Rowland leaned against the gun rack and fingered the muzzles of the rifles. He had wanted to die out there in the open with a weapon in his hand, rushing a trench and yelling Vive la France. That was the kind of a death for a good fellow----
Oh, well. He'd had a good time. He had taken his fun where he found it.... But it was rotten luck that he couldn't show Tanya that he had been worthy of her confidence. There was no use crying about it. Somebody might come and let him out. If they didn't this was the end of P. Rowland. He lay flat on the floor where the air seemed very good. Might as well sleep as do anything else. Perhaps tomorrow something would turn up. The ceiling seemed to be closing in on him, like the Pendulum in the Pit. Poe was great on this sort of stuff--but Poe didn't have anything on him.
Once or twice he straightened, thinking that he heard a sound--a dull sound, somewhat like the throbbing of the blood in his ears, only ... Imagination again. He didn't want to think--everything was black--even thought.... He was very drowsy. It wasn't so bad, after all. Tomorrow perhaps Tanya would come.... Princess Tatyana ... Pretty name....
Then suddenly in his dreams the air was riven and his eardrums hurt him horribly as though the blackness in his brain were striving toward the light ... And then--nothingness.
CHAPTER IX
SURPRISES
Zoya Rochal had watched the figure of Rowland until it disappeared among the shrubbery. Her brows were slightly drawn and her eyes, shadowed by her dark hair, peered eagerly into the half light of the garden. Monsieur Khodkine, it seemed, respected her intelligence. But it was a pity that he had sent out for Monsieur Rowland so soon. It would have required but ten minutes more to have hitched this handsome American to her chariot wheel. He was a nice boy and it would be a pity if anything happened to him, for it seemed quite certain that something was on the point of happening at Nemi, and whatever happened it was Monsieur Rowland who would be the loser. Against the will of Max Liederman she had chosen to throw her lot in with the new President of Nemi, because he seemed quite young, quite inexperienced and with good management could be made quite useful for her own ends. But she hadn't reckoned upon the speed of Monsieur Rowland's wooing and the sudden culmination of the adventure. She wasn't sure that she hadn't liked the spontaneity of his caress--hurried, boyish and quite ingenuous. She must do what she could to save this newly found admirer from the wiles of Monsieur Khodkine, and with this object in her general plan, she moved slowly in the direction of the house and encountered on her way Max Liederman, walking alone in a bypath and furiously smoking a long cigar.
"Ach, Madame," he growled. "So you've at last condescended. It's time----"
"Don't be a beast, Max," she said coolly.
"Well, this is no time for trifling," he growled.