In the years of his absence he had forgotten the city, but he remembered the general directions, and only yesterday he had seen in the distance the gleaming white marble walls of his home standing on the beautiful headland overlooking the blue waters of the bay. He heard the sentry approaching and, trusting to instinct, turned into the nearest street and hurried away.
It seemed to Zaidos that the journey was endless, yet he went like the wind. He found himself searching the east for dawn. His instinct did for him what sight and reason would have failed to do. In daylight he would have been lost, but in that black darkness he kept his course, and finally the great white building where his fathers for generations had lived loomed mysteriously before him. He hurried up the broad stairs and besieged the massive doors with heavy blows. A startled footman opened it, and with a curt word Zaidos entered and demanded his father. The man bowed and led him up to a closed door. Here he knocked softly and a stout old woman answered. She looked hard at the young man in uniform, then with a little cry clasped him in a warm embrace. It was his old nurse.
"Ah," she cried, "God has answered my prayers! You are in time!"
A chill of apprehension swept over the boy. "Is he so ill?" he asked.
"He has waited for you," she answered. "I told him you would come. I knew it. He has been dying for many days, but he would not go until he saw you."
"Let me come," said Zaidos. He dashed past the old woman, the nurses and the doctors, and was clasped in his father's arms.
CHAPTER II
AN IMPRESSED SOLDIER
The events of that night long remained in Zaidos' memory, a blurred picture of pain and heart-break. There was a brief and precious hour with the father whom he had so seldom seen; a time filled with the priceless last communications which seemed to bridge all absence and bring them close, close together at last. His coming seemed to fill his dying father with a strange new strength. He talked rationally and earnestly with his beloved son. Zaidos could not believe that the end was near. Count Zaidos gave the boy a paper containing a list of the places where the family treasure was put away or concealed. Also other papers of the greatest value. Without these he would be unable to prove his heirship to the title and estates of the Zaidos family. In case of the boy's death all would go to a distant cousin, Velo Kupenol, who had long made his home with the Count. Zaidos turned to meet this cousin, whom he had not seen for so many years that his existence had been forgotten. He saw a keen, ferret-faced lad, a little older than himself. He took an instant dislike to the boy, and rebuked himself for doing so. Yet the hard eyes looked too steadily into his, with a cold, piercing, deadly look.