The Lighted Match Part 8

The chauffeur leaned over and shouted into his ear. "I'm telling you, sir. The lady's in that other car--with that other edition of you. And, sir--beggin' your pardon--they're beatin' it like h.e.l.l!"

Benton's only answer was to feed gas to the spark so frantically that the car seemed to rise from the ground and shiver before it settled again. Then it shot forward and reeled crazily into a speed never intended for a curving road at night.

The moonlight fell on a gray streak of a car, driven by a maniac with a scarf blowing back from a turban over two wildly gleaming eyes.

Back at "Idle Times" a Capuchin monk, wandering apart from the dancers in consonance with the austere proclaiming of his garb, was studying the frivolous gamboling of a school of fountain gold-fish in the conservatory. He looked up, scowling, to take a note from a servant.

"Colonel Von Ritz said to hand this to the gentleman masquerading as a monk," explained the man.

"Von Ritz," growled the monk. "He annoys me."

He impatiently tore open the letter and scanned it. His brows contracted in astonished mystification, then slowly his eyes narrowed and kindled.

The scrawl ran:

"Your Highness: If you see neither Mr. Benton, masquerading as an Arab, her Highness, the Princess, nor myself in ten minutes from the time of receiving this, take the car which you will find ready in the garage. My orderly will be there to act as your chauffeur. Follow the main road to the second village. Turn there to the right, and drive to the small bay, where you will find me or an explanation. I have been conducting certain investigations. The affair is urgent and touches matters of great import to Europe as well us to Your Highness."

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO

When Cara, waiting at the bridge, had seen the car flash up, a bearded Bedouin at the wheel, she had leaped lightly to the seat beside him, without waiting for the machine to come to a full stop; then she had thrown herself back luxuriously on the cushions with a sigh of satisfaction, and had only said: "Drive me fast."

For a long time she lay back, drinking, in long draughts, the spiced night air, frosted only enough to give it flavor. There was no necessity for speech, and above, the stars glittered lavishly, despite the white light of the moon.

At last she murmured half-aloud and almost contentedly: "'Who knows but the world may end to-night?'"

Above the throbbing purr of the engine which had already done ten miles, the man beside her caught the voice, but missed the words. He bent forward.

"I beg your pardon?" he politely inquired.

At the question she started violently, and both hands came to her heart with a spasmodic movement. Von Ritz carried the car around an ugly rut.

"Don't be alarmed, Your Highness," he said, in a cold, evenly modulated voice which, though pitched low, carried clearly above the noise of the cylinders. "I may call you 'Your Highness' now, may I not? We are quite alone. Or do you still prefer that I respect your incognita?"

The girl's eyes blazed upon him until he could feel their intense focusing, though he kept his own fixed unbendingly on the road ahead.

Finally she mastered her anger enough to speak.

"Colonel Von Ritz," she commanded, "you will take me back at once!" She drew herself as far away from him as the s.p.a.ce on the seat permitted.

"Your Highness's commands are supreme." The man spoke in the same even voice. "I intend taking Your Highness back--when it is safer for Your Highness to go back."

He turned the car suddenly to the right and sped along the narrower road that led away from the main thoroughfare.

"You will take me back, now. I had not supposed that to a gentleman--"

Her voice choked into silence and her eyes filled with angry tears.

"Your Highness misunderstands," he said coldly. "I obey the throne. If I live long enough to serve it in another reign, Your Highness will be Your Majesty. Yet even then will your commands be no more supreme to me--no more sacred--than now. But even then, Your Highness--"

"Call me Miss Carstow," she interrupted in impa.s.sioned anger. "I will have my freedom for to-night at least."

"Yet even then, Miss Carstow," he calmly resumed, "when danger threatens you or your throne, I shall take such means as I can to avert that danger, as I am doing now. Even though"--for a moment the cold, metallic evenness left his voice and a human note stole into his words--"even though the reward be contempt."

She did not answer.

"Your High--Miss Carstow,"--Von Ritz spoke with a deferential finality--"believe me, some things are inevitable."

Suddenly the car stopped.

The girl made a movement as though she would rise, but the man's arm quietly stretched itself across before her, not touching her, but forming an effective barrier.

She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly. For the first time he was able to return her gaze directly, and as she looked into the unflinching gray pupils, under the level brows, there was a momentary combat, then her own dropped. He sat for a s.p.a.ce with his arm outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.

"Your Highness"--he spoke as impersonally as a judge ruling from the bench--"I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in order that someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need not now say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him. It is hardly necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not easy, but it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself with his movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car. There are bigger things at stake than individual wishes. I stand for the throne. Mr. Benton has played a daring game--and lost."

He paused, and she found herself watching with a strange fascination the face almost marble-like in its steadiness.

"Some day--perhaps soon," he went on, the arm unmoved, "you will be Queen of Galavia." She shuddered. "You can then strip away my epaulets if you choose. For the moment, however, I must regard you as a prisoner of war and ask your parole, as a gentleman and an officer, not to leave the car while I investigate the trouble with the motor. Otherwise--" he added composedly, "we shall have to remain as we are."

She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blazing; then, with a glance at the unmoving arm, she bowed reluctant a.s.sent.

"All I promise is to remain in the car," she said. "May I go back into the tonneau?"

Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily dead, he responded, with a half-smile, "That promise I think is sufficient."

He bent to his task of diagnosis. After much futile spinning of the crank, he rose and contemplated the stalled engine.

"Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, and I have no matches in this garb, I must go to that farmhouse up the hillside--where the light shines through the trees--. Will Your Highness regard your parole as effective until my return, not to leave the car? Yes? I thank Your Highness; I shall not be long."

The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud blasts, and he stopped with a murmured apology to silence it by tearing off the bulb and throwing it to one side.

The Colonel turned and took his way through the woods, statuesquely upright and spectral in his long Arab cloak.

Benton and McGuire had just pa.s.sed the crossing where Von Ritz had left the main road, when McGuire's quick ear caught the familiar tooting of the other horn and brought his hand to his employer's arm. The car was stopped, and McGuire, by match-light, examined the road with its frosty mud unmarked by fresh automobile tracks, save those running back from their own tires.

The runabout turned and slipped along cautiously to the rear, watchful for byways. At the cross-road McGuire was out again. His match, held close to the mud and gravel, revealed the tread of familiar tires.

"All right, sir," he briefly reported. "The other edition went this track."

With a twist of the wheel Benton was again on the trail. Back in the side lane stood a car in which a girl sat alone, solemnly indignant.

"Cara!" Benton was standing on the step. His voice was tremulous with solicitude and perplexed anxiety. "Cara!" he repeated. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," she responded coolly. "Something seems to be broken."