The Vultures Part 46

He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again almost at once, followed by a green-ap.r.o.ned porter carrying his luggage.

"I looked into Mangles's salon," he said to Wanda, when he was seated beside her again. "He remains here alone. The ladies have already gone.

They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany. He is no fool--that Mangles. But this morning he is dumb. He would say nothing."

At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men.

He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.

"They know," he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the Austrian railway carriage. "They all know. Look at their stupid, perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah!

what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!"

"Or a grin," he added, after a long pause, "that pa.s.ses for one."

x.x.xIV

FOR ANOTHER TIME

The thaw came that afternoon. Shortly before sunset the rain set in; the persistent, splashing, cold rain that drives northward from the Carpathians. In a few hours the roads would be impa.s.sable. The dawn would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.

There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water. They are only pa.s.sable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard and polished track.

Along the middle road--which is the worst and the least frequented--a number of carts made their way soon after eight o'clock at night. The road is not only unmade, but is neglected and allowed to fall into such deep ruts and puddles as to make it almost impa.s.sable. It is bordered on either side by trees and a deep ditch. In the late summer it is used for the transit of the hay which is grown on the low-lying land. In winter it is the shortest road to Wilanow. In spring and autumn it is not used at all.

It was raining hard now, and the wind hummed drearily through the pollarded trees. Each of the four carts was dragged by three horses, harnessed abreast in the Russian fashion. They were the ordinary hay-carts of the country, to be encountered at any time on the more frequented road nearer to the hills, carrying produce to the city. The carts were going towards the city now, but they were empty.

Fifty yards in front of the caravan a man splashed along through the standing water, his head bent to the rain. It was Kosmaroff. He was in his working clothes, and the rain had glued his garments to his spare limbs. He walked with long strides, heedless of where he set his feet.

He had reached that stage of wetness where whole water could scarcely have made him wetter. Or else he had such business in hand that mere outward things were of no account. Every now and then he turned his head, half impatiently, to make sure that the carts were following him.

The wheels made no sound on the wet sand, but the heavy wood-work of the carts groaned and creaked as they rolled clumsily in the deep ruts.

At the cross-ways, where the shorter runs at right angles into the larger Wilanow road, Kosmaroff found a man waiting for him, on horseback, under the shadow of the trees, which are larger here. The horseman was riding slowly towards him from the town, and led a spare horse. He was in a rough peasant's overcoat of a dirty white cloth, drawn in at the waist, and split from heel to band, for use in the saddle. They wear such coats still in Poland and Galicia.

Kosmaroff gave a little cough. There is nothing so unmistakable as a man's trick of coughing. The horseman pulled up at once.

"You are punctual," he said. "I was nearly asleep in the saddle."

And the voice was that of Prince Martin Bukaty. He had another coat such as he was wearing thrown across the saddle in front of him, and he leaned forward to hand it down to Kosmaroff.

"You are not cold?" he asked.

"No; I feel as if I should never be cold again."

"That is good. Put on your coat quickly. You must not catch a chill. You must take care of yourself."

"So must you," answered Kosmaroff, with a little laugh.

Though one was dark and the other fair, there was a subtle resemblance between these two men which lay, perhaps, more in gesture and limb than in face. There also existed between them a certain sympathy which the French call _camaraderie_, which was not the outcome of a long friendship. Far back in the days of Poland's greatness they must have had a common ancestor. In the age of chivalry some dark, spare knight, with royal blood in his veins, had perhaps fallen in love with one of the fair Bukatys, whose women had always been beautiful, and their men always reckless.

Kosmaroff climbed into the saddle, and they stood side by side, waiting for the carts to come up. Martin's horse began to whinny at the sound of approaching hoofs, when its rider leaned forward in the saddle and struck it fiercely on the side of its great Roman nose, which sounded hollow, like a drum.

"I suppose you had little sleep last night," said Kosmaroff when Martin yawned, with his face turned up to the sky.

"I had none."

"Nor I," said Kosmaroff. "We may get some--to-morrow."

The carts now came up. Each team had two drivers, one walking on either side.

"You know what to do," said Martin to these in turn. "Come to the iron-foundry, where you will find us waiting for you. When you are laden you are to go straight back as quickly as you can by this same road to the military earthworks, where you will find our friends drawn up in line. You are to turn to the left, down the road running towards the river on this side of the fortifications, and pa.s.s slowly down the line, dropping your load as directed by those who will meet you there. If you are stopped on the road by the police or a patrol, who insist on asking what you have in your carts, you must be civil to them, and show them; and while they are looking into your carts you must kill them quietly with the knife."

The drivers seemed to have heard these instructions before, for they merely nodded, and made no comment. One of them gave a low laugh, and that was all. He appeared to be an old man with a white beard, and had perhaps waited a long time for this moment. There was a wealth of promise in his curt hilarity.

Then Martin and Kosmaroff turned and rode on towards Warsaw at a trot.

Before long they wheeled to the right, quitting the highway and taking to the quieter Czerniakowska, that wide and deserted road which runs by the river-side, skirting the high land now converted into a public pleasure-ground, under the name of the Lazienki Park.

In the daytime the Czerniakowska is only used by the sand-carts and the workmen going to and from the manufactories. To-night, in the pouring rain, no one pa.s.sed that way.

Before the iron-foundry is reached the road narrows somewhat, and is bounded on either side by a high stone wall. On the left are the lower lands of the Lazienki Park; the yards and storehouses of the iron-foundry are on the right.

At the point where the road narrows Kosmaroff suddenly reined in his horse, and leaning forward, peered into the darkness. There are no lamps at the farther end of the Czerniakowska.

"What is it?" asked Martin.

"I thought I saw a glint under the wall," answered Kosmaroff.

"There--there it is again. Steel. There is some one there. It is the gleam of those distant lights on a bayonet."

"Then let us go forward," said Martin, "and see who it is."

And he urged his horse, which seemed tired, and carried its head low beneath the rain. They had not gone ten paces when a rough voice called out:

"Who goes there?"

"Who goes there?" echoed Martin. "But this is a high-road." And he moved nearer to the wall. The man stepped from the shadow, and his bayonet gleamed again.

"No matter," he said; "you cannot pa.s.s this way."

"But, my friend--" began Martin, with a protesting laugh. But he never finished the sentence, for Kosmaroff had slipped out of the saddle on the far side, and interrupted him by pushing the bridle into his hand.

Then the ex-Cossack ran round at the back of the horses.

The soldier gave a sharp exclamation of surprise, and the next moment his rifle rattled down against the wall. Both men were on the ground now in the water and the mud. There came to Martin's ears the sound of hard breathing, and some muttered words of anger; then a sharp cough, which was not Kosmaroff's cough.

After an instant of dead silence, Kosmaroff rose to his feet.

"First blood," he said, breathlessly. He went to his horse and wiped his hands upon its mane.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, "how he smelled of bad cigarettes!"

Martin was leaning in the saddle, looking down at the dark form in the mud.