CHAPTER. XI. RATHER A WILD NIGHT
Things were going very wrong for Nikky Larisch.
Not handsome, in any exact sense, was Nikky, but tall and straight,with a thatch of bright hair not unlike that of the Crown Prince, andas unruly. Tall and straight, and occasionally truculent, with a narrowrapier scar on his left cheek to tell the story of wild student days,and with two clear young eyes that had looked out humorously at theworld until lately. But Nikky was not smiling at the world these days.
Perhaps, at the very first, he had been in love with the princess, notthe woman. It had been rather like him to fix on the unattainable andworship it from afar. Because, for all the friendliness of their growingintimacy, Hedwig was still a star, whose light touched him, but whosewarmth was not for him. He would have died fighting for her with a smileon his lips. There had been times when he almost wished he might. Heused to figure out pleasant little dramas, in which, fallen on thebattlefield, his last word, uttered in all reverence, was her name. Buthe had no hope of living for her, unless, of course, she should happento need him, which was most unlikely. He had no vanity whatever,although in parade dress, with white gloves, he hoped he cut a decentfigure.
So she had been his star, and as cold and remote. And then, that verymorning, whether it was the new cross-saddle suit or whatever it was,Hedwig had been thrown. Not badly--she was too expert for that. As amatter of fact, feeling herself going, she had flung two strong youngarms around her horse's neck, and had almost succeeded in lighting onher feet. It was not at all dramatic.
But Nikky's heart had stopped beating. He had lifted her up from whereshe sat, half vexed and wholly ashamed, and carried her to a chair. Thatwas all. But when it was all over, and Hedwig was only a trifle wobblyand horribly humiliated, Nikky Larisch knew the truth about himself,knew that he was in love with the granddaughter of his King, and thatunder no conceivable circumstances would he ever be able to tell her so.Knew, then, that happiness and he had said a long farewell, and wouldthereafter travel different roads.
It had stunned him. He had stood quite still and thought about it. AndPrince Ferdinand William Otto had caught him in the act of thinking; andhad stood before him and surveyed him anxiously.
"You needn't look so worried, you know," he protested. "She's not reallyhurt."
Nikky came back, but slowly. He had in a few seconds already traveled along way along the lonely road. But he smiled down at the little Prince.
"But she might have been, you know. It--it rather alarmed me."
Prince Ferdinand William Otto was for continuing the subject. He blamedthe accident on the new riding-suit, and was royally outspoken about it."And anyhow," he finished, "I don't like her in boy's clothes. Half ofher looks like a girl, and the rest doesn't."
Nikky, letting his eyes rest on her, realized that all of her to him waswonderful, and forever beyond reach.
So that night he started out to think things over. Probably never beforein his life had he deliberately done such a thing. He had never, as afact, thought much at all. It had been his comfortable habit to let theday take care of itself. Beyond minor problems of finance--minor becausehis income was trifling--he had considered little. In the last borderwar he had distinguished himself only when it was a matter of doing, notof thinking.
He was very humble about himself. His young swagger was a sortof defiance. And he was not subtle. Taken suddenly, through theChancellor's favor, into the circles of the Court, its intrigues andpoisoned whispers passed him by. He did not know they existed. And hehad one creed, and only one: to love God, honor the King, and live likea gentleman.
On this boy, then, with the capacity for suffering of his single-mindedtype, had fallen the mantle of trouble. It puzzled him. He did notexactly know what to do about it. And it hurt. It hurt horribly.
That night, following the Archduchess's confidence, he had stood underthe Palace windows, in the Place, and looked up. Not that he expected tosee Hedwig. He did it instinctively, turning toward her hidden presencewith a sort of bewildered yearning. Across his path, as he turned away,had passed the little procession of the priest and the Sacrament. Heknelt, as did the lovers and the passers-by, and when he got up hefollowed the small flame of the lamp with his eyes as far as he couldsee it.
This was life, then. One lived and suffered and yearned, and then camedeath. Were there barriers of rank over there? Or were all equal, sothat those who had loved on earth without hope might meet face to face?The tinkle of the bell grew fainter. This weight that he carried, itwould be his all his life. And then, one day, he too would hear the bellcoming nearer and nearer, and he would die, without having lived.
But he was young, and the night was crisp and beautiful. He took a longbreath, and looked up at the stars. After all, things might not be sobad. Hedwig might refuse this marriage. They were afraid that shewould, or why have asked his help? When he thought of King Karl, he drewhimself up; and his heels rang hard on the pavement. Karl! A hard manand a good king--that was Karl. And old. From the full manhood of histwenty-three years Nikky surveyed Karl's almost forty, and considered itage.
But soon he was bitter again, bitter and jealous. Back there in thepalace they were plotting their own safety, and making a young girl payfor it. He swore softly.
It was typical of Nikky to decide that he needed a hard walk. Hetranslated most of his emotions into motion. So he set off briskly,turning into the crowded part of the city. Here were narrow, windingstreets; old houses that overhung above and almost touched, shuttingout all but a thin line of sky; mediaeval doorways of heavy oak and ironthat opened into courtyards, where once armed men had lounged, but wherenow broken wagons and other riffraff were stored.
And here it was that Nikky happened on the thing that was to take himfar that night, and bring about many curious things. Not far ahead ofhim two men were talking. They went slowly, arm in arm. One was talkingloquaciously, using his free arm, on which hung a cane, to gesticulate.The other walked with bent head.
Nikky, pausing to light a cigarette, fell behind. But the wind wastricky, and with his third match he stepped into a stone archway,lighted his cigarette, buttoned his tunic high against the chill, andemerged to a silent but violent struggle just ahead. The two men hadbeen attacked by three others, and as he stared, the loquacious one wentdown. Instantly a huge figure of a man outlined against the light from astreet-lamp, crouched over the prostrate form of the fallen man. Evenin the imperceptible second before he started to run toward the group,Nikky saw that the silent one, unmolested, was looking on.
A moment later he was in the thick of things and fighting gloriously.His soldierly cap fell off. His fair hair bristled with excitement. Heflung out arms that were both furious and strong, and with each blow thegroup assumed a new formation. Unluckily, a great deal of the fightingwas done over the prostrate form of Peter Niburg.
Suddenly one of the group broke away, and ran down the street. He ranrather like a kangaroo, gathering his feet under him and proceeding bya series of leaps, almost as if he were being shamefully pricked frombehind. At a corner he turned pale, terror-stricken eyes back on thatsinister group, and went on into the labyrinth of small streets.
But disaster, inglorious disaster, waited for Nikky. Peter Niburg, facedown on the pavement, was groaning, and Nikky had felled one man and wasstarting on a second with the fighting appetite of twenty-three, whensomething happened. One moment Nikky was smiling, with a cut lip, andhair in his eyes, and the next he was dropped like an ox, by a blow frombehind. Landing between his shoulder-blades, it jerked his head backwith a snap, and sent him reeling. A second followed, delivered by ahuge fist.
Down went Nikky, and lay still.
The town slept on. Street brawls were not uncommon, especially inthe neighborhood of the Hungaria. Those who roused grumbled aboutquarrelsome students, and slept again.
Perhaps two minutes later, Nikky got up. He was another minute inlocating himself. His cap lay in the gutter. Beside him, on his back,lay a spr
awling and stertorous figure, with, so quick the downfall, acane still hooked to his arm.
Nikky bent over Peter Niburg. Bending over made his head acheabominably.
"Here, man!" he said. "Get up! Rouse yourself!"
Peter Niburg made an inarticulate reference to a piece of silk ofcertain quality, and lay still. But his eyes opened slowly, and hestared up at the stars. "A fine night," he said thickly. "A veryfine--" Suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture. Terror gave himstrength. "I've been robbed," he said. "Robbed. I am ruined. I am dead."
"Tut," said Nikky, mopping his cut lip. "If you are dead, your spiritspeaks with an uncommonly lusty voice! Come, get up. We present togethera shameful picture of defeat."
But he raised Peter Niburg gently from the ground and, finding his kneesunstable, from fright or weakness, stood him against a house wall.Peter Niburg, with rolling eyes, felt for his letter, and, the saints bepraised, found it.
"Ah!" he said, and straightened up. "After all it is not so bad as Ifeared. They got nothing."
He made a manful effort to walk, but tottered reeled. Nikky caught him.
"Careful!" he said. "The colossus was doubtless the one who got us boxy,and we are likely to feel his weight for some time. Where do you live?"
Peter Niburg was not for saying. He would have preferred to pursue hissolitary if uncertain way. But Nikky was no half Samaritan. Toward PeterNiburg's lodging, then, they made a slow progress.
"These recent gentlemen," said Nikky, as they rent along, "they are,perhaps, personal enemies?"
"I do not know. I saw nothing."
"One was very large, a giant of a man. Do you now such a man?"
Peter Niburg reflected. He thought not. "But I know why they came," hesaid unguardedly. "Some early morning, my friend, you will hear of manlying dead in the street, That man will be I."
"The thought has a moral," observed Nikky. "Do not trust yourselfout-of-doors at night."
But he saw that Peter Niburg kept his hand over breast-pocket.
Never having dealt in mysteries, Nikky was slow recognizing one. But, hereflected, many things were going on in the old city in these troubleddays.
Came to Nikky, all at once; that this man on his arm might be one of thehidden eyes of Government.
"These are difficult times," he ventured, "for those who are loyal."
Peter Niburg gave him a sidelong glance. "Difficult indeed," he saidbriefly.
"But," said Nikky, "perhaps we fear too much. The people love the boyPrince. And without the people revolution can accomplish nothing."
"Nothing at all," assented Peter Niburg.
"I think," Nikky observed, finding his companion unresponsive, "that,after I see you safely home, I shall report this small matter to thepolice. Surely there cannot be in the city many such gorillas as ourfriend with the beard and the huge body."
But here Peter Niburg turned even paler. "Not--not the police!" hestammered.
"But why? You and I, my friend, will carry their insignia for some days.I have a mind to pay our debts."
Peter Niburg considered. He stopped and faced Nikky. "I do not wish thepolice," he said. "Perhaps I have said too little. This is a privatematter. An affair of jealousy."
"I see!"
"Naturally, not a matter for publicity."
"Very well," Nikky assented. But in his mind was rising, dark suspicion.He had stumbled on something. He cursed his stupidity that it meant, sofar, nothing more than a mystery to him. He did not pride himself on hisintelligence.
"You were not alone, I think?"
Peter Niburg suddenly remembered Herman, and stopped.
"Your friend must have escaped."
"He would escape," said Peter Niburg scornfully. "He is of the type thatruns."
He lapsed into sullen silence. Soon he paused before a quiet house, oneof the many which housed in cavernous depths uncounted clerks and othersmall fry of the city. "Good-night to you," said Peter Niburg. Then,rather tardily. "And my thanks. But for you I should now--" he shruggedhis shoulders.
"Good-night, friend," said Nikky. "And better keep your bed to-morrow."
He had turned away, and Peter Niburg entered the house.
Nikky inspected himself in the glow of a street lamp. Save forsome dust, and a swollen lip, which he could not see, he was notunpresentable. Well enough, anyhow, for the empty streets. But beforehe started he looked the house and the neighborhood over carefully. Hemight wish to return to that house.
For two hours he walked, and resumed his interrupted train ofthought--past the gloomy University buildings, past the quay, wheresailed the vessels that during peaceful times went along the Ar throughthe low lands of Karnia to the sea. At last, having almost circled thecity, he came to the Cathedral. It was nearly midnight by the clock inthe high tower. He stopped and consulted his watch. The fancy took himto go up the high steps, and look out over the city from the colonnade.
Once there, he stood leaning against a column, looking out. The sleepingtown appealed to him. Just so had it lain in old feudal times, clusteredabout the church and the Palace, and looking to both for protection. Ithad grown since then, had extended beyond the walls which shelteredit, had now destroyed those walls and, filling in the moat, had builtthereon its circling parks. And other things had changed. No longer, hereflected gloomily, did it look to the palace, save with tolerance andoccasional disloyalty. The old order was changing. And, with all his hotyoung heart, Nikky was for the old order.
There was some one coming along the quiet streets, with a stealthy,shuffling gait that caught his attention. So, for instance, might aweary or a wounded man drag along. Exactly so, indeed, had Peter Niburgshambled into his house but two hours gone.
The footsteps paused, hesitated, commenced a painful struggle up theascent. Nikky moved behind his column, and waited. Up and up, weary stepafter weary step. The shadowy figure, coming close, took a form, becamea man--became Peter Niburg.
Now, indeed, Nikky roused. Beaten and sorely bruised, Peter Niburgshould have been in bed. What stealthy business of the night brought himout?
Fortunately for Nikky's hiding-place, the last step or two proved toomuch for the spy. He groaned, and sat down painfully, near the top. Hishead lolled forward, and he supported it on two shaking hands. Thus hesat, huddled and miserable, for five minutes or thereabouts. The chimerang out overhead the old hymn which the little Crown Prince so oftensang to it:
"Draw me also, Mary mild, To adore Thee and thy Child! Mary mild, Star in desert drear and wild."
Time had gone since the old church stood in a desert drear and wild, butstill its chimes rang the old petition, hour after hour.
At ten minutes past the hour, Nikky heard the engine of an automobile.No machine came in sight, but the throbbing kept on, from which hejudged that a car had been stopped around the corner. Peter Niburgheard it, and rose. A moment later a man, with the springiness of youth,mounted the steps and confronted the messenger.
Nikky saw a great light. When Peter Niburg put his hand to hisbreast-pocket, there was no longer room for doubt, nor, for that matter,time for thinking. As a matter of fact, never afterward could Nikkyrecall thinking at all. He moved away quietly, hidden by the shadows ofthe colonnade. Behind him, on the steps, the two men were talking. PeterNiburg's nasal voice had taken on a whining note. Short, gruff syllablesreplied. Absorbed in themselves and their business, they neither heardnor saw the figure that slipped through the colonnade, and dropped, abloodcurdling drop, from the high end of it to the street below.
Nikky's first impulse, beside the car, was to cut a tire. By getting hisopponent into a stooping position; over the damaged wheel, it would beeasier to overcome him. But a hasty search revealed that he had losthis knife in the melee. And second thought gave him a better plan. Afterall, to get the letter was not everything. To know its destination wouldbe important. He had no time to think further. The messenger was comingdown the
steps, not stealthily, but clattering, with the ring of nailsin the heels of heavy boots.
Nikky flung his long length into the tonneau, and there crouched. Itwas dark enough to conceal him, but Nikky's was a large body in a smallplace. However, the chauffeur only glanced at the car, kicked a tirewith a practiced foot, and got in.
He headed for the open country. Very soon his passenger knew that hewas in for a long ride possibly, a cold ride certainly. Within the citylimits the car moved decorously, but when the suburbs were reached, thedriver put on all his power. He drove carefully, too, as one who mustmake haste but cannot afford accident.
Nikky grew very uncomfortable. His long legs ached. The place betweenthe shoulders where the concierge had landed his powerful blows throbbedand beat. Also he was puzzled, and he hated being puzzled. He wasunarmed, too. He disliked that most of all. Generally speaking, he felthis position humiliating. He was a soldier, not a spy. His training hadbeen to fight, not to hide and watch.
After a time he raised his head. He made out that they were going east,toward the mountains, and he cursed the luck that had left his revolverat home. Still he had no plan but to watch. Two hours' ride, at theirpresent rate, would take them over the border and into Karnia.
Nikky, although no thinker, was not a fool, and he knew rather betterthan most what dangers threatened the country from outside as well.Also, in the back of his impulsive head was a sort of dogged qualitythat was near to obstinacy. He had started this thing and he would seeit through. And as the car approached the border, he began to realizethat this was not of the Terrorists at home, but something sinister,abroad.
With a squealing of brakes the machine drew up at the frontier. Here wasa chain across the highway, with two sets of guards. Long before theyreached it, a sentry stepped into the road and waved his lantern.
Nikky burrowed lower into the car, and attempted to look like a rug. Inthe silence, while the sentry evidently examined a passport and flasheda lantern over the chauffeur, Nikky cursed the ticking of his watch, thebeating of his own heart.
Then came a clanking as the chain dropped in the road. The car bumpedover it, and halted again. The same formalities, this time by Karniansentries. A bit more danger, too, for the captain in charge of the guardasked for matches, and dangled a careless hand over the side, within afew inches of Nikky's head. Then the jerk following a hasty letting-inof the clutch, and they were off again.
For some time they climbed steadily. But Nikky, who knew the road, bidedhis time. Then at last, at two o'clock, came the steep ascent to thevery crest of the mountain, and a falling-back, gear by gear, until theyclimbed slowly in the lowest.
Nikky unfolded his length quietly. The gears were grinding, the driverbent low over his wheel. Very deliberately, now that he knew what hewas going to do, Nikky unbuttoned his tunic and slipped it off. It was arash thing, this plan he had in mind, rash under any circumstances, ina moving car particularly rash here, where between the cliff and aprecipice that fell far away below, was only a winding ribbon of unevenroad.
Here, at the crucial moment, undoubtedly he should have given a lastthought to Hedwig. But alas for romance! As a matter of honesty, hehad completely forgotten Hedwig. This was his work, and with even thehottest of lovers, work and love are things apart.
So he waited his moment, loveless, as one may say, and then, with onesingularly efficient gesture, he flung his tunic over the chauffeur'shead. He drove a car himself, did Nikky--not his own, of course; he wasfar too poor--and he counted on one thing: an automobile driver actsfrom the spinal cord, and not from the brain. Therefore his brain maybe seething with a thousand frenzies, but he will shove out clutch andbrake feet in an emergency, and hold them out.
So it happened. The man's hands left the wheel, but he stopped hiscar. Not too soon. Not before it had struck the cliff, and then taken asickening curve out toward the edge of the precipice. But stop it did,on the very edge of eternity, and the chauffeur held it there.
"Set the hand brake!" Nikky said. The lamps were near enough the edge tomake him dizzy.
The chauffeur ceased struggling, and set the hand brake. His headwas still covered. But having done that, he commenced a struggle morefurious than forceful, for both of them were handicapped. But Nikky hadsteel-like young arms from which escape was impossible.
And now Nikky was forced to an unsoldier-like thing that he afterwardtried to forget. For the driver developed unexpected strength, refusedto submit, got the tunic off his head, and, seeing himself attacked byone man only, took courage and fell to. He picked up a wrench from theseat beside him, and made a furious pass at Nikky's head. Nikky duckedand, after a struggle, secured the weapon. All this in the car, over theseat back.
It was then that Nikky raised the wrench and stunned his man with it. Itwas hateful. The very dull thud of it was sickening. And there was a badminute or two when he thought he had killed his opponent. The man hadsunk down in his seat, a sodden lump of inanimate human flesh. AndNikky, whose business, in a way, was killing; was horrified.
He tried to find the pulse, but failed--which was not surprising, sincehe had the wrong side of the wrist. Then the unconscious man groaned.For a moment, as he stood over him, Nikky reflected that he was havingrather a murderous night of it.
The chauffeur wakened, ten minutes later, to find himself securelytied with his own towing rope, and lying extremely close to the edge ofdeath. Beside him on the ground sat a steady-eyed young man with a cutlip. The young man had lighted a cigarette, and was placing it carefullyin the uninjured side of his mouth.
"Just as soon as you are up to it," said Nikky, "we shall have a littletalk."
The chauffeur muttered something in the peasant patois of Karnia.
"Come, come!" Nikky observed. "Speak up. No hiding behind strangetongues. But first, I have the letter. That saves your worrying aboutit. You can clear your mind for action." Suddenly Nikky dropped hismocking tone. To be quite frank, now that the man was not dead, andNikky had the letter, he rather fancied himself. But make no mistake--hewas in earnest, grim and deadly earnest.
"I have a fancy, my friend," he said, "to take that letter of yours onto its destination. But what that destination is, you are to tell me."
The man on the ground grinned sardonically. "You know better than to askthat," he said. "I will never tell you."
Nikky had thought things out fairly well, for him, in that ten minutes.In a business-like fashion he turned the prostrate prisoner on his side,so that he faced toward the chasm. A late moon showed its depth, and thevalley in which the Ar flowed swiftly. And having thus faced him towardthe next world, Nikky, throwing away his cigarette because it hurthis lip, put a stone or two from the roadway behind his prisoner, andanchored him there. Then he sat down and waited. Except that his earswere burning, he was very calm.
"Any news?" he asked, at the end of ten minutes' unbroken silence.
His--prisoner said nothing. He was thinking, doubtless. Weighing things,too,--perhaps life against betrayal, a family against separation.
Nikky examined the letter again. It was addressed to a border town inLivonia. But the town lay far behind them. The address, then, was afalse one. He whistled softly. He was not, as a fact, as calm as helooked. He had never thrown a man over a precipice before, and hedisliked the idea. Fortunately, his prisoner did not know this. Besides,suppose he did push him over? Dead men are extremely useless abouttelling things. It would, as a fact, leave matters no better thanbefore. Rather worse.
Half an hour.
"Come, come," said Nikky fiercely. "We are losing time." He lookedfierce, too. His swollen lip did that. And he was nervous. It occurredto him that his prisoner, in desperation, might roll over the edgehimself, which would be most uncomfortable.
But the precipice, and Nikky's fierce lip, and other things, had got intheir work. The man on the ground stopped muttering in his patois, andturned on Nikky eyes full of hate.
"I will tell you," he said. "And you will free me. And after
that--"
"Certainly," Nikky replied equably. "You will follow me to the ends ofthe earth--although that will not be necessary, because I don't intendto go there--and finish me off." Then, sternly: "Now, where does theletter go? I have a fancy for delivering it myself."
"If I tell you, what then?"
"This: If you tell me properly, and all goes well, I will return andrelease you. If I do not return, naturally you will not be released.And, for fear you meditate a treachery, I shall gag you and leave you,not here, but back a short distance, in the wood we just passed. And,because you are a brave man, and this thing may be less serious thanI think it is, I give you my word of honor that, if you advise mecorrectly, I shall return and liberate you."
He was very proud of his plan. He had thought it out carefully. He hadeverything to gain and nothing to lose by it--except, perhaps, hislife. The point was, that he knew he could not take a citizen of Karniaprisoner, because too many things would follow, possibly a war.
"It's a reasonable proposition," he observed. "If I come back, you areall right. If I do not, there are a number of disagreeable possibilitiesfor you."
"I have only your word."
"And I yours," said Nikky.
The chauffeur took a final glance around; as far as he could see, and afinal shuddering look at the valley of the Ar, far below. "I will tellyou," he said sullenly.