George Fort Gibbs

“ Rizzio started and a smile broke at the corners of his lips.
“Oh! You realize, then, that there is something else—something——?” He paused.
“I realize nothing,” growled the General. “Realization, Rizzio, is the one banality of existence! Uncertainty is the only thing worth while. When one is certain of anything it ceases to be interesting. That is why Herr Hammersley, whom you call a fool in one breath and a genius in the next, excites my profound attention. Come, I think you will agree with me that he is worth it.”
“I do not like Hammersley, Excellenz.” ”

“ I never would have known you in England, Cyril, doing the things you always did.”
He smiled at her.
“I’m the same chap, though. Can’t tell what a fellow will do when he has to.”
“But you didn’t have to. You might have gone to France and sat in a trench. Instead of that you did what was harder—let them distrust you—hold you in contempt—keeping silent and cheerful, while you were doing such splendid things for England.” She paused while she caressed him and said in a proud whisper, “The Honorable Cyril!”
“Honorable!” he smiled. “You’d hardly get von Stromberg to think that.” ”

“ Meanwhile, upstairs in his room, Hammersley, after having eaten, was preparing for bed. For a tired man he went about it in a very leisurely way, smoking a cigarette, and wandering about the room stretching his long limbs and yawning between whiles. Then, after a time, he took off his clothes and bathed. It was perhaps an hour before he blew out his candle, and even then he did not get immediately into bed. He sat on the edge of the couch for a while, listening and watching the cold moonlight outside his dormer window, or the dim line of light that came from beneath the door into the hall. ”

“ The yacht was bowling along with the wind and sea quartering and the foam-crests leaped alongside, sending an occasional spurt of spray into the air, where the wind caught it and blew it across the decks in a feathery mist of rainbows. The sunlight glinted on polished wood and brasswork and at the stern caught in the cross of St. George where the flag of England flapped in the breeze. The flag of England sheltering John Rizzio! She scanned the horizon anxiously. Perhaps an English cruiser or destroyer might come to whom she might be able to tell the real character of the owner of the vessel. ”

“ As the door closed behind his visitor von Stromberg sank into the chair by the fire and lighted a third cigar, upon which he pulled steadily for some moments, rehearsing by question and reply almost every word of Hammersley’s story. By every rule of the game as he knew it Herr Hammersley should be a liar. And yet his story from first to last held water. There was not a flaw in its texture from beginning to end. If Hammersley had not told the truth he was the most skillful liar in Europe, a man who gave the appearance of truthfulness to the last hair of his head. ”

“ He had gone pale and stared at him in pity and horror as Hammersley had gone up the stairs, but Hammersley knew that the ties of kinship, the memories of their boyhood together, were nothing beside the iron will and indomitable authority of the great man who had condemned him. Udo would suffer when Hammersley died, for there had been a time when the two had been much to each other, but he would do his duty, however painful, as a small unit of the relentless machine which Hammersley had had the temerity to oppose. ”

“ You may still doubt me when I say that what I have done is the hardest task that I ever undertook in my life. But that is true. You were the only person in England who jeopardized my existence there. I had to take you away. I regret the necessity of having to use force. I shall do what I can here upon the Sylph to counteract the unpleasant impression of my brutality. I am not a bully and a woman-baiter. I am a spoke in the wheel of destiny which you had clogged. By all the rules of the game you should have died. Reasons which I need not mention made your death at my hands an impossibility. ”

“ Victory or defeat—life or death. It was a desperate game that he was playing. And what was he going to do tonight that made it necessary for him to leave her to ride to Kilmorack House alone?
Bewildered and weary with excitement and much thinking, she gave it up, and as in a daze set her mind to the task of finding the way to Horsham Hill. She rode on inland searching for the old sheep trail as Cyril had described it to her, but as the minutes went by and she did not find it she began to think that she must have passed it in the darkness. ”

“ In pity for herself and Cyril she watched the new day born, a new day, bleak and cheerless, which seemed by its very aspect to pronounce a sentence upon them; the new day which was to mark the passing of all the things growing womanhood holds most dear, her first faith, her first tenderness, her first passion.
Doris kept to her room until Betty came in, awakening her from a heavy sleep into which she had fallen just before sunrise. Lady Heathcote rang for Wilson and then retired to the ministrations of her own maid, leaving Doris to dress for the morning at her leisure. ”

“ She recalled Cyril’s bantering tone at having been chased twenty miles for a cigarette. But his attitude deceived Doris no more than it had his pursuers. There was material here for something more deadly than cigarettes. She took the yellow packet in both hands and pressed it to her temples as though by this act she could pass its secrets into her own brain. In spite of herself she was frightfully curious and frightfully afraid.
She got up and paced the floor rapidly. No—it couldn’t go on. She must know the truth. ”

“ To call me a traitor to England because I happen to have a liking for Germany would be much like my calling you a traitor to Germany because you happen to have a liking for England.”
“I have never eaten the bread and salt of Germany, or wormed my way into the hearts of its people.”
“I’m sure you flatter me. The people of my set in London are agreeable, but——”
Doris had straightened in the act of rising.
“I did not come on deck to discuss your ideals or Germany’s. I hope that you will excuse——”
“You will not listen?”
“No. I care nothing for your political views. I am your prisoner. ”

“ She ran out to the very edge of the rocks, shrieking his name, but the sounds were lost in the fearful din of the motor below. The explosions echoed and reëchoed in the gorge which seemed to quiver with the volume of sound. Not a head from below was turned up to look at her and she had a sense of her own unimportance in the immensity of Cyril’s viewpoint. She saw the yellow machine start slowly down the incline, gathering momentum as it ran until it left the runway and rose magnificently, its engine roaring steadily, clearing the surf and rocks and heading straight into the growing day. O God! ”

“ Hammersley exulted. It was something to have brought Doris away, but it was something more to have circumvented von Stromberg. The bundled figure of Lindberg, lying up there bleeding in the dark, shot a pain through his heart, but in action, moving toward the goal of his hopes, even Lindberg was put behind him. He had no fear for the wound in Lindberg’s shoulder. The old man was as tough as a pine knot and would survive the loss of blood. It was Lindberg’s ordeal with von Stromberg that bothered him. ”

“ Hammersley saw the door close and heard the key turn in the lock while Senf came forward into the room and stood by the foot of the bed. Hammersley studied him closely: a tall, loosely jointed man in his early thirties with the heavy brows and high cheekbones of the East Prussian, the face of a Slav, almost, with something of the thoughtful intensity of the South German mystic. His eyes were large, his nose thin and his face was bearded, but the lines of his mouth had a sensitive curve, belied by the big bony hands and broad shoulders. ”

“ The machine was a fine one and its usual well-ordered purr had grown into a roar which seemed to threaten immediate disruption.
Doris sat rigidly, clutching at the door sill and seat trying to adjust her braced muscles to the task of keeping upright. But a jolt of the car tore her grasp loose and threw her into Cyril’s arms and there he held her steadily. She was too disturbed to resist, and lay quietly, conscious of the strength of the long arms that enfolded her and aware in spite of herself of a sense of exhilaration and triumph. Triumph with Cyril! What triumph—over whom? ”

“ I am only a girl—an American. They will not dare to harm me. Don’t smile. I am in deadly earnest. You must go, Cyril—now—now——”
But he only patted her gently.
“You think that I am a child,” she went on, “that I cannot be trusted to get along alone. Haven’t I proved it to you that I am not afraid? Look at me, Cyril. I am only a little tired now but tomorrow I will go to von Stromberg and say, ‘Here I am—now what can you do to me?’ He may threaten and bluster and rage, but that will not frighten me—when you are safe. What can he reply? What could he do? My nation is not at war with his. ”

“ Cyril threw the clutch in and the note lowered as the propellers began to whirr. The huge fabric jumped forward, gathering momentum as it went, until by the time it reached the canvas curtain in front of it, it was going as fast as a man would run. The weight of the heavy flap retarded it for a moment, but it went steadily on, and the canvas was pushed outward—then rose—it seemed to Doris like the curtain on a melodrama. Men were running up, shooting as they ran. ”

“ There are many things beside chocolate that are excellent in Germany, Fräulein Mather.”
“I am sure that must be true,” she said politely, touching the cup to her lips.
“Then why do you dislike us so much?” he asked with a smile.
“It is not your people that I dislike so much, General von Stromberg. Many of the most charming people I have ever known have been Germans. It is not what you are, but what you want to be, that I dislike; not your habits or your tastes, but your intolerance of any civilization which happens to differ from yours.” ”

“ Cyril Hammersley followed him to the window, and Doris took a step in his direction, when her thinly slippered foot touched something in the wooden floor—something which slid upon the polished surface from the shadow into the moonlight. Instinctively she glanced down and then started—scarcely restraining a gasp. There, unmistakable in the shape and color for so many hours graven on her mind, was a yellow packet of Riz-la-Croix cigarette papers. ”

“ There was only one runner in the lot and he was the Fatalist, though how he had ever happened to learn to run in the Imperial Navy, Hammersley had not the time or inclination to decide. If his philosophy limped, his legs at least were strong and he came on rapidly leaping like a young buck toward the opening over the crest of the knob into which Hammersley had disappeared. A short way down was a spur of rock, the beginnings of a ridge which cut out into the hills, the watershed of two rills which leaped from rock to rock to the valleys below. ”

“ Von Stromberg laughed.
“I can readily believe it. You are always as cool as a morning in May. As for Fräulein Mather,” and he turned ceremoniously to Doris and bowed deeply, “it has all been a mistake. If the efforts of a councilor of the Empire in undoing the wrong done you, by sending you with every comfort and dispatch to England, are any sign of regret, you shall be safely on the way tomorrow. But I am sure that in your heart you are glad to have had the opportunity to clear Herr Hammersley of an unjust suspicion.” ”

“ Von Stromberg roared with delight. “Boiled in oil!” he repeated.
“Yes—or perhaps some more exquisite cruelty that your ingenious people have devised,” she said coolly. “To prosaic minds like mine, Excellenz, you Germans are the wonders of the age. You are both godlike and Saturnian; a nation of military fanatics, a nation of silly sentimentalists; a nation trained to scientific brutality, which shares the sorrows of the dying rose. Which is it that you want us to think you, the god or the satyr?” ”

“ What if they had found her footsteps and followed? No, that was hardly possible, for the ridge of rock began immediately at the road, and thanks to his precautions, she would leave no footprints.
Slowly he descended, choosing his footing with quick deliberation, for the slightest sound, the dislodging of a twig or a sliver of crumbled stone and the crag of the Thorwald would become in a moment a hornet’s nest. Fortunately the back of the rock screened him from the road, and unless von Stromberg had sent men into the woods to left and right, there was no chance of discovery. ”

“ A stream of fire came from Hammersley’s automatic; three shots in quick succession, and the man in the car pitched forward in his seat and slid to the floor. And by the time the other man had drawn his pistol, Hammersley had leaped behind a tree and came out of some bushes beyond. The chauffeur fired, but not in Hammersley’s direction. The continuous glare of the light in their eyes had made their vision in the darkness uncertain. ”

“ He—a traitor—to you—Cyril! It is all so horrible. I am frightened. Your danger—Rizzio’s men, here—tonight—all about us.”
“If they were English secret service men,” Cyril put in quietly, “wouldn’t they come here to this house and arrest me in the name of the law?”
“Yes. There must be other reasons why they can’t. What is the contest between you and Rizzio? Tell me. Tell me everything! I will believe you. Haven’t I kept your trust? If I could do that—for your sake—do you not think that I could keep silent for England’s sake?” ”