The Lighted Match Part 34

"Sorry to inconvenience you," he commented affably, "but this is politics, you know. I happen to work for the other chap, King Louis." As an afterthought he added: "And the other chap thinks that you are, to put it quite civilly, unnecessary."

He smoked meditatively, while Karyl, without reply, scowled up into his face. The sense of futility left Pagratide silent. He lay insanely furious like a trapped wolf, able only to glare.

Suddenly the complacency deserted the Englishman's features, for a startled expression. With a violent malediction he bent forward listening.

Karyl's ears also caught the sound of feet on the stairs, immediately followed by a crash upon the door.

Martin drew a heavy revolver from a holster under his coat, and his voice ripped out orders with the sharp decision which had survived the days when he wore a British uniform. "Here, you beggars," he shouted, "to that door!"

As the Bedouins swarmed forward there came a second crash under which the panels fell in, precipitating Von Ritz and Benton into a fierce swarm of human hornets.

Falling desperately upon the newcomers with swords, knives and _naboots_, the bravos afforded them no time to take breath after their climb of the stairs.

Martin, standing with his pipe clamped between his teeth, took no part in the onslaught. He cast a glance at the turmoil, then deliberately c.o.c.ked his weapon and leveled it at the breast of his captive.

Karyl realized that the Jackal was not to be led away from his single purpose: that of execution. If he himself were to speak to his rescuers, he must do it quickly. He raised his voice.

"Von Ritz! To that door!" he shouted loudly, but the Galavian and his companion, fighting desperately to hold their own, with the shouts and clamor of the struggling Moslems in their ears, did not hear, and the Englishman only smiled.

"They are quite busy, you know," he drawled in a half-apologetic tone.

"Give them a bit of time."

Von Ritz was fighting with the blade of his sword-cane, while Benton, too closely pressed to make use of his pistol, was relying upon his fists. Indeed, the two white men owed their lives to the crowding which made effective fighting impossible on either side.

At last the Turks gave back a few steps for a fresh rush and Benton, taking instant advantage of the widened s.p.a.ce, fired into the crowd.

They turned in terror at the first report and went stampeding to the several doors. Then for the first time the rescuers caught sight of the Englishman standing guard over the bound figure on the floor.

With the grim smile of one who, recognizing the end, neither flinches nor dallies, Martin fired two shots from his leveled revolver.

A half-second too late Benton's magazine pistol ripped out in a frenzied series of spats. The Englishman swayed slightly, his face crimson with blood, then, propping himself weakly against the wall, he fired one ineffectual shot in reply. Slowly wilting at waist and knees, his figure slipped to the floor and lay shapelessly huddled near that of Karyl. The stench of powder filled the room. Twisting spirals of smoke curled ceilingward.

Von Ritz and Benton, kneeling at the King's side, raised him from the floor. The wounded man attempted to speak. His eyes turned inquiringly toward the door of the other room. Benton caught the questioning look and nodded his head. Then Karyl settled back against the officer's supporting shoulder after the fashion of a rea.s.sured child.

"The King is dead," said Colonel Von Ritz quietly. There was something very pathetic in the steady despair of his voice.

A door opened, and several Bedouins retreated shame-faced and cowed before a heavy Turk who wore the Sultan's uniform. His small, pig-like eyes blazed with terrifying wrath. Looking about the room for a moment, he volcanically reviled them.

"You dogs! You pigs! You serpents!" he shrieked. "Your hearts shall be thrown to the buzzards! Your children dishonored! You have dared to attack the foreign _Pashas_, and you--Mohammed Abbas--!" The shopkeeper fell trembling to his knees. "Your filthy shop shall be pulled down about your ears. You make it a trap--your feet shall be _bastinadoed_ until you are a cripple for life!" Then his rage choked him, and, wheeling, he walked over to Benton, contemptuously kicking the prostrate body of Martin _Effendi_ as he went.

From every pore Abdul Said _Bey_ exuded sympathy and commiseration.

Scenting liberal _backshish_, he promised absolute secrecy for the affair, coupled with soothing a.s.surances of private vengeance upon the surviving miscreants. Also, he bewailed the disgrace which had fallen upon the Empire by reason of such infamy. He presumed that the foreign gentlemen preferred secret punishment of the malefactors to a public sensation. It should be so.

In his anxiety for Cara, Benton left Von Ritz to adjust matters with the Turk, who with profound courtesy and amazing promptness had closed carriages at a rear door, and caused his _kava.s.ses_ to clear the alley-way of prying eyes.

When the American reached the room where Cara had been left it was deserted by the a.s.sa.s.sin's guards. With a sudden stopping of his heart, he saw her lying apparently lifeless on a stacked-up pile of rugs. In a terror that he scarcely dared to investigate, he laid his ear hesitantly to her breast, then, rea.s.sured, he gave thanks for the anesthetic of unconsciousness with which nature had blinded her to the tragedy beyond the closed door.

Two curtained carriages drove across Galata Bridge and in the mysterious quiet of Stamboul there was no ripple on the surface of affairs as other tourists haggled over a few _piastres_ in the curio shops of the bazaar.

CHAPTER XXVII

BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY

Louis Delgado awaited Jusseret in an agony of doubt and fear.

The Frenchman was late. A dispatch from the frontier had announced his coming, but to the anxiety of Delgado delays seemed numberless and interminable.

At last an aide ushered him into the apartment where the new Monarch waited, his inevitable gla.s.s of Pernod and anisette twisting in his fingers. Jusseret bowed.

"Where is Martin?" inquired the King.

"Dead," said the newcomer briefly. The Pretender paled palpably.

Evidently the plan had gone awry. Fear always stood near the fore, ready to rush out upon Delgado's timid spirit.

"And being dead," resumed the Frenchman, "he is much safer."

Louis gave a half-shuddering sigh of relief. He had none of that righteous horror of crime which makes the face of murder hideous, but in its place he had all the terrors of the weak, and playing with life and death gave him over to panic.

"I should suggest an announcement that King Karyl had fled for a time from the cares of State and was traveling as a private gentleman in strictest incognito, when sudden death overtook him. There need be no hint of violence. There must be a State funeral."

"Where is the body?" objected Louis.

Jusseret shrugged his shoulders.

"That I cannot say. I can, however, a.s.sure you that it is quite lifeless. Since the death occurred some days ago the lying in State may be dispensed with. A closed casket is sufficient."

"And his Queen?"

"That point is left unguarded, but from intimations I have received, I believe the Queen will be satisfied with private life. If you announce her abdication, she will hardly contradict you."

"And Von Ritz?" persisted Louis, with the manner of one who wishes all the ghosts which terrify him laid by someone stronger and less afraid of ghosts than himself.

"Leave Von Ritz to me. He is no fool. Von Ritz knows who instigated the murder of the King, but he is without proof. The thing happened far beyond the borders of Galavia."

Louis rose unsteadily from his chair.

"Jusseret," he began, "this interview with Marie still confronts me and I dread it. Would it not be better for you to explain to her? You could persuade her that Kings are not free in these matters, that crowned heads from antiquity to Napoleon have been compelled to obey the dictates of State."

The Frenchman stiffened.

"Your Majesty," he observed, "it is impossible. Your attachment for the Countess Astaride is a personal matter. I am concerned only in affairs of State. I must even require of you, in respect to that confidence which obtains between gentlemen, that you shall in no wise intimate that this suggestion came from me."

The new inc.u.mbent, who had brought to the Throne of Galavia all the libertine's irresoluteness, paced the floor in perplexed distress. He feared Jusseret. He dared not anger or disobey him. It appeared that being a King was not what he had conceived it, as he sat under the chestnut trees of the Paris boulevards and listened to the band.

When Jusseret had left him to his thoughts he paused three times with a tremulous finger on the call-bell, unable to command the courage required to send a message to the Countess Astaride. Finally he succeeded and five minutes later stood shamefacedly in the presence of the woman who had made him King. She was more than usually beautiful, and as always her beauty and personality dominated him, swayed his senses like music. It was so easy to slip into the impetuous att.i.tude of the lover; so difficult to maintain the austere one of the Monarch.