"That of which you will not let me tell you is for to-night," he read, and instantly felt for his watch within the folds of his ancient clothing. It was not yet mid-day. But the man seemed suddenly in a flurry, as if there were more to be done before nightfall than he could possibly compass.

He collected the papers and placed them carefully inside a shabby purse. Then he rose and departed in the direction of the governor-general's palace. He must have been pressed for time, for he quite forgot to walk with the deliberation that would have beseemed his apparent years.

Netty walked round the outside of the gardens, and ultimately turned into the Senatorska, the street recommended to her by her uncle as being composed of the best shops in the town. Oddly enough, she met Joseph Mangles there—not loitering near the windows, but hurrying along.

"Ah!" he said, "thought I might meet you here."

He was, it appeared, as simple as other old gentlemen, and leaped to the conclusion that if Netty was out-of-doors she must necessarily be in the Senatorska. He suited his pace to hers. His head was thrust forward, and he appeared to have something to think about, for he offered no remark for some minutes.

"The mail is in," he then observed, in his usual lugubrious tone, as if the post had brought him his death-warrant.

"Ah!" answered Netty, glancing up at him. She was sure that something had happened. "Have you had important news?"

"Had nothing by the mail," he answered, looking straight in front of him. And Netty asked no more questions.

"Your aunt Jooly," he said, after a pause, "has had an interesting mail. She has been offered the presidency—"

"Of the United States?" asked Netty, with a little laugh, seeing that Joseph paused.

"Not yet," he answered, with deep gravity. "Of the Massachusetts Women Bachelors' Federation."

"Oh!"

"She'll accept," opined Joseph P. Mangles, lugubriously.

"Is it a great honor?"

"There are different sorts of greatness," Joseph replied.

"What is the Massachusetts Women Bachelors' Federation?"

Joseph Mangles did not reply immediately. He stepped out into the road to allow a lady to pass. He was an American gentleman of the old school, and still offered to the stronger sex that which they intend to take for themselves in the future.

"Think it is like the blue-ribbon army," he said, when he returned to Netty's side. "The sight of the ribbon induces the curious to offer the abstainer drink. The Massachusetts Bachelor Women advertise their membership of the Federation, just to see if there is any man around who will induce 'em to resign."

"Is Aunt Julie pleased?" asked Netty.

"Almighty," was the brief reply. "And she will accept it. She will marry the paid secretary. They have a paid secretary. President usually marries him. He is not a bachelor-woman. They're mostly worms—the men that help women to make fools of themselves."

This was very strong language for Uncle Joseph, who usually seemed to have a latent admiration for his gifted sister's greatness. Netty suspected that he was angry, or put out by something else, and made the Massachusetts Women Bachelors bear the brunt of his displeasure.

"She is a masterful woman is Aunt Jooly," he said; "she'll give him his choice between dismissal and—and earthly paradise."

Netty laughed soothingly, and glanced up at him again. He was walking along with huge, lanky strides, much more hurriedly than he was aware of. His head was thrust forward, and his chin went first as if to push a way through a crowded world.

And it was borne in upon Netty that Uncle Joseph had received some order; that he was pluming his ragged old wings for flight.



XXXIII

THIN ICE

It was not yet mid-day when Paul Deulin called at the Bukaty Palace.

"Is the prince in?" he asked. "Is he busy?" he added, when the servant had stood back with a gesture inviting him to enter. But the man only shrugged his shoulders with a smile. The prince, it appeared, was never busy. Deulin found him, in fact, in an arm-chair in his study, reading a German newspaper.

The prince looked at him over the folded sheet. They had known each other since boyhood, and could read perhaps more in each other's wrinkled and drawn faces than the eyes of a younger generation were able to perceive. The prince pointed to the vacant arm-chair at the other side of the fireplace. Deulin took the chair with that leisureliness of movement and demeanor of which Lady Orlay, and Cartoner, and others who were intimate with him, knew the inner meaning. His eyes were oddly bright.

They waited until the servant had closed the door behind him, and even then they did not speak at once, but sat looking at each other in the glow of the wood-fire. Then Deulin shrugged his shoulders, and made, with both hands outspread, a gesture indicative of infinite pity.

"Do you know?" said the prince, grimly.

"I knew at eight o'clock this morning. Cartoner advised me of it by a cipher telegram."

"Cartoner?" said the prince, interrogatively.

"Cartoner is in Petersburg. He went there presumably to attend this—pleasing denouement."

The prince gave a short laugh.

"How well," he said, folding his newspaper, and laying it aside reflectively—"how well that man knows his business. But why did he telegraph to you?"

"We sometimes do each other a good turn," explained Deulin, rather curtly. "It must have happened yesterday afternoon. One can only hope that—it was soon over."

The prince laughed, and looked across at the Frenchman with a glitter beneath his shaggy brows.

"My friend," he said, "you must not ask me to get up any sentiment on this occasion. Do not let us attempt to be anything but what God made us—plain men, with a few friends, whom one would regret; and a number of enemies, of whose death one naturally learns with equanimity. The man was a thief. He was a great man and in a great position, which only made him the greater thief."

The prince moved his crippled legs with an effort and contemplated the fire.

"He is dead," he went on, after a pause, "and there is an end to it. I do not pray that he may go to eternal punishment. I only want him to be dead; and he is dead. Voila! It is a matter of rejoicing."

"You are a ruffian; I always said you were a ruffian," said Deulin, gravely.

"I am a man, my friend, who has an object in life. An object, moreover, which cannot take into consideration a human life here or there, a human happiness more or less. You see, I do not even ask you to agree with me or to approve of me."

"My friend, in the course of a long life I have learned only one effective lesson—to judge no man," put in Deulin.

"Remember," continued the prince, "I deplore the method. I understand it was a bomb. I take no part in such proceedings. They are bad policy. You will see—we shall both see, if we live long enough—that this is a mistake. It will alienate all sympathies from the party. They have not even dared to approach me with any suggestion of co-operation. They have approached others of the Polish party and have been sent about their business. But—well, one would be a fool not to take advantage of every mishap to one's enemy."

Deulin help up one hand in a gesture imploring silence.

"Thin ice!" he said, warningly.

"Bah!" laughed the other. "You and your thin ice! I am no diplomatist—a man who is afraid to look over a wall."

"No. Only a man who prefers to find out what is on the other side by less obvious means," corrected the Frenchman. "One must not be seen looking over one's neighbor's wall—that is the first commandment of diplomacy."

"Then why are you here?" asked the prince, abruptly, with his rough laugh.

And Paul Deulin suddenly lost his temper. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and banged his two hands down on the arms of it so that the dust flew out. He glared across at the prince with a fierceness in his eyes that had not glittered there for twenty years.

"You think I came here to pry into your affairs—to turn our friendship into a means for my own aggrandizement? You think that I report to my government that which you and I may say to each other, or leave unsaid, before your study fire? Was it not I who cried 'Thin ice'?"

"Yes—yes," answered the prince, shortly. And the two old friends glared at each other gleams of the fires that had burned fiercely enough in other days. "Yes—yes! but why are you here this morning?"

"Why am I here this morning? I will tell you. I ask you no questions, I want to know nothing of your schemes and plans. You can run your neck into a noose if you like. You have been doing it all your life. And—who knows?—you may win at last. As for Martin, you have brought him up in the same school. And, bon Dieu! I suppose you are Bukatys, and you cannot help it. It is your affair, after all. But you shall not push Wanda into a Russian prison! You shall not get her to Siberia, if I can help it!"

"Wanda!" said the prince, in some surprise—"Wanda!"

"Yes. You forget—you Bukatys always have forgotten—the women. Warsaw is no place for Wanda to-day. And to-day's work—to-night's work—is no work for Wanda!"

"To-night's work! What do you mean?"

The prince sat forward and looked hard at his friend.

"Oh, you need not be alarmed. I know nothing," was the answer. "But I am not a complete fool. I put two and two together at random. I only guess, as you know. I have guessed all my life. And as often as not I have guessed right, as you know. Ah! you think I am interfering in that which is not my business, and I do not care a snap of the finger what you think!"

And he illustrated this indifference with a gesture of his finger and thumb.

The prince laughed suddenly and boisterously.

"If I did not know that you had broken your heart—more than once—long ago," he began. But Deulin interrupted him.

"Only once," he put in, with a short, hard laugh.

"Well, only once, then. I should say that you had fallen in love with Wanda."

"Ah!" said Deulin, lightly, "that is an old affair. That happened when she used to ride upon my shoulder. And one keeps a tenderness for one's old loves, you know."

"Well, and what do you propose to do? I tell you honestly I have had no time to think of my own affairs. I have had no courage to think of them, perhaps. I have been at work all night. Yes, yes! I know! Thin ice! You ought to know it when you see it. You have been on it all your life, and through it—"

"Only once," repeated Deulin. "I propose what any other young lover would propose to do—to run away with her from Warsaw."

"When?"

Deulin looked at his watch.

"In half an hour. Think of the risks, Bukaty—a young girl."

And he saw a sudden fierceness in the old man's eyes. The point was gained.

"I could take her to Cracow this evening. Your sister there will take her in."

"Yes, yes! But will Wanda go?"

"If you tell her to go she will. I think that is the only power on earth that can make her do it."

The prince smiled.

"You seem to know her failings. You are no lover, my friend."

"That is a question in which we are both beyond our depth. You will do this thing for me. I come back in half an hour."

"What about the passport, and the difficulties of getting away from Warsaw to-day?" asked the prince. "What we know others must know now."

"Leave those matters to me. You can safely do so. Please do not move. I will find my way to the door, thank you."

"If you see Wanda as you go," called out the prince, as Deulin closed the door behind him, "send her to me."

Deulin did see Wanda. He had always intended to do so. He went to the drawing-room and there found her, busy over some household books. He held out beneath her eyes the telegram he had received that morning.

"A telegram," she said, looking at it. "But I cannot make out its meaning. I never saw or heard of that word before."

"Nevertheless the news it contains will stir the blood of men till the end of time," answered Deulin, lightly. "It is from a reliable source. Cartoner sent it. Upon that news your father is basing that which he wishes to say to you in his study now."

"Ah!" said Wanda, with a ring of anxiety in her voice.

"It is nothing!" put in Deulin, quickly, at the sight of her face. "Nothing that need disturb your thoughts or mine. It is only a question of empires and kingdoms."

With his light laugh, he turned away from her, and was gone before she could ask him a question.

In half an hour he returned. He had a cab waiting at the door, and the passport difficulty had been overcome, he said.

"The man in the street," he added, turning to the prince, sitting beside Wanda, who stood before the study fire in her furs, ready to go—"the man in the street and the innumerable persons who carry swords in this city know nothing."

"They will know at the frontier," answered the prince, "and it is there that you will have difficulties."

"Then it is there that we shall overcome them," he replied, gayly. "It is there also, I hope, that we shall dine. For I have had no lunch. No matter; I lunched yesterday. I shall eat things in the train, and Wanda will hate me. I always hate other people's crumbs, while for my own I have a certain tenderness. Yes. Now let us say good-bye and be gone."

For Paul Deulin's gayety always rose to the emergency of the moment. He came of a stock that had made jests on the guillotine steps. He was suddenly pressed for time, and had scarcely a moment in which to bid his old friend good-bye, and no leisure to make those farewell speeches which are nearly always better left unsaid.

"I must ask you," he said to Wanda, when they were in the cab, "to drive round by the Europe, and keep you waiting a few moments while I run up-stairs and put together my belongings. I shall give up my room. I may not come back. One never knows."

And he looked curiously out of the cab window into the street that had run with blood twice within his own recollection. He peered into the faces of the passers-by as into the faces of men who were to-day, and to-morrow would be as the seed of grass.

In the Cracow Faubourg all seemed to be as usual. Some were going about their business without haste or enthusiasm, as the conquered races always seem to do, while others appeared to have no business at all beyond a passing interest in the shop-windows and a leisurely sense of enjoyment in the sunshine. The quieter thoroughfares were quieter than usual, Deulin thought. But he made no comment, and Wanda seemed to be fully occupied with her own thoughts. The long expected, when it comes at last, is really more surprising than the unexpected itself.

It was the luncheon hour at the Hotel de l'Europe, but the entrance hall was less encumbered with hats and fur coats than was usual between twelve and two. The man in the street might, as he had said, know nothing; but others, and notably the better-born, knew now that the Czar was dead.

As Deulin was preparing to open the carriage door, Wanda spoke for the first time.

"What will you do about the Mangles?" she asked. "We cannot let them remain here unwarned."

Deulin reflected for a moment.

"I had forgotten them," he answered. "In times of stress one finds out one's friends, because the others are forgotten. I will say a word to Mangles, if you like."

"Yes," answered Wanda, sitting back in the cab so that on one should see her—"yes, do that."

"Odd people women are," said Deulin to himself, as he hurried up-stairs. He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again almost at once, followed by a green-aproned porter carrying his luggage.

"I looked into Mangles's salon," he said to Wanda, when he was seated beside her again. "He remains here alone. The ladies have already gone. They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany. He is no fool—that Mangles. But this morning he is dumb. He would say nothing."

At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men. He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.

"They know," he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the Austrian railway carriage. "They all know. Look at their stupid, perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah! what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!"

"Or a grin," he added, after a long pause, "that passes for one."



XXXIV

FOR ANOTHER TIME

The thaw came that afternoon. Shortly before sunset the rain set in; the persistent, splashing, cold rain that drives northward from the Carpathians. In a few hours the roads would be impassable. The dawn would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.

There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water. They are only passable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard and polished track.

Along the middle road—which is the worst and the least frequented—a number of carts made their way soon after eight o'clock at night. The road is not only unmade, but is neglected and allowed to fall into such deep ruts and puddles as to make it almost impassable. It is bordered on either side by trees and a deep ditch. In the late summer it is used for the transit of the hay which is grown on the low-lying land. In winter it is the shortest road to Wilanow. In spring and autumn it is not used at all.

It was raining hard now, and the wind hummed drearily through the pollarded trees. Each of the four carts was dragged by three horses, harnessed abreast in the Russian fashion. They were the ordinary hay-carts of the country, to be encountered at any time on the more frequented road nearer to the hills, carrying produce to the city. The carts were going towards the city now, but they were empty.

Fifty yards in front of the caravan a man splashed along through the standing water, his head bent to the rain. It was Kosmaroff. He was in his working clothes, and the rain had glued his garments to his spare limbs. He walked with long strides, heedless of where he set his feet. He had reached that stage of wetness where whole water could scarcely have made him wetter. Or else he had such business in hand that mere outward things were of no account. Every now and then he turned his head, half impatiently, to make sure that the carts were following him. The wheels made no sound on the wet sand, but the heavy wood-work of the carts groaned and creaked as they rolled clumsily in the deep ruts.

At the cross-ways, where the shorter runs at right angles into the larger Wilanow road, Kosmaroff found a man waiting for him, on horseback, under the shadow of the trees, which are larger here. The horseman was riding slowly towards him from the town, and led a spare horse. He was in a rough peasant's overcoat of a dirty white cloth, drawn in at the waist, and split from heel to band, for use in the saddle. They wear such coats still in Poland and Galicia.

Kosmaroff gave a little cough. There is nothing so unmistakable as a man's trick of coughing. The horseman pulled up at once.

"You are punctual," he said. "I was nearly asleep in the saddle."

And the voice was that of Prince Martin Bukaty. He had another coat such as he was wearing thrown across the saddle in front of him, and he leaned forward to hand it down to Kosmaroff.

"You are not cold?" he asked.

"No; I feel as if I should never be cold again."

"That is good. Put on your coat quickly. You must not catch a chill. You must take care of yourself."

"So must you," answered Kosmaroff, with a little laugh.

Though one was dark and the other fair, there was a subtle resemblance between these two men which lay, perhaps, more in gesture and limb than in face. There also existed between them a certain sympathy which the French call camaraderie, which was not the outcome of a long friendship. Far back in the days of Poland's greatness they must have had a common ancestor. In the age of chivalry some dark, spare knight, with royal blood in his veins, had perhaps fallen in love with one of the fair Bukatys, whose women had always been beautiful, and their men always reckless.

Kosmaroff climbed into the saddle, and they stood side by side, waiting for the carts to come up. Martin's horse began to whinny at the sound of approaching hoofs, when its rider leaned forward in the saddle and struck it fiercely on the side of its great Roman nose, which sounded hollow, like a drum.

"I suppose you had little sleep last night," said Kosmaroff when Martin yawned, with his face turned up to the sky.

"I had none."

"Nor I," said Kosmaroff. "We may get some—to-morrow."

The carts now came up. Each team had two drivers, one walking on either side.

"You know what to do," said Martin to these in turn. "Come to the iron-foundry, where you will find us waiting for you. When you are laden you are to go straight back as quickly as you can by this same road to the military earthworks, where you will find our friends drawn up in line. You are to turn to the left, down the road running towards the river on this side of the fortifications, and pass slowly down the line, dropping your load as directed by those who will meet you there. If you are stopped on the road by the police or a patrol, who insist on asking what you have in your carts, you must be civil to them, and show them; and while they are looking into your carts you must kill them quietly with the knife."

The drivers seemed to have heard these instructions before, for they merely nodded, and made no comment. One of them gave a low laugh, and that was all. He appeared to be an old man with a white beard, and had perhaps waited a long time for this moment. There was a wealth of promise in his curt hilarity.

Then Martin and Kosmaroff turned and rode on towards Warsaw at a trot. Before long they wheeled to the right, quitting the highway and taking to the quieter Czerniakowska, that wide and deserted road which runs by the river-side, skirting the high land now converted into a public pleasure-ground, under the name of the Lazienki Park.

In the daytime the Czerniakowska is only used by the sand-carts and the workmen going to and from the manufactories. To-night, in the pouring rain, no one passed that way.

Before the iron-foundry is reached the road narrows somewhat, and is bounded on either side by a high stone wall. On the left are the lower lands of the Lazienki Park; the yards and storehouses of the iron-foundry are on the right.

At the point where the road narrows Kosmaroff suddenly reined in his horse, and leaning forward, peered into the darkness. There are no lamps at the farther end of the Czerniakowska.

"What is it?" asked Martin.

"I thought I saw a glint under the wall," answered Kosmaroff. "There—there it is again. Steel. There is some one there. It is the gleam of those distant lights on a bayonet."

"Then let us go forward," said Martin, "and see who it is."

And he urged his horse, which seemed tired, and carried its head low beneath the rain. They had not gone ten paces when a rough voice called out:

"Who goes there?"

"Who goes there?" echoed Martin. "But this is a high-road." And he moved nearer to the wall. The man stepped from the shadow, and his bayonet gleamed again.

"No matter," he said; "you cannot pass this way."

"But, my friend—" began Martin, with a protesting laugh. But he never finished the sentence, for Kosmaroff had slipped out of the saddle on the far side, and interrupted him by pushing the bridle into his hand. Then the ex-Cossack ran round at the back of the horses.

The soldier gave a sharp exclamation of surprise, and the next moment his rifle rattled down against the wall. Both men were on the ground now in the water and the mud. There came to Martin's ears the sound of hard breathing, and some muttered words of anger; then a sharp cough, which was not Kosmaroff's cough.

After an instant of dead silence, Kosmaroff rose to his feet.

"First blood," he said, breathlessly. He went to his horse and wiped his hands upon its mane.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, "how he smelled of bad cigarettes!"

Martin was leaning in the saddle, looking down at the dark form in the mud.

"Oh, he is dead enough," said Kosmaroff. "I broke his neck. Did you not hear it go?"

"Yes—I heard it. But what was he doing here?"

"That is yet to be found out," was the reply, in a sharp, strained voice. "This is Cartoner's work."

"I doubt it," whispered Martin. And yet in his heart he could scarcely doubt it at that moment. Nothing was further from his recollection than the note he had given to Netty in the Saski Gardens ten hours ago.

"What does it mean?" he asked, with a sudden despair in his voice. He had always been lucky and successful.

"It means," answered the man who had never been either, "that the place is surrounded, of course. They have got the arms, and we have failed—this time. Take the horses back towards the barracks—and wait for me where the water is across the road. I will go forward on foot and make sure. If I do not return in twenty minutes it will mean that they have taken me."

As he spoke he took off his white overcoat, which was all gray and bespattered with mud, and threw it across the saddle. His working clothes were sombre and dirty. He was almost invisible in the darkness.

"Wait a moment," he said. "I will get over the wall here. Bring your horse against the wall."

Martin did so, avoiding the body of the sentry, which lay stretched across the foot-path. The wall was eighteen feet high.

"Stand in your stirrups," said Kosmaroff, "and hold one arm up rigid against the wall."

He was already standing on the broad back of the charger, steadying himself by a firm grip of Martin's collar. He climbed higher, standing on Martin's shoulders, and steadying himself against the wall.

"Are you ready? I am going to spring."

He placed the middle of his foot in Martin's up-stretched palm, gave a light spring and a scramble, and reached the summit of the wall. Martin could perceive him for a moment against the sky.

"All right," he whispered, and disappeared.

Martin had not returned many yards along the road they had come when he heard pattering steps in the mud behind him. It was Kosmaroff, breathless.

"Quick!" he whispered. "Quick!"

And he scrambled into the saddle while the horse was still moving. He was, it must be remembered, a trained soldier. He led the way at a gallop, stooping in the saddle to secure the swinging stirrups. Martin had to use his spurs to bring his horse alongside. Shoulder to shoulder they splashed on in the darkness.

"I went right in," gasped Kosmaroff. "The arms are gone. The place is full of men. There is a sotnia drawn up in the yard itself. It is an ambuscade. We have failed—failed—this time!"

"We must stop the carts, and then ride on and disperse the men," said Martin. "We may do it. We may succeed. It is a good night for such work."

Kosmaroff gave a short, despairing laugh.

"Ah!" he said. "You are full of hope—you."

"Yes—I am full of hope—still," answered Martin. He had more to lose than his companion. But he had also less to gain.

They rode hard until they met the carts, and turned them back. So far as these were concerned, there was little danger in going away empty from the city.

Then the two horsemen rode on in silence. They were far out in the marsh-lands before Kosmaroff spoke.

"I am sure," he then said, "that I was seen as I climbed back over the wall. I heard a stir among the rifles. But they could not recognize me. It is just possible that I may not be suspected. For you it is different. If they knew where the arms were stored, they must also know who procured them. You will never be able to show yourself in Warsaw again."

"I may be able to make myself more dangerous elsewhere," said Martin, with a laugh.

"I do not know," went on Kosmaroff, "if they will have arrested your father and sister; but I am quite sure that they will be in the palace now awaiting your return there. We must get away to-night."

"Oh," answered Martin gayly, "it does not matter much about that. What I am thinking of are these four thousand men waiting out here in the rain. How are we to get them to their homes in Warsaw?"

And Kosmaroff had no answer to this question.

Beneath the trees on the low, wet land inside the fortifications they found their men drawn up in a double line. There were evidences of military organization and training in their bearing and formation. If the arms had been forthcoming, these would have been dangerous soldiers; for they were desperate men, and had each in his heart a grievance to be wiped out. They were only the nucleus of a great rising, organized carefully and systematically—the brand to be thrown amid the straw. They were to surprise and hold the two strongholds in Warsaw, while the whole country was set in a blaze, while the foreign powers and the parties to the treaty which Russia had systematically broken were appealed to and urged to assist. It was a wild scheme, but not half so wild as many that have succeeded.

The four thousand heroically waiting the word that was to send them on their forlorn hope heard the news in silence, and all silently moved away.

"It is for another time—it is for another time!" said Kosmaroff and Martin repeatedly and confidently, as the men moved past them in the darkness.

In Warsaw there was a queer silence, and every door was shut. The streets had been quite deserted, and they were now full of soldiers, who, at a given word, had moved out from the barracks to line the streets.

At midnight they were still at their posts, when the first stragglers came in from the south, silent, mud-bespattered, bedraggled men, who shuffled along in their dripping clothes in the middle of the street in groups of two and three. They hung their heads and crept to their houses. And the conquerors watched them without sympathy, without anger.

It was a miserable fiasco.



XXXV

ACROSS THE FRONTIER

Those who listened at their open windows that night for the sound of firing heard it not. They heard, perhaps, the tread of slipshod feet hurrying homeward. They could scarcely fail to hear the Vistula grinding and grumbling in its new-found strength. For the ice was moving and the water rising. The long sleep of winter was over, and down the great length of the river that touches three empires men must needs be on the alert night and day.

Between the piers of the bridge the ice had become blocked, and the large, flat floes sweeping down on the current were pushing, hustling, and climbing on each other with grunts and squeaks as if they had been endowed with some low form of animal life. The rain did not cease at midnight, but the clouds lifted a little, and the night was less dark. The moon above the clouds was almost full.

"There is only one chance of escape," Kosmaroff had said—"the river. Meet me on the steps at the bottom of the Bednarska at half-past twelve. I will get a boat. Have you money?"

"I have a few roubles—I never had many," answered Martin.

"Get more if you can—get some food if you can—a bottle of vodka may make the difference between life and death. Keep your coat."

And they parted hurriedly on the hill where the road rises towards the Mokotow. Kosmaroff turned to the right and went to the river, where he earned his daily bread, where his friends eked out their toilsome lives. Martin joined the silent, detached groups hurrying towards the city. He passed down the whole length of the Marszalkowska with the others slouching along the middle of the street beneath the gaze of the soldiers, brushing past the horses of the Cossacks stationed at the street corners. And he was allowed to pass, unrecognized.

A group of officers stood in the wide road opposite to the railway station, muffled in their large cloaks. They were talking together in a low voice. One of them gave a laugh as Martin passed. He recognized the voice as that of a friend—a young Cossack officer who had lunched with him two days earlier.

Soon after midnight he made his way down the steep Bednarska. He had found out that the Bukaty Palace was surrounded; had seen the light filtering through the dripping panes of the conservatory. His father was probably sitting in the great drawing-room alone, before the wood-fire, meditating over the failure which he must have realized by now from a note hurriedly sent by one of the few servants whom they could trust. Martin knew that Wanda had gone. He also knew the address that would find her. This was one of the hundred details to which the prince himself had attended. He had been a skilled organizer in the days when he had poured arms and ammunition into Poland across the Austrian frontier, and his hand had not lost its cunning. All Poland was seamed by channels through which information could be poured at any moment day or night, just as water is distributed over the land of an irrigated farm.

Martin had procured money. He carried some large round loaves of gray bread under his arm. The neck of a bottle protruded from the pocket of his coat. Among the lower streets near the river these burdens were more likely to allay than to arouse suspicion.

Between the Bednarska and the bridge which towers above the low-roofed houses fifty yards farther down the river are the landing-stages for the steamers that ply in summer. There is a public bath, and at one end of this floating erection a landing-stage for smaller boats, where as often as not Kosmaroff found work. It was to this landing-stage that Martin directed his steps. In summer there were usually workers and watchers here night and day; for the traffic of a great river never ceases, and those whose daily bread is wrested from wind, water, and tide must get their sleep when they can.

To-night there were a few men standing at the foot of the street where the steps are—river-workers who had property afloat and imprisoned by the ice, dwellers, perhaps, in those cheap houses beneath the bridge which are now gradually falling under the builder's hammer, who took a sleepless interest in the prospects of a flood.

Martin went out onto the landing-stage, and looked about him as if he also had a stake in this, one of nature's great lotteries. There he had a fit of coughing, such as any man might have on such a night, and at the most deadly time of the year. He waited ten minutes, perhaps, coughing at intervals, and at length Kosmaroff came to him, not from the land, but across the moving floes from the direction of the bridge.

"The water is running freely," he said, "through the middle arch. I have a boat out there on the ice. Come!"

And he took the bread from Martin's arms, and led the way on to the river that he knew so well in all its varying moods. The boat was lying on the ice a few yards above the massive pier of the bridge, almost at the edge of the water, which could be heard gurgling and lapping as it flowed towards the sea with its burden of snow and ice. It was so dark that Martin, stumbling over the chaos of ice, fell against the boat before he saw it. It was one of the rough punts of a primeval simplicity of build used by the sand-workers of the Vistula.

Kosmaroff gave his orders shortly and sharply. He was at home on the unstable surface, which was half water, half ice. He was commander now, and spoke without haste or hesitation.

"Help me," he said, "to carry her to the edge, but do not stand upright. We can easily get away unseen, and you may be sure that no one will come out on the ice to look for us. We must be twenty miles away before dawn."

The boat was a heavy one, and they stumbled and fell several times; for there was no foothold, and both were lightly made men. At last they reached the running water and cautiously launched into it.

"We must lie down in the bottom of the boat," said Kosmaroff, "and take our chances of being crushed until we are past the citadel."

As he spoke they shot under the bridge. Above them, to the left, towered the terrace of the castle, and the square face of that great building which has seen so many vicissitudes. Every window was alight. For the castle is used as a barracks now, and the soldiers, having been partially withdrawn from the streets, were going to bed. Soon these lights were left behind, and the outline of the citadel, half buried in trees, could be dimly seen. Then suddenly they left the city behind, and were borne on the breast of the river into the outer darkness beyond.

Kosmaroff sat up.

"Give me a piece of bread," he said. "I am famished."

But he received no answer. Prince Martin was asleep.

The sky was beginning to clear. The storm was over, but the flood had yet to come. The rain must have fallen in the Carpathians, and the Vistula came from those mountains. In twenty-four hours there would be not only ice to fear, but uprooted trees and sawn timber from the mills; here and there a mill-wheel torn from its bearings, now and then a dead horse; a door, perhaps, of a cottage, or part of a roof; a few boats; a hundred trophies of the triumph of nature over man, borne to the distant sea on muddy waters.

Kosmaroff found the bread and tore a piece off. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could in the stern of the boat, using one oar as a rudder. But he could not see much. He could only keep the boat heading down stream and avoid the larger floes. Then—wet, tired out, conscious of failure, sick at heart—he fell asleep, too, in the hands of God.

When he awoke he found Martin crouching beside him, wide awake. The prince had taken the oar and was steering. The clouds had all cleared away, and a full moon was high above them. The dawn was in the sky above the level land. They were passing through a plain now, broken here and there by pollarded trees, great spaces of marsh-land, with big, low-roofed farms standing back on the slightly rising ground. It was almost morning.

Kosmaroff sat up, and immediately began to shiver. Martin was shivering too, and handed him the vodka-bottle with a laugh. His spirits were proof even against failure and a hopeless dawn and bitter cold.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Kosmaroff stood up and looked round. They were travelling at a great pace in the company of countless ice-floes, some white with snow, others gray and muddy.

"I know where we are," he answered, after a pause. "We have passed Wyszogrod. We are nearing Plock. We have come a great distance. I wish my teeth wouldn't chatter."

"I have secured mine with a piece of bread," mumbled Martin.

Kosmaroff was looking uneasily at the sky.

"We cannot travel during the day," he said, after a long examination of the little clouds hanging like lines across the eastern sky. "We shall not be able to cross the frontier at Thorn with this full moon, and I am afraid we are going to have fine weather. We shall soon come to some large islands on this side of Plock. I know a farmer there. We must wait with him until we have promise of a suitable night to pass through Thorn."

Before daylight they reached the islands. There was no pack now; the ice was afloat and moving onward. All Kosmaroff's skill, all the little strength of both was required to work the boat through the floes towards the land. The farmer took them in willingly enough, and boasted that they could not have found a safer hiding-place in all Poland, which, indeed, seemed true enough. For none but expert and reckless boatmen would attempt to cross the river now.

Nevertheless, Kosmaroff made the passage to the mainland before mid-day, and set off on foot to Plock. He was going to communicate with the prince at Warsaw, and ask him to provide money or means of escape to await them at Dantzic. In two days a reply came, telling them that their escape was being arranged, but they must await further instructions before quitting their hiding-place. After the lapse of four days these further orders came by the same sure channel, which was independent of the Russian post-offices.

The fugitives were to proceed cautiously to Dantzic, to pass through that town at night to the anchorage below Neufahrwasser. Here they would find Captain Cable, in the Minnie, anchored in the stream ready for sea. The instructions were necessarily short. There were no explanations whatever. There was no news.

At Plock, Kosmaroff could learn nothing, for nothing was known there. The story of the great plot had been hushed up by the authorities. There are persons living in Warsaw who do not know of it to this day. There are others who know of it and deny that it ever existed. The arms are in use in Central Asia at the present time, though their pattern is already considered antiquated. Any one who may choose to walk along the Czerniakowska will find to-day on the left-hand side of it a large building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair. If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road and the river-side.

After receiving their final instructions, Kosmaroff and Martin had to wait two days until the weather changed—until the moon, now well on the wane, did not rise before midnight.

At last they set out, in full daylight, on a high river still encumbered by ice. It was much warmer during the day now; but the evenings were cold, and a thick mist usually arose from the marsh-lands. This soon enveloped them, and they swept on unseen. None could have followed them into the mist, for none had Kosmaroff's knowledge of the river.

The frontier-line is some miles above the ancient city of Thorn. It is strictly guarded by day and night. The patrol-boats are afloat at every hour. Kosmaroff had arranged to arrive at this spot early in the night, before the mists had been dispelled by the coming of the moon.

Even he could only guess at their position. Once they dared to approach the shore in order to discover some landmark. But they navigated chiefly by sound. The whistle of a distant train, the sound of church clocks, the street cries of a town—these were Kosmaroff's degrees of latitude.

"We are getting near," he said, in little more than a whisper. "What is the time?"

It was nearly eleven o'clock. If they got past the frontier they would sweep through Thorn before mid-night. The river narrows here, and goes at a great pace. It is still of a vast width—one of the largest rivers in Europe.

The mist was very thick here.

"Listen!" whispered Kosmaroff, suddenly. And they heard the low, regular thud of oars. It was the patrol-boat.

Almost immediately a voice, startlingly near, called upon them to halt. They crouched low in the boat. In a mist it is very difficult to locate sound. They looked round in all directions. The voice seemed to have come from above. It was raised again, and seemed to be behind them this time.

"Stop, or we fire!" it said, in Russian. Then followed a sharp whistle, which was answered by two or three others. There were at least three boats close at hand, seeking to locate each other before they fired.

Immediately afterwards the firing began, and was taken up by the more distant boats. A bullet splashed in the water close behind Kosmaroff's oar, with a sharp spit like that of an angry cat. Martin gave a suppressed laugh. Kosmaroff only smiled.

Then two bullets struck the boat simultaneously, one on the stern-post, fired from behind, the other full on the side amidships, where Martin lay concealed.

Neither of the two men moved or made a sound. Kosmaroff leaned forward and peered into the fog. The patrol-boats were behind now, and the officers were calling to each other.

"What was it—a boat or a floating tree?" they heard them ask each other.

Kosmaroff was staring ahead, but he saw Martin make a quick movement in the bottom of the boat.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"A bullet," answered Martin. "It came through the side of the boat, low down. It struck me in the back—the spine. I cannot move my legs. But I have stopped the water from coming in. I have my finger in the hole the bullet made below the water-line. I can hold on till we have passed through Thorn."

He spoke in his natural voice, quite cheerfully. They were not out of danger yet. Kosmaroff could not quit the steering-oar. He glanced at Martin, and then looked ahead again uneasily.

Martin was the first to speak. He raised himself on his elbow, and with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an envelope, closed and doubled over.

"Put that in your pocket," he said. And Kosmaroff obeyed.

"You know Miss Cahere, who was at the Europe?" asked Martin, suddenly, after a pause.

Kosmaroff smiled the queer smile that twisted his face all to one side.

"Yes, I know her."

"Give her that, or get it to her," said Martin.

"But—"

"Yes," said Martin, answering the unasked question, "I am badly hit, unless you can do something for me after we are past Thorn."

And his voice was still cheerful.



XXXVI

CAPTAIN CABLE SOILS HIS HANDS

Cartoner was preparing to leave St. Petersburg when he received a letter from Deulin. The Frenchman wrote from Cracow, and mentioned in a rather rambling letter that Wanda was staying with a relative in that ancient city. He also thought it probable that she would make a stay in England pending the settlement of certain family affairs.

"I suppose," wrote Deulin, "that you will soon be on your way home. I think it likely we shall both be sent to Madrid before long. At all events, I hope we may meet somewhere. If you are passing through Dantzic on your homeward journey, you will find your old friend Cable there."

This last sentence was partly disfigured by a peculiar-shaped blot. The writer had evidently dropped his pen, all laden with ink, upon the letter as he wrote it. And Cartoner knew that this was the kernel, as it were, of this chatty epistle. He was bidden to make it convenient to go to Dantzic and to see Captain Cable there.

He arrived in Dantzic early in the morning, and did not go to a hotel. He left his luggage at the station and walked down to the Lange Brucke, where the river steamers start for Neufahrwasser.

The boats ran every hour, and Cartoner had not long to wait. He was not pressed for time, however, on his homeward journey, as he was more or less his own master while travelling, and could break his journey at Dantzic quite as easily as at Berlin.

Neufahrwasser is slowly absorbing the commerce of Dantzic, and none but small vessels go up the river to the city now. Captain Cable was deeply versed in those by-paths of maritime knowledge which enable small vessels to hold their own in these days of monopoly.

Cartoner knew that he would find the Minnie not in dock, but in one of the river anchorages, which are not only cheaper, but are more convenient for a vessel wanting to go to sea at short notice. And Captain Cable had a habit of going to sea at short notice.

Cartoner was not far wrong. For his own steamer passed the Minnie just above Neufahrwasser, where the river is broad and many vessels lie in mid-stream. The Minnie was deeply laden and lay anchored bow and stern, with the rapid tide rustling round her chains. She was ready for sea. Cartoner could see that. But she flew no bluepeter nor heralded her departure, as some captains, and especially foreigners, love to do. It adds to their sense of importance, and this was a modern quality little cultivated by Captain Cable. Neither was his steam aggressively in evidence. The Minnie did not catch the eye of the river-side idler, but conveyed the impression that she was a small, insignificant craft minding her own business, and would be much obliged if you would mind yours.

Cartoner had to walk back by the river-side and then take a boat from the steps opposite to the anchorage. He bade the boatman wait while he clambered on board. Captain Cable had been informed of the approach of a shore boat, and was standing squarely on his own iron main-deck when Cartoner put his leg across the rail.

"Come below," he said, without enthusiasm. "It wasn't you that I was expecting. I tell you that."

Cartoner followed the captain into the little, low cabin, which smelled of petroleum, as usual. The Minnie was a hospitable ship, according to her facilities, and her skipper began by polishing a tumbler with a corner of the table-cloth. Then he indicated the vacant swing-back bench at the far side of the table, and sat down opposite to Cartoner himself.

"Was up the Baltic," he explained. "Pit props. Got a full cargo on board. Got an offer such as a poor sailorman couldn't afford to let slip to come to Dantzic and wait here till two gents came aboard. That's all I'm going to tell you."

"That's all I want to know," answered Cartoner.

"But, dammy, it's not all I want to know!" shouted Cable, suddenly, with a bang of his little, thick fist on the table. "I've been thinking since I lay here—been sleeping badly, and took the anchor watch meself—what I want to know is whether I'm to be treated gentlemanly!"

"In what way?" inquired Cartoner, gently. And the sound of his voice seemed to pacify the captain.

"Of course," he admitted, "I'm not a gentleman, I know that; but in seafaring things I'll be treated as such. Truth is, I'm afraid it's something to do with this news from St. Petersburg. And I don't take any bombmen on board my ship, and that's flat."

"I think I can assure you on that point," said Cartoner. "Nobody who had to do with the assassination of the Czar is likely to be in Dantzic. But I do not know whom you are to take on board here."

"May be as you can guess," suggested the captain.

"Yes, I think I can guess," admitted Cartoner, with his slow smile.

"But you won't tell me?"

"No. When do you expect them?"

"I'll answer that and ask you another," said Captain Cable, getting a yellow decanter from a locker beneath the table. "That's port—ship-chandler's port. I won't say it's got a bokay, mind."

For Captain Cable's hospitality was not showy or self-sufficient.

"I'll answer that and ask you another. I expected them last night. They'll likely come down with the tide, soon after midnight to-night. And now I'll ask you, what brought you aboard this ship, here in Dantzic River, Mr. Cartoner?"

"A letter from a Frenchman you know as well as I do—Paul Deulin. Like to read it?"

And Cartoner laid the letter before Captain Cable, who smiled contemptuously. He knew what was expected of a gentleman better than even to glance at it as it lay before him in its envelope.

"No, I wouldn't," he answered. He scratched his head reflectively, and looked beneath his bushy brows at Cartoner as if he expected the ship-chandler's port to have an immediate effect of some sort.

"Got your luggage in the boat alongside?" he asked, at length.

"No. It's at the station."

"Then let me send a hand ashore for it. Got three Germans furard. You'll come aboard and see this thing through, I hope."

"Thank you," answered Cartoner. He handed Captain Cable the ticket for his luggage.

"Mate's receipt?" inquired the captain.

And Cartoner nodded. The captain pushed the decanter towards his guest as he rose to go and give the necessary orders.

"No stint of the wine," he said, and went out on deck.

When he came back he laid the whole question aside, and devoted himself to the entertainment of his guest. They both slept in the afternoon. For the captain had been up all night, and fully expected to see no bed the following night.

"If they come down with the tide we'll go to sea on the same ebb," he said, as he lay down on his state-room locker and composed himself to sleep.

He sent the hands below at ten o'clock, saying he would keep the anchor watch himself. He wanted no forecastle gossip, he said to Cartoner, and did not trouble to explain that he had kept the watch three nights in succession on that account. Cartoner and he walked the deck side by side, treading softly for the sake of the sleepers under deck. For the same reason, perhaps, they were silent.

Once only Captain Cable spoke in little more than a whisper.

"Hope he is pleased with himself," he said, as he stood at the stern rail, looking up river, as it happened, towards Cracow. "For it is his doing, you and me waiting his orders here this cold night. They're tricky—the French. He's a tricky man."

"Yes," admitted Cartoner, who knew that the captain spoke of Deulin, "he is a tricky man."

After this they walked backward and forward for an hour without speaking. Then Captain Cable suddenly raised his hand and pointed into the night.

"There's a boat yonder," he said, "coming down quiet, under the lee of the land."

They stood listening, and presently heard the sound of oars used with great caution. A boat was crossing the river now and coming towards them. Captain Cable went forward and took a coil of rope. He clambered laboriously to the rail and stood there, watching the shadowy shape of the boat, which was now within hail. It was swinging round on the tide with perfect calculation and a most excellent skill.

"Stand by," said Captain Cable, gruffly, and the coils of his rope uncurled against the sky, to fall in a straight line across the boat.

Cartoner could see a man catch the rope neatly and make it fast with two turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as a kitten may nestle against its mother.

The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand on the rail of the Minnie. His head came up over the rail, and he peered into Cartoner's face.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance which he never expected.

Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.

"I want to go to sea this tide," he said. "Where is the other man?"

"The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty," was the answer. "Help me to lift him on board."

"Why can't he come on board himself?"

"Because he is dead," answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and held him up.

"I am so weak!" he murmured, "so weak! I am famished!"

Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They passed through it to that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.

The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable decanter, yellow with age and rust.

"Here," he said, "drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done."

Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a hundred unasked questions in them.

"How did it happen?" asked Cartoner, at length.

"They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the night before last. He died before the morning."

"Tut! tut!" muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of pity. "There was the makings of a man in him," he said—"the makings of a man!"

And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood reflecting for a moment while Kosmaroff ate the ship's biscuit offered to him in the lid of a box, and Cartoner stared thoughtfully at the flickering lamp.

"I'll take him out to sea and bury him there," said Cable, at length, "if so be as that's agreeable to you. There's many a good man buried at sea, and when my time comes I'll ask for no better berth."

"That is the only thing to be done," said Cartoner.

Kosmaroff glanced towards the bed.

"Yes," he said, "that will do. He will lay quiet enough there."

And all three, perhaps, thought of all that they were to bury beneath the sea with this last of the Bukatys.

Captain Cable was the first to move. He turned and glanced at the clock.

"I'll turn the hands out," he said, "and we'll get to sea on the ebb. But I'll have to send ashore for a pilot."

"No," answered Kosmaroff, rising and finishing his wine, "you need not do that. I can take you out to sea."

The captain nodded curtly and went on deck, leaving Kosmaroff and Cartoner alone in the cabin in the silent presence of the man who had been the friend of both.

"Will you answer me a question?" asked Kosmaroff, suddenly.

"If I can," was the reply, economical of words.

"Where were you on the 13th of March?"

Cartoner reflected for a moment, and then replied:

"In St. Petersburg."

"Then I do not understand you," said Kosmaroff. "I don't understand how we failed. For you know we have failed, I suppose?"

"I know nothing," answered Cartoner. "But I conclude you have failed, since you are here—and he is there."

And he pointed towards Martin.

"Thanks to you."

"No, I had nothing to do with it," said Cartoner.

"You cannot expect me to believe that."

"I do not care," replied the English diplomat, gently, "whether you believe it or not."

Kosmaroff moved towards the door. He carefully avoided passing near Cartoner, as if too close a proximity might make him forget himself.

"I will tell you one thing," he said, in a hard, low voice. "It will not do for you to show your face in Poland. Don't ever forget that I will take any chance I get to kill you! There is not room for you and me in Poland!"

"If I am sent there I shall go," replied Cartoner. And there crept to one side of Kosmaroff's face that slow smile which seemed to give him pain.

"I believe you will."

Then he went to the door. For Captain Cable could be heard on deck giving his orders, and already the winches were at work. But the Pole paused on the threshold and looked back. Then he came into the cabin again with his hand in the pocket of his threadbare workman's jacket.

"Look here," he said, bringing out a folded envelope and laying it on the cabin-table between them. "A dead man's wish. Get that to Miss Cahere. There is no message."

Cartoner took up the envelope and put it in his pocket.

"I shall not see her, but I will see that she gets it," he said.

The dawn was in the sky before the Minnie swept out past the pier-head light of Neufahrwasser. It was almost daylight when she slowed down in the bay to drop her pilot. Kosmaroff's boat was towing astern, jumping and straining in the wash of the screw. They hauled it up under the quarter, and in the dim light of coming day Cable and Cartoner drew near to the Pole, who had just quitted the wheel.

The three men stood together for a moment in silence. There was much to be said. There was a multitude of questions to be asked and answered. But none of the three had the intention of doing either one or the other.

"If you want a passage home," said Cable, gruffly, "cut your boat adrift. You're welcome."

"Thank you," was the answer. "I am going back to Poland to try again."

He turned to Cartoner, and peered in the half-light into the face of the only man he had had dealings with who had not been afraid of him. "Perhaps we shall meet again soon," he said, "in Poland."

"Not yet," replied Cartoner. "I am under orders for Madrid."

Kosmaroff stood by the rail for a moment, looking down into his boat. Then he turned suddenly to Cartoner, and made him a short, formal bow.

"Good-bye," he said.

Cartoner nodded, and said nothing.

Kosmaroff then turned towards Cable, who was standing with his hands thrust into his jacket-pockets, looking ahead towards the open sea.

"Captain," he said, and held out his hand so that Cable could not help seeing it. The captain hesitated, and at length withdrew his hand from the shelter of his pocket.

"Good-bye, mister," he said.

Then Kosmaroff climbed down into his boat. They cut the rope adrift, and he sat down to the oars.

There was a lurid streak of dawn low down in the sky, and Kosmaroff headed his boat towards it across the chill, green waters. Above the promise of a stormy day towered a great bank of torn clouds hanging over Poland.



XXXVII

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

Paul Deulin happened to be in Lady Orlay's drawing-room, nearly a month later, when Miss Cahere's name was announced. He made a grimace and stood his ground.

Lady Orlay, it may be remembered, was one of those who attempt to keep their acquaintances in the right place—that is to say, in the background of her life. With this object in view, she had an "at home" day, hoping that her acquaintances would come to see her then and not stay too long. To-day was not that day.

"I know I ought not to have come this afternoon," explained Netty, with a rather shy haste, as she shook hands. "But I could not wait until next Tuesday, because we sail that day."

"Then you are going home again?"

Netty turned to greet Deulin, and changed color very prettily.

"Yes," she said, looking from one to the other with the soft blush still in her cheeks—"yes, and I am engaged to be married."

"Ah!" said Deulin. And his voice meant a great deal, while his eyes said nothing.

"Do we know the—gentleman?" asked Lady Orlay kindly. She was noting, with her quick and clever eyes, that Netty seemed happy and was exquisitely dressed. She was quite ready to be really interested in this idyl.

"I do not know," answered Netty. "He is not unknown in London. His name is Burris."

"Oh!" said Lady Orlay, "the comp—" Then she remembered that to call a fellow-creature a company promoter is practically a libel. "The millionaire?" she concluded, rather lamely.

"I believe he is very rich," admitted Netty, "though, of course—"

"No, of course not," Lady Orlay hastened to say. "I congratulate you, and wish you every happiness."

She turned rather abruptly towards Deulin, as if to give the next word to him. He took it promptly.

"And I," he said, with his old-world bow and deprecatory outspreading of the hands—"I wish you all the happiness—that money can buy."

Then he walked towards the fireplace, and stood there with his shoulder turned towards them while the two ladies discussed that which was to be Netty's future life. Her husband would be old enough to be her father, but he was a millionaire twice over—in London and New York. He had, moreover, a house in each of those great cities, of which details appeared from time to time in the illustrated monthly magazines.

"So I shall hope to be in London every year," said Netty, "and to see all the friends who have been so kind to us—you and Lord Orlay and Mr. Deulin."

"And Reginald Cartoner," suggested Deulin, turning to look over his shoulder for the change which he knew would come into Netty's eyes. And it came.

"Yes," she said. She looked as if she would like to ask a question, but did not give way to the temptation. She did not know that Cartoner was in the house at that moment, and Wanda, too. She did not know that Deulin had brought Wanda to London to stay at Lady Orlay's until Martin effected his escape and joined his sister in England. She only knew what the world now knew—that Price Martin Bukaty had died and been buried at sea. It was very sad, she had said, he was so nice.

Deulin did not join in the conversation again. He seemed to be interested in the fire, and Lady Orlay glanced at him once or twice, seeking to recall him to a sense of his social obligations. He had taken an envelope from his pocket, and, having torn it in two, had thrown it on the fire, where it was smouldering now on the coals. It was a soiled and worn envelope, as if it had passed through vicissitudes; there seemed to be something inside it which burned and gave forth an aromatic odor.

He was still watching the fire when Netty rose and took her leave. When the door closed again Lady Orlay went towards the fire.

"What is that in which you are so deeply interested that you quite forgot to be polite?" she said to Deulin. "Is it a letter?"

"It is a love-token," answered the Frenchman.

"For Netty Cahere?"

"No. For the woman that some poor fool supposed her to be."

Lady Orlay touched the envelope with the toe of a slipper which was still neat and small, so that it fell into the glowing centre of the fire and was there consumed.

"Perhaps you have assumed a great responsibility," she said.

"I have, and I shall carry it lightly to heaven if I get there."

"It has a smell of violets," said Lady Orlay, looking down into the fire.

"They are violets—from Warsaw," admitted Deulin. "Wanda is in?" he asked, gravely.

"Yes; they are in the study. I will send for her."

"I have received a letter from her father," said Deulin, with his hand on the bell.

Wanda came into the room a few minutes later. She was, of course, in mourning for Martin now, as well as for Poland. But she still carried her head high and faced the world with unshrinking eyes. Cartoner followed her into the room, his thoughtful glance reading Deulin's face.

"You have news?"

"I have heard from your father at last."

The Frenchman took the letter from his pocket, and his manner of unfolding it must have conveyed the intimation that he was not going to give it to Wanda, but intended to read it aloud, for Lady Orlay walked to the other end of the long room, out of hearing. Cartoner was about to follow her, when Wanda turned and glanced at him, and he stayed.

"The letter begins," said Deulin, unconsciously falling into a professional preliminary—

"'I have received Cartoner's letter supplementing the account given by the man who was with Martin at the last. I remember Captain Cable quite well. When we met him at the Signal House, at Northfleet, I little thought that he would be called upon to render the last earthly service to my son. So it was he who read the last words. And Martin was buried in the Baltic. You, my old friend, know all that I have given to Poland. The last gift has been the hardest to part with. Some day I hope to write to Cartoner, but not now. He is not a man to attach much importance to words. He is, I think, a man to understand silence. At present I cannot write, as I am virtually a prisoner in my own house. From a high quarter I have received a gracious intimation that my affairs are under the special attention of a beneficent monarch, and that I am so far to be mercifully forgiven that a sentence of perpetual confinement within the barriers of Warsaw will be deemed sufficient punishment for—not having been found out. But my worst enemies are my own party. Nothing can now convince them that Martin and I did not betray the plot. Moreover, Cartoner's name is freely coupled with ours. So they believe. So it will go down to history, and nothing that we can say will make any difference. That I find myself in company with Cartoner in this error only strengthens the feeling of friendship, of which I was conscious when we first met. Beg him, for his own sake, never to cross this frontier again. Ask him, for mine, to avoid making any sign of friendship towards me or mine.'"

As fate ruled it, the letter required turning at this point, and Deulin, for the first time in his life, perhaps, made a mistake at a crucial moment. He allowed his voice to break on the next word, and had to pause for an instant before he could proceed.

"Then follow," he said, rather uneasily, "certain passages to myself which I need not read. Further on he proceeds: 'I am in good health. Better, indeed, than when I last saw you. I am, in fact, a very tough old man, and may live to give much trouble yet.'"

Deulin broke off, and laughed heartily at this conceit. But he laughed alone.

"So, you see, he seems very cheerful," he said, as if it was the letter that had laughed. He folded the paper and replaced it in his pocket. "He seems to be getting on very well without you, you perceive," he added, smiling at Wanda. But he lacked conviction. There was in his voice and manner a dim suggestion of the losing game, consciously played.

"May I read the letter for myself?" asked Wanda, holding out her slim, steady hand.

After a moment's hesitation, Deulin took the folded paper from his pocket and handed it to her. Lady Orlay had returned to the group standing near the fire. He turned and met her eyes, making an imperceptible movement of his eyebrows, as of one who had made an attempt and failed. They waited in silence while Wanda read the letter, and at length she handed it back to him.

"Yes," she said, "I read it differently. It is not only the world which appears differently to two different people, even a letter may have two meanings to two readers. You shed a sort of gayety upon that——"

She indicated the letter which he still held in his hand, and Deulin deprecated the suggestion by a shrug of the shoulders.

"—which is not really there. To me it is the letter of a broken-hearted man," she added slowly. There was an odd pause, during which Wanda seemed to reflect. She was at the parting of the ways. Even Deulin had nothing to say. He could not point out the path. Perhaps Cartoner had already done so by his own life, without any words at all.

"I shall go to Warsaw to-night," she said at last to Lady Orlay, "if you will not think me wanting in manners. Believe me, I do not lack gratitude. But—you understand?"

"Yes, dear, I understand," replied the woman who had known happiness. And she closed her lips quickly, as if she feared that they might falter.

"It is so clearly my duty, and duty is best, is it not?" said Wanda. As she spoke she turned to Cartoner. The question was asked of none other. It was unto his judgment that she gave her case; to his wisdom she submitted the verdict of her life. She wished him to give it before these people. As if she took a subtle pride in showing them that he was what she knew him to be. She was sure of her lover; which is, perhaps, happiness enough for this world.

"Duty is best, is it not?" she repeated.

"It is the only thing," he answered.

Deulin was the first to speak. He had strong views upon last words and partings. The mere thought of such things made him suddenly energetic and active. He turned to Wanda with his watch in his hand.

"Your mind is made up?" he asked. "You go to-night?"

"Yes."

"Then I must go at once to see to your passport and make arrangements for the journey. I take you as far as Alexandrowo. I cannot take you across the frontier, you understand?"

He turned to Cartoner.

"And you? When do you go to Spain?"

"To-night," was the answer.

"Then good-bye." The Frenchman held out his hand, and in a moment was at the door. Lady Orlay followed him out of the room and closed the door behind her. She followed him down-stairs. In the hall they stood and looked at each other in silence. There were tears in the woman's eyes. But Deulin's smile was sadder.

"And this is the end," he said—"the end!"

"No," said Lady Orlay; "it is not. It cannot be. I have never known a great happiness yet that was not built upon the wreckage of other happinesses. That is why happy people are never gay. It is not the end, Paul. Heaven is kind."

"Sometimes," answered Deulin, grudgingly. On the door-step he paused, and, facing her suddenly, he made a gesture indicating himself, commanding her attention to his long life and story. "Sometimes, milady."