I know that I have not even recorded the words she spoke, well as I fancied I remembered them. But there is no recording the manner, all fire and passion and melting tenderness; and such a sudden sense of fun and affection in the very middle of it all that I was within an ace of crying at it. The count did cry, without disguise, and so did she, and I did what I could to look as if I were not in the least moved. But when her outburst was over, and we had all settled down again, there was no further hint of disobedience. Violet sat down submissively on a little footstool at the count's side, holding his hand and resting her head against his knee while he detailed his plans, so far as they were ripe, or speculated beyond them, looking into the possibilities of the future.

In a while, according to arrangement, Mr. Quorn returned, and this broke up our conclave. I knew already the hour and place appointed for that night, and the count and I agreed to meet there. 12



CHAPTER XIII

We met in a room in Soho, over an Italian restaurateur's. The place was dimly lit with lamps and a brace of tall candles, and down the centre of the room ran a long, unclothed table, with chairs ranged at either side of it. The men who formed our council were of every social grade, and in the crowd which hung about the room at the moment of my entrance there were two or three who would have passed social muster anywhere, and two or three who were shaggy, unkempt, and ragged enough to have been taken for beggars. One or two wore the short round jacket which is the trade-mark of the Italian waiter, and one, a diamond merchant from Hatton Garden, carried so much of his own stock in trade in open evidence about him that he would have been a fortune to a dozen of the poorer brethren. But whether they were prince or peasant, lean tutor, fat padrone, coarse stockbroker, or polished noble, they were all at one in patriotism, and there was not a man there who had not proved himself up to the hilt, and who was not given, body and soul, to The Cause.

In the darkest corner of the room stood an old grand pianoforte, the top propped open, and the keyboard exposed as if it had been but recently employed. A chair with a ragged cushion on top of it was pushed a little back, and a sheet of music drooped from the stand towards the keys. My entrance had excited no regard, and I took my place in this dim corner to look about me. The count had not yet arrived, and, indeed, I was some five minutes before the appointed hour; but as I stood watching, Brunow came in and shook hands with at least a score of the men assembled. The light was anything but clear, and I could not be quite certain of his aspect; but to me he wore a troubled and harassed look, and I thought I had never seen him so pale and wan. He talked loudly and excitedly; and little as I understood the language with which he was so familiar, I made out enough to tell me that he was exulting in the news that day had brought us, and was prophesying success for the Italian cause. For people who did not know him, he had an extraordinary power of exciting enthusiasm, and before he had been three minutes in the place everybody was listening to him; and once or twice as he spoke there was a murmur of applause, now and then a laugh, and once a burst of cheering. Just as this broke out he caught sight of me standing in the dimness of the corner by the old piano, and peered at me as if uncertain of my identity. When he recognized me he turned away and spoke no more, and I thought it was anger at me which flushed his face at first and then made it paler than ever. I was sorry for Brunow, and, little as I valued him, I was grieved that he should nurse his groundless grudge against me; but there was nothing to be done at present.

Almost as the cheers which had greeted Brunow's last sentence died away the count came in. He walked straight to the head of the table, and took his seat there. There was more cheering, and then the men assembled took their places anyhow, with no distinction of persons. The count's official statement of the news was received with a murmur in which a note of stern interest was audible. I had been assured, from my first knowledge of them, that the men of this particular conclave meant business. It had been the main affair of my life to judge of the intentions of societies similar to this, and I have no reason to believe that my experiences had been altogether wasted. Their purpose was evident enough now, and in the flush of anticipated victory which brightened every mind with the thought that the one ally of the oppressor was down, I read the reflection of my own certainty. "You are my Italy," said Violet to her father, and in my own mind I repeated her words as if they had been the end of an old song, and added, "You are mine."

It was not long before I found myself summoned to an active part in the deliberations of the night. I heard my own name from the count's lips, and, looking up, saw his hand beckoning to me.

"My dear and valued friend," said the count, as I stood by him, "knows nothing of Italian. All of us speak or understand his language more or less, for our exile in England has taught us at least the tongue of freedom. To-day Captain Fyffe has accepted a mission in our behalf. We have had an offer of fifty thousand rifles. A wealthy Italian lady, who commands me to conceal her name at this moment, has provided the money for their purchase." There was a tremendous cheer at this, and every man there sprang to his feet. "Captain Fyffe," the count resumed, when quiet was restored, "has charged himself with the negotiations. He is an experienced soldier, and has undertaken to see that we are not buying anything that is not likely to be of solid worth to us. I will ask you now to listen to Captain Fyffe's report."

I never pretended to be anything of an orator, but I could make a plain statement of that sort, though I was a little embarrassed by the feeling that a good many of my listeners could not understand me. I reported that I had overhauled a number of cases of the arms it was proposed to purchase, and that I was reasonably satisfied of their efficiency. The rifle was of the latest make, and though we have made great strides in gunnery since then, we have made no such stride as was made at that time. I was able to say that the weapons were more effective than anything with which our enemies were armed, and to announce that we were in a position to effect an astonishing bargain.

"More than that," I said, in conclusion, "I am not disposed to say even here. The arms are contraband of war, and if it were known that they were in England it would be the duty of the authorities to seize them. That fact makes silence safest."

Those who understood, or who thought they understood, translated this brief statement of mine to those who did not, and this made a deep hum all about the table. In the midst of it a man entered at the door, and, advancing to the count, began to talk to him animatedly in some local dialect, of which I could not understand so much as a syllable. The count nodded twice or thrice to signify attention, and though at first he looked doubtful, he ended by smiling, and dismissed the messenger with an applauding pat upon the shoulder. He rose to his feet before the man had reached the door, and made a brief statement, which was received with a mingling of dissent and applause. Ruffiano leaped to his feet, crying out in English:

"Brothers, I claim a word!" and there was instant silence, every face turning attentively to his. He began to speak rapidly, with all his usual vehemence, and with even more than his usual plenitude of gesture. Almost at the beginning of his argument he bent his lean figure forward and beat rapidly upon the table with the palm of his hand, and then, suddenly recovering his full height, sent both arms backward. Brunow sat immediately on his right, and the back of the orator's hand caught him resoundingly upon the cheek; and at this unexpected incident the audience broke into a sudden shout of laughter, in which Brunow tried to join—with a curiously ill success, I thought. I could not understand the subject of discussion, for Ruffiano had immediately gone back to his native language, and there was something about Brunow's look which could hardly be accounted for by so trifling a misadventure as that which had just occurred. The instinct of the eye told him that I was looking at him, and he glanced at me and then suddenly averted his face. He made an effort to appear at ease, but his color came and went strangely, and both his hands trembled, though I saw that he was pressing them heavily upon the table with the intent to steady them. I thought he might possibly have been raging inwardly at me, and that in his unreasoning anger at me he might find my mere presence hateful to him; but I could not help thinking that his looks expressed fear or suspense rather than anger. When the laughter excited by the accident had died away, Ruffiano turned to him with a voice and gesture of apology; and having once laid his hand on Brunow's shoulder, continued to address him as if the argument he was offering, whatever it might be, concerned Brunow more intimately than any one else there present. He seemed, so far as I could judge, to carry the suffrages of the meeting with him, but I had quite resigned any feeble attempt I had made to follow the thread of his discourse, when I caught distinctly the words, "Beware of the women! I say it again and again and again: beware of the women! It is my last word, beware of the women!" Every word of this I understood quite clearly; and while I was wondering why the advice was given, Ruffiano dropped back with a grotesque suddenness into his seat, and shouted the words of warning a fourth time, striking both hands, palms downward, on the table.

Brunow followed him, and beginning somewhat shakily at first, recovered confidence as he went on, and, warming to his work, delivered a speech which sounded eloquent and persuasive. It pleased his audience, beyond a doubt, for almost every sentence was punctuated with murmurs of approval; and when he sat down there was warm applause, in which almost everybody but Ruffiano joined, but he remained unconvinced and dissatisfied; it was evident from the way in which he rolled his gaunt figure in his chair, and his frequent cries of "No, no! wrong, wrong! absolutely wrong!" The count persuaded him to silence, and then spoke again to the man who had charge of the door. He bowed and disappeared, and there was a moment or two of waiting, during which everybody looked eagerly towards the entrance. I seized the opportunity to whisper an inquiry to the count.

"A deputation of Italian and Hungarian legates," he responded. "They desire to congratulate us on the news of to-day, and to express their sympathy for The Cause."

"That can do but little harm," I answered. "But I agree with Ruffiano all the same: the less they know of our actual intentions the better."

The count nodded smilingly. "You are quite right; ours is not work for women."

As he spoke the door-keeper reappeared, bowing, and the whole assembly rose to its feet. Half a dozen ladies entered, and some eight or ten of our own number, among whom the count and Brunow were most conspicuous, moved to welcome them. After a little bustle of compliments and arrangement, chairs were found for the visitors at the far end of the room, and the meeting fell back into its former aspect. One of our unlooked-for visitors sat on the chair near the old grand piano, and I could see her white hand, ungloved and with a jewelled bracelet sparkling at the wrist, resting on the key-board. That corner of the long and narrow chamber was so dim, and the intervening lamps and candles sent up such a glare between, that I was not quite certain of her identity; but I felt a shock of surprise in the mere fancy that this was the Baroness Bonnar. I made a movement to one side, and, shading my eyes from the light, made her out with certainty. It was the Baroness Bonnar, and no other. She had often spoken in my hearing of her Hungarian birth, and of her hatred of the Austrians; but I had never been inclined to regard this as being more than a bit of private theatricals, and I was astonished to find her withdrawing herself from the butterfly, fashionable career she seemed to follow, and taking so much interest in sterner matters as her presence there seemed to indicate.

There was a little ceremonial, in the course of which the count proffered a formal welcome to the deputation; and one of the ladies, who was richly attired and wore an air of much distinction, spoke for three or four minutes in a balanced, musical voice. The count whispered me her title—I have forgotten it ages ago, though she was a great personage in her time—and told me that she had lost her husband and her three sons in the struggle for independence. This made her interesting and venerable, and I watched her closely as I listened to the balanced accents of her mournful and musical voice. While this lady spoke her figure hid that of the baroness, but I could still see the white hand resting on the key-board, and the jewelled bracelet glittering in some stray ray of light. By-and-by the hand began to hover over the keys as if it were playing a phantom air, and a moment later I saw its fellow hovering in company with it. Just as the speaker sat down I heard the sound of a chord, but this went unnoticed in the burst of cheering which arose.

I could see the baroness now. She was sitting with both hands on the keys, and as the cheering died away they rose and fell again with a loud and brilliant crash. Everybody turned and stared in a dead silence, and she began to sing. I had heard that song from Violet's lips, and a day or two later she made me a translation of it, of which I have long since forgotten everything but the first verse. It was a song of revolution, almost as popular in Italy and quite as sternly prohibited as was the Marseillaise in France. Here is the one verse that I remember:

"Oh, is it sleep or death In which Italia lies? Betwixt her pallid lips is any breath? Is any light of life within her eyes? Oh, is it sleep or death?"

It went on to picture Italy prostrate under the armed heel of Austria, and in its concluding verse the trance was broken, the trampled figure had risen to its feet, had wrested the sword from the oppressor's hand, had hurled him to the earth, and stood triumphant over his lifeless body. I have heard finer voices by the dozen, but I have not often heard a finer style or one more magnetic and enthralling. The little woman sang as if the song possessed her, and it is not often that a singer finds such an audience. When the first amazement was over I looked about me and saw that everybody had risen and turned towards the singer as if by a common impulse. The song was recognized at the first bar, and it was listened to with an enthusiasm which had something very like worship in it. Before the first verse was over I saw tears glittering in many eyes, and when leaving the mournful strain with which she opened, the singer passed on to the swing and passion of the second and third verses, many of the listeners were so carried away that they wept outright; somebody struck in on the final line with a ringing tenor, and then the whole crowd joined in. The third verse was sung over and over again, in a scene of enthusiasm almost as wild as that of the count's welcome at the railway station, or the later and still more memorial meeting of that same evening. The hot Italian blood was fairly fired, and it took a long time to cool again. Brunow, who only a few minutes before had seemed so unlike his usual self, surrendered himself to the excitement of the moment with a zest, and seemed as madly enthusiastic as any one of them. He sang with both hands in the air, beating time extravagantly; and when at last the hubbub was over, he pressed his way to the baroness, who stood smiling at the pianoforte and drawing on her-gloves. He took both her hands in his, and said something to her at which she laughed as if well pleased. He made a way for her through the crowd gathered about the piano, and escorted her to the door. As they passed me I heard her say to him: "I told you how it would be," and I had reason to remember the words afterwards.

This unlooked-for episode being over, and the deputation of ladies having been dismissed with roaring "vivas," we went back to business. I noticed that Brunow's earlier awkwardness of manner had given way to a mood and aspect of great elation. But of course I was without the key to the understanding of the situation, and his change of temper had no significance for me. I can understand it now, however, and I know that he had frightened himself unnecessarily over the baroness's little experiment. It was he who had taken upon himself the onus of introducing the ladies' deputation, and the baroness's object is, of course, clear enough. All she wanted was to make herself favorably known to the general leaders of the party as a well-wisher to The Cause. Whether Brunow knew, then, anything of her full purpose I am unable to say with certainty, but I am inclined to think he did, and I have two or three proofs which have grown more cogent with time that he already knew the theme of Austrian money, and had embarked on that wicked and degrading career which led him to so swift and just a punishment.

Of course little real business was done in those big gatherings of party of which this night's assembly was one. All the men were true and tried, as I have already said, but their numbers alone would have made them unwieldy as an active body, and the real work was performed by a sort of informal committee, of which I had now for some time been a member. Almost from the first hour of his arrival in England the count had taken his place among his party as the natural and recognized leader. I never knew a man who made less pretence of being dominant, but I never knew a man either who had in so marked degree that unconscious inner force of character which gives a man control over his fellows. At any moment of importance it was his habit to single out among us the men of whose counsel he had need, and only those thus singled out ever ventured to stay behind when the public business was finished and the more intimate discussions of the inner conclave were about to be held. This night, a little to my surprise, he beckoned Brunow, who, as I fancied, had been waiting in hope and expectation of the summons. His face, which had grown once more a little haggard and anxious, brightened when he received it, and the count held him in private conversation for a moment, with one hand on his shoulder. He spoke in a subdued tone, the murmur of which alone reached me; but when he had finished what he had to say, Bru-now answered with a loud alacrity: "Willingly, my dear count, most willingly." At this the count beckoned me, and as I approached Brunow held out his hand.

"I hope you'll take that, Fyffe," he said. "I beg your pardon, with all my heart. I wasn't myself when I spoke, but I know that what I said was the merest nonsense."

I took his proffered hand at once, without a shadow of suspicion or reserve. There had never been very much in common between us, but we were life-long acquaintances, and, after a fashion, we had been friends. I was glad to patch up the quarrel, and willing to say and think no more about it.

The council we held was a brief one, for the count had already made up his mind to his own satisfaction; and when he had advised us of that, the business was practically over.

"I arranged with Mr. Quorn," he said, "more than a week ago, that if it were finally decided to purchase the arms he had for sale I would travel with him to Italy on board of his own ship, and would myself undertake the responsibility of effecting a landing. I have arranged also that trustworthy information shall be conveyed to us from the shore, I am not anxious to fall into Austrian hands again, and I shall take all precaution to avoid surprise."

"On what part of the coast do you intend to effect a landing, sir?" Brunow inquired.

"That will depend," the count answered, "on circumstances of which I am at present ignorant. I must wait and see. I shall probably start to-morrow. Mr. Quorn quite naturally and properly declines to part with the goods until he is paid for them. The money cannot be drawn until the 12th of August, but it will then be despatched to me by a safe hand, and I shall have ample time to signify the place to which it must be carried. Quorn," he added, "is assured of our bona fides, and will be ready to start at any hour I may indicate."

One or two of our number, I remember, endeavored to dissuade him from his plan, on the ground that we had need of his leadership in England, and that there were many things to be done there which could not be intrusted to hands of less authority. Ruffiano combated this opinion.

"We shall all be wanted in Italy," he argued, "and Count Rossano will be more needed there than any of us. The mere knowledge that he is again on Italian soil, and that he is amply provided with arms, will bring the people about him anywhere."

The discussion did not last long, and it was so plainly to be seen from the beginning that the count was bent upon carrying out his own plan, and Brunow, Ruffiano, and I were so strongly of opinion that he had chosen the most useful course, that opposition vanished very early. The count delegated his authority as president of the council to Ruffiano, who, in spite of his outside singularities, was a man of much force of character, and, next to the count himself, commanded most completely the respect of the party.

Ruffiano, the count, and I walked to Lady Rollin-son's house together, and Brunow came half-way. As we walked together behind the two elders, who were deep in conversation, we found little to say to each other; but at last Brunow put his arm through mine in quite the old friendly fashion, and brought me almost to a standstill.

"I mustn't go any farther, old fellow," he said. "I shall get used to things by-and-by, I dare say, but it was a little bit of a facer at first, and I haven't quite got over it yet. Look here, Fyffe, we've always been friends, don't let what's happened make any difference between us."

I don't think I ever felt so well disposed to him as I did at that minute. I was victor, for one thing, and it was easy to make allowance for the man who had lost; and, apart from that, his withdrawal had been so generous and candid that I should have been a brute not to have accepted it instantly. I shook hands with him with a warmer cordiality than I had ever experienced towards him, and with a higher opinion of his manhood. It was the last time I ever took him by the hand, poor Brunow! and though it is a hundred chances to one in my mind now that he was at that very moment plotting to betray me, I can't somehow find it in my heart to feel so bitter against him as I should have felt against a stronger man. He never seemed to me to be altogether responsible, like other people, and the payment of his treachery was so swift and dreadful that the memory of it breeds a sort of half-forgiveness in my mind.

There were scores of hard business details to be thought of and talked about, and we three conspirators sat together until the night was late. When at last Ruffiano left us, the count detained me.

"The world is full of changes," he said, "and no man knows what may happen. We may never meet again, Fyffe, and I have a solemn charge to leave you. If I am caught again they will make short work of me. I do not mean to be caught if I can help it, but I know the risk I run. If anything should happen to me, I counsel you, for Violet's sake, to retire from The Cause. She cannot spare us both, and Italy has no claim on you."

I suppose the surprise I felt at receiving such advice from such a quarter showed itself in my face, for he went on with a smile:

"I see you wonder at me, but I have had time to think since Violet spoke out her mind this afternoon. A man may have a cause and may set it above everything in the world, but a woman sees an individual—her father—her lover—her brother—her husband—a baby—any solitary human trifle—and to her the one individual is more valuable than any ideal. You will do as I wish, Fyffe?"

"No!" I answered. "I am pledged, and I will carry out my promise. I should despise myself and Violet would despise me if I went back from it."

"Well, well," he answered, and I could not tell from his manner whether he was pleased or displeased at my reply, "we are all in God's hands. Good-night, and good-bye. We shall not meet again for a little while, in any case."



CHAPTER XIV

The count had been gone a week, and of course no news was as yet to be looked for. He had sailed with Quorn for some undecided part of the Italian coast, and we had resigned ourselves to hear no more of him for at least another fortnight. We were all busy enough at this time, and news favorable to our enterprise came on us thick and fast every day.

This is no place for a history of the last Italian revolution. That story has never yet been fitly told, but it will furnish a splendid epic one of these days for a great historian. It came like a beneficent earthquake, with toil and trouble and turmoil enough, and it stirred up all Europe, and shook down many unjust forms of government. To my mind it is the happiest and most beautiful event in the modern history of Europe, for the revolution, though it was effected with the sternest purpose and the most unflinching heroism, was marked by none of the excesses of revenge and hatred which have disfigured so many popular risings against tyranny.

I had been hard at work until three o'clock in the morning, had gone to bed dead tired, and had slept like a log until ten, when Hinge came in with a cup of steaming coffee, and began with his usual silent dexterity to lay out my clothes. I paid no especial heed to him at first, but by-and-by I caught sight of his face reflected in the mirror which decorated my skimpy wardrobe, and I could see at once that he was beaming with self-congratulation. He was one of the most faithful and constant fellows in the world, but as a general thing he was a little saturnine in temper. Any outward display of cheerfulness was rare with him, and such an outward sign of inward exultation as I read this morning was a downright astonishment.

"Why, Hinge," I asked him, "what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing the matter with me, sir," responded Hinge.

"You look particularly pleased," I said. "What has happened? Has anybody left you a fortune?"

"No, sir," Hinge answered, turning his hard-bitten, queer old mug towards me with a shining smile. "Nobody's left me a fortune, sir, but I'm just as glad as as if they had. You're a-lying a bit late this morning, sir, and you haven't seen the newspapers."

"The newspapers!" I cried, springing out of bed at once. "Let me have them. What's the news?"

"The news is, sir," Hinge answered, standing in attitude of attention, and smiling like a happy Gargoyle—"the news is, sir, as the Italians is playing Old Harry at Milan with them Austrians, and old Louis Philippe turned up at Newhaven, England, yesterday."

I made my toilet with unusual haste, and in the meantime Hinge brought the papers and read out the news.

"I spent some years among them Austrians, sir," said Hinge, and then paused suddenly, scratching his head with a look of irritation.

"Yes," I answered; "what of that?" Something was evidently on the good fellow's mind, and in the midst of his delight he was troubled with it.

"You're a-going out to Italy, ain't you, sir?" he asked. I was shaving at the moment, and contented myself with a mere affirmative grunt. "Well, it's like this, sir," said Hinge; "I was in a civil capacity when I was in Austria, wasn't I, sir?"

"Well, yes," I told him, "I suppose so."

"They couldn't have sworn me in without my knowing it, could they, sir?" Hinge demanded. "Of course I picked up a bit of the language in the course of a year or two, but when I went there I didn't speak a word. When I was first engaged, sir, there was a lot of things said to me as I didn't understand no more than the babe unborn. Now, if I was swore in," Hinge proceeded, with an air of argument, "and if I was swore in in anything but a civil capacity, that can't be counted as being binding on my heart and conscience. Now, can it, sir?"

"You silly fellow," I answered, "you couldn't have been sworn in without being aware of it. A man cannot vow and promise that he will do anything without his own knowledge and desire."

"Well, then, sir," said Hinge, apparently relieved a little, "if I was swore in—and I might have been, you know, sir—I don't know but what they might have thought they'd done it—but even if it was so, you wouldn't think it binding?"

"Of course it couldn't be binding, but of course nothing of the sort was done. You were engaged, as I understand, as a groom." Hinge assented. "You happened to be engaged by a gentleman who was an officer in a foreign army. You don't suppose that an officer makes it his business to swear in all his civilian servants, do you?"

"Why, no, sir," Hinge admitted. "But it was a foreign country, and a lot of things was said to me as I didn't understand no more than the babe unborn."

"You may make your mind quite easy on that score, Hinge. You are not in any way bound to the Austrian service. But what difference can that possibly make to you now?"

"Why, sir," said Hinge, scratching his head again, "I've lived among them Austrians, and I don't like 'em. I'm for Italy, I am. I used to think, sir, as the Italians was a organ-grinding class of people as a body, and I never had much respect for 'em. But I've seen a lot in six months, sir, and I've learned a bit, if I may make so bold as to say so. There's the count, now, sir; anybody can see as he's a gentleman. Why, if you'll believe me, sir, I've never seen a gentleman as was more a gentleman than the count. But, bless your heart, sir, you'd never have thought so if you'd a known him all the years as I did, off and on, a-living worse than a wild beast behind a muck-heap, and in a cellar underneath the stables. Now you know, sir," proceeded Hinge, growing warm and even angry with the theme, "that ain't civilized; it ain't Christian; it ain't treating a man as if you was a man yourself. Because a gentleman goes and fights for his country—that's a natural thing to do, ain't it?—they keep him dirtier and darker and 'orribler than any wild beast I ever see, for twenty years, and would have kept him all his miserable life, sir. I used to get that 'ot about it when I found it out I used to feel as if I was ready to do murder. I did, indeed, sir. And yet I can appeal to you, sir, and ask you fair and square, between an officer and his servant, if I am not a civil spoken person, as a rule. I believe I am, sir, and yet I used to feel as if it 'd do me good, every now and then, to go out and shoot a Austrian."

"I suppose," I said, "that the upshot of all this is that when I go to Italy you want to go with me."

"That's it, sir," Hinge returned, delightedly. "If I'm only free, sir, if I was engaged in nothing but a civil capacity—"

"You are quite free to go," I told him; "and I had thoroughly made up my mind to take you with me, supposing always that you were willing to be taken."

"I'm more than willing, sir," Hinge responded. "I should like to hear 'Boot and saddle' again, sir; so would you, I am sure."

I had never heard Hinge break out like this before, and the good fellow's enthusiasm and right-thinking pleased me, and as I went on dressing I kept, him talking.

"I should think, sir," he said, and he was about me all the while in his usual handy and unobtrusive fashion—"I should think, sir, as anybody as knowed the count 'd be glad to fight on his side. It makes you want to fight for a gentleman like that as has gone through so much. And if you'll excuse me telling you, sir, what makes me so pertickler glad to go—"

"Yes," I said, for he paused and looked a trifle confused. "Go on, what is it?"

"Well, sir," he answered, "I know it isn't right in my place to be talking, but there's Miss Rossano, sir—" I turned rather sharply round on him at the mention of that name, and Hinge, standing at attention, saluted. "No harm meant, sir," he said, "and I 'ope, sir, there's no offence. But I took a letter from you to Miss Rossano, sir, last Wednesday week. It was the second time as I was in the house, sir, and when Miss Rossano came out to give me the answer, she saw as it was me, and she asks me in; and there was the count, sir, a-sitting in the parlor. And says Miss Rossano, 'Father,' she says, 'here's the faithful man,' she says, 'as treated you so kind when you was in prison along with them blooming Austrians,' she says; and the count he gets up in his grand way, and he shakes me by the hand, with his other hand on my shoulder. They'd have made me sit down between them, sir, if I'd a done it, and the count, sir, with his own hands, he powered me out a glass of sherry wine. It was the right sort, that was," said Hinge, passing his hand across his lips with a gleam of remembrance, and instantly resuming his rigid attitude, as if he had suddenly found himself at fault, as, of course, in his own mind he did. "They was that kind between 'era and that nice way with it I didn't know whether I was a-standing on my head or my heels. And then the count he says something to Miss Rossano in his own lingo—language, I should ha' said, sir, begging your pardon—and Miss Rossano she answers him back again, and they get a-talking till there was tears in both their eyes, sir. And then Miss Rossano she fetches out her purse, sir, and she takes a ten-pound note, and here it is." Hinge took it from his waistcoat pocket, and opened it out before me. "Of course, sir, I didn't want to take it, for whatever little bit I done I done it for my own amusement, as a man may say. I've had a-many larks in my time, but I never was paid for none of them like that—two pound a week pension for a lifetime and a easy job into the bargain. I didn't want to take this, sir," Hinge continued, folding up the note and restoring it to his pocket; "but Miss Rossano she comes at me and shut it into my hand with both her own, whether I would or no, and all of a sudden, sir—" He stopped with a gulp, and swallowed laboriously twice or thrice. I was tickled, but I was touched at the same time, and touched pretty deeply; but I could not afford to show that to Hinge, and I dare say I looked pretty hard and stern at him.

"What did she do?" I asked, rather gruffly.

"She—she kissed my 'and, sir; that un." He held out his right hand and looked at it as if it were, in some sort, a wonder. "I never seen anything done like it," said Hinge. "And I was that took aback, and that delighted, and that flabbergastered!"

Hinge positively began to blubber, and what with, the mirth of it, and my own vivid sense of Violet's feeling at the time, and this revelation of the simple fellow's goodness, I was very near doing the same myself. I verily believe that I should have joined Hinge, and a very pretty pair we should have made (for I have found at the theatre and elsewhere that there is no way of disposing a man to tears like the way of making him laugh through affection and sympathy beforehand); but luckily for myself, I made shift to ask him, in a blustering way, what he meant by it, and to order him out of the room. He was so very shamefaced while he waited upon me at breakfast after this that I would have given a good deal to shake hands with him, and to tell him that he was a very fine fellow; but though I have known that impulse many times in my life, and have sometimes felt it very strongly, I have never been able to obey it, and I know that with many people I have passed through life as a hard man—perhaps to my own advantage.

This was the beginning of a strange day—the day on which I had my first suspicion of Brunow, and the day of poor old Ruffiano's betrayal, in which I myself had an unconscious hand. It came about in this way: I had seen at a gun-maker's shop in the Strand some weeks before a brace of revolvers which had greatly taken my fancy. They were not the old-fashioned, clumsy pepper-caster which I can very well remember as having been used in actual warfare, and, indeed, esteemed as a deadly weapon, but were new from America, with all the latest patents. I had already examined them thoroughly, and had made up my mind to buy them when the time came; but I was afraid of accumulating expenses, and it was only now when the pinch of war was so near that I could find the heart to part with the money. Hinge went with me, keeping his usual place at a pace or half a pace behind my right shoulder, so that I could talk to him whenever I had a mind, while he still kept the position which he thought consistent with his master's dignity. Just as I came upon Charing Cross I sighted Ruffiano; and he, seeing me at the same moment, hurried across the street in his impetuous fashion, and barely escaped being run over. The escape was so very close, that when he reached me I congratulated him heartily, though if I had known what was going to happen I might much more properly have commiserated him. But the future is in no man's knowledge, and I have often been forced to think that that is a blessed thing, and one to be heartily thankful for. I have been happy at many moments, and so have those nearest and dearest to me, when, if we could have known what an hour would bring forth, we should have been profoundly mournful in anticipation of an event not yet guessed of.

Poor old Ruffiano was full of enthusiasm and full of news. He was better dressed than I had ever seen him before, and in consequence less remarkable to look at.

"You shall congratulate me on more than that," said the good old man, smilingly. "Within a few hours I shall have news straight from home, and but for you—see now how one thing depends upon another—it might never have reached me at all. Had I never known you I might never have known your excellent and estimable young friend, the Honorable Mr. Brunow, and," he continued, smiling and bending over me, to lay the tip of a bony finger on either of my shoulders before he straightened himself to his gaunt height, "it is evident that if I had never met the Honorable Mr. Brunow it would not have been possible for the Honorable Mr. Brunow to bring me news."

"You get your news from Brunow?" I responded, little guessing what it meant, and feeling in my blind ignorance quite friendly towards Brunow for having done anything to give the sad exile so much pleasure. "And I needn't ask you if the news is good news."

"I am told it is," he responded; "but I have it yet to hear." He explained to me that he had two sisters resident in Italy, who lived at tolerable ease upon what the family confiscations had left them of their property. "They would have maintained me well," said the old man, with his cordial, innocent smile, "but I have always pretended to them to want nothing. They have children, and young men will be expensive, and I get on very well without infringing on their little store. They live together at Posilippo, and a neighbor of theirs, one Signor Alfieri, the bearer of a great name, you observe—it is like an Englishman having Mr. Shakespeare coming to see him—this Signor Alfieri is a neighbor and a friend of theirs. He would have called upon me, but he failed to find me, and he sails for Italy to-night. I meet him at—I forget the name, but it is on your river, and the Honorable Mr. Brunow is so good as to be my guide. Come with me," he said, suddenly. "You will learn the very latest news of Italy, and you will meet a good patriot who will tell you what was actually doing three weeks ago."

Now it happened, as fate would have it, that I was free that evening and that Violet was engaged. If I had had any chance of meeting her I should have declined Ruffiano's invitation; but the night seemed likely to be vacant of employment, the old man seemed solicitous, and I saw no reason for refusing him. Quite apart from that it would, as he suggested, be agreeable and perhaps useful to know at first-hand what an Italian thought of the chances of the rising which must have been imminent when he left his country. So I made arrangements to meet Ruffiano and to dine with him at the same Italian restaurant in the upper room of which we held our meeting, and after this I shook hands and went about my own business.

It was dark when we met again, for this was only the fifth day of March, and it was about half-past six in the evening. Ruffiano told me that he had left word at Brunow's lodgings that he might be found here, and we ate our simple dinner, drank our half-flask of Chianti together, and had already reached our coffee and cigars when Brunow came to keep his appointment. He was astonished to find me there, and, I thought, disagreeably astonished. Remembering the terms on which we had parted when we had last Been each other, I was a little surprised at this. I have said already that at our parting on that occasion we shook hands for the last time. It was not because I did not offer him my hand on this occasion, but he seemed not to see it, and I took it back again, resolved in my own mind not to be angry with him, and thinking it probable that he had some attack of his old infirmity of temper.

"Ah, you are here!" cried Ruffiano, rising and half embracing him. "It is a pity you were not here earlier. We have had a jolly little dinner and a jolly little talk."

I seem to hear the old fellow's voice now, with its quaint accent, the "jollia leetle dinnera" and the "jol-lia leetle talka," with his half-childish-sounding vowel at the end of almost every word. Poor old Ruffiano! He has seen the end of his trouble this many and many a year. I never knew a more loyal gentleman, or one less capable of digging such a wicked trap as he fell into. Brunow's manner was altogether a puzzle to me, and even next day, enlightened as I was by events, I was unable to understand it, because it seemed altogether so silly a thing for him to run his neck into the noose as he did. I have sometimes thought it possible that he counted on his own apparent simplicity for safety, but in that case he could not have counted how far his embarrassment at the beginning had invited suspicion and misunderstanding.

First of all, he made some little effort to back out of the undertaking, and then, Ruffiano describing himself as being altogether disappointed, he became resigned, and undertook to pilot us to the place of rendezvous. He had a cab outside, one of the old-fashioned four-wheeled hackney-coaches, and as he led us to it some stranger, entering the restaurant, jostled him at the door. He turned with his face towards me at this instant by accident, and I saw that he was as pale as death, and had a queer flush of color at the eyes. His manner was alternately strangely alert and curiously preoccupied, and altogether I knew not what to make of him. The man who drove the cab had evidently had his orders beforehand, and knew exactly where he was expected to go, for he started off without a word. We seemed, to my mind, to travel interminably, for in the course of the journey I fell rather more than half asleep, and at wakeful and observant intervals found myself in portions of the town which, though I have always boasted to know London pretty well, were altogether strange to me. First I made out, with a kind of half-wakeful start, that we were at Whitechapel, and waking, as it seemed to me, a wink or two later, I found that we were in a region of docks and public-houses, with here and there a sulky gleam of dock-water or of river showing under the dark sky—rare passengers and rarer tenements. But, of course, I had not the faintest reason for suspecting anybody, and we went rumbling on, I pretty sleepy, and pretty full of a satisfactory dinner after a hungry day, and Brunow and Ruffiano silent, as it seemed to me, nearly the whole length of the road. After, perhaps, an hour and a half's driving, Brunow woke me by calling impatiently to the cabman, and I came to the full possession of myself in time to see the vehicle swerve suddenly to the right. My prolonged drowse half refreshed me, and the cold, wet air which blew up from the river through the window Brunow had opened fell freshly on my cheek. I could see the river gleaming ahead, with spaces of liquid blackness in it, and a red or green light burning here and there. It was still raining, and the clouds were heavy in the south and west. We stopped almost at the river-side, before a tumble-down-looking little public-house, and here Brunow alighted hastily. A hulking fellow leaned against the door-jamb smoking a short pipe; and Brunow addressing an inquiry to him, he jerked his thumb towards the river, and answered: "Just got steam up. Start in an hour at the outside."

"Is there no boat?" Brunow asked.

"Boat?" said the man, spitting lazily into the road; "boats enough, if you care to pay for 'em."

"You hear," said Brunow, turning, and Ruffiano, dragging his gaunt length out of the cab and stumbling with some difficulty to the rough, dark pavement, called out for a boat by all means.

"I will see him but for a minute," he said; "but it will be better than nothing. I should be loath to make such a journey without result."

"Find us a boat," said Brunow. He spoke in such a voice as a man might have used if he had ordered his own execution, and I remarked that at the time. I can see now that a hundred thousand things were happening to advise me of the truth, but I was as ignorant and as unsuspicious of it as if I had been a baby. The man at the door lounged out into the road, and with a turn of the head invited us to follow him. We obeyed this voiceless bidding, and in a very little while found ourselves on a rough quay at the river-side. We descended a set of break-neck steps, and in another minute found ourselves afloat. The man pulled with leisurely, strong strokes to where a boat lay in midstream, with its green light towards us; and nearing the vessel, raised a hoarse cry, "Ship ahoy there!" The cry was answered from aboard the boat, and a ladder was lowered to us by which we climbed on deck. Brunow went first, Ruffiano followed, and I went third. It struck me as a surprising thing that at the very minute on which my foot struck the ladder the boat shot from under me. I sang out aloud to the man to ask where he was going, but he returned no answer save in a sneering and insolent-sounding growl, which might have meant anything or nothing. My conclusion was that he was coming back in time to take us away again, and I gave the matter no further heed, but followed Ruffiano on deck, still unsuspicious. My first surprise came when a man in a dreadnaught jacket and a sou'wester asked in German, "Is that the man?" and, without waiting for an answer, sang below, "Full steam ahead!" Even then I had no idea of a plan to carry off anybody, but I was astonished to find a man talking German and giving orders in German on a craft which I had imagined to be Italian.

"But why full steam ahead?" I asked Brunow; and he turned upon me in the darkness with a faltering in his voice.

"I don't know," he said. "There's something infernally strange about all this. Have we been trapped? This fellow's a German."

"Trapped!" I answered. "How should we be trapped?"

"This," cried Brunow, in a loud and quavering tone, "is not the ship I meant to board. There's some mistake here! Hi, you there!"

"Halloa!" said the man in the dreadnaught, approaching and speaking in broken English. "You can hoult your chaw. There is nothing for you to cry out about. Gom dis vays."

Still in growing wonderment, and feeling on the whole that I should have been much better satisfied if I had had with me the brace of revolvers I had bought that morning, I followed the man down the companion-ladder.



CHAPTER XV

The paddles had already begun to churn in the water, and the vessel to move slowly, but with a swift vibration in every plank of her which promised speed when once she had gathered way. I was suspicious enough already, though in so vague a fashion that I hardly guessed what I suspected, and I recall the fact that I was not in the least surprised when I heard a cry from Ruffiano's lips, and saw the old man struggling in the arms of a big sailor who had clipped him by both elbows from behind and held him in a position of the most serious disadvantage. Without reflection, I sprang to his release. I felt a heavy blow between the shoulders, which would in all probability have taken effect upon my head but for my sudden movement, and in an instant I was in the middle of as severe a rough-and-tumble fight as I could remember anywhere. There were eight or ten people engaged in it, and the whole thing was so rapid that I had not the faintest idea as to where my opponents came from. I only know that within five seconds of the time at which I had left the deck I was somehow back upon it, fighting, as it seemed to me at the moment, for bare life, though I cannot think at this time of day that any very serious personal violence was intended towards myself.

I was fighting like mad with half a dozen when we suddenly swerved altogether against some part of the bulwark which had not been properly secured, and was probably made to open to afford a gangway for passengers, or for the unloading of baggage. The rail swung back, and I, clutching desperately at one of the fellows with whom I was struggling, fell overboard, and soused into the black water, with the bitter chill of a rainy spring in it. I think I may say quite honestly that on land I was a tolerably accomplished sportsman, but I was mainly inland bred as a boy, and though I could swim, after a fashion, and could also, after a fashion, handle a pair of sculls, I was a moderately poor creature in the water. The man I had clutched went down with me, and we both came up spouting the loathsome Thames water from our mouths and nostrils, and still holding to each other. As good luck would have it for me at that moment I came up on top, and a single blow disengaged me from my late adversary. The vessel from which we had fallen was already at a distance which seemed astonishing, and as I trod the water and looked about me, all the twinkling lights of the river craft and the shore looked alarmingly distant. I made for the nearest of them all, and swam, dreadfully embarrassed by my boots and soaked clothing. The light towards which I directed myself shone green over the black spaces of the water, and concentrating all my observation upon it, I thought I approached it at quite a royal pace. In a very little while, however, I discovered that the light was bearing down on me at a much greater rate than that at which I was approaching it, and finally I had some ado to get out of the way of the boat which carried it, and was considerably tossed and tumbled about in the long furrowing wake it made. I sang out at my loudest, but I can only suppose that I was not heard, for the craft, whatever it might have been, swept swiftly down the stream, and in a few seconds was lost to me. I began to feel horribly cold and hopeless. I have been in danger a good many times in my life, but almost always when I could warm the sense of peril by action; but here I felt for a moment as if my time had come, and as if nothing I could do could avert it. The fancy fairly sickened me; and what with the chill of immersion, the sickening taste of the nauseous water, and my own sense of feebleness as a swimmer, I was on the edge of giving up; but all of a sudden, as I have felt more than once in my time, a perfectly calm and bright sensation succeeded to the panic, and I rolled over on to my back, determined to make the best of things and to husband my strength as far as possible. I had read scores of times, as everybody has, that a man floating in the water has only to throw his head back, to keep his hands down, and to rest quite still to be safe. I tried this promising experiment, and whether from the weight of my wet clothes or the irregularity of my breathing, I found that it would not answer, and that I was compelled to keep in motion. I could feel that the current was carrying me, and as I paddled along, most carefully husbanding my strength, I saw that I was bearing gradually nearer to a light on shore, whose position in reference to the various other lights determined me that it was a fixed and not a moving object. I swam towards it, carefully regulating my respiration and determined to avoid all flurry, but I saw that in spite of my utmost efforts I was being hurried past it. Then I drifted into a space where there was something of a little broken, choppy sea, and got another fill of that beastly water, which tasted of tar and sewage and all abominations, and sickened me again to the very heart. Then, before I had fairly recovered from this, and while I was only automatically keeping myself afloat, I saw the wet, rotting piles of a wooden pier quite close to me, and swimming like a madman, touched the surface, and tried to get a grip of it. I failed, and was swept along, gripping and slipping in a most desperate endeavor, until at last the finger-nails of my right hand stuck somewhere in a crack of the water-soaked and slimy wood, and I held on, feeling that I was safe. I had not the faintest sensation of pain at the time, but I clung to the slimy pillar of that pier so urgently with both hands that my nails were half torn away, and for a fortnight later it was only with great difficulty that I could handle a pen, or button or unbutton a collar, or use a knife and fork. I tried to bottom the stream, but found I was quite out of my depth, and so worked cautiously along with the current from post to post until I came to the end of the structure, and then feeling my way round it in grim darkness, found myself at last with my feet embedded in soft mud. I held on there for a minute or two to take breath, and then fought on again. In a little while I found myself on dry land, but so used up by the pull and by the unwonted exertion that I fell all in a heap at the water's edge, and lay there so prostrated that I could move neither hand nor foot. At first the air was tenfold colder than the water had been, but the natural heat reasserted itself gradually, and my forces so far gathered themselves together that I could stand upon my feet and walk. I went on blindly just at first, with such lights as were visible dancing wildly all about me, and it must only have been by sheer good fortune that I did not wander back into the river from which I had so narrowly escaped. Sometimes I saw hundreds of lights, green and red and dazzling white, which had no existence at all, but in the midst of these I made out one which was stationary and real, and I went towards it. When I reached it I found that it hung above the door of that identical public-house at which we had found our boatman, and there at the doorway, glass in hand, was the hackney driver who had brought us down. The man looked amazed to see me, and was more surprised still when I hailed him. He undertook immediately to drive me back to town; helped me into the cab, wrapped me up from head to foot in a rough oilcloth, got me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, and drove away.

The journey down had been long, but the return seemed actually interminable, and it seems so now in my recollection of it. I plead guilty to a confusion of mind which for a while left me powerless to think about anything. Notwithstanding the wraps with which the driver had supplied me, the cold of the March night pierced me to the bone, and the brandy I had taken seemed rather to stupify than to revive me; but when at last I did get home, and Hinge had helped me to a scorching rub-down with rough towels, and had assisted me to dress in dry raiment, I felt more myself again, and sent downstairs for the cabman, who was still waiting there for his fare. The man could tell me absolutely nothing of any value, and I soon found out that the fellow was as much surprised at the turn events had taken as I was myself. A servant girl, it seemed, had come upon the street and had told him that he was wanted a few doors off. He gave me correctly and with no unwillingness Brunow's address, and told me that the gentleman who chartered him had bidden him to drive first to the Italian restaurant, and then to our ultimate destination. I took the man's number and dismissed him with a handsome gratuity. Hinge at first wanted to insist on my immediate retirement to bed, but with every moment that went by I felt better, and when I had drunk a cup of his excellent coffee I was quite myself again, except in so far as all the events of the night seemed to have a curiously unreal and dreamlike feeling about them. The more I turned the thing over in my mind the more I felt inclined to doubt Brunow's bonafides, and yet our long acquaintance and the downright horrible character of the betrayal which had really been committed made the doubt seem so criminal that I tried to drive it away. The more I refused to harbor it the more emphatically it came back again. I recalled Brunow at every instant at which I had consciously or unconsciously observed him, and I knew that there had somehow been a burden on his mind. I could recall his cry when he had said that we were aboard the wrong ship; and let me do what I might, I could not rid myself of the belief that his voice and look at that moment were artificial and theatrical. Once, in the middle of that rough-and-tumble which ended in my involuntary plunge into the water, I had caught sight of him in the gleam of a sickly oil-lamp which swung above the deck. He was held, yet not restrained, by a burly seaman, and the picture was burned into my mind as if by fire. The man was peering over his shoulder, ten thousand times more interested in watching the progress of the struggle than in guarding Brunow, and Brunow was watching the struggle too, but not in the least with any look of amazement, but only with one which I could not for the life of me help construing into fear and shame and self-reproach. It was like a scene beheld by lightning, divided and apart from everything else, and I found it ineffaceable.

It seemed to me obvious that the first thing to be done was to communicate with Ruffiano's friends, for whether he had been spirited away by design or not, it was undeniable that he was in a strange predicament. I set out at once for our ordinary meeting-place, taking Hinge with me, and a brisk walk of a quarter of an hour brought me to the spot. The room in which we held our meetings was approached by an entrance which ran beside the lower room of the restaurant. I left Hinge in this narrow passage, and mounted the stairs rapidly. Before I reached the room I heard the hum of excited voices, and when I tried the door I found that it was locked; I gave the signal known to every member of our fraternity, and the door was opened. The man who opened it, a swarthy Neapolitan whom I barely knew by name, started with amazement as he saw me, and gave vent to an ejaculation. There were perhaps a score of men in the room, and as I stepped forward they all started to their feet and began to press about me with questionings, of which I could barely understand a phrase. One man only hung aloof, and that man was Brunow. I was so amazed to see him there, and so bewildered by the din of welcome and inquiry, that I had no opportunity for a real observation of anything; but I am a mistaken man indeed if Brunow were not to the full as much amazed at seeing me as I at seeing him.

"My good friends," I called out at last, "let me have silence for a minute. Where is Count Ruffiano?"

Every one pointed at once to Brunow. He advanced, and I read treason in his face.

"My dear Fyffe," he cried, holding out his hand to me, "I had never hoped to see you alive again."

This time it was I who refused to see Brunow's hand, as he, only a few hours ago, had declined to see mine. If I had laid bare his villainy there and then, I have no shadow of doubt that there would have been murder done. If I had even hinted at suspicion, his life would have been barely worth a minute's purchase. If my associates had a fault with which both foes and friends alike would have credited them, it was that they were dangerously prone to act first and to argue afterwards. There had been treason in the camp already; when was ever a revolution conducted without it? But I could not make it my business to denounce a fellow-countryman, and a man who had once called himself my friend, unless I could proceed on actual certainty. It took an hour of excited talk to do it, and I had to describe my own share in the adventure twice or thrice; but I got Brunow away at last, and as we went down the stairs together I slipped my arm through his and held him with a grip which I dare say he found significant.

"You will come to my rooms," I said. He made no answer, and I walked along with him, Hinge following at a distance of a yard or two, and so far, of course, suspecting nothing. Not a word was spoken by the way, and Brunow walked like a man who was going to the scaffold. When we came to iny own rooms I locked the door and faced him.

"What have you done with Ruffiano?" I asked him, sternly.

"God only knows what has become of him," cried Brunow, casting his hands abroad with a gesture which was meant to convey at once irritation and wonder. "I made my way straight back to tell the story of the extraordinary incident of to-night, and I have told it. The men we have just left can confirm me in the statement that I did not lose a minute." He was defending himself already, though no accusation had been brought against him.

"You escaped from the ship?" I asked him, curtly.

"Yes," he answered, with a gasp; "I escaped from the ship."

"How?" I asked.

"I followed your example," he returned, "and leaped overboard."

"To arrive here," I said, "in dry clothes, having made no change?"

He gave a sudden start at this, and cast a hurried glance at his own figure. Then he looked at me with an expression I shall not readily forget. It was that of a hunted creature trapped, and recognizing the fact that he was caught.

"I swam ashore," he said, "and I have changed my clothes at home."

I moved without a word to the door, and, opening it, called out to Hinge, who stood waiting for me in the darkening passage, bidding him to mount. He came and stood at attention.

"Mr. Brunow," I said, "will give you the key of his rooms, and you will go from here to there, and by his orders will bring back to me a soaked suit of clothes which you will find there. Oblige me by handing my man your key," I added, turning again on Brunow.

He shot a whisper at me.

"Do you wish to have me murdered?"

"I wish to know," I answered, "and I mean to know, the truth. What have you done with Ruffiano?"

"I tell you," he cried, desperately, "I have done nothing! I know nothing! You were there yourself, and you can tell as well as I that the whole thing was a surprise. How was I to know we were being carried aboard an Austrian craft? How could I suspect the man who came to me of treachery?"

"You swam ashore?" I asked. "I am not to be charged with hunting you to death because I ask for a sight of the clothes you swam in. Give Hinge your key!"

"He's quite welcome to it," he answered, turning his white, defiant face on me, and fumbling in his pocket with a hand so unnerved that he could grasp nothing with it for a minute. "There you are," he said at last, drawing out his latch-key and handing it to Hinge. "Do as you are told."

Hinge accepted the key, and, saluting, left the room without a word, though with a curious look both at Brunow and myself. When he had gone Brunow threw himself into a chair and drew out a cigar-case. He opened it, and selected and lit a cigar, though he shook so that he only succeeded with an expenditure of some half a dozen matches. When he had got a light at last he threw himself back and puffed away with as complete an expression of insouciance as he could command. I, of course, had nothing to say until Hinge returned, though I knew perfectly well beforehand what the result of his errand would be. He came back at last, and when his step was heard upon the stair Brunow looked more ghastly than ever as he turned his face towards me. When Hinge came in empty-handed the poor detected wretch rose with a pretence of bluster which was miserable to see.

"Why the devil," he cried, "haven't you done what you were told to do? This is a pretty servant of yours. Why hasn't he brought the things back as he was told to do?"

Hinge said nothing, but looked from me to my visitor in some bewilderment.

"You hear!" cried Brunow, rising and throwing the stump of his cigar into the grate with a sickly pretence of anger.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Hinge; "there's Mr. Brunow's key, sir. Seems to me I've been sent on a fool's errand. Mr. Brunow's man wants to know what I mean by coming with a message like that. He says Mr. Brunow hasn't been at home since half-past six this evening. Mr. Brunow's man, sir," Hinge pursued, "seemed to think I was trying to make a fool of him."

"That will do," I answered. "You have obeyed your orders, and that is all you have to think about. Go and wait outside."

He went, but I could see that he nursed a little sense of injury. I turned to Brunow and asked him: "Is the game played out yet, or have you any other shift to show me?"

He made no answer at the minute, but fumbled in his pocket again for his cigar-case, with the same shaky and uncertain motion as before. He avoided my eyes, though every now and then he looked towards me as if in spite of himself. For my own part, I could not look away from him, and I do not know now whether I felt more rage or more contempt or more pity for him. I had not thought him so cowardly as he showed himself to be.

"It is for you," I told him at last, "to explain your actions of to-night. You know what the situation means. I charge you here with having betrayed a comrade whom you had sworn, in common with the rest of us, to stand by to the last. If I had brought the charge I am making now against you a little more than half an hour ago it would have gone hard with you. You are as well aware of that fact as I am, and you know that nothing could have saved you from my just renunciation but the memory of an old friendship, of which you have proved yourself utterly unworthy."

"I know you're talking nonsense," he responded, trying to brave it out still. "What should I want to betray old Ruffiano for?"

A sudden gust of wrath swept through me, and blew away before it the last sense of compunction in my mind.

"Understand," I said, "that I am in earnest in this matter, and that I mean to carry out my threat at once. Unless I receive from you a full confession of this night's infamy, I shall detain you here, and shall send Hinge to summon a meeting here; and at that meeting I shall denounce you as a traitor to the cause you have sworn to forward. I shall bring my proofs, and I shall leave you to justify yourself as best you may. What the consequence of that step may be it is for you and not for me to calculate. I will give you five minutes in which to make up your mind."

"You can do what the devil you please," he said; and I rang the bell. Hinge came in, and I bade him go out and call a cab. He obeyed, and taking a seat at the table I began to write out a series of addresses. I read them aloud to Brunow when I had finished, and he recognized the names of half a dozen of the most resolute of our leaders.

"You are playing with your own life!" I cried. "You have only to tell the truth to have a chance for it. You have only to go on lying in this futile way to throw your last chance into the gutter. I will palter with you no longer, and unless by the time at which Hinge returns you have made a clean breast of it, I shall send for the men whose names are here, I shall bring my charge, and you will have to stand the consequences."

"You can commit any folly you please," he answered. "I've nothing to say to you; and if you choose to excite the suspicions of a lot of foreign scum like that, you can do it, and take the responsibility."

"Very well," I said, and the room was dead still for a space of, I should say, four or five minutes; then the rumble of a cab was heard in the street and a step upon the stairs. It was a dreadful minute alike for Brunow and myself, and, looking at him, I felt a resurrection of pity in me.

"Is this bravado worth while any longer, Brunow?" I asked him. "I have no resource but to keep my word. If my man enters the room before you have spoken, he shall go on his errand, and then may Heaven have mercy on the soul of a traitor!"

Hinge's footstep came nearer, and his key touched the lock with a smart click. Brunow rose to his feet as if without any volition of his own, and made a sign with his hand against the door.

"You wish him to remain outside?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, and, falling back into the chair from which he had arisen, covered his white face with both hands. He had allowed his burning cigar to fall upon the carpet, and, a faint odor of acrid smoke reaching my nostrils, I looked for it, found it, and threw it into the empty grate. This trivial action seemed as important at the moment as anything else.

Hinge knocked at the door, but I told him to go down-stairs, and to detain the cab until I should call him. I heard the closing of the outer door, and heard every step of Hinge's feet until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then the silence was so intense that I could hear Brunow's watch quite distinctly as it ticked in his pocket, and my own kept time to it.

"You have decided wisely," I said at last; "and when you have told me the truth you shall have your chance." He was silent for so long a time that I had to urge him. "I shall not wait forever."

"Well," he said, desperately, looking up at me for a mere instant, and then, burying his face in his hands again, "tell me what you want to know."

"I want," I told him, "to know the truth about the whole of this miserable business. Who employed you here?"

"Employed me!" he responded.

"Who paid you for this act of treachery?"

"You know all you want to know, it seems, already," he answered, sullenly, and at that I lost patience with him wholly.

"If I am not answered at once and without reserve," I said, "I will keep my part of the bargain, and leave you to your chance. Who paid you?"

"You can do what you like," he answered, rising. "I'm not going to betray a lady, anyhow."

"Thank you," I answered, with a more bitter disdain than I can easily express in words. "If you choose to make your confession in that form, it is as useful to me as it would be in any other. You were paid for this by a lady. Who was she? You will find it agreeable to have a little force exerted for the satisfaction of your own conscience, if that is the name you give it. Who was the lady?"

"I don't know that I'm bound to risk my life for her," he answered. "It's in her way of business, and she's paid for it."

"And who is she?" I demanded once again.

"The Baroness Bonnar," said Brunow.



CHAPTER XVI

To say that I was not astonished would be absurd; but the words had scarcely been spoken a moment when I began to be aware that I was wondering at my own amazement. On the whole, there was nobody whom I knew and nobody at whose existence I could have guessed who was quite so likely to be engaged in an affair of that nature as the Baroness Bonnar.

He fell back into his arm-chair with a certain air of defiance and lit another cigar, as if by this time he were thoroughly determined to brazen the whole thing out, and to justify himself to himself, even if it were impossible to find a justification for any other. His cigar slipped from his nerveless fingers; as he reseated himself he stooped to pick it up, and, looking at it with a critical eye, began to smoke again. I verily believe that if any stranger had been present, I might have been supposed to be the more disturbed and self-conscious of the two. Perhaps I was, for throughout the whole of this singular interview I was haunted by a wondering inquiry as to what I should do with the man when I had completely exposed his infamy. I dare say I was a fool from the first to feel so, though I could not help it; but to surrender him to the vengeance he had invited seemed altogether an impossibility. In that respect at least he had me at a disadvantage, and I cannot help thinking that he knew it.

"The Baroness Bonnar!" I echoed. He made no answer, but leaned back in my arm-chair, smoking with an outside tranquillity, as if the whole affair were no business of his. "The Baroness Bonnar!" I repeated, and he gave a brief nod in affirmation. "And what," I asked, "does she propose to pay you for this unspeakable rascality?"

A decanter and a water-jug stood upon the table, and he helped himself, holding up his tumbler against the light to judge of the amount of spirit he had taken before adding the water he needed. When his shaking hand jerked the jug and he had taken more water than he thought necessary, he sipped critically at the contents of the tumbler and added a little more spirit. Then he sipped again, and settled himself back into his chair, as if resigned to boredom. I knew I had only to speak a word to put all these airs to flight, but I hesitated to speak it.

"What does she pay you?" I asked again, and he turned upon me with a wretched attempt at a smile and a wave of the hand in which he held his cigar.

"It isn't usual to discuss these things," he answered.

"You wish me to understand," I said, "that for the sake of an amour with a woman of her age you have broken the most sacred oath a man could take, and have betrayed to life-long misery an old man who trusted you, and who never did you any harm. You have confessed yourself contemptible already, but surely you have a better excuse for your own villainy than this?" He was still silent, and smoked on with the same effort after an outward seeming of tranquillity, though his white face and shaking hand belied him. "What did you get in money?"

"Look here, Fyffe," he answered, inspecting the ash of his cigar with the aspect of a connoisseur, and evading my glance, "your position gives you an advantage, but you are trying to make too much use of it. I had the most perfect assurances that the old man would be treated kindly, and I know that nobody has any intention to do anything but keep him out of mischief."

I am very much ashamed of it now, and I think I was even a little conscious of shame about it then, but I felt inclined to comprehend the man, to fathom his depths of self-excuse, and I bore with his evasions and his explanations in a spirit of savage banter.

"Come," I said, "we shall get to understand each other before we part. What were you paid?"

"In money?" he asked, flicking the ash from his cigar and settling himself with ostentatious pretence of ease. "In money—nothing."

At that very minute a knock sounded at the door, and mechanically consulting my watch, I saw that it was already nearly midnight. I had no reason to expect a visitor at that hour, and I stood listening in silence, while Hinge answered the summons at the door. There was a murmur of voices outside, and when I looked at Brunow I saw him start suddenly forward as if in the act to rise. For a second or two he set in an attitude of enforced attention, leaning forward with a hand on either arm of the chair, as if prepared to spring to his feet; but observing that my eye was upon him, he sank back again and began to smoke once more. This time nothing but the rapidity with which he puffed at his cigar was left to indicate his discomposure.

Hinge rapped at the door, and when I bade him enter, came in followed by a stranger, whose aspect was simply and purely business-like. This man bowed to me and then to Brunow, and receiving no response from either of us, stood for a moment as if embarrassed.

"Captain Fyffe, I believe?" he said, rather awkwardly.

"That is my name," I answered. "What is your business?"

"I beg pardon for coming here, sir," he responded, "but I have been waiting all night to find the Honorable Mr. Brunow, and I have only just heard that he was here. Can I have a word with you, sir?" He turned to Brunow as he spoke. "Sorry to trouble you, sir, but you remember what you promised me. I took your word of honor, sir, and I've made myself personally responsible."

"Damn it all!" cried Brunow, rising, with a whiter face than ever; "do you suppose that a gentleman is to be badgered about a thing of this kind at this hour of the night in another gentleman's rooms? Wait outside. Go down-stairs and wait for me, and I will arrange with you when we go home together."

"Very well, sir," the man replied. He was perfectly respectful, though there was an underlying threat in his manner. "I'll do as you wish. But I hope you understand—"

"I understand everything!" cried Brunow, with an imperious wave of the arm. "Do as you are told!"

"Hinge," I said, seeing a sudden light upon the complication of affairs which lay before me, "Mr. Brunow and I have business with each other which may detain us for some little time. This person can wait in your room until Mr. Brunow is at liberty."

"I beg your pardon, sir," the man responded, "I've spent a good deal of time about this business already, and it's getting late. I shall be glad to know when I may expect to be able to talk to Mr. Brunow."

"You will wait outside," I answered; "and I think I may guarantee that you will not be kept waiting long."

The man retired, and I turned on Brunow, as certain of the position of affairs at that moment as I was half an hour later.

"This man," I said, "has a business claim upon you, and you have promised to satisfy him to-night. Now, I know something of your affairs, and I can guess pretty well that without to-night's action you might not have been in a position to meet him. You had better make a clean breast of it, and it will pay you to remember once for all that I hold your life in my hands, and that I am not altogether indisposed to use my power. What were you paid, or what are you to be paid?"

"I have told you everything I had to tell," said Brunow, falling back into his former sullen attitude. "You can do just as you please, Fyffe, but I shall say no more."

I took between my thumb and finger the sheet which lay upon the table, inscribed, as he knew perfectly well, with the names and addresses of the people mainly concerned in our enterprise, and held it up before him.

"Very well," he said, after looking at it and me, and reading no sign of wavering in my face, "I was to get five hundred pounds."

"Provided always," I suggested, "that your plot came to a successful issue."

"Of course," he answered, biting his cigar and speaking in a tone of furtive flippancy, which I suppose was the only thing left to the poor wretch to hide the nakedness of his discomfiture.

"And you reckon," I asked him, "on being paid to-morrow?" Except for a sullen motion of his chair he gave no sign of answer. "Now listen to me," I said. "I have made up my mind as to what I will do. You shall not touch one penny of this blood-money. You shall have a run for your worthless life, and I promise not to denounce you to the men whom you have betrayed for twelve hours. To-morrow at midday I shall tell all I know, and you are the best judge of what it will be safest to do in the meanwhile."

"All right," he answered, desperately, rising to his feet and buttoning his coat about him; "you've found your chance and you've used it. It's a useful thing for you to get me out of the way, no doubt, but I may find a chance of being even with you yet, and if I do, I'll take it."

"You seem resolute," I told him, "to force me to do my worst. At this very instant, when I hold your life in my hands, when it is in my power to hand you over to justice by a word, and when I propose—partly for old friendship's sake and partly because I am ashamed that a fellow-countryman of mine should have been such a blackguard—to let you go, you are fool enough to tell me that my mercy has no effect upon you, and that you will do your best to be revenged upon me. Think that over, Brunow."

He turned his face away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together, and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the next room.

"For God's sake, Fyffe," he broke out, "let me go! I'll promise anything, do anything. I've—I've always been an honorable man till now, and I—I can't stand it any longer. If you've got any pity in you, let me go!"

I was as much ashamed as he was, though, I hope, in another way, and I was eager to cut short the conference. For all that, I had a duty to discharge.

"You shall go," I said, "and I shall be glad to be rid of you. But first of all you shall make a clean breast of it."

He told the story in a furtive, broken way, as well he might; and how much more and how much less than the actual truth he told me I never knew with certainty, but it came to this. He had had heavy gambling losses, and had got into financial difficulties. The Baroness Bonnar had found this out, and had told him of a way by which he might recuperate himself. She had only hinted at first, and he had indignantly refused her proposal, but he had played about the bait, as I could readily fancy him doing, and had finally gorged it. He was to have received five hundred pounds next day on consideration of the arrival of intelligence from the people to whom he had betrayed Ruffiano, and he confessed that he had been promised other work of the same kind.

"I swear to you, Fyffe," he declared, "that I'd never have done it at all if I hadn't had the most solemn assurances that nothing would happen to the old man."

"Do you think," I asked him, "that the solemn assurances of a spy are worth much in any case?"

"They won't hurt him," said Brunow; "I made sure of that beforehand. I give you my word of honor. I was careful about it, because I have rather a liking for him."

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if, having rather a liking for him, he had betrayed him to the Austrians, what he would have done if he had rather a dislike for him. But it could serve no purpose to argue at all in such a case, and it was hopeless to imagine that any exposure of himself would have made the man realize the perfidy of his own nature.

"The world is before you," I said, "and, so far as I am concerned, you may go where you will. I do not pretend to offer you any security from the vengeance of the men whose oath you have betrayed. I should be powerless to do that, however much I wished it. You must shift for yourself."

"Very well," he answered, sullenly; and, rising to his feet, he began to button his coat and to gather together his hat and gloves and walking-cane. Then he made a movement to go, but half-way to the door stopped irresolutely. I thought he was about to speak again, but after a pause of a second or two he went on, opened the door with an unsteady hand, and went out without closing it behind him. The man I had told to wait outside must have been upon the watch, for I heard his voice at the very instant at which Brunow set foot in the narrow passage.

"Well, sir?" he said.

"Well?" said Brunow.

"I am sorry to press this claim, sir," said the man, "but I have my instructions, and I can't help it. If you'll give me your word that you will settle in the morning, I will wait till then. But it's no use making any bogus promise."

"I suppose you don't mean to lose sight of me?" Brunow asked.

"That's the state of the case, sir," the man answered.

"H'm!" said Brunow, in a casual tone; "got anybody with you now?"

"Sheriff's officer in a hackney-coach down-stairs," the man responded. He had caught Brunow's tone to a hair, and spoke as if the whole thing were the merest casual trifle.

"He's prepared to do his duty now?" asked Brunow. I heard no response, but I presume that the man gave some sign of affirmation, for Brunow went on: "Very well; I'm ready. It could hardly have happened at a better time."

"I thought you were going to square up to-morrow, sir," the man said.

"So did I," responded Brunow; "but I've as much chance of that now as you have of being Emperor of China. Go on; I'm quite ready."

There was a trifling difficulty with the catch of the outer door, with which both Hinge and myself had long been familiar, and which we now surmounted with perfect ease. It bothered Brunow and the stranger, however, for I heard them both fumbling at the lock, and at last Hinge, hearing also, left his little bedroom on the landing and came to their assistance.

Then the door was opened, and with a cry of "Goodbye, Fyffe!" to which I returned no answer, Brunow went away in charge of his business friend.

At the first opening of the outer door the cold wind of the spring night came into the room with a burst, and scattered a handful of papers about the floor. I busied myself in picking these up again, but finding that the hall-door was still open, I called out to Hinge to close it. He delayed until I had repeated my order in an angry tone, and then, having closed the door, he came into my room with a hurried and excited look.

"Beg pardon for keeping the door open, sir," said Hinge, "but I've just seen something rather curious."

"Never mind that now," I answered. "Go to bed. I shall not want you any more to-night."

"No, sir," said Hinge. "If you'll excuse me, sir, this is something very important."

He was not wont to be troublesome, but after all the events of that strange night I was fairly unsettled and pretty well out of temper. I snapped at Hinge, telling him to go and not to bother me with any nonsense just then.

"Got to tell you this, sir," said Hinge, standing at attention, and looking straight before him. Even then it was with no sense of importance in the matter he had to communicate that I listened to him.

"Go on," I said, "and get it over. What is it?"

"Well, sir," said Hinge, "when I was in the general's service in Vienna I used to see a lot of the Austrian police. I got to know some of them by sight—a good many, I might say. Secret chaps, they was, sir—spies."

"That's all very interesting," I returned, "but you can see I'm bothered just at present, and I want to be alone. You can tell me all that at another time."

"There's one of them a-living in this house, sir," said Hinge, as little moved by my interruption as if I had not spoken.

This was news, and my impatience and ill-temper vanished.

"How do you know?" I asked. "Tell me all about it."

"I never set eyes on him but just this minute, sir," said Hinge, "since I left Vienna. But he walked upstairs just now with a latch-key in his hand, and he went into the rooms overhead of yours, sir. That's him a-walking about now, I'll lay a fiver." As a matter of fact, I could bear a heavy footstep pacing the room above. "The odd part of it is, sir," Hinge pursued, "this cove knows Mr. Brunow, and Mr. Brunow knows him, sir."

"Oh," I asked, fully interested by this time, "how do you know that?"

"They spoke together on the stairs, sir. This fellow Sacovitch, that's his name, he says to Mr. Brunow, 'Alloa,' he says, 'you 'ere?' And Mr. Brunow says, 'Don't speak to me; I'll write to you.' Now I don't like the look o' that, sir, and I thought you ought to know about it."

"You are quite right, Hinge," I said. "It was your business to tell me; and if I had known it yesterday, or if I had only known of it eight hours ago, it might have been of use to me."

"This Sacovitch chap didn't see me, sir," said Hinge, with a certain modest exultation; "I took care of that. But I nips half-way upstairs after him, and sees him open the door with his latch-key, and then I nips down again."

"Do you think he would know you if he saw you?" I asked.

"There's no saying about that, sir," Hinge responded; "he might and he mightn't. You see, sir, he's a swell in his own way, this chap is. He used to dine with the general, and they used to salute him like as if he was an officer. There was every reason, don't you see, sir, why I should notice him, and there was no mortal reason in the world why he should notice me. But there's no mistaking him, sir, and I should have spotted his ugly mug among a million."

"Thank you very much, Hinge. That will do." Hinge went away, and I sat down to think this new matter over. Of course I had never been foolish enough to suppose that Brunow had given me any information of value against his party, outside the one admission that he had been hired by the Baroness Bonnar; but here was sudden proof of the incompleteness of his confession. Shall I confess that my first impulse was to do an extremely silly and inconsiderate thing? I felt inclined, foolish as it will sound, to walk upstairs and to introduce myself sardonically to Herr Sacovitch, since that was the gentleman's name, with the proclamation of my newly-acquired knowledge of his business, and request that he would waste no further time in prosecuting it so far as I was concerned. But this foolish desire had scarcely occurred to me before I threw it out of the window. If the man believed himself to be unknown, I had the whip-hand of him in knowing him, and to have exposed my knowledge would only have been to release him for the prosecution of useful business on his own side, while some other person, whom I might never have the luck to recognize at all, would take his place. I was rather flattered, on the whole, to think that a great European power like Austria found it worth while to put a watch upon my actions; but there was only a passing satisfaction in that fancy. I could not get poor old Ruffiano out of ray head that night. I undressed and went to bed, but I courted sleep in vain. All night long I heard the quarters strike, and then the hours, and all night long the picture of the good, genial, patient, suffering old man fairly haunted me. There were times when I blamed myself severely for having allowed his betrayer to go free at all, and there were moments when, if Brunow had been once again before me, I should have had no control over myself. But, after all, mercy is just as much a duty as justice, and on looking back I am not disposed to censure myself very heavily for the course I took. I can think of nothing more hateful than Brunow's crime, and of nothing more just than the punishment which finally befell him; but I am glad that the act of vengeance was not mine.

It was bright morning when at last I fell asleep, and before that happened I had formed one clear resolution. This was to seek out Violet in the course of the day, to let-her know what had happened, and consult her judgment as to what my own course should be. In the meantime Brunow, in a debtor's prison, could do no further mischief, and was, at the same time, safe from immediate vengeance. There was time for a pause before further action was needed, and it was this reflection more than anything else which calmed me down at last into a state of mind in which sleep was possible.

I breakfasted at the usual time, for Hinge in household matters was a perfect martinet, and all my home affairs were as punctual as a clock. Then, at as early an hour as I dared to venture on, I walked to Lady Rollinson's house. The servant who answered my summons at the door had been in the habit of skipping on one side at once, and throwing the door open in something of an excess of hospitality. I had sometimes even felt a touch of humorous anger at the man; for his fashion of receiving me had seemed to indicate that he was in possession of the secret of the position, and it was as if his flourish of welcome showed an approval of my suit. But to-day he held the door half open, and, before I could get out a word of inquiry, said, "Not at hom?"

"Neither Lady Rollinson nor Miss Rossano?" I asked him.

"Not at home, sir," the man repeated. He looked conscious beneath my eye, and his manner was distinctly embarrassed.

"Are you quite sure of that?" I asked him. "Kindly go and see." The man looked more discomposed than ever, but he said for the third time: "Not at home, sir." And in the face of this repeated declaration it seemed useless to inquire again. I walked away, a little puzzled by the man's manner. I had heard of no intended visit, and so far as I could guess I knew of every plan which Violet and Lady Rollinson had formed. It is not usual for an accepted suitor to be met at the door of his fiancee's house with that curt formula, and I went away dissatisfied and wondering, turning my steps homeward. I had made up my mind to dismiss the whole circumstance and to write to Violet, and I was walking up the stairs which led to my chambers, in haste to put that little project into execution, when I ran full against a stranger on the landing. He raised his hat with an apology, and I was in the act of doing the same when his foreign accent induced me to look more closely at him. He was a tall, dark man, very gentlemanly to look at and irreproachably dressed. In a dark, saturnine way he was handsome, and recalling Hinge's statement that he would have known the ugly mug of our fellow-lodger among a million, I settled within my own mind that this could not be the man; but I still observed him with a little interest in the certainty that if not the man himself, he was at least a visitor. Hinge was at the door when I reached it.