The Game and the Candle Part 4

Desmond was almost forgotten when the first shot on the mountain-side rang out. Startled from the mists of suffering, Allard paused an instant. Then as a very fusillade reverberated among the cliffs, he toiled on with redoubled haste. They would come next for him.

It had a pearl and silver handle, that revolver. He had treasured it because it was a gift from Robert, and a souvenir too frequently duplicated to betray his ident.i.ty. Now the pearl shone a glistening spot in the surrounding grayness, beckoning, tantalizing. It was so far across the room, so very far!

Shots again! He struggled yet more desperately, and the resulting pang brought waves of faintness above his head. If he could only rest, so.

Some one was shouting, half exultantly, half fearfully, and other voices replied in equal excitement. Some one was killed, they were saying, had fallen from the cliff. Desmond, perhaps? Allard roused himself fiercely and saw with grat.i.tude how near the coveted object lay. A little farther, only a little; but it cost.

The rush and patter of feet grew louder,--the steady approach of the hunters. It hardly mattered, for the cool white handle was in the grasp of his outstretched hand. He had won, won doubly. He had accomplished his task, and he held the key to the door. Robert's face leaned toward him, warm with relief and praise; Theodora was in the room, bringing fragrances of sandalwood and rose--

Once more he drove back the mists and dragged the revolver to him, smiling, but with knit brows.

CHAPTER III

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

They looked at each other steadily, the distinguished visitor and the prisoner who polished a bra.s.s railing. Beside them an official was droning a particularly monotonous and dreary account of the inst.i.tution, his eyes half-closed with the mental exertion of recollection, his thoughts turned inward and absorbed. There were several gentlemen and officers of the building in the bare room, chatting with one another in varying degrees of boredom and interest, and completely ignoring the quiet prisoner who had been John Allard. Yet he was perhaps the only one present, with the exception of the man facing him, who escaped the commonplace.

"You have something to say?" questioned the grave, l.u.s.trous dark eyes of the visitor; eyes southern in their long-lashed softness, northern in their directness.

And Allard's gray eyes returned a.s.sent with an utter calm which overlay the surface of tragedy.

"On the east bank of the Hudson, six miles above Tarrytown," went on the droning voice of the official, then broke as the visitor's cool, slightly imperious tones fell across the monologue:

"Ah, and is it permitted to speak with your inmates, if one has the fancy?"

The official stared, but smiled vaguely.

"Certainly, sir; if _you_ wish," he replied.

Again the eloquent glances of the other two crossed.

"You have much of this work?" queried the visitor, the words scarcely heeded either by speaker or listener in the deeper search for a means of communication.

Allard answered in French, the fluent, barely-accented French of a traveled American:

"That man in gray who accompanies you, monsieur, the man near the window, is not to be trusted. He was released from this place last year, after serving a term for his share in some Paterson anarchistic outrages. He is dangerous, and he watches you constantly."

The visitor was trained to self-control; he did not commit the mistake of looking toward the man in question. But he could not quite check the flash of blended emotions which crossed his own expression.

"Thank you," he said. And after an instant, "I thought I recognized you when I saw you on entering; now you have spoken, I am certain. Yet--"

Allard flushed from throat to temples, the color dying out again to leave even his lips white. But his reply was steadily given.

"There is no one here whom you know, monsieur, or who knows you. Even a prison has its courtesies. Turn your head away, and go past," he said.

"Would you have done so, finding a friend in such a strait?"

"I have no friends."

"Then why did you warn me against Dancla, my anarchistic secretary yonder?"

The question was unexpected, and left Allard momentarily disconcerted.

"Confess we knew each other very well five years ago," the visitor added gently, and paused to consider.

A few paces off the official stood stupidly enjoying the respite from exertion; placidly indifferent to an incomprehensible conversation inspired by a whim of the guest. The other three or four men were admiring the view from a window facing the river, and listening to their cicerone.

"I wish you would go away, monsieur," Allard said only, when he had recovered perfect command of himself.

"Be patient with me yet a moment. We were both avowedly masquerading during those weeks of boyish frolic at Palermo; do you know who I am?"

"No more than I knew then: that you were a European, and evidently of position."

"You have more liberty than some of those here, I think."

"Yes; I am what they call a trusty;" the straight line between the fine brows deepened markedly.

"I beg your pardon; I do not ask from curiosity. My yacht is anch.o.r.ed before this place--if I return through here in an hour, on my way to it, can you be here still?"

Allard hesitated.

"I believe so, but I would prefer not. I can aid you no further; and--"

"And?"

For an instant the curtain was withdrawn from the prisoner's clear eyes.

"You wake what is better asleep. It is not pleasant for me to meet you, monsieur."

The visitor caught his breath. It came to him with a shock of realization that many days and nights might pa.s.s before he could forget that straight glance of quivering pain and humiliation, of proudly endured hopelessness.

"Yet I ask it," he insisted.

"Very well. If I am not here it will be because it was not possible."

The visitor turned away with well-a.s.sumed carelessness.

"I fancied your prisoner there was a fellow-countryman," he remarked to the official, in pa.s.sing on. "But he appears to be French."

"Yes, sir. He said he came from the South, at his trial."

The man had necessarily kept beside the visitor to reply, and they walked down the room so together.

"What is he here for?" came the idle inquiry.