"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.
CHAPTER XXXII
MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
We had no difficulty in reaching Middleham railway station, that familiar rendezvous, at the appointed time. Even Lord Frederick, who lived farther afield than any of us, was able, by putting a powerful car to an illegal use, to arrive on the stroke of the hour.
It was to be remarked that the prevailing tone in our coupe was one which almost amounted to gaiety. Judged by the cold agnostic eye, the scheme was only a little this side of madness. But it had the sanction of a high motive. Further, we were brothers in arms who had smelt powder together upon a more dubious enterprise; we had faith in one another; and above all we were sustained, one might even say translated, by the epic quality of an incomparable leader.
Fitz smoked his cigar and cut in at a rubber of bridge with an air of indulgent and serene content.
"It is lucky," he said, "that I know an old innkeeper on the frontier who will be rather useful if we have to go without passports. He is about a mile on the Milesian side, and will be able to provide us with horses and smuggle us across in the darkness. He will also find for us a couple of guides over the mountains."