The Web of the Golden Spider Part 43

"No! No!" she cried hastily, as though fearing he might make the attempt to find him; "not to save the kingdom. You should listen to me to-night, General; I am very wise. The reports which have come in are without exception bad. You arrest here, you arrest there, but still the people gather and still they state their wishes. I know how it is; at first they were amused to have their queen,--it was like a holiday.

Especially when d.i.c.ky talked to them. But freedom is in the blood and it is as foolish to fight against it as against the foreign ships we once tried to keep out of our harbor. Carlina--the old Carlina, your Carlina and mine, is no more."

She paused at the look of horror which had crept over his withered face. She dropped her hand to his arm.

"Do I sound disloyal? It is only because the kingdom remains as it used to be in your dear heart and yours alone. I am your queen, General, because you are still in the past. But the others are not.

They are of the present and to them I am only a tradition. If they were all like you, my heart and soul, my life and love would all be theirs. It is to save what is left of the former things--to save you and the few others of that old kingdom--to have our dear Carlina as we used to have it out there in the sunshine of the garden--that I would leave this turmoil before it is too late."

The white head drooped as she spoke,--drooped low over the wrinkled hands clasped upon the jeweled sword handle. Dreams--dreams that had seemed about to come true in these his later years now faded before his misty eyes. He had thought to see, before he died, the glory of the former times returned; and now his queen was the first to call them dead. For the moment he felt himself as solitary as one returned from the grave. But, as she had said, if there were more like Otaballo, the kingdom would still be, without all this strife. His stubborn thoughts refused to march into the present. He raised his head again, still a general of Carlina.

"Your Majesty," he said, "there is but one way in which a servant of the house of Montferaldo may save himself."

And clicking his heels together, he had turned with military precision and left her. Then she had tossed the night long, dreaming horrible things. Now she sat in her private apartments staring with troubled eyes over the sunlit grounds. So an hour pa.s.sed, when without warning, the door snapped open, closed, and she looked up, startled, to see Danbury himself.

Her breath was cut off as though her heart had been stopped, as when one thrusts in a finger and halts a clock. There was the same dead silence that closes in upon the cessation of the long-continued ticking--a silence as though the whole world paused a moment to listen. He limped across the room to her side. She saw that his hair was dishevelled, his coat torn, as though he had been in a struggle.

Then his arms closed about her and she felt a great sense of safety, of relief, as though everything had suddenly been settled for her.

There was no kingdom, no throne, no Otaballo, no cityful of malcontents,--nothing but d.i.c.ky. She felt as much at peace as when they used to sit in the garden together. All this other confusion had been only some story which he had told her. But in a minute he drew back from her and thrust the present in again.

"Come," he whispered, "we must hurry."

"But d.i.c.ky--what is it?"

"The city is up in arms. We haven't a second to spare."

"And Otaballo--my general?"

He clenched his fists at the memory.

"Dead. They killed him and a handful of men at his side."

"Dead--my general dead?"

"Like the brave general he was."

She put her hands to her face. He drew her to his shoulder where he let her weep a moment, his own throat big.

"Oh, but they shall answer for it!" he cried. "Hush, dear. I'm coming back with a thousand men and make 'em sweat for that."

His quick senses caught a sound without.

"Come," he commanded, "we shall be cut off here." He took her arm and hurried her along. They scurried down the stairs and across the palace grounds to a small gate in the rear. Here a carriage was waiting for them. Danbury helped her in and stooped to kiss her lips before he jumped up beside the driver.

"Now drive for your life!" he commanded.

The whip fell across the quivering flanks of the nervous animals and they leaped forward. The driver kept to the deserted side streets where they raced along unchallenged, but soon it became necessary to turn into the main thoroughfare in order to reach the water front and the boat. In the four minutes it would require to go those dozen blocks their fate would be decided. If the army had not yet advanced that far, they would be safe; otherwise he must depend upon a dash for it, covering the mob with the two revolvers he had. Eight shots to ward off the attack of a thousand men!

Danbury leaned far out over the box as the horses took the turn at a speed which almost swung the rear wheels clear of the ground. The animals had become panic-stricken now and were bolting madly ahead like horses from a burning stable.

But though the road looked clear they had not advanced a block before men sprang up as though from the ground. The populace had heard of the advancing column and such as had not already joined it prepared to meet it here. In order to avoid immediate suspicion, they were forced to steady the horses down to something like a walk. To Danbury it seemed as though they had stopped stock-still. He was not a good man in such a position as this; he was all for dashing action. He could hardly sit still. They received many side glances from the excited groups, but they pa.s.sed merely as a carriage full of nervous foreigners. Danbury himself was not recognized. So they crept along and Danbury gained hope, until they were within two hundred yards of the turn which would take them out of the line of march. Then with hoa.r.s.e shouting, the advance line of the revolutionists swept around a corner and directly towards them.

They were a yelling horde of half-drunken maniacs,--a disordered horde eager for the noisy excitement their Southern blood craved. With half of them it was more the frenzied love of flags and noise that had brought them out than any deep-seated conviction of right. But the thing that brought Danbury to attention was the sight of Splinter with forty of his fellows from the boat leading the crowd. In an instant he was off the box and inside the carriage. He realized what it would mean to be recognized by him. He had but one thought--to guard the safety of her within.

The driver advanced at a walk, keeping as close as possible to the curbing. There was just one chance in a thousand that the crowd might be too intent upon their goal to bother with pa.s.sing vehicles. They were not after the Queen herself, for they looked upon her as a mere girl influenced by Otaballo. Should they chance upon her, undoubtedly they would feel obliged to arrest her, but she was not at the moment of such supreme importance as to make them alert to prevent her escape. Danbury knew this. The danger lay in the impudent curiosity of some one of the soldiers. Each felt the license of the law breaker. It was the spirit that led them to destroy property for the sheer joy of destroying that he had to fear. He held his weapon ready, sitting far back. The girl was white and calm. They watched the first few stragglers pa.s.s in dead silence; they heard the clattering confusion yet to pa.s.s.

Then a soldier thrust his musket through the gla.s.s with a coa.r.s.e laugh. He peered within, but the girl's face was shielded so that the most he saw was that she was a girl. The muzzle of Danbury's revolver was within a foot of his head and a finger trembled upon the hair trigger. Still he forced himself to wait a second longer.

"Get out, my pretty lady--get out an' join us," he shouted.

"What have you there?" shouted his comrade.

Then someone started the cry:

"The Queen! It may be the Queen!"

There was a rush towards the carriage. Danbury fired through the bottom--a signal to the driver to dash for it. The horses sprang but were brought back upon their haunches. Beatrice spoke to Danbury.

"Wait. Not yet," she pleaded as he raised his weapon.

It was almost like Providence; a shout from across the street which grew in volume until it drowned out all other cries. Then a rush in that direction which was followed blindly by every man of them. In a few seconds the carriage was deserted. Danbury rose to his feet and looked out. He almost lost his breath as he saw Stubbs, Wilson, and a girl, the center of a thousand excited men. The girl, white-cheeked, turned a moment in his direction. He was dumbfounded. Then he caught the cry, "Down with the traitors!"

The cry was taken up and voiced by a hundred throats. He saw Stubbs thrust his fists in the faces of the crowding men,--saw him fight them back until his own blood boiled with the desire to stand by his side.

But the driver had whipped up the horses again and the carriage was taking him away--out of danger to her. In spite of the look of quick relief he saw in the face of Beatrice, he felt almost like a deserter.

It was what Stubbs took to be a return of the bad luck which had pursued him from childhood--this chance which led the three into the city at such a time as this. They had thought of nothing when they rose early that morning but of pushing through as soon as possible to Bogova. Wilson felt that it was high time that the girl reached civilization even as crude as it was in that city, with some of its comforts. The hardships were beginning to show in her thin cheeks and in dark rings below her eyes. The outskirts of the city told them nothing and so they trudged along with joyous hearts intent only upon finding decent lodgings. They had not even the warning of a shout for what was awaiting them. The upper street had been empty and they had turned sharply into this riot as though it were a trap set to await them.

Both men were quick to understand the situation and both realized that it meant danger. But Stubbs was the first to shake himself free. He recognized the crew at the head of the motley army. It roused his ire as nothing else could. Instantly he felt himself again their master.

They were still only so many mutinous sailors. He turned upon them with the same fierceness which once had sent them cowering into the hold.

"Ye yaller dogs," he roared. "Get back! Get back!"

They obeyed--even though they stood at the head of a thousand men, they obeyed. Once these fellows admitted a man their master, he remained so for all time. They shrank before his fists and dodged the muzzle of his revolver as though they were once again within the confines of a ship. In a minute he had cleared a circle.

"Now," shouted Stubbs, "tell 'em we're through with their two-cent revolution. Tell 'em we're 'Mericans--jus' plain 'Mericans. Tell 'em thet and thet I'll put a bullet through the first man that lays a hand on one of us. Splinter, ye blackguard,--tell 'em that! Tell 'em that!"

Through a Carlinian lieutenant who understood English, Splinter made the leaders understand something of what Stubbs had said. They demurred and growled and shouted their protests. But Splinter added a few words of his own and they became quieter.

"Huh?" exploded Stubbs, impatiently; "perhaps some of 'em 'members me.

Tell 'em we're goin' home, an' tell 'em thet when a 'Merican is bound fer home it don't pay fer ter try ter stop him. Tell 'em we ain't goneter wait--we're goin' now."

He turned to Wilson.

"Come on," he commanded. Throwing up his arms he pressed back the men before him as a policeman brushes aside so many small boys. Whether it was the sheer a.s.surance of the man, whether it was his evident control over their allies, or whether it was all over before they had time to think, they retreated and left a clear path for him.

"You boys guard our rear," he shouted back to Splinter, "and when we're outer sight ye can go ter h.e.l.l."

Obedient to the command, the small band of mercenaries took their place behind the three retreating figures. The latter made their way across the street without hurrying and without sign of fear. They turned a corner and so disappeared from sight. The army paused a moment. Then someone raised a new cry and it moved on, in three minutes forgetting the episode.

Stubbs at the corner found himself in the arms of an excited man, who, revolver in hand, had run back to meet him.