CHAPTER VII
A BIT OF ROMANCE
Since that tragic meeting at his father’s bedside in the grey dawn, Zaidos had had a shadow, his cousin Velo Kupenol, whose very existence Zaidos had forgotten in the years spent in America. Even now as Zaidos was exploring the trenches of the English position, Velo was near, apparently that he might see that no harm came to Zaidos, still a little weak because of the broken leg.
He managed to slip away from Velo finally and was greatly relieved. Somehow everything went along better without Velo tagging at his heels. Zaidos felt ashamed when he tried to analyze his feelings. He was at a loss to understand himself. Even Nurse Helen, who frankly confessed to Zaidos that she disliked Velo, was obliged to say that there was nothing openly objectionable about him. His manners were always easy and graceful, and he was quicker to jump to her assistance than any man on the detail.
He treated Zaidos with a protective fondness that was almost funny. He watched him, saw that he went to bed and arose on schedule time, helped dress his scratch, and looked after him generally like a faithful and devoted nurse.
Yet Nurse Helen pondered. She never once let him handle one of the dressings which were rapidly healing the ugly little tear in Zaidos’ arm.
Wherever he sat down to rest some soldier told him something of interest. Gunners explained the watch-like perfection of their guns. Snipers told thrilling tales of long shots. The cooks showed him how cleverly the big field stoves came apart, and how they could be assembled at a moment’s notice.
At supper time his new friend, Lieutenant Cunningham, called him. He had kept a place for Zaidos beside him. Velo had been omitted from the group, so he smilingly sat down in another bend of the trench with his pannikin of stew and cup of coffee, seemingly quite content. But black hate raged in his black heart!
Velo was a strange sort. He was a coward; he dreaded danger and endured hardships badly. Yet the thought that harm might come to him never entered his head. He was deeply superstitious, and while he could and did change the bottles and place the poison within his cousin’s reach, while he placed the rusty pin in the crutch where it would inflict a wound on Zaidos’ body, while he could plan endlessly to rid himself of his cousin, he would not himself directly aim the blow or fire the deadly shot. He rejoiced in the battle that was threatening. Zaidos would die, and he wanted the evidence of his own eyes. Also he wanted the statements of witnesses. Sometimes when he heard Zaidos’ ready laugh, and saw his bright, straightforward look, a flicker of pity shadowed his dastardly resolve. Then he remembered the soft living, the ease and luxury of the house of Zaidos, and remembering that he, as Velo Kupenol, must be all his life nothing but a dependent on his cousin’s bounty, he steeled his wicked heart to its self-appointed task.
But he must change his tactics. Zaidos as usual was surrounding himself with friends. Velo felt that he must be doubly careful. There must be no more strange, unaccountable accidents to Zaidos. When the blow fell it must crush him utterly; until then, he must be left to move securely.
Velo thought of all this as he sat talking to the soldier beside him and eating the plain fare of the men in the field.