"Prince Erlik, of Mongolia," replied Neeland solemnly.

"I supposed so. We of the infernal aristocracy belong together. I am the Contessa Diabletta d'Enfer."

He inclined gravely:

"I'm afraid I don't belong here," he said. "I'm only a Yankee."

"Hell is full of them," she said, smiling. "All Yankees belong where Prince Erlik and I are at home.... Do you play?"

"No. Do you?"

"It depends on chance."

"It would give me much pleasure——"

"Thank you, not tonight." And in the same, level, pleasant voice: "Don't look immediately, but from where you sit you can see in the mirror opposite two women seated in the next room."

After a moment he nodded.

"Are they watching us?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Neeland?"

He reddened with surprise.

"Get Captain Sengoun and leave," she said, still smiling. "Do it carelessly, convincingly. Neither of you needs courage; both of you lack common sense. Get up, take leave of me nicely but regretfully, as though I had denied you a rendezvous. You will be killed if you remain here."

For a moment Neeland hesitated, but curiosity won:

"Who is likely to try anything of that sort?" he asked. And a tingling sensation, not wholly unpleasant, passed over him.

"Almost anyone here, if you are recognised," she said, as gaily as though she were imparting delightful information.

"But you recognise us. And I'm certainly not dead yet."

"Which ought to tell you more about me than I am likely to tell anybody. Now, when I smile at you and shake my head, make your adieux to me, find Captain Sengoun, and take your departure. Do you understand?"

"Are you really serious?"

"It is you who should be serious. Now, I give you your signal, Monsieur Neeland——"

But the smile stiffened on her pretty face, and at the same moment he was aware that somebody had entered the room and was standing directly behind him.

He turned on his chair and looked up into the face of Ilse Dumont.

There was a second's hesitation, then he was on his feet, greeting her cordially, apparently entirely at ease and with nothing on his mind except the agreeable surprise of the encounter.

"I had your note," he said. "It was charming of you to write, but very neglectful of you not to include your address. Tell me, how have you been since I last saw you?"

Ilse Dumont's red lips seemed to be dry, for she moistened them without speaking. In her eyes he saw peril—knowledge of something terrible—some instant menace.

Then her eyes, charged with lightning, slowly turned from him to the girl on the sofa who had not moved. But in her eyes, too, a little flame began to flicker and play, and the fixed smile relaxed into an expression of cool self-possession.

Neeland's pleasant, careless voice broke the occult tension:

"This is a pretty club," he said; "everything here is in such excellent taste. You might have told me about it," he added to Ilse with smiling reproach; "but you never even mentioned it, and I discovered it quite by accident."

Ilse Dumont seemed to find her voice with an effort:

"May I have a word with you, Mr. Neeland?" she asked.

"Always," he assured her promptly. "I am always more than happy to listen to you——"

"Please follow me!"

He turned to the girl on the sofa and made his adieux with conventional ceremony and a reckless smile which said:

"You were quite right, mademoiselle; I'm in trouble already."

Then he followed Ilse Dumont into the adjoining room, which was lined with filled bookcases and where the lounges and deep chairs were covered with leather.

Halting by the library table, Ilse Dumont turned to him—turned on him a look such as he never before had encountered in any living woman's eyes—a dead gaze, dreadful, glazed, as impersonal as the fixed regard of a corpse.

She said:

"I came.... They sent for me.... I did not believe they had the right man.... I could not believe it, Neeland."

A trifle shaken, he said in tones which sounded steady enough:

"What frightens you so, Scheherazade?"

"Why did you come? Are you absolutely mad?"

"Mad? No, I don't think so," he replied with a forced smile. "What threatens me here, Scheherazade?"—regarding her pallid face attentively.

"Death.... You must have known it when you came."

"Death? No, I didn't know it."

"Did you suppose that if they could get hold of you they'd let you go?—A man who might carry in his memory the plans for which they tried to kill you? I wrote to you—I wrote to you to go back to America! And—this is what you have done instead!"

"Well," he said in a pleasant but rather serious voice, "if you really believe there is danger for me if I remain here, perhaps I'd better go."

"You can't go!"

"You think I'll be stopped?"

"Yes. Who is your crazy companion? I heard that he is Alak Sengoun—the headlong fool—they call Prince Erlik. Is it true?"

"Where did you hear all these things?" he demanded. "Where were you when you heard them?"

"At the Turkish Embassy. Word came that they had caught you. I did not believe it; others present doubted it.... But as the rumour concerned you, I took no chances; I came instantly. I—I had rather be dead than see you here——" Her voice became unsteady, but she controlled it at once:

"Neeland! Neeland! Why did you come? Why have you undone all I tried to do for you——?"

He looked intently at Ilse Dumont, then his gaze swept the handsome suite of rooms. No one seemed to notice him; in perspective, men moved leisurely about the further salon, where play was going on; and there seemed to be no one else in sight. And, as he stood there, free, in full pride and vigour of youth and strength, he became incredulous that anything could threaten him which he could not take care of.

A smile grew in his eyes, confident, humorous, a little hint of tenderness in it:

"Scheherazade," he said, "you are a dear. You pulled me out of a dreadful mess on the Volhynia. I offer you gratitude, respect, and the very warm regard for you which I really cherish in my heart."

He took her hands, kissed them, looked up half laughing, half in earnest.

"If you're worried," he said, "I'll find Captain Sengoun and we'll depart——"

She retained his hands in a convulsive clasp:

"Oh, Neeland! Neeland! There are men below who will never let you pass! And Breslau and Kestner are coming here later. And that devil, Damat Mahmud Bey!"

"Golden Beard and Ali Baba and the whole Arabian Nights!" exclaimed Neeland. "Who is Damat Mahmud Bey, Scheherazade dear?"

"The shadow of Abdul Hamid."

"Yes, dear child, but Abdul the Damned is shut up tight in a fortress!"

"His shadow dogs the spurred heels of Enver Pasha," she said, striving to maintain her composure. "Oh, Neeland!—A hundred thousand Armenians are yet to die in that accursed shadow! And do you think Mahmud Damat will hesitate in regard to you!"

"Nonsense! Does a murderous Moslem go about Paris killing people he doesn't happen to fancy? Those things aren't done——"

"Have you and Sengoun any weapons at all?" she interrupted desperately, "Anything!—A sword cane——?"

"No. What the devil does all this business mean?" he broke out impatiently. "What's all this menace of lawlessness—this impudent threat of interference——"

"It is war!"

"War?" he repeated, not quite understanding her.

She caught him by the arm:

"War!" she whispered; "War! Do you understand? They don't care what they do now! They mean to kill you here in this place. They'll be out of France before anybody finds you."

"Has war actually been declared?" he asked, astounded.

"Tomorrow! It is known in certain circles!" She dropped his arm and clasped her hands and stood there twisting them, white, desperate, looking about her like a hunted thing.

"Why did you do this?" she repeated in an agonised voice. "What can I do? I'm no traitor!... But I'd give you a pistol if I had one——" She checked herself as the girl who had been reading an evening newspaper on a sofa, and to whom Neeland had been talking when Ilse Dumont entered, came sauntering into the room.

The eyes of both women met; both turned a trifle paler. Then Ilse Dumont walked slowly up to the other:

"I overheard your warning," she said with a deadly stare.

"Really?"

Ilse stretched out her bare arm, palm upward, and closed the fingers tightly:

"I hold your life in my hand. I have only to speak. Do you understand?"

"No."

"You are lying. You do understand. You take double wages; but it is not France you betray! Nor Russia!"

"Are you insane?"

"Almost. Where do you carry them?"

"What?"

"Answer quickly. Where? I tell you, I'll expose you in another moment if you don't answer me! Speak quickly!"

The other woman had turned a ghastly white; for a second or two she remained dumb, then, dry-lipped:

"Above—the knee," she stammered; but there was scarcely a sound from the blanched lips that formed the words.

"Pistols?"

"Yes."

"Loaded? Both of them?"

"Yes."

"Clips?"

"No."

"Unstrap them!"

The woman turned, bent almost double, twisting her supple body entirely around; but Ilse Dumont was at her side like a flash and caught her wrist as she withdrew her hand from the hem of her fluffy skirt.

"Now—take your life!" said Ilse Dumont between her teeth. "There's the door! Go out!"—following her with blazing eyes—"Stop! Stand where you are until I come!"

Then she came quickly to where Neeland stood, astonished; and thrust two automatic pistols into his hands.

"Get Sengoun," she whispered. "Don't go down-stairs, for God's sake. Get to the roof, if you can. Try—oh, try, try, Neeland, my friend!" Her voice trembled; she looked into his eyes—gave him, in that swift regard, all that a woman withholds until the right man asks.

Her lips quivered; she turned sharply on her heel, went to the outer hallway, where the other woman stood motionless.

"What am I to do with you?" demanded Ilse Dumont. "Do you think you are going out of here to summon the police? Mount those stairs!"

The woman dropped her hand on the banisters, heavily, set foot on the first stair, then slowly mounted as though her little feet in their dainty evening slippers were weighted with ball and chain.

Ilse Dumont followed her, opened a door in the passage, motioned her to enter. It was a bedroom that the electric light revealed. The woman entered and stood by the bed as though stupefied.

"I'll keep my word to you," said Ilse Dumont. "When it becomes too late for you to do us any mischief, I'll return and let you go."

And she stepped back across the threshold and locked the door on the outside.

As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly up the stairs, and she beckoned them to follow, gathered the skirts of her evening gown into one hand, and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth floor.

In the dim light Neeland saw that the top floor was merely a vast attic full of debris from the cafe on the ground floor—iron tables which required mending or repainting, iron chairs, great jars of artificial stone with dead baytrees standing in them, parts of rusty stoves and kitchen ranges, broken cutlery in boxes, cracked table china and heavier kitchen crockery in tubs which once had held flowers.

The only windows gave on a court. Through their dirty panes already the grey light of that early Sunday morning glimmered, revealing the contents of the shadowy place, and the position of an iron ladder hooked to two rings under the scuttle overhead.

Ilse Dumont laid her finger on her lips, conjuring silence, then, clutching her silken skirts, she started up the iron ladder, reached the top, and, exerting all her strength, lifted the hinged scuttle leading to the leads outside.

Instantly somebody challenged her in a guttural voice. She stood there a few moments in whispered conversation, then, from outside, somebody lowered the scuttle cover; the girl locked it, descended the iron ladder backwards, and came swiftly across to where Neeland and Sengoun were standing, pistols lifted.

"They're guarding the roof," she whispered, "—two men. It is hopeless, that way."

"The proper way," said Sengoun calmly, "is for us to shoot our way out of this!"

The girl turned on him in a passion:

"Do you suppose I care what happens to you?" she said. "If there were no one else to consider you might do as you pleased, for all it concerns me!"

Sengoun reddened:

"Be silent, you treacherous little cat!" he retorted. "Do you imagine your riffraff are going to hold me here when I'm ready to depart! Me! A free Cossack! Bah!"

"Don't talk that way, Sengoun," said Neeland sharply. "We owe these pistols to her."

"Oh," muttered Sengoun, shooting a menacing glance at her. "I didn't understand that." Then his scowl softened and a sudden laugh cleared his face.

"I'm sorry, mademoiselle," he said. "You're quite welcome to your low opinion of me. But if anyone should ask me, I'd say that I don't understand what is happening to us. And after a while I'll become angry and go downstairs for information."

"They know nothing about you in the salle de jeu," she said, "but on the floor below they're waiting to kill you."

Neeland, astonished, asked her whether the American gamblers in the salon where Sengoun had been playing were ignorant of what was going on in the house.

"What Americans?" she demanded, incredulously. "Do you mean Weishelm?"

"Didn't you know there were Americans employed in the salle de jeu?" asked Neeland, surprised.

"No. I have not been in this house for a year until I came tonight. This place is maintained by the Turkish Government—" She flashed a glance at Sengoun—"you're welcome to the information now," she added contemptuously. And then, to Neeland: "There was, I believe, some talk in New York about adding one or two Americans to the personnel, but I opposed it."

"They're here," said Neeland drily.

"Do you know who they are?"

"Yes. There's a man called Doc Curfoot——"

"Who!!"

And suddenly, for the first time, Neeland remembered that she had been the wife of one of the men below.

"Brandes and Stull are the others," he said mechanically.

The girl stared at him as though she did not comprehend, and she passed one hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.

"Eddie Brandes? Here? And Stull? Curfoot? Here in this house!"

"In the salon below."

"They can't be!" she protested in an odd, colourless voice. "They were bought soul and body by the British Secret Service!"

All three stood staring at one another; the girl flushed, clenched her hand, then let it fall by her side as though utterly overcome.

"All this espionage!" cried Sengoun, furiously. "—It makes me sick, I tell you! Where everybody betrays everybody is no place for a free Cossack!——"

The terrible expression on the girl's face checked him; she said, slowly:

"It is we others who have been betrayed, it seems. It is we who are trapped here. They've got us all—every one of us. Oh, my God!—every one of us—at last!"

She lifted her haggard face and stared at the increasing light which was turning the window panes a sickly yellow.

"With sunrise comes war," she said in a stunned voice, as though to convince herself. "We are caught here in this house. And Kestner and Weishelm and Breslau and I——" she trembled, framing her burning face in slim hands that were like ice. "Do you understand that Brandes and Curfoot, bought by England, have contracted to deliver us to a French court martial?"

The men looked at her in silence.

"Kestner and Breslau knew they had been bought. One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud Damat's meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake for all of us!"

She leaned for a moment against one of the iron pillars which supported the attic roof, and covered her face with her hands.

After a moment, Neeland said:

"I don't understand why you can't leave this house if you are in danger. You say that there are men downstairs who are waiting to kill us—waiting only for Kestner and Breslau and Mahmud Damat to arrive."

She said faintly:

"I did not before understand Mahmud's delay. Now, I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for your lives."

"But you say there are men on the stairs below who are ready to kill us if we try to leave the house."

"They, too, are trapped without knowing it. War will come with sunrise. This house has been under surveillance since yesterday afternoon. They have not closed in on us yet, because they are leaving the trap open in hopes of catching us all. They are waiting for Breslau and Kestner and Mahmud Damat.... But they'll never come, now.... They are out of the city by this time.... I know them. They are running for their lives at this hour.... And we—we lesser ones—caught here—trapped—reserved for a French court martial and a firing squad in a barrack square!"

She shuddered and pressed her hands over her temples.

Neeland said:

"I am going to stand by you. Captain Sengoun will do the same."

She shook her head:

"No use," she said with a shiver. "I am too well known. They have my dossier almost complete. My proces will be a brief one."

"Can't you get away by the roof? There are two of your men up there."

"They themselves are caught, and do not even know it. They too will face a squad of execution before the sun rises tomorrow. And they never dream of it up there——"

She made a hopeless gesture:

"What is the use! When I came here from the Turkish Embassy, hearing that you were here but believing the information false, I discovered you conversing with a Russian spy—overheard her warn you to leave this house.

"And there, all the while, unknown to me, in the salle de jeu were Curfoot and that unspeakable scoundrel Brandes! Why, the place was swarming with enemies—and I never dreamed it!... Yet—I might have feared some such thing—I might have feared that the man, Brandes, who had betrayed me once, would do it again if he ever had the chance.... And he's done it."

There was a long silence. Ilse stood staring at the melancholy greyish light on the window panes.

She said as though to herself:

"I shall never see another daybreak."... After a moment she turned and began to pace the attic, a strange, terrible figure of haggard youth in the shadowy light. "How horribly still it is at daybreak!" she breathed, halting before Neeland. "How deathly quiet——"

The dry crack of a pistol cut her short. Then, instantly, in the dim depths of the house, shot followed shot in bewildering succession, faster, faster, filling the place with a distracting tumult.

Neeland jerked up his pistol as a nearer volley rattled out on the landing directly underneath.

Sengoun, exasperated, shouted:

"Well, what the devil is all this!" and ran toward the head of the stairs, his pistol lifted for action.

Then, in the garret doorway, Weishelm appeared, his handsome face streaming blood. He staggered, turned mechanically toward the stairs again with wavering revolver; but a shot drove him blindly backward and another hurled him full length across the floor, where he lay with both arms spread out, and the last tremors, running from his feet to his twitching face.



CHAPTER XXXIII

A RAT HUNT

The interior of the entire house was now in an uproar; shots came fast from every landing; the semi-dusk of stair-well and corridor was lighted by incessant pistol flashes and the whole building echoed the deafening racket.

"What do you make of it?" shouted Sengoun furiously, standing like a baited and perplexed bull. "Who's fighting who in this fool of a place? By Erlik! I'd like to know whom I'm to fire at!"

Ilse Dumont, creeping along the wall, looked fearfully down at Weishelm who no longer moved where he lay on the dusty floor, with eyes and mouth open and his distorted face already half covered by a wet and crawling scarlet mask.

"Brandes and Stull are betraying us," she whispered. "They are killing my comrades—on the stairs down there——"

"If that is true," called out Neeland in a low, cautious voice, "you'd better wait a moment, Sengoun!"

But Sengoun's rage for combat had already filled him to overflowing, and the last rag of patience left him.

"I don't care who is fighting!" he bellowed. "It's all one to me! Now is the time to shoot our way out of this. Come on, Neeland! Hurrah for the Terek Cossacks! Another town taken! Hurrah!"

Neeland caught Ilse by the wrist:

"You'd better get free of this house while you can!" he said, dragging her with him after Sengoun, who had already reached the head of the stairs and was starting down, peering about for a target.

Suddenly, on the landing below, Golden Beard and Ali Baba appeared, caught sight of Sengoun and Neeland above, and opened fire on them instantly, driving them back from the head of the staircase flat against the corridor wall. But Golden Beard, seeming to realise now that the garret landing was held and the way to the roof cut off, began to retreat from the foot of the garret stairs with Ali Baba following, their restless, upward-pointed pistols searching for the slightest movement in the semi-obscurity of the hallway above.

Sengoun, fuming and fretting, had begun to creep toward the head of the stairs again, when there came a rattling hail of shots from below, a rush, the trample of feet, the crash of furniture and startling slam of a door.

Downstairs straight toward the uproar ran Sengoun with Neeland beside him. The halls were swimming in acrid fumes; the floors trembled and shook under the shock as a struggling, fighting knot of men went tumbling down the stairway below, reached the landing and burst into the rooms of the Cercle Extranationale.

Leaning over the banisters, Neeland saw Golden Beard turn on Doc Curfoot, raging, magnificent as a Viking, his blue eyes ablaze. He hurled his empty pistol at the American; seized chairs, bronzes, andirons, the clock from the mantel, and sent a storm of heavy missiles through the doorway among the knot of men who were pressing him and who had already seized Ali Baba.

Then, from the banisters above, Neeland and Sengoun saw Brandes, moving stealthily, swiftly, edge his way to a further door.

Steadying the elbow of his pistol hand in the hollow cup of his left palm, his weapon level, swerving as his quarry moved, he presently fired at Golden Beard and got him through the back. And then he shot him again deliberately, through the body, as the giant turned, made a menacing gesture toward him; took an uncertain step in his direction; another step, wavering, blindly grotesque; then stood swaying there under the glare of the partly shattered chandelier from which hung long shreds of crystal prisms.

And Brandes, aiming once more with methodical and merciless precision, and taking what time he required to make a bull's-eye on this great, reeling, golden-crowned bull, fired the third shot at his magnificent head.

The bronze Barye lion dropped from Golden Beard's nerveless fist; the towering figure, stiffening, fell over rather slowly and lay across the velvet carpet as rigid as a great tree.

Brandes went into the room, leaned over the dying man and fired into his body until his pistol was empty. Then he replaced the exhausted clip leisurely, leering down at his victim.

There was a horrid sound from the stairs, where Curfoot and another man were killing a waiter. Strange, sinister faces appeared everywhere from the smoke-filled club rooms; Stull came out into the hallway below and shouted up through the stair-well:

"Say, Eddie! For Christ's sake come down here! There's a mob outside on the street and they're tearing the iron shutters off the cafe!"

Curfoot immediately started downstairs; Brandes, pistol in hand, came slowly out of the club rooms, still leering, his slitted, greenish eyes almost phosphorescent in the semi-obscurity.

Suddenly he caught sight of Ilse Dumont standing close behind Sengoun and Neeland on the landing above.

"By God!" he shouted to Curfoot. "Here she is, Doc! Tell your men! Tell them she's up here on the next floor!"

Sengoun immediately fired at Brandes, who did not return the shot but went plunging downstairs into the smoky obscurity below.

"Come on!" roared Sengoun to Neeland, starting forward with levelled weapon. "They've all gone crazy and it's time we were getting out of this!"

"Quick!" whispered Neeland to Ilse Dumont. "Follow me downstairs! It's the only chance for you now!"

But the passageway was blocked by a struggling, cursing, panting crowd, and they were obliged to retreat into the club rooms.

In the salle de jeu, Ali Baba, held fast by three men dressed as waiters, suddenly tripped up two of them, turned, and leaped for the doorway. The two men who had been tripped scrambled to their feet and tore after him. When they reached the hallway the Eurasian was gone; but all of a sudden there came the crash of a splintered door from the landing above; and the dim corridor rang with the frightful screaming of a woman.

"It's—that—that—Russian girl!" stammered Ilse Dumont; "—The girl I locked in! Oh, my God!—my God! Karl Breslau is killing her!"

Neeland sprang into the hall and leaped up the stairs; but the three men disguised as waiters had arrived before him.

And there, across the threshold of the bedroom, backed up flat against the shattered door, Ali Baba was already fighting for his life; and the frightened Russian girl crept out from the bedroom behind him and ran to Neeland for protection.

Twice Neeland aimed at Ali Baba, but could not bring himself to fire at the bleeding, rabid object which snarled and slavered and bit and kicked, regardless of the blows raining on him. At last one of his assailants broke the half demented creature's arm with a chair; and the bloody, battered thing squeaked like a crippled rat and darted away amid the storm of blows descending, limping and floundering up the attic stairs, his broken arm flapping with every gasping bound.

After him staggered his sweating and exhausted assailants, reeling past Neeland and Ilse Dumont and the terrified Russian girl who crouched behind them. But, halfway up the stairs all three halted and stood clinging to the banisters as though listening to something on the floor above them.

Neeland heard it, too: from the roof came a ripping, splintering sound, as though people on the slates were prying up the bolted scuttle. The three men on the stairs hesitated a moment longer; then turned to flee, too late; a hail of pistol shots swept the attic stairs; all three men came pitching and tumbling down to the landing.

Two of them lay still; one rose immediately and limped on again down the hallway, calling over the banisters to those below:

"The Germans on the leads 'ave busted into the garret! Breslau is up 'ere! Send along those American gunmen, or somebody what can shoot!"

He was a grey-haired Englishman, smooth shaven and grim; and, as he stood there at the head of the further stairs, breathing heavily, awaiting aid from below, he said to Neeland coolly enough:

"You'd better go below, sir. We 'ad our orders to take this Breslau rat alive, but we can't do it now, and there's like to be a 'orrid mess 'ere directly."

"Can we get through below?"

"You can," said the man significantly, "but they'll be detaining one o' them ladies at the door."

"Do you mean me?" said Ilse Dumont.

"Yes, ma'am, I do——"

She sprang toward the attic stairway, but the British agent whipped out a pistol and covered her.

"No," he said grimly. "You're wanted below. Go down!"

She came slowly back to where Neeland was standing.

"You'll have to take your chance below," he said under his breath. "I'll stand by you to the end."

She smiled and continued on toward the stairs where the English agent stood. Neeland and the Russian girl followed her.

The agent said:

"There's 'ell to pay below, sir."

The depths of the house rang with the infernal din of blows falling on iron shutters. A deeper, more sinister roar rose from the mob outside. There was a struggle going on inside the building, too; Neeland could hear the trampling and surging of men on every floor—voices calling from room to room, shouts of anger, the terrible outcry of a man in agony.

"Wot a rat's nest, then, there was in this here blessed 'ouse, sir!" said the British agent, coolly. "If we get Breslau and the others on the roof we've bagged 'em all."

The Russian girl was trembling so violently that Neeland took her by the arm. But Ilse Dumont, giving her a glance of contempt, moved calmly past the British agent to the head of the stairway.

"Come," she said to Neeland.

The agent, leaning over the banisters, shouted to a man on the next floor:

"Look sharp below there! I'm sendin' Miss Dumont down with Mr. Neeland, the American! Take her in charge, Bill!"

"Send her along!" bawled the man, framing his face with both hands. "Keep Breslau on the roof a bit and we'll 'ave the beggar in a few moments!"

Somebody else shouted up from the tumult below:

"It's war, 'Arry! 'Ave you 'eard? It's war this morning! Them 'Uns 'as declared war! And the perlice is a-killin' of the Apaches all over Paris!"

Ilse Dumont looked curiously at the agent, calmly at Neeland, then, dropping one hand on the banisters, she went lightly down the stairs toward the uproar below, followed by Neeland and the Russian girl clinging to his arm with both desperate little hands.

The British agent hung far over the banisters until he saw his colleague join them on the floor below; then, reassured, and on guard again, he leaned back against the corridor wall, his pistol resting on his thigh, and fixed his cold grey eyes on the attic stairs once more.

The secret agent who now joined Neeland and Ilse Dumont on the fourth floor had evidently been constructing a barricade across the hallway as a precaution in case of a rush from the Germans on the roof.

Chairs and mattresses, piled shoulder high, obstructed the passageway, blocking the stairs; and the secret agent—a very young man with red hair and in the garb of a waiter—clambered over it, revolver in one hand, a pair of handcuffs in the other. He lost his balance on top of the shaky heap; strove desperately to recover it, scrambled like a cat in a tub, stumbled, rolled over on a mattress.

And there Neeland pinned him, closing his mouth with one hand and his throat with the other, while Ilse Dumont tore weapon and handcuffs from his grasp, snapped the latter over his wrists, snatched the case from a bedroom pillow lying among the mattresses, and, with Neeland's aid, swathed the struggling man's head in it.

"Into that clothes-press!" whispered Ilse, pointing along the hallway where a door swung open.

"Help me lift him!" motioned Neeland.

Together they got him clear of the shaky barricade and, lugging him between them, deposited him on the floor of the clothes-press and locked the door.

So silent had they been that, listening, they heard no movement from the watcher on the floor above, who stood guard at the attic stairs. And it was evident he had heard nothing to make him suspicious.

The Russian girl, dreadfully pale, leaned against the wall as though her limbs scarcely supported her. Neeland passed his arm under hers, nodded to Ilse Dumont, and started cautiously down the carpeted stairs, his automatic pistol in one hand, and the revolver taken from the imprisoned secret agent clutched tightly in the other.

Down the stairs they crept, straight toward the frightful tumult still raging below—down past the wrecked club rooms; past a dead man sprawling on the landing across the blood-soaked carpet—down into the depths of the dusky building toward the lighted cafe floor whence came the uproar of excited men, while, from the street outside, rose the frantic yelling of the mob mingled with the crash of glass and the clanging dissonance of iron grilles and shutters which were being battered into fragments.

"It's my chance, now!" whispered Ilse Dumont, slipping past him like a shadow.

For a moment he saw her silhouetted against the yellow electric glare on the stairs below, then, half carrying the almost helpless Russian girl, he stumbled down the last flight of stairs and pushed his way through a hurrying group of men who seemed to be searching for something, for they were tearing open cupboards and buffets, dragging out table drawers and tumbling linen, crockery, and glassware all over the black and white marble floor.

The whole place was ankle deep in shattered glass and broken bottles, and the place reeked with smoke and the odour of wine and spirits.

Neeland forced his way forward into the cafe, looked around for Sengoun, and saw him almost immediately.

The young Russian, flushed, infuriated, his collar gone and his coat in tatters, was struggling with some men who held both his arms but did not offer to strike him.

Behind him, crowded back into a corner near the cashier's steel-grilled desk, stood Ilse Dumont, calm, disdainful, confronted by Brandes, whose swollen, greenish eyes, injected with blood, glared redly at her. Stull had hold of him and was trying to drag him away:

"For God's sake, Eddie, shut your mouth," he pleaded in English. "You can't do that to her, whatever she done to you!"

But Brandes, disengaging himself with a jerk, pushed his way past Sengoun to where Ilse stood.

"I've got the goods on you!" he said in a ferocious voice that neither Stull nor Curfoot recognised. "You know what you did to me, don't you! You took my wife from me! Yes, my wife! She was my wife! She is my wife!—For all you did, you lying, treacherous slut!—For all you've done to break me, double-cross me, ruin me, drive me out of every place I went! And now I've got you! I've sold you out! Get that? And you know what they'll do to you, don't you? Well, you'll see when——"

Curfoot and Stull threw themselves against him, but Brandes, his round face pasty with fury, struggled back again to confront Ilse Dumont.

"Ruined me!" he repeated. "Took away from me the only thing God ever gave me for my own! Took my wife!"

"You dog!" said Ilse Dumont very slowly. "You dirty dog!"

A frightful spasm crossed Brandes' features, and Stull snatched at the pistol he had whipped out. There was a struggle; Brandes wrenched the weapon free; but Neeland tore his way past Curfoot and struck Brandes in the face with the butt of his heavy revolver.

Instantly the group parted right and left; Sengoun suddenly twisted out of the clutches of the men who held him, sprang upon Curfoot, and jerked the pistol from his fist. At the same moment the entire front of the cafe gave way and the mob crashed inward with a roar amid the deafening din of shattered metal and the clash of splintering glass.

Through the dust and falling shower of debris, Brandes fired at Ilse Dumont, reeled about in the whirl of the inrushing throng engulfing him, still firing blindly at the woman who had been his wife.

Neeland put a bullet into his pistol arm, and it fell. But Brandes stretched it out again with a supreme effort, pointing at Ilse Dumont with jewelled and bloody fingers:

"That woman is a German spy! A spy!" he screamed. "You damn French mutts, do you understand what I say! Oh, my God! Will someone who speaks French tell them! Will somebody tell them she's a spy! La femme! Cette femme!" he shrieked. "Elle est espion! Esp——!" He fired again, with his left hand. Then Sengoun shot him through the head; and at the same moment somebody stabbed Curfoot in the neck; and the lank American gambler turned and cried out to Stull in a voice half strangled with pain and fury:

"Look out, Ben. There are apaches in this mob! That one in the striped jersey knifed me——"

"Tiens, v'la pour toi, sale mec de malheur!" muttered a voice at his elbow, and a blow from a slung-shot crushed the base of his skull.

As Curfoot crumpled up, Stull caught him; but the tall gambler's dead weight bore Stull to his knees among the fierce apaches.

And there, fighting in silence to the end, his chalky face of a sick clown meeting undaunted the overwhelming odds against him, Stull was set upon by the apaches and stabbed and stabbed until his clothing was a heap of ribbons and the watch and packet of French bank-notes which the assassins tore from his body were dripping with his blood.

Sengoun and Neeland, their evening clothes in tatters, hatless, dishevelled, began shooting their way out of the hell of murder and destruction raging around them.

Behind them crept Ilse Dumont and the Russian girl: dust and smoke obscured the place where the mob raged from floor to floor in a frenzy of destruction, tearing out fixtures, telephones, window-sashes, smashing tables, bar fixtures, mirrors, ripping the curtains from the windows and the very carpets from the floor in their overwhelming rage against this German cafe.

That apaches had entered with them the mob cared nothing; the red lust of destruction blinded them to everything except their terrible necessity for the annihilation of this place.

If they saw murder done, and robbery—if they heard shots in the tumult and saw pistol flashes through the dust and grey light of daybreak, they never turned from their raging work.

Out of the frightful turmoil stormed Neeland and Sengoun, their pistols spitting flame, the two women clinging to their ragged sleeves. Twice the apaches barred their way with bared knives, crouching for a rush; but Sengoun fired into them and Neeland's bullets dropped the ruffian in the striped jersey where he stood over Stull's twitching body; and the sinister creatures leaped back from the levelled weapons, turned, and ran.

Through the gaping doorway sprang Sengoun, his empty pistol menacing the crowd that choked the shadowy street; Neeland flung away his pistol and turned his revolver on those in the cafe behind him, as Ilse Dumont and the Russian girl crept through and out into the street.

The crowd was cheering and shouting:

"Down with the Germans! To the Brasserie Schwarz!"

An immense wave of people surged suddenly across the rue Vilna, headed toward the German cafes on the Boulevard; and then, for the first time, Neeland caught sight of policemen standing in little groups, coolly watching the destruction of the Cafe des Bulgars.

Either they were too few to cope with the mob, or they were indifferent as to what was being done to a German cafe, but one thing was plain; the police had not the faintest idea that murder had been rampant in the place. For, when suddenly a dead body was thrown from the door out on the sidewalk, their police whistles shrilled through the street, and they started for the mob, resolutely, pushing, striking with white-gloved fists, shouting for right of way.

Other police came running, showing that they had been perfectly aware that German cafes were being attacked and wrecked. A mounted inspector forced his horse along the swarming sidewalk, crying:

"Allons! Circulez! C'est defendu de s'attrouper dans la rue! Mais fichez-moi le camp, nom de Dieu! Les Allemands ne sont pas encore dans la place!"

Along the street and on the Boulevard mobs were forming and already storming three other German cafes; a squadron of Republican Guard cavalry arrived at a trot, their helmets glittering in the increasing daylight, driving before them a mob which had begun to attack a cafe on the corner.

A captain, superbly mounted, rode ahead of the advancing line of horses, warning the throng back into the rue Vilna, up which the mob now recoiled, sullenly protesting.

Neeland and Sengoun and the two women were forced back with the crowd as a double rank of steel-helmeted horsemen advanced, sweeping everybody into the rue Vilna.

Up the street, through the vague morning light, they retired between ranks of closed and silent houses, past narrow, evil-looking streets and stony alleys still dark with the shadows of the night.

Into one of these Neeland started with Ilse Dumont, but Sengoun drew him back with a sharp exclamation of warning. At the same time the crowd all around them became aware of what was going on in the maze of dusky lanes and alleys past which they were being driven by the cavalry; and the people broke and scattered like rabbits, darting through the cavalry, dodging, scuttling under the very legs of the horses.

The troop, thrown into disorder, tried to check the panic-stricken flight; a brigadier, spurring forward to learn the cause of the hysterical stampede, drew bridle sharply, then whipped his pistol out of the saddle-holster, and galloped into an impasse.

The troop captain, pushing his horse, caught sight of Sengoun and Neeland in the remains of their evening dress; and he glanced curiously at them, and at the two young women clad in the rags of evening gowns.

"Nom de Dieu!" he cried. "What are such people as you doing here? Go back! This is no quarter for honest folk!"

"What are those police doing in the alleys?" demanded Sengoun; but the captain cantered his horse up the street, pistol lifted; and they saw him fire from his saddle at a man who darted out of an alley and who started to run across the street.

The captain missed every shot, but a trooper, whose horse had come up on the sidewalk beside Neeland, fired twice more after the running man, and dropped him at the second shot.

"A good business, too," he said calmly, winking at Neeland. "You bourgeois ought to be glad that we're ordered to clean up Paris for you. And now is the time to do it," he added, reloading his weapon.

Sengoun said in a low voice to Neeland:

"They're ridding the city of apaches. It's plain enough that they have orders to kill them where they find them! Look!" he added, pointing to the dead wall across the street; "It's here at last, and Paris is cleaning house and getting ready for it! This is war, Neeland—war at last!"

Neeland looked across the street where, under a gas lamp on a rusty iron bracket, was pasted the order for general mobilisation. And on the sidewalk at the base of the wall lay a man, face downward, his dusty shoes crossed under the wide flaring trousers, the greasy casquet still crowding out his lop ears; his hand clenched beside a stiletto which lay on the stone flagging beside him.

"An apache," said Sengoun coolly. "That's right, too. It's the way we do in Russia when we clean house for war——"

His face reddened and lighted joyously.

"Thank God for my thousand lances!" he said, lifting his eyes to the yellowing sky between the houses in the narrow street. "Thank God! Thank God!"

Now, across the intersections of streets and alleys beyond where they stood, policemen and Garde cavalry were shooting into doorways, basements, and up the sombre, dusky lanes, the dry crack of their service revolvers re-echoing noisily through the street.

Toward the Boulevard below, a line of police and of cavalrymen blocked the rue Vilna; and, beyond them, the last of the mob was being driven from the Cafe des Bulgars, where the first ambulances were arriving and the police, guarding the ruins, were already looking out of windows on the upper floors.

A cavalryman came clattering down the rue Vilna, gesticulating and calling out to Sengoun and Neeland to take their ladies and depart.

"Get us a taxicab—there's a good fellow!" cried Sengoun in high spirits; and the cavalryman, looking at their dishevelled attire, laughed and nodded as he rode ahead of them down the rue Vilna.

There were several taxicabs on the Boulevard, their drivers staring up at the wrecked cafe. As Neeland spoke to the driver of one of the cabs, Ilse Dumont stepped back beside the silent girl whom she had locked in the bedroom.

"I gave you a chance," she said under her breath. "What may I expect from you? Answer me quickly!—What am I to expect?"

The girl seemed dazed:

"N-nothing," she stammered. "The—the horror of that place—the killing—has sickened me. I—I want to go home——"

"You do not intend to denounce me?"

"No—Oh, God! No!"

"Is that the truth? If you are lying to me it means my death."

The girl gazed at her in horror; tears sprang to her eyes:

"I couldn't—I couldn't!" she stammered in a choking voice. "I've never before seen death—never seen how it came—how men die! This—this killing is horrible, revolting!" She had laid one trembling little hand on Ilse Dumont's bare shoulder. "I don't want to have you killed; the idea of death makes me ill! I'm going home—that is all I ask for—to go home——"

She dropped her pretty head and began to sob hysterically, standing there under the growing daylight of the Boulevard, in her tattered evening gown.

Suddenly Ilse Dumont threw both arms around her and kissed the feverish, tear-wet face:

"You weren't meant for this!" she whispered. "You do it for money. Go home. Do anything else for wages—anything except this!—Anything, I tell you——"

Neeland's hand touched her arm:

"I have a cab. Are you going home with her?"

"I dare not," she said.

"Then will you take this Russian girl to her home, Sengoun?" he asked. And added in a low voice: "She is one of your own people, you know."

"All right," said Sengoun blissfully. "I'd take the devil home if you asked me! Besides, I can talk to her about my regiment on the way. That will be wonderful, Neeland! That will be quite wonderful! I can talk to her in Russian about my regiment all the way home!"

He laughed and looked at his friend, at Ilse Dumont, at the drooping figure he was to take under his escort. He glanced down at his own ragged attire where he stood hatless, collarless, one sleeve of his evening coat ripped open to the shoulder.

"Isn't it wonderful!" he cried, bursting out into uncontrollable laughter. "Neeland, my dear comrade, this has been the most delightfully wonderful night of my entire life! But the great miracle is still to come! Hurrah for a thousand lances! Hurrah! Town taken by Prince Erlik! Hurrah!"

And he seized the young girl whom he was to escort to her home—wherever that hazy locality might be—and carried her in his arms to the taxicab, amid encouraging shouts of laughter from the line of cavalrymen who had been watching the proceedings from the corner of the rue Vilna.

That shout of Gallic appreciation inflamed Sengoun: he reached for his hat, to lift and wave it, but found no hat on his head. So he waved his tattered sleeve instead:

"Hurrah for France!" he shouted. "Hurrah for Russia! I'm Sengoun, of the Terek!—And I am to have a thousand lances with which to explain to the Germans my opinion of them and of their Emperor!"

The troopers cheered him from their stirrups, in spite of their officers, who pretended to check their men.

"Vive la France! Vive la Russie!" they roared. "Forward the Terek Cossacks!"

Sengoun turned to Ilse Dumont:

"Madame," he said, "in gratitude and admiration!"—and he gracefully saluted her hand. Then, to his comrade: "Neeland!"—seizing both the American's hands. "Such a night and such a comrade I shall never forget! I adore our night together; I love you as a brother. I shall see you before I go?"

"Surely, Sengoun, my dear comrade!"

"Alors—au revoir!" He sprang into the taxicab. "To the Russian Embassy!" he called out; and turned to the half fainting girl on the seat beside him.

"Where do you live, my dear?" he asked very gently, taking her icy hand in his.



CHAPTER XXXIV

SUNRISE

When the taxicab carrying Captain Sengoun and the unknown Russian girl had finally disappeared far away down the Boulevard in the thin grey haze of early morning, Neeland looked around him; and it was a scene unfamiliar, unreal, that met his anxious eyes.

The sun had not yet gilded the chimney tops; east and west, as far as he could see, the Boulevard stretched away under its double line of trees between ranks of closed and silent houses, lying still and mysterious in the misty, bluish-grey light.

Except for police and municipal guards, and two ambulances moving slowly away from the ruined cafe, across the street, the vast Boulevard was deserted; no taxicabs remained; no omnibuses moved; no early workmen passed, no slow-moving farm wagons and milk wains from the suburbs; no chiffoniers with scrap-filled sacks on their curved backs, and steel-hooked staves, furtively sorting and picking among the night's debris on sidewalk and in gutter.

Here and there in front of half a dozen wrecked cafes little knots of policemen stood on the glass-littered sidewalk, in low-voiced consultation; far down the Boulevard, helmets gleamed dully through the haze where municipal cavalry were quietly riding off the mobs and gradually pushing them back toward the Montmartre and Villette quarters, whence they had arrived.

Mounted Municipals still sat their beautiful horses in double line across the corner of the rue Vilna and parallel streets, closing that entire quarter where, to judge from a few fitful and far-away pistol shots, the methodical apache hunt was still in progress.

And it was a strange and sinister phase of Paris that Neeland now gazed upon through the misty stillness of early morning. For there was something terrible in the sudden quiet, where the swift and shadowy fury of earliest dawn had passed: and the wrecked buildings sagged like corpses, stark and disembowelled, spilling out their dead intestines indecently under the whitening sky.

Save for the echoes of distant shots, no louder than the breaking of a splinter—save for the deadened stamp and stir of horses, a low-voiced order, the fainter clash of spurs and scabbards—an intense stillness brooded now over the city, ominously prophetic of what fateful awakening the coming sunrise threatened for the sleeping capital.

Neeland turned and looked at Ilse Dumont. She stood motionless on the sidewalk, in the clear, colourless light, staring fixedly across the street at the debris of the gaping, shattered Cafe des Bulgars. Her evening gown hung in filmy tinted shreds; her thick, dark hair in lustrous disorder shadowed her white shoulders; a streak of dry blood striped one delicate bare arm.

To see her standing there on the sidewalk in the full, unshadowed morning light, silent, dishevelled, scarcely clothed, seemed to him part of the ghastly unreality of this sombre and menacing vision, from which he ought to rouse himself.

She turned her head slowly; her haggard eyes met his without expression; and he found his tongue with the effort of a man who strives for utterance through a threatening dream:

"We can't stay here," he said. The sound of his own voice steadied and cleared his senses. He glanced down at his own attire, blood-stained, and ragged; felt for the loose end of his collar, rebuttoned it, and knotted the draggled white tie with the unconscious indifference of habit.

"What a nightmare!" he muttered to himself. "The world has been turned upside down over night." He looked up at her: "We can't stay here," he repeated. "Where do you live?"

She did not appear to hear him. She had already started to move toward the rue Vilna, where the troopers barring that street still sat their restive horses. They were watching her and her dishevelled companion with the sophisticated amusement of men who, by clean daylight, encounter fagged-out revellers of a riotous night.

Neeland spoke to her again, then followed her and took her arm.

"Where are you going?" he repeated, uneasily.

"I shall give myself up," she replied in a dull voice.

"To whom?"

"To the Municipals over there."

"Give yourself up!" he repeated. "Why?"

She passed a slender hand over her eyes as though unutterably weary:

"Neeland," she said, "I am lost already.... And I am very tired."

"What do you mean?" he demanded, drawing her back under a porte-cochere. "You live somewhere, don't you? If it's safe for you to go back to your lodgings, I'll take you there. Is it?"

"No."

"Well, then, I'll take you somewhere else. I'll find somewhere to take you——"

She shook her head:

"It is useless, Neeland. There is no chance of my leaving the city now—no chance left—no hope. It is simpler for me to end the matter this way——"

"Can't you go to the Turkish Embassy!"

She looked up at him in a surprised, hopeless way:

"Do you suppose that any Embassy ever receives a spy in trouble? Do you really imagine that any government ever admits employing secret agents, or stirs a finger to aid them when they are in need?"

"I told you I'd stand by you," he reminded her bluntly.

"You have been—kind—Neeland."

"And you have been very loyal to me, Scheherazade. I shall not abandon you."

"How can you help me? I can't get out of this city. Wherever I go, now, it will be only a matter of a few hours before I am arrested."

"The American Embassy. There is a man there," he reminded her.

She shrugged her naked shoulders:

"I cannot get within sight of the Trocadero before the secret police arrest me. Where shall I go? I have no passport, no papers, not even false ones. If I go to the lodgings where I expected to find shelter it means my arrest, court martial, and execution in a caserne within twenty-four hours. And it would involve others who trust me—condemn them instantly to a firing squad—if I am found by the police in their company!... No, Neeland. There's no hope for me. Too many know me in Paris. I took a risk in coming here when war was almost certain. I took my chances, and lost. It's too late to whimper now."

As he stared at her something suddenly brightened above them; and he looked up and saw the first sunbeam painting a chimney top with palest gold.

"Come," he said, "we've got to get out of this! We've got to go somewhere—find a taxicab and get under shelter——"

She yielded to the pressure of his arm and moved forward beside him. He halted for a moment on the curb, looking up and down the empty streets for a cab of any sort, then, with the instinct of a man for whom the Latin Quarter had once been a refuge and a home, he started across the Boulevard, his arm clasping hers.

All the housetops were glittering with the sun as they passed the ranks of the Municipal cavalry.

A young officer looked down mischievously as they traversed the Boulevard—the only moving objects in that vast and still perspective.

"Mon Dieu!" he murmured. "A night like that is something to remember in the winter of old age!"

Neeland heard him. The gay, bantering, irresponsible Gallic wit awoke him to himself; the rising sun, tipping the city's spires with fire, seemed to relight a little, long-forgotten flame within him. His sombre features cleared; he said confidently to the girl beside him:

"Don't worry; we'll get you out of it somehow or other. It's been a rather frightful dream, Scheherazade, nothing worse——"

Her arm suddenly tightened against his and he turned to look at the shattered Cafe des Bulgars which they were passing, where two policemen stood looking at a cat which was picking its way over the mass of debris, mewing dismally.

One of the policemen, noticing them, smiled sympathetically at their battered appearance.

"Would you like to have a cat for your lively menage?" he said, pointing to the melancholy animal which Neeland recognised as the dignified property of the Cercle Extranationale.

The other policeman, more suspicious, eyed Ilse Dumont closely as she knelt impulsively and picked up the homeless cat.

"Where are you going in such a state?" he asked, moving over the heaps of splintered glass toward her.

"Back to the Latin Quarter," said Neeland, so cheerfully that suspicion vanished and a faint grin replaced the official frown.

"Allons, mes enfants," he muttered. "Faut pas s'attrouper dans la rue. Also you both are a scandal. Allons! Filez! Houp! The sun is up already!"

They went out across the rue Royale toward the Place de la Concorde, which spread away before them in deserted immensity and beauty.

There were no taxicabs in sight. Ilse, carrying the cat in her arms, moved beside Neeland through the deathly stillness of the city, as though she were walking in a dream. Everywhere in the pale blue sky above them steeple and dome glittered with the sun; there were no sounds from quai or river; no breeze stirred the trees; nothing moved on esplanade or bridge; the pale blue August sky grew bluer; the gilded tip of the obelisk glittered like a living flame.

Neeland turned and looked up the Champs Elysees.

Far away on the surface of the immense avenue a tiny dark speck was speeding—increasing in size, coming nearer.

"A taxi," he said with a quick breath of relief. "We'll be all right now."

Nearer and nearer came the speeding vehicle, rushing toward them between the motionless green ranks of trees. Neeland walked forward across the square to signal it, waited, watching its approach with a slight uneasiness.

Now it sped between the rearing stone horses, and now, swerving, swung to the left toward the rue Royale. And to his disgust and disappointment he saw it was a private automobile.

"The devil!" he muttered, turning on his heel.

At the same moment, as though the chauffeur had suddenly caught an order from within the limousine, the car swung directly toward him once more.

As he rejoined Ilse, who stood clasping the homeless cat to her breast, listlessly regarding the approaching automobile, the car swept in a swift circle around the fountain where they stood, stopped short beside them; and a woman flung open the door and sprang out to the pavement.

And Ilse Dumont, standing there in the rags of her frail gown, cuddling to her breast the purring cat, looked up to meet her doom in the steady gaze of the Princess Naia Mistchenka.

Every atom of colour left her face, and her ashy lips parted. Otherwise, she made no sign of fear, no movement.

There was a second's absolute silence; then the dark eyes of the Princess turned on Neeland.

"Good heavens, James!" she said. "What has happened to you?"

"Nothing," he said gaily, "thanks to Miss Dumont——"

"To whom?" interrupted the Princess sharply.

"To Miss Dumont. We got into a silly place where it began to look as though we'd get our heads knocked off, Sengoun and I. I'm really quite serious, Princess. If it hadn't been for Miss Dumont—" he shrugged; "—and that is twice she has saved my idiotic head for me," he added cheerfully.

The Princess Naia's dark eyes reverted to Ilse Dumont, and the pallid girl met them steadily enough. There was no supplication in her own eyes, no shrinking, only the hopeless tranquillity that looks Destiny in the face—the gaze riveted unflinchingly upon the descending blow.

"What are you doing in Paris at such a time as this?" said the Princess.

The girl's white lips parted stiffly:

"Do you need to ask?"

For a full minute the Princess bent a menacing gaze on her in silence; then:

"What do you expect from me?" she demanded in a low voice. And, stepping nearer: "What have you to expect from anyone in France on such a day as this?"

Ilse Dumont did not answer. After a moment she dropped her head and fumbled with the rags of her bodice, as though trying to cover the delicately rounded shoulders. A shaft of sunlight, reflected from the obelisk to the fountain, played in golden ripples across her hair.

Neeland looked at the Princess Naia:

"What you do is none of my business," he said pleasantly, "but—" he smiled at her and stepped back beside Ilse Dumont, and passed his arm through hers: "I'm a grateful beast," he added lightly, "and if I've nine lives to lose, perhaps Miss Dumont will save seven more of them before I'm entirely done for."

The girl gently disengaged his arm.

"You'll only get yourself into serious trouble," she murmured, "and you can't help me, dear Neeland."

The Princess Naia, flushed and exasperated, bit her lip.

"James," she said, "you are behaving absurdly. That woman has nothing to fear from me now, and she ought to know it!" And, as Ilse lifted her head and stared at her: "Yes, you ought to know it!" she repeated. "Your work is ended. It ended today at sunrise. And so did mine. War is here. There is nothing further for you to do; nothing for me. The end of everything is beginning. What would your death or mine signify now, when the dawn of such a day as this is the death warrant for millions? What do we count for now, Mademoiselle Minna Minti?"

"Do you not mean to give me up, madame?"

"Give you up? No. I mean to get you out of Paris if I can. Give me your cat, mademoiselle. Please help her, James——"

"You—offer me your limousine?" stammered Ilse.

"Give that cat to me. Of course I do! Do you suppose I mean to leave you in rags with your cat on the pavement here?" And, to Neeland: "Where is Alak?"

"Gone home as fit as a fiddle. Am I to receive the hospitality of your limousine also, dear lady? Look at the state I'm in to travel with two ladies!"

The Princess Naia's dark eyes glimmered; she tucked the cat comfortably against her shoulder and motioned Ilse into the car.

"I'm afraid I'll have to take you, James. What on earth has happened to you?" she added, as he put her into the car, nodded to the chauffeur, and, springing in beside her, slammed the door.

"I'll tell you in two words," he explained gaily. "Prince Erlik and I started for a stroll and landed, ultimately, in the Cafe des Bulgars. And presently a number of gentlemen began to shoot up the place, and Miss Dumont stood by us like a brick."

The Princess Mistchenka lifted the cat from her lap and placed it in the arms of Ilse Dumont.

"That ought to win our gratitude, I'm sure," she said politely to the girl. "We Russians never forget such pleasant obligations. There is a Cossack jingle:

"To those who befriend our friends Our duty never ends."

Ilse Dumont bent low over the purring cat in her lap; the Princess watched her askance from moment to moment, and Neeland furtively noted the contrast between these women—one in rags and haggard disorder; the other so trim, pretty, and fresh in her morning walking suit.

"James," she said abruptly, "we've had a most horrid night, Ruhannah and I. The child waited up for you, it seems—I thought she'd gone to bed—and she came to my room about two in the morning—the little goose—as though men didn't stay out all night!"

"I'm terribly sorry," he said contritely.

"You ought to be.... And Ruhannah was so disturbed that I put on something and got out of bed. And after a while"—the Princess glanced sardonically at Ilse Dumont—"I telephoned to various sources of information and was informed concerning the rather lively episodes of your nocturnal career with Sengoun. And when I learned that you and he had been seen to enter the Cafe des Bulgars, I became sufficiently alarmed to notify several people who might be interested in the matter."

"One of those people," said Neeland, smiling, "was escorted to her home by Captain Sengoun, I think."

The Princess glanced out of the window where the early morning sun glimmered on the trees as the car flew swiftly through the Champs Elysees.

"I heard that there were some men killed there last night," she said without turning.

"Several, I believe," admitted Neeland.

"Were you there, then?"

"Yes," he replied, uncomfortably.

"Did you know anybody who was killed, James?"

"Yes, by sight."

She turned to him:

"Who?"

"There was a man named Kestner; another named Weishelm. Three American gamblers were killed also."

"And Karl Breslau?" inquired the Princess coolly.

There was a moment's silence.

"No. I think he got away across the roofs of the houses," replied Neeland.

Ilse Dumont, bent over the cat in her lap, stared absently into its green eyes where it lay playfully patting the rags that hung from her torn bodice.

Perhaps she was thinking of the dead man where he lay in the crowded cafe—the dead man who had confronted her with bloodshot eyes and lifted pistol—whose voice, thick with rage, had denounced her—whose stammering, untaught tongue stumbled over the foreign words with which he meant to send her to her death—this dead man who once had been her man—long ago—very, very long ago when there was no bitterness in life, no pain, no treachery—when life was young in the Western World, and Fate gaily beckoned her, wearing a smiling mask and crowned with flowers.

"I hope," remarked the Princess Mistchenka, "that it is sufficiently early in the morning for you to escape observation, James."

"I'm a scandal; I know it," he admitted, as the car swung into the rue Soleil d'Or.

The Princess turned to the drooping girl beside her and laid a gloved hand lightly on her shoulder.

"My dear," she said gently, "there is only one chance for you, and if we let it pass it will not come again—under military law."

Ilse lifted her head, held it high, even tilted back a little.

The Princess said:

"Twenty-four hours will be given for all Germans to leave France. But—you took your nationality from the man you married. You are American."

The girl flushed painfully:

"I do not care to take shelter under his name," she said.

"It is the only way. And you must get to the coast in my car. There is no time to lose. Every vehicle, private and public, will be seized for military uses this morning. Every train will be crowded; every foot of room occupied on the Channel boats. There is only one thing for you to do—travel with me to Havre as my American maid."

"Madame—would you do that—for me?"

"Why, I've got to," said the Princess Mistchenka with a shrug. "I am not a barbarian to leave you to a firing squad, I hope."

The car had stopped; the chauffeur descended and came around to open the door.

"Caron," said the Princess, "no servants are stirring yet. Take my key, find a cloak and bring it out—and a coat for Monsieur Neeland—the one that Captain Sengoun left the other evening. Have you plenty of gasoline?"

"Plenty, madame."

"Good. We leave for Havre in five minutes. Bring the cloak and coat quickly."

The chauffeur hastened to the door, unlocked it, disappeared, then came out carrying a voluminous wrap and a man's opera cloak. The Princess threw the one over Ilse Dumont; Neeland enveloped himself in the other.

"Now," murmured the Princess Naia, "it will look more like a late automobile party than an ambulance after a free fight—if any early servants are watching us."

She descended from the car; Ilse Dumont followed, still clasping the cat under her cloak; and Neeland followed her.

"Be very quiet," whispered the Princess. "There is no necessity for servants to observe what we do——"

A small and tremulous voice from the head of the stairs interrupted her:

"Naia! Is it you?"

"Hush, Ruhannah! Yes, darling, it is I. Everything is all right and you may go back to bed——"

"Naia! Where is Mr. Neeland?" continued the voice, fearfully.

"He is here, Rue! He is all right. Go back to your room, dear. I have a reason for asking you."

Listening, she heard a door close above; then she touched Ilse on the shoulder and motioned her to follow up the stairs. Halfway up the Princess halted, bent swiftly over the banisters:

"James!" she called softly.

"Yes?"

"Go into the pantry and find a fruit basket and fill it with whatever food you can find. Hurry, please."

He discovered the pantry presently, and a basket of fruit there. Poking about he contrived to disinter from various tins and ice-boxes some cold chicken and biscuits and a bottle of claret. These he wrapped hastily in a napkin which he found there, placed them in the basket of fruit, and came out into the hall just as Ilse Dumont, in the collar and cuffs and travelling coat of a servant, descended, carrying a satchel and a suitcase.

"Good business!" he whispered, delighted. "You're all right now, Scheherazade! And for heaven's sake, keep out of France hereafter. Do you promise?"

He had taken the satchel and bag from her and handed both, and the fruit basket, to Caron, who stood outside the door.

In the shadowy hall those two confronted each other now, probably for the last time. He took both her hands in his.

"Good-bye, Scheherazade dear," he said, with a new seriousness in his voice which made the tone of it almost tender.

"G-good-bye——" The girl's voice choked; she bent her head and rested her face on the hands he held clasped in his.

He felt her hot tears falling, felt the slender fingers within his own tighten convulsively; felt her lips against his hand—an instant only; then she turned and slipped through the open door.

A moment later the Princess Naia appeared on the stairs, descending lightly and swiftly, her motor coat over her arm.

"Jim," she said in a low voice, "it's the wretched girl's only chance. They know about her; they're looking for her now. But I am trusted by my Ambassador; I shall have what papers I ask for; I shall get her through to an American steamer."

"Princess Naia, you are splendid!"

"You don't think so, Jim; you never did.... Be nice to Rue. The child has been dreadfully frightened about you.... And," added the Princess Mistchenka with a gaily forced smile, resting her hand on Neeland's shoulder for an instant, "don't ever kiss Rue Carew unless you mean it with every atom of your heart and soul.... I know the child.... And I know you. Be generous to her, James. All women need it, I think, from such men as you—such men as you," she added laughingly, "who know not what they do."

If there was a subtle constraint in her pretty laughter, if her gay gesture lacked spontaneity, he did not perceive it. His face had flushed a trifle under her sudden badinage.

"Good-bye," he said. "You are splendid, and I do think so. I know you'll win through."

"I shall. I always do—except with you," she added audaciously. And "Look for me tomorrow!" she called back to him through the open door; and slammed it behind her, leaving him standing there alone in the dark and curtained house.



CHAPTER XXXV

THE FIRST DAY

Neeland had undressed, bathed his somewhat battered body, and had then thrown himself on the bed, fully intending to rise in a few moments and await breakfast.

But it was a very weary young man who stretched himself out for ten minutes' repose. And, when again he unclosed his eyes, the austere clock on the mantel informed him that it was five—not five in the morning either.

He had slept through the first day of general mobilisation.

Across the lowered latticed blinds late afternoon sunshine struck red. The crests of the chestnut trees in the rue Soleil d'Or had turned rosy; and a delicate mauve sky, so characteristic of Paris in early autumn, already stretched above the city like a frail tent of silk from which fragile cobweb clouds hung, tinted with saffron and palest rose.

Hoisting the latteen shades, he looked out through lace curtains into the most silent city he had ever beheld. Not that the streets and avenues were deserted: they swarmed with hurrying, silent people and with taxicabs.

Never had he seen so many taxicabs; they streamed by everywhere, rushing at high speed. They passed through the rue Soleil d'Or; the rue de la Lune fairly whizzed with them; the splendid avenue was merely a vista of flying taxis; and in every one of them there was a soldier.

Otherwise, except for cyclists, there seemed to be very few soldiers in Paris—an odd fact immediately noticeable.

Also there were no omnibuses to be seen, no private automobiles, no electric vehicles of any sort except great grey army trucks trundling by with a sapper at the wheel.

And, except for the whiz and rush of the motors and the melancholy siren blasts from their horns, an immense silence reigned in the streets.

There was no laughter to be heard, no loud calling, no gay and animated badinage. People who met and stopped conversed in undertones; gestures were sober and rare.

And everywhere, in the intense stillness, Red Cross flags hung motionless in the late afternoon sunshine; everywhere were posted notices warning the Republic of general mobilisation—on dead walls, on tree-boxes, on kiosques, on bulletin boards, on the facades of public and ecclesiastical buildings.

Another ordinance which Neeland could read from where he stood at the window warned all citizens from the streets after eight o'clock in the evening; and on the closed iron shutters of every shop in sight of his window were pasted white strips of paper bearing, in black letters, the same explanation:

"Ferme a cause de la mobilisation."

Nowhere could he see the word "war" printed or otherwise displayed. The conspiracy of silence concerning it seemed the more ominous.

Nor, listening, could he hear the sinister voices of men and boys calling extra editions of the papers. There seemed to be no need for the raising of hoarse and threatening voices in the soundless capital. Men and youths of all ages traversed the avenues and streets with sheafs of fresh, damp newspapers over their ragged arms, but it was the populace who crowded after and importuned them, not they the people; and no sooner did a paper-seller appear than he was stripped of his wares and was counting his coppers under the trees before hurrying away for a fresh supply.

Neeland dressed himself in sections, always returning to the window to look out; and in this manner he achieved his toilet.

Marotte, the old butler, was on the floor below, carrying a tea tray into the wide, sunny sitting-room as Neeland descended.

"I overslept," explained the young American, "and I'm nearly starved. Is Mademoiselle Carew having tea?"

"Mademoiselle requested tea for two, sir, in case you should awake," said the old man solemnly.

Neeland watched him fussing about with cloth and table and silver.

"Have you any news?" he asked after a moment.

"Very little, Monsieur Neeland. The police have ordered all Germans into detention camps—men, women, and children. It is said that there are to be twelve great camps for these unfortunates who are to assemble in the Lycee Condorcet for immediate transportation."

Neeland thought of Ilse Dumont. Presently he asked whether any message had been received from the Princess Mistchenka.

"Madame the Princess telephoned from Havre at four o'clock this afternoon. Mademoiselle Carew has the message."

Neeland, reassured, nodded:

"No other news, Marotte?"

"The military have taken our automobiles from the garage, and have requisitioned the car which Madame la Princess is now using, ordering us to place it at their disposal as soon as it returns from Havre. Also, Monsieur le Capitaine Sengoun has telephoned from the Russian Embassy, but Mademoiselle Carew would not permit Monsieur to be awakened."

"What did Captain Sengoun say?"

"Mademoiselle Carew received the message."

"And did anyone else call me up?" asked Neeland, smiling.

"Il y avait une fe—une espece de dame," replied the old man doubtfully, "—who named herself Fifi la Tzigane. I permitted myself to observe to her," added the butler with dignity, "that she had the liberty of writing to you what she thought necessary to communicate."

He had arranged the tea-table. Now he retired, but returned almost immediately to decorate the table with Cloth of Gold roses.

Fussing and pottering about until the mass of lovely blossoms suited him, he finally presented himself to Neeland for further orders, and, learning that there were none, started to retire with a self-respecting dignity that was not at all impaired by the tears which kept welling up in his aged eyes, and which he always winked away with a demi-tour and a discreet cough correctly stifled by his dry and wrinkled hand.

As he passed out the door Neeland said:

"Are you in trouble, Marotte?"

The old man straightened up, and a fierce pride blazed for a moment from his faded eyes:

"Not trouble, monsieur; but—when one has three sons departing for the front—dame!—that makes one reflect a little——"

He bowed with the unconscious dignity of a wider liberty, a subtler equality which, for a moment, left such as he indifferent to circumstances of station.

Neeland stepped forward extending his hand:

"Bonne chance! God be with France—and with us all who love our liberty. Luck to your three sons!"

"I thank monsieur——" He steadied his voice, bowed in the faultless garments which were his badge of service, and went his way through the silence in the house.

Neeland had walked to the long windows giving on the pretty balcony with its delicate, wrought-iron rails and its brilliant masses of geraniums.

Outside, along the Avenue, in absolute silence, a regiment of cuirassiers was passing, the level sun blazing like sheets of crimson fire across their helmets and breastplates. And now, listening, the far clatter of their horses came to his ears in an immense, unbroken, rattling resonance.

Their gold-fringed standard passed, and the sunlight on the naked sabres ran from point to hilt like liquid blood. Sons of the Cuirassiers of Morsbronn, grandsons of the Cuirassiers of Waterloo—what was their magnificent fate to be?—For splendid it could not fail to be, whether tragic or fortunate.

The American's heart began to hammer in his breast and throb in his throat, closing it with a sudden spasm that seemed to confuse his vision for a moment and turn the distant passing regiment to a glittering stream of steel and flame.

Then it had passed; the darkly speeding torrent of motor cars alone possessed the Avenue; and Neeland turned away into the room again.

And there, before him, stood Rue Carew.

A confused sense of unreasoning, immeasurable happiness rushed over him, and, in that sudden, astounding instant of self-revelation, self-amazement left him dumb.

She had given him both her slim white hands, and he held to them as though to find his bearings. Both were a trifle irrelevant and fragmentary.

"Do you c-care for tea, Jim?... What a night! What a fright you gave us.... There are croissants, too, and caviar.... I would not permit anybody to awaken you; and I was dying to see you——"

"I am so sorry you were anxious about me. And I'm tremendously hungry.... You see, Sengoun and I did not mean to remain out all night.... I'll help you with that tea; shall I?..."

He still retained her hands in his; she smiled and flushed in a breathless sort of way, and looked sometimes at the tea-kettle as though she never before had seen such an object; and looked up at him as though she had never until that moment beheld any man like him.

"The Princess Naia has left us quite alone," she said, "so I must give you some tea." She was nervous and smiling and a little frightened and confused with the sense of their contact.

"So—I shall give you your tea, now," she repeated.

She did not mention her manual inability to perform her promise, but presently it occurred to him to release her hands, and she slid gracefully into her chair and took hold of the silver kettle with fingers that trembled.

He ate everything offered him, and then took the initiative. And he talked—Oh, heaven! How he talked! Everything that had happened to him and to Sengoun from the moment they left the rue Soleil d'Or the night before, this garrulous young man detailed with a relish for humorous circumstance and a disregard for anything approaching the tragic, which left her with an impression that it had all been a tremendous lark—indiscreet, certainly, and probably reprehensible—but a lark, for all that.

Fireworks, shooting, noise, and architectural destruction he admitted, but casualties he skimmed over, and of death he never said a word. Why should he? The dead were dead. None concerned this young girl now—and, save one, no death that any man had died there in the shambles of the Cafe des Bulgars could ever mean anything to Rue Carew.

Some day, perhaps, he might tell her that Brandes was dead—not where or how he had died—but merely the dry detail. And she might docket it, if she cared to, and lay it away among the old, scarcely remembered, painful things that had been lived, and now were to be forgotten forever.

The silence of intensest interest, shy or excited questions, and the grey eyes never leaving his—this was her tribute.

Grey eyes tinged with golden lights, now clear with suspense, now brilliant at a crisis, now gentle, wondering, troubled, as he spoke of Ilse Dumont and the Russian girl, now charmingly vague as her mind outstripped his tongue and she divined something of the sturdy part he had played—golden-grey eyes that grew exquisite with her pride in him, tender with solicitude for him in dangers already passed away—this was her tribute

Engaging grey eyes of a girl with the splendour and mystery of womanhood possessing her—attracting him, too, fascinating him, threatening, conquering, possessing him—this, the Greek gift of Rue Carew, her tribute.

And he took all, forgetting that the Greeks bore gifts; or, perhaps, remembering, rejoicing, happy in his servitude, he took into his heart and soul the tribute this young girl offered, a grateful, thankful captive.

The terrible cataclysm impending, menacing the world, they seemed powerless, yet, to grasp and comprehend and understand.

Outside, the street rippled and roared with the interminable clatter of passing cavalry: the girl looked into the eyes of the boy across the tea-table, and her young eyes, half fearful yet enchanted, scarce dared divine what his eyes were telling her while his hurrying tongue chattered irrelevancies.

Three empires, two kingdoms, and a great republic resounded with the hellish din of arming twenty million men. Her soft lips were touched with the smile of youth that learns for the first time it is beloved; her eyes of a child, exquisite, brooding, rested with a little more courage now on his—were learning, little by little, to sustain his gaze, endure the ardour that no careless, laughing speech of his could hide or dim or quench.

In the twilight of the streets there was silence, save for the rush of motors and the recurrent trample of armed men. But the heart of Rue Carew was afire with song—and every delicate vein in her ran singing to her heart.

There was war in the Eastern world; and palace and chancellery were ablaze. But they spoke of the West—of humble places and lowly homes; of still woodlands where mosses edged the brooks; of peaceful villages they both had known, where long, tree-shaded streets slept in the dappled shadow under the sun of noon.

* * * * *

Marotte came, silent, self-respecting, very grey and tranquil in his hour of trial.

There were two letters for Neeland, left by hand. And, when the old man had gone away bearing his silver tray among his heavier burdens:

"Read them," nodded Rue Carew.

He read them both aloud to her: the first amused them a little—not without troubling them a little, too:

* * * * *

Monsieur Neeland:

It is the Tzigane, Fifi, who permits herself the honour of addressing you.

Breslau escaped. With him went the plans, it seems. You behaved admirably in the Cafe des Bulgars. A Russian comrade has you and Prince Erlik to remember in her prayers.

You have done well, monsieur. Now, your task is ended. Go back to the Western World and leave us to end this battle between ourselves.

It is written and confirmed by the stars that what the Eastern World has sown it shall now reap all alone.

We Tziganes know. You should not mock at our knowledge. For there is a dark star, Erlik, named from the Prince of Hell. And last night it was in conjunction with the red star, Mars. None saw it; none has ever beheld the dark star, Erlik.

But we Tziganes know. We have known for five thousand years that Erlik hung aloft, followed by ten black moons. Ask your astronomers. But we Tziganes knew this before there ever were astronomers!

Therefore, go home to your own land, monsieur. The Prince of Hell is in the heavens. The Yellow Devil shall see the Golden Horn again. Empires shall totter and fall. Little American, stand from under.

Adieu! We Tziganes wish you well—Fifi and Nini of the Jardin Russe.

"Adieu, beau jeune homme! And—to her whom you shall take with you—homage, good wishes, good augury, and adieux!"

* * * * *

"'To her whom you shall take with you,'" he repeated, looking at Rue Carew.

The girl blushed furiously and bent her head, and her slender fingers grew desperately busy with her handkerchief.

Neeland, as nervous as she, fumbled with the seal of the remaining letter, managed finally to break it, glanced at the writing, then laughed and read:

* * * * *

My dear Comrade Neeland:

I get my thousand lances! Congratulate me! Were you much battered by that canaille last night? I laugh until I nearly burst when I think of that absurd bousculade!

That girl I took with me is all right. I'm going to Petrograd! I'm going on the first opportunity by way of Switzerland.

What happiness, Neeland! No more towns for me, except those I take. No more politics, no more diplomacy! I shall have a thousand lances to do my talking for me. Hurrah!

Neeland, I love you as a brother. Come to the East with me. You shall make a splendid trooper! Not, of course, a Terek Cossack. A Cossack is God's work. A Terek Cossack is born, not made.

But, good heavens! There is other most excellent cavalry in the world, I hope! Come with me to Russia. Say that you will come, my dear comrade Neeland, and I promise you we shall amuse ourselves when the world's dance begins——

* * * * *

"Oh!" breathed the girl, exasperated. "Sengoun is a fool!"

Neeland looked up quickly from his letter; then his face altered, and he rose; but Rue Carew was already on her feet; and she had lost most of her colour—and her presence of mind, too, it seemed, for Neeland's arms were half around her, and her hands were against his shoulders.

Neither of them spoke; and he was already amazed and rather scared at his own incredible daring—already terribly afraid of this slender, fragrant creature who stood rigid and silent within the circle of his arm, her head lowered, her little, resisting hands pressed convulsively against his breast.

And after a long time the pressure against his breast slowly relaxed; her restless fingers moved nervously against his shoulders, picked at the lapels of his coat, clung there as he drew her head against his breast.

The absurd beating of his heart choked him as he stammered her name; he dropped his head beside her hot and half hidden cheek. And, after a long, long time, her face stirred on his breast, turned a very little toward him, and her young lips melted against his.

So they stood through the throbbing silence in the slowly darkening room, while the street outside echoed with the interminable trample of passing cavalry, and the dim capital lay like a phantom city under the ghostly lances of the searchlights as though probing all Heaven to the very feet of God in search of reasons for the hellish crime now launched against the guiltless Motherland.

And high among the planets sped the dark star, Erlik, unseen by men, rushing through viewless interstellar space, hurled out of nothing by the Prince of Hell into the nothing toward which all Hell is speeding, too; and whither it shall one day fade and disappear and pass away forever.

* * * * *

"My darling——"

"Oh, Jim—I have loved you all my life," she whispered. And her young arms crept up and clung around his neck.

"My darling Rue—my little Rue Carew——"

Outside the window an officer also spoke through the unbroken clatter of passing horsemen which filled the whole house with a hollow roar. But she heard her lover's voice alone as in a hushed and magic world; and in her girl's enchanted ears his words were the only sounds that stirred a heavenly quiet that reigned between the earth and stars.



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THE END