“It is that. You feel that if it had not been for me that poor little girl upstairs would have been sitting here with you as usual. It’s quite true, but do you need to hear me say that if I had known what was to happen I would never have stirred a step to escape—that I would go back and give myself up to Gregorescu this moment if it would do her any good?”
“It’s not that,” repeated Usk. “I know it wasn’t your fault—or Hicks’s or mine, except that we ought never to have let her come—but that we, all of us strong men, should have got through without a scratch, and a little delicate girl like her—oh, God! when we got her out from under the buggy——” his voice failed.
“Well, the Count has a good few scratches to show any way,” said Mr Hicks judicially, “and so has that good fellow William, blubbering out that he wished he was killed and her ladyship not hurt. But if I were you, Lord Usk, I guess I’d find something else to do beyond tearing my hair and scarifying my soul with remorse that way. You’ll be a fine washed-out article when they want you upstairs to give a hand with the nursing. Now, for your wife’s sake!” he took Usk by the shoulders, and pushed him down into a chair, “I’ll have you make some sort of a meal, or I’ll warn the doctor that it’ll only mean another patient on his hands if he lets you sit up.”
“I can’t hear what they are doing from here,” objected Usk.
“Nor can any of us. But we can hear if they open the door, or come out in the upper hall, and that’s just all you want. Now the Count is going to tell us something of what he’s been through. Yes, sir,” he added firmly, in response to a look of remonstrance from Cyril, “I guess I mean just that.”
“You needn’t think you’re going to make any sensational discoveries, Hicks. We may suspect till all is blue, but the real movers in the plot have covered up their traces too well to be brought to book.”
“Ah, I sort of suspicioned that they weren’t taking any risks. But I’d as lief know the way they fixed things up, Count, from that very evening when you swam out of our ken, like a new kind of planet.”
For a moment Cyril hesitated still. “It’s not the kind of story to make a man altogether proud,” he said, “for whenever I was outwitting our friends the enemy most completely, I seem to have been making it easier for them to keep a tight hold on me. But you shall hear. Of course our driver must have been drugged when we got to Klotsch that evening, and it had probably been made worth the landlord’s while not to be in too great a hurry to supply his place. At any rate, poor Paschics and I walked on a good way, and at last, thinking that as we had paid for the carriage, it was not much good doing the journey on our own feet, sat down by the roadside to wait for it. I think it was the first time in our joint lives that we were ever caught napping, and we have paid dearly enough for it, both of us, Heaven knows! but who would ever have anticipated danger on that straight piece of high road? There were not even woods on each side—merely rocks, and those stunted shrubs the goats eat. We were just beyond the turning which leads to this road below you here, down into Dardania, sitting rather high up on the bank so as to be out of the dust. Suddenly we were seized from behind, and blindfolded with something thrown over our heads. We hadn’t a chance to struggle. How many men there were against us I don’t know, but they carried us off quite easily, and when they took the cloak off my head again I was in a carriage, which must have been waiting just out of sight in the side-road. There was a woman in it—Tania Garanine, the Scythian actress—and when I saw her I knew the true inwardness of the plot at once. She is a favourite tool of Soudaroff’s; and the Princess of Dardania turned her on when she wanted to keep her son from marrying Princess Emilia of Magnagrecia. The young fellow was staunch, you know, which didn’t make the fair Tania any more kindly disposed towards me, who had made up the match. She looked quite radiant when I found myself opposite her in the carriage, and made no bones about answering my questions. It was desirable that I should be out of the way for a time, she told me, but everything would be done to make the short seclusion as pleasant as possible, and if I would give my word not to attempt to escape, I should be allowed a considerable degree of freedom. Since my revolver was gone, and my feet were fastened together, and my hands tied in front of me, it seemed rather unnecessary to ask for my parole, and I refused it promptly. She didn’t seem to mind, but the fellow who sat beside me immediately poked the muzzle of a revolver into my neck, and remarked that he would fire if I moved. There was another man opposite, also with a revolver, and poor Paschics was at the bottom of the carriage, apparently choking. I pointed out to the lady that if she didn’t want him to die before her eyes, she had better have the thing taken off his head, and she gave the order with a sweet smile, as a personal favour to me, she said. Just at that moment we passed another carriage—an elaborate old-fashioned affair with Dardanian outriders—coming in the opposite direction, towards Europe, and the man in it bowed very impressively to Mlle. Garanine.”
“Prince Valerian Pelenko!” cried Mr Hicks. “Then I guess he told the exact truth, after all, when he said he had seen you riding with that lady, and on the best of terms with her.”
“Probably, since he could not see the revolver, and the carriage-rug was drawn up over my hands. Did—did my wife hear it?”