The Red Fox's Son: A Romance of Bharbazonia

by Edgar M. Dilley

There was no doubt about it; I had found her. Thanks to blind chance and my own perseverance I had stumbled upon the hiding place of the Secret Order of the Cross. It gave me new life to know that she was so near me. A few steps further forward, and another of my difficulties was solved. I found myself under a high stone wall which surrounded the hunting lodge of the Duke of Marbosa. The round white "moon" that had filled me with consternation was a circular window set in the end wall of the lodge. There must be lights in the lower casements, but the only one I had seen over the high wall was this single rose window.

I walked slowly around the wall, seeking an entrance. After a time I came to the main gate. It was made of iron grating and afforded a view of the interior. The lodge was a great stone house, standing in the middle of a clearing within an enclosure. In the rear were the stables. Not a soul was within sight and the gate was locked. Close beside it, however, was a smaller gate which was used as a foot passage. It yielded readily to my hand, opening inward. Fearing the silent presence of a guard I moved the door back slowly, and finally gave it a push as if it were disturbed by the wind. There was no movement. I crept noiselessly through the opening and closed the door so that my figure might not be outlined from the house.

Black shadows of men passed to and fro across the lighted windows, behind closed blinds, like shadowgraphs in a theatre. The singing continued and I frequently heard Solonika's voice. I crept close to the house and cautiously tried the front door; it was locked. Searching for some way to effect an entrance, I skirted the building, keeping close to the stones, and found a door in the rear. It also was locked. I examined each window as I passed; they were covered from top to bottom with heavy wrought-iron screens. The lodge was as tight as a prison house.

I turned my attention next to the roof. Perhaps there was a means of entrance in that direction. Close beside the lodge grew a great oak tree. All its forest neighbours had been cut down when the place was built. Its wide branches overhung the roof. Even though I failed to find a trap-door there, I would be safer in the branches than on the ground in case the Duke had his dogs in the stable. I quietly swung myself up by means of a low-hanging limb, and drew the telltale spear after me.

As my head came clear of the coping I saw the roof was somewhat flat and that a small watch-tower stood in the centre of it. It was composed of nothing but windows. One branch of the tree, which had threatened to grow through the tower, had been sawed off close to the windows. The limb made a natural strong bridge for me, and I could have shouted when I tried the nearest frame and found it slide quietly up under my hand. I was soon standing safely on the floor of the tower.

Feeling in the dark with my feet, I discovered a steep uncarpeted stairway leading down into the house below. The door at the other end was unlocked. As I opened this door the sound of singing and laughing came faintly to my ears. The Duke's men were enjoying themselves with the utmost abandon. Passing down another stairway I came to another door and found myself in a richly carpeted bed room. The bed was empty. I struck a match and saw two doors on the same side of the room. One communicated with another bed room and I tried the other. As I opened it, the noise of shouting and laughing was suddenly almost deafening. Heavy fumes of tobacco smoke and hot much-breathed air filled my nostrils, almost choking me.

I stepped softly out on to a dimly lighted balcony upon which twenty or thirty bed rooms, similar to the one I had just left, found exit. One swift step to the railing and I was looking down upon the Duke's men.

The main room of the lodge was a hunter's paradise. All around the balcony railing over which I leaned hung at regular intervals handsomely mounted heads of bears, wolves, boars, deer and other animals from the forest of Zin. At the end of the room where there was no balcony, under the circular window which had been my "moon," was a mounted lion about to attack two crouching tigers, trophies of the Duke's expeditions to India and Africa. Lying at full length on the lion's back, with his arms loosely around the neck of the animal, was a young trooper fast asleep.

The head and antlers of a large deer, suspended from the balcony in front of me, obscured my vision of the centre of the room below. But it also protected me from any one who might look my way. As I moved cautiously aside for a better view, I saw a long table spread with a white cloth, upon which were the remains of a feast. Standing in the centre of the table among the scattered dishes was the Prince with a sword upraised in his hand. He was singing at the top of his sweet voice that seventeenth century profanation "Down among the Dead Men."

The Duke's men, evidently in the "heigh-li heigh-lo" stage of a merry evening, were giving the Prince their undivided attention. They entered into the spirit of the song and were doing their best to reproduce the pose of the picture I had seen in Solonika's summer-house. One of their number, with his black coat collar turned up, was flattened against a pillar which supported the balcony. An expression of mock fright was upon his face. The rest of the ribald jesters were threatening him with drawn swords. A goodly number were lying on the floor, as if they had refused the toast and had suffered the consequences. But they were in excess of the number required for a faithful reproduction of the picture and I suspected that many of them were there because of the empty bottles.