“Going out alone on the public terrace and speaking to two strangers—Englishmen, too, who have no reverence or good manners! That was not the way your august parents taught you to behave, Highness. And asking after a young rip of a Scythian captain as if life and death hung upon it! What’s Prince Shishman Pelenko to your Highness, I should like to know? I wonder what your noble husband will think when he hears?”
This it was which reached Helene’s ears at last. She turned angrily upon the woman. “Silence, Hannele!” she said, with a decision Hannele had never seen in her before. “I justify myself to my husband, not to you.”
Leaving the maid crushed but indignant, she quitted the room with her painting materials. Jakob was in waiting, with her camp-stool and umbrella, and they climbed to the top of the hill, and plunged into the beech-woods on the other side. When Helene was as near the Pelenko mansion as seemed prudent, she chose a spot in a long grassy glade, bordered on either side by huge trees which were beginning to show the first touch of autumn, and set to work with uncertain fingers, wondering how long it would be before Jakob went to sleep. She had decided not to make him a partner in her enterprise. For one thing, there might be danger for him where a girl would pass unscathed; and again, he would be very likely to presume upon his long service with her family to prevent her doing anything. It seemed to her that her henchman was provokingly wakeful to-day. Generally it needed but a few minutes to set him propped against the trunk of a tree, slumbering peacefully, with his mouth as wide open as if he wished the squirrels to drop beech-nuts into it. But on this occasion it almost seemed that he must have been making resolutions against his drowsiness, so unwinkingly watchful did he remain. Helene thought hours must be passing before his rigid frame relaxed, and his grey head dropped gently back against the tree. When at last he was undoubtedly asleep, she tore out a leaf of her sketch-book, wrote on it in pencil, “I am going to seek another view. I will return here,” and laid it near him with a stone upon it to keep it from blowing away. Then she stole noiselessly past him, and made sure that the tree was between him and herself before she ventured to turn in the direction of the house. She was not long in reaching the corner of the wall, and although it was harder to climb than she had expected, she succeeded in getting over. Inside the wall was a thick belt of shrubbery, so wild and unkempt that it might almost be called a wood, and with beating heart she forced her way through this. There was a clear space in front, she saw, and presently she reached its edge. Crouching down and peering through the bushes, she found that she was close to the house, which looked much less imposing near at hand than from a distance. Originally a pretentious building of the sham classical style dear to the heart of the Europeanised Illyrian, with a good deal of ornamental work in plaster about it, it was now little better than a ruin. Great masses of the balustrading had fallen from the edge of the roof, the walls were cracked in many places, and there were only a few remnants of glass left in the windows. The garden was utterly neglected. Grass was springing up between the stones of the paved pathways, and the water in the large square tank was foul and choked with weed, above which the melancholy fragments of a broken fountain reared themselves. It was evident that whatever debts Prince Valerian Pelenko had contracted in Europe, he had not spent the money on his family seat.
As Helene peeped through the bushes, a slight movement attracted her attention to two persons whom she had not at first noticed—an old man, sitting on a stone seat beside the tank, in the shade of a clump of overgrown myrtles, and a servant, like his master in European dress, lounging against the wall of the house a little behind him. The picture was so pathetic that Helene felt the tears rise to her eyes—the old man sitting there among the ruined glories of his house, his gaze fixed on the dull stagnant waters of the tank. But there was a rustling in the bushes behind her; and turning her head, she saw that a huge fellow in the gorgeous Dardanian dress, his sash bristling with knives and pistols, had tracked her through the wood, and was now within a few feet of her, his cruel eyes gleaming in his fierce face. With a shrill scream she threw herself wildly forward, hoping to find safety in the company of the musing old man, but her foot caught in a briar, and she felt her pursuer’s great hand upon her throat. Her scream had aroused the two occupants of the garden, however, and she saw the old man look round.
“What is it that Danilo has found in the shrubbery—a child?” he asked the servant in French, and bewildered and shaken as Helene was, it seemed to her that the voice was familiar. The servant’s reply was inaudible, but she heard the old man say sharply, “Bring her to me, and I will reprove her. I will not have children mauled by these rough fellows.”
Helene’s captor released her reluctantly as the servant approached, but it appeared to her that the new-comer helped her up with equal reluctance, and cursed her under his breath. He gave the Dardanian some direction in his own language as he led Helene to his master, but she had no time to think what the words might mean, for it was Cyril who sat on the stone bench—Cyril whose clear blue eyes met hers without a trace of recognition. For a moment she was staggered—it could not be Cyril—but even before he spoke again she had no doubt. Old and white-haired and broken, this was the man to whom her childish devotion had been given.
“Do you know, young lady, that you are a trespasser?” he asked her in French. “Doubtless you found your way in by the little door in the wall?” Helene opened her lips to deny this, but he went on without giving her time to speak. “I know one of the servants was going into the town, and they are careless about the door. But you would hardly have gratified your curiosity by entering if you had known that my seclusion here is a matter of life and death.”
Helene gazed at him, unable to speak, and he went on.
“Probably you are unaware that my life is perpetually in danger? You know my name—Shishman Pelenko? But you will not have heard that my steps are continually dogged by hired ruffians. I can’t quite remember why it is—it happened a long time ago—but I am not safe except within these walls and under the protection of my faithful servants. This is Dr Gregorescu, my medical attendant”—he indicated a lithe dark-bearded man who had come up with a cat-like swiftness and softness of tread—“who is good enough to live here with me and watch over my health. My life may not be of much value to the world, but it has still some little charm for myself, and some value for my few friends, I think?” He looked round waggishly at Dr Gregorescu, and laughed—a foolish crackling laugh.
“Your life is most valuable to your friends, Highness,” replied the doctor, not smiling in return, but piercing Helene with his black eyes, “and I fear this young lady’s entrance here may endanger it.”