CHAPTER IV
THE BURNING OF RANOVICA
There were two beds in the room, and one was occupied already by Louis de Paleologue, who lay in a heavy stupor, but was not properly asleep. Faber had slept in such rooms before—in the old wild days when he had travelled in Western America to sell revolvers to a Christian people, who were set upon shooting other Christians. This room impressed chiefly by its omnipresent suggestions of profound filthiness. He feared to touch anything in it—the chairs, the walls, the very coverlet on the bed. His own rugs were his armament. He wrapped himself in them from head to foot, and fell asleep at last, still wondering in his dreams why, in God's name, he had come to Ranovica.
When he awoke, it was at a touch of the hand of his valet Frank. He felt heavy and drowsy, and knew that he had missed a good night's rest—indispensable to men whose brains are dominant. It was already light, and the curtains were drawn back from the window. He sat up to listen and became aware of a strange hubbub in the street without.
"Why, what are you saying, Frank; what's that you're telling me?"
The valet was ghastly pale; he walked upon tip-toe as though afraid of being heard; his voice was hardly more than the whisper of polite servitude.
"The soldiers are in, sir—it's all up with Ranovica."
"You don't say so! When did they come in?"
"Five minutes ago, sir. Don't you hear that—my God, don't you hear it, sir?"
There is no mistaking the cry of a man who is being butchered by knives, and Faber could not mistake it then. He sprang out of bed at a bound and ran to the window. The street below was full of Turks—the red fez, the baggy blue breeches were everywhere. Leaning out to get a better view, he saw a huge Albanian held down by four assassins who had the faces of the devils in the pictures. Another, like to them, had a broad butcher's knife in his hand, and was deliberately hacking the prone man's head from his shoulders. It was clumsily done and the wretch shrieked horribly at every cut upon the bare flesh. His blood already ran in the gutters, where it mingled with the blood of fifty others.