under lock and key?"
"Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage," quoted the Man of Destiny. "Once we get to Blaenau we shall have her out of the Castle, never fear about that. But there is no time to discuss the matter now. If we go at once and collect our gear—so sorry, Mrs. Catesby, but absolutely unavoidable—we can be in town by twelve-fifteen, arrange about our papers and keep well in front of the clock."
The man's calm assumption that we should all unhesitatingly follow his lead and commit ourselves to this rather mad and certainly most uncomfortable enterprise was remarkable.
"There is not a minute to lose," he said. "By the way, Arbuthnot, I've told Peters to pack a kit-bag for you. And this time, old son, you had better see that you don't forget your revolver."
Under the goad of the Chief Constable's uneasy eye I was fain to gaze at the black silk handkerchief, which still bore my wrist.
"I'm afraid I'm a lame duck anyway," I said.
"You will do to hold the horses at the foot of the Castle rock. Climbing up the face of that cliff will be out of the question as far as you are concerned. Now then, you fellows," the Man of Destiny took out his watch, "you have just two minutes to finish your port and get your cigars alight and then it's boot and saddle."
"Nevil," said the imperious voice of the Great Lady, "I am really afraid you are mad."
The Man of Destiny did not deign to heed this irrelevant suggestion.
The exigencies of historical truth render it necessary to record the fact that Joseph Jocelyn de Vere Vane-Anstruther was undoubtedly the first respondent to the call. My relation by marriage drank his port wine and rose in his place at Mrs. Catesby's board. There was a fire in his eye and the suspicion of a hectic flush upon his countenance which seemed to contrast strangely with the habitual languor of his bearing.
"First thing we must do is to send a wire to old Alec," he said; "although he is certain not to be in if we send it. If we get to town by twelve-fifteen I will trot round to the Continental. The beggar is sure to be there until they kick him out, as there is a ball to-night at Covent Garden."
This reasoning may have been lucid and it may have been pregnant; at least it recommended itself to the comprehensive intellect of the Man of Destiny.
"Quite right, Vane-Anstruther. I shall hold you responsible for O'Mulligan."
"Joseph," said the Great Lady upon a stentorian note, "are you mad also?"
Hardly had this pertinent inquiry been advanced when the noble Master was on his legs.
"So awfully sorry, Mrs. Catesby," he said with a long-drawn sweetness of apology, "but it can't be helped in the circumstances, can it? I leave hounds in the care of George and Frederick. Keep Potts up to his work, George, and see that he pays proper attention to their feet. And Frederick, I charge you to make it your business to see that Madrigal has a ball every Friday."
"Reginald," said his hostess with great energy, "in the unavoidable absence of your widowed and unfortunate mother I absolutely forbid you to bear a part in this hare-brained enterprise. I really don't know what Nevil can be thinking of."
In Ascalon whisper it not, but this was the precise moment in which I found the cynical eye of the Chief Constable upon me for the second time. The eye was also wary and a little pensive, but the great man rose in his place with an air of profound rumination. He slowly cracked a walnut and then turned to the butler, with a coolness which to my mind had a suspicion of the uncanny.
"Just tell my chap to have my car round at once," he said; and then with great deference to his hostess, "a thousand apologies, Mrs. Catesby, but you do see, don't you, that it can't be helped?"
Whether I rose to my feet by an act of private volition or at the subconscious beck of another's compelling power, there is no need to attempt to determine. But somehow I found myself upon my legs and adding my own imperfect apologies to the equally imperfect ones of the Chief Constable.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said my hostess, "sit down at once. A married man, a father of a family, and a county member! Sit down at once and get on with your fruit. Colonel Coverdale! I am surprised at you."
"Finished your port, Arbuthnot?" said Fitz, calmly. "Time's about up. But I've told your chap about the car."
Consternation mingled now with the lively feminine bewilderment, but Mrs. Arbuthnot, whom Fitz's news had excited and distressed, issued no personal edict. If the life of Sonia was really at stake it was right to take a risk. Nevertheless it showed a right feeling about things to betray a little public perturbation at the prospect of being made a widow.
"Jodey and Reggie and Colonel Coverdale must go," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "They haven't wives and families dependent upon them. But you, Odo, are different. And then, too, your wrist. You would be of no use if you went."
"I shall do to hold the horses at the foot of the Castle rock," said I, saluting a white cheek.
Fitz was already withdrawing from the room with his volunteers when Lord Frederick rose in his place at the board.
"Look here, Fitzwaren," he said. "If you have a vacancy in your irregulars I rather think I'll make one."
"By all means," said Fitz. "The more the merrier."
Bewilderment and consternation mounted ever higher around Mrs. Catesby's mahogany.
"Freddie! Freddie!" There arose a tearful wail from across the table.
"You ought to be bled for the simples, Frederick," said his hostess.
However, even as the Great Lady spoke, honest George, most conscientious of husbands, and notwithstanding his rank in the Middleshire Yeomanry, the most peace-loving of men, was understood to make an offer of active service.
"Well done, George," said his friend the Vicar. "I shouldn't mind coming as the chaplain to the force myself."
"George," said an imperious voice from the table head, "George!"
The Man of Destiny halted a moment on the threshold of the banquet hall with the frank eye of cynicism fixed midway between the Great Lady and the warlike George.
"George! Sit down!"
Finally George sat down with a covert glance at his friend the Vicar.
By the time we had got into our overcoats and mufflers and the means of travel had been provided for us, a scene with some pretensions to pathos had been enacted in the hall.
"Odo, you really ought not, but if dear Sonia really is in danger——!"
"We shall all be back a week to-night," the Man of Destiny informed my somewhat tearful monitor with a note of assurance in his voice.
Moving objurgations of "Freddie! Freddie!" were mingled with the clarion note of Mrs. Catesby's indignation.
"It is a mad scheme, and if you get your deserts you will all be shot by the Illyrians."
But Fitz and I were already seated side by side in the car. We waved a farewell to the bewildered company upon the hall steps, and then the fact seemed slowly to be borne in upon my numbed intelligence that yet again I was irrevocably committed to this latest and maddest call of my evil genius. There he sat by my side, his cigar a small red disc of fire, and he self-possessed, insouciant, dæmonic, almost gay.
The flaccid, rudderless creature of the past ten days was gone as though he had never been. It was hard to realise that this born leader of others, who courted war like a mistress, the magic of whose initiative the coolest and sanest could not resist, was the self-same broken fragment of human wreckage who twenty-four hours ago had not the motive power to perform the simplest action. But there could be no question of the magic he knew how to exert over the most diverse natures; and as we sat side by side in the semi-darkness of the car while it flew along the muddy, winding and narrow roads to Dympsfield House, I yielded almost with a thrill of exultation to the director of my fate.