The Port of Missing Men Part 30

"You seem hopeful, Captain. He may be on the high seas."

"I shall find him there--or here!"

"Good luck to you, Captain!"

There was the least flash of antagonism in the glance that pa.s.sed between them, and Captain Claiborne clapped his hands together impatiently and went into the house.

CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER

My mistress bent that brow of hers; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance: right!

The blood replenished me again; My last thought was at least not vain: I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified.

Who knows but the world may end to-night?

--R. Browning.

"We shall be leaving soon," said Armitage, half to himself and partly to Oscar. "It is not safe to wait much longer."

He tossed a copy of the _Neue Freie Presse_ on the table. Oscar had been down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for Washington. It was now Wednesday in the third week in April.

"Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told. You have asked me no questions. There may be an ugly row before I get out of these hills. I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave."

"I enlisted for the campaign--yes?--I shall wait until I am discharged."

And the little man b.u.t.toned his coat.

"Thank you, Oscar. In a few days more we shall probably be through with this business. There's another man coming to get into the game--he reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly.

Very likely they are both in the hills tonight. And, Oscar, listen carefully to what I say."

The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the table in the bungalow.

"If I should die unshriven during the next week, here's a key that opens a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, Amba.s.sador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him--tell him--"

He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then he laughed and went on.

"--tell him, Oscar, that there's a message in that safety box from a gentleman who might have been King."

Oscar stared at Armitage blankly.

"That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron's hands will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed.

I shall take a walk before I turn in."

"You should not go out alone--"

"Don't trouble about me; I shan't go far. I think we are safe until two gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,--I feel it in my bones."

He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda.

The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills.

At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and he smiled with the thought of her; for soon--perhaps in a few hours--he would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous task would henceforth lie between them.

He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men, singing hymns of war; and again he looked upon cities besieged; still again upon armies in long alignment waiting for the word that would bring the final shock of battle. The faint roar of water far below added an under-note of reality to his dream; and still he saw, as upon a tapestry held in his hand, the struggles of kingdoms, the rise and fall of empires. Upon the wide seas smoke floated from the guns of giant ships that strove mightily in battle. He was thrilled by drum-beats and the cry of trumpets. Then his mood changed and the mountains and calm stars spoke an heroic language that was of newer and n.o.bler things; and he shook his head impatiently and gathered his cloak about him and rose.

"G.o.d said, 'I am tired of kings,'" he muttered. "But I shall keep my pledge; I shall do Austria a service," he said; and then laughed a little to himself. "To think that it may be for me to say!" And with this he walked quite to the brink of the chasm and laid his hand upon the iron cable from which swung the bridge.

"I shall soon be free," he said with a deep sigh; and looked across the starlighted hills.

Then the cable under his hand vibrated slightly; at first he thought it the night wind stealing through the vale and swaying the bridge above the sheer depth. But still he felt the tingle of the iron rope in his clasp, and his hold tightened and he bent forward to listen. The whole bridge now audibly shook with the pulsation of a step--a soft, furtive step, as of one cautiously groping a way over the unsubstantial flooring. Then through the starlight he distinguished a woman's figure, and drew back. A loose plank in the bridge floor rattled, and as she pa.s.sed it freed itself and he heard it strike the rocks faintly far below; but the figure stole swiftly on, and he bent forward with a cry of warning on his lips, and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the light barricade that had been nailed across the opening.

When he looked up, his words of rebuke, that had waited only for the woman's security, died on his lips.

"Shirley!" he cried; and put forth both hands and lifted her to firm ground.

A little sigh of relief broke from her. The bridge still swayed from her weight; and the cables hummed like the wires of a harp; near at hand the waterfall tumbled down through the mystical starlight.

"I did not know that dreams really came true," he said, with an awe in his voice that the pa.s.sing fear had left behind.

She began abruptly, not heeding his words.

"You must go away--at once--I came to tell you that you can not stay here."

"But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous, too kind,"--he began.

"It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you--it is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that such a thing can be in America. But you must go--you must seek the law's aid--"

"How do you know I dare--"

"I don't know--that you dare!"

"I know that you have a great heart and that I love you," he said.

She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps.

"I can't be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr.

Armitage. If you knew why I came--"

"If I dared think or believe or hope--"

"You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!" she replied; "but I will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being a.s.sa.s.sinated in these Virginia hills does not please me."

"How do you cla.s.sify me, please--with friends or acquaintances?"

He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.

"I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life to warn me that I am in danger?"