Of course I would. We sat up late arranging our plans and making preparations for our journey. Our idea was to make, at all hazards, a rush for the frontier. The plan at the best was full of danger, but at least it was no worse than staying where we were, marked down by these secret enemies. Anyhow, it meant action, relief from the strain of suspense, which was becoming intolerable.
So we laid our plans for the morrow, little dreaming with all our apprehensions what the night would bring forth.
It was past midnight when we turned in, having had much to do in preparing for an early setting out to run the gauntlet of Rallenstein’s myrmidons. Exciting as the day’s events had been, I lay but a short time, being pretty tired, before going off into a sound sleep; to be awoke with a start, having a confused idea of a cry in my ears. It was just growing light. Hardly had I collected my faculties when the cry rang again through the house, again and again, kept up in a series of screams of terror. I sprang out of bed, snatching up my revolver. Before I could reach the door I heard Von Lindheim’s voice calling my name.
Shouting “All right!” I dashed along the passage to his room, which was divided only by a small dressing-room from Szalay’s. I met Von Lindheim at the door.
“What is wrong?” I cried.
He was in a terrible state of excitement. “Szalay,” was all he could gasp. “Take me away before I go mad.”
The poor fellow, I could see, was beside himself with something worse than fear. A strange noise came from Szalay’s room, a horrible, inarticulate sound of a man struggling, as it were, to call out something. Thinking he was being strangled, I rushed in with my revolver ready.
To my astonishment he was alone, standing in the middle of the room, but so horribly altered that I hardly recognized him as the same man to whom I had bidden good-night a few hours before. His face was distorted, its colour changed, the sanguine, ruddy complexion being now a dark grey; the features seemed bloated, and the eyes glared with almost maniacal terror. The aspect of our poor friend was so appalling that the sight seemed to take all the strength from me as I stood before him under the thrill of this hideous experience. I would far rather have found the room full of armed cut-throats than containing this solitary pitiable victim.
“Szalay!” I cried at length. “What has happened?”
As he tried to answer a spasm seemed to catch his throat. He pointed with an unnatural, mad gesture to the open window, trying to talk, but the power of enunciation had failed him, he could produce only inarticulate gibberish. He threw up his hands in despair and shrieked again. I seemed to catch the words, “Dead man! Dead man!”