In Direst Peril

by David Christie Murray

The journey down had been long, but the return seemed actually interminable, and it seems so now in my recollection of it. I plead guilty to a confusion of mind which for a while left me powerless to think about anything. Notwithstanding the wraps with which the driver had supplied me, the cold of the March night pierced me to the bone, and the brandy I had taken seemed rather to stupify than to revive me; but when at last I did get home, and Hinge had helped me to a scorching rub-down with rough towels, and had assisted me to dress in dry raiment, I felt more myself again, and sent downstairs for the cabman, who was still waiting there for his fare. The man could tell me absolutely nothing of any value, and I soon found out that the fellow was as much surprised at the turn events had taken as I was myself. A servant girl, it seemed, had come upon the street and had told him that he was wanted a few doors off. He gave me correctly and with no unwillingness Brunow's address, and told me that the gentleman who chartered him had bidden him to drive first to the Italian restaurant, and then to our ultimate destination. I took the man's number and dismissed him with a handsome gratuity. Hinge at first wanted to insist on my immediate retirement to bed, but with every moment that went by I felt better, and when I had drunk a cup of his excellent coffee I was quite myself again, except in so far as all the events of the night seemed to have a curiously unreal and dreamlike feeling about them. The more I turned the thing over in my mind the more I felt inclined to doubt Brunow's bonafides, and yet our long acquaintance and the downright horrible character of the betrayal which had really been committed made the doubt seem so criminal that I tried to drive it away. The more I refused to harbor it the more emphatically it came back again. I recalled Brunow at every instant at which I had consciously or unconsciously observed him, and I knew that there had somehow been a burden on his mind. I could recall his cry when he had said that we were aboard the wrong ship; and let me do what I might, I could not rid myself of the belief that his voice and look at that moment were artificial and theatrical. Once, in the middle of that rough-and-tumble which ended in my involuntary plunge into the water, I had caught sight of him in the gleam of a sickly oil-lamp which swung above the deck. He was held, yet not restrained, by a burly seaman, and the picture was burned into my mind as if by fire. The man was peering over his shoulder, ten thousand times more interested in watching the progress of the struggle than in guarding Brunow, and Brunow was watching the struggle too, but not in the least with any look of amazement, but only with one which I could not for the life of me help construing into fear and shame and self-reproach. It was like a scene beheld by lightning, divided and apart from everything else, and I found it ineffaceable.

It seemed to me obvious that the first thing to be done was to communicate with Ruffiano's friends, for whether he had been spirited away by design or not, it was undeniable that he was in a strange predicament. I set out at once for our ordinary meeting-place, taking Hinge with me, and a brisk walk of a quarter of an hour brought me to the spot. The room in which we held our meetings was approached by an entrance which ran beside the lower room of the restaurant. I left Hinge in this narrow passage, and mounted the stairs rapidly. Before I reached the room I heard the hum of excited voices, and when I tried the door I found that it was locked; I gave the signal known to every member of our fraternity, and the door was opened. The man who opened it, a swarthy Neapolitan whom I barely knew by name, started with amazement as he saw me, and gave vent to an ejaculation. There were perhaps a score of men in the room, and as I stepped forward they all started to their feet and began to press about me with questionings, of which I could barely understand a phrase. One man only hung aloof, and that man was Brunow. I was so amazed to see him there, and so bewildered by the din of welcome and inquiry, that I had no opportunity for a real observation of anything; but I am a mistaken man indeed if Brunow were not to the full as much amazed at seeing me as I at seeing him.

“My good friends,” I called out at last, “let me have silence for a minute. Where is Count Ruffiano?”

Every one pointed at once to Brunow. He advanced, and I read treason in his face.

“My dear Fyffe,” he cried, holding out his hand to me, “I had never hoped to see you alive again.”

This time it was I who refused to see Brunow's hand, as he, only a few hours ago, had declined to see mine. If I had laid bare his villainy there and then, I have no shadow of doubt that there would have been murder done. If I had even hinted at suspicion, his life would have been barely worth a minute's purchase. If my associates had a fault with which both foes and friends alike would have credited them, it was that they were dangerously prone to act first and to argue afterwards. There had been treason in the camp already; when was ever a revolution conducted without it? But I could not make it my business to denounce a fellow-countryman, and a man who had once called himself my friend, unless I could proceed on actual certainty. It took an hour of excited talk to do it, and I had to describe my own share in the adventure twice or thrice; but I got Brunow away at last, and as we went down the stairs together I slipped my arm through his and held him with a grip which I dare say he found significant.

“You will come to my rooms,” I said. He made no answer, and I walked along with him, Hinge following at a distance of a yard or two, and so far, of course, suspecting nothing. Not a word was spoken by the way, and Brunow walked like a man who was going to the scaffold. When we came to iny own rooms I locked the door and faced him.

“What have you done with Ruffiano?” I asked him, sternly.

“God only knows what has become of him,” cried Brunow, casting his hands abroad with a gesture which was meant to convey at once irritation and wonder. “I made my way straight back to tell the story of the extraordinary incident of to-night, and I have told it. The men we have just left can confirm me in the statement that I did not lose a minute.” He was defending himself already, though no accusation had been brought against him.

“You escaped from the ship?” I asked him, curtly.