IV
AN OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
The bathroom door opened slowly, with the slightest perceptible knock.
"May I come in?" was the low and meek inquiry.
"You may, and then you may go out as soon as possible," was theresolute response.
Warren's countenance was smiling again, and the smile was infectious.So curious had been this burglarizing method of escape, so unusual theimperturbable girl who had assisted him against all conventionalexpectations, that the horror of the last half-hour was partiallydissipated. When a man meets a great crisis of his life and overcomesit, there is a queer relaxation of strained nerves,--with a woman theresult would be hysteria; with a man of Warren Jarvis' type it was aself-surprising amiability and calmness.
"Would you mind bolting the door again? He might return. And thank youvery much for delaying the death sentence--now I can explain."
The girl glided to the door and tested the lock. It was secure, and sheturned about to return that infectious smile of the eyes, albeitgrudgingly.
Warren, finally realizing that he was weak from strain, and aching inevery muscle from the ordeal of the past twenty-four hours, lookedappealing at the comfortable armchair.
"May I sit down for just a minute?" he pleaded. "I have not slept sincethe night before last. I have not rested for a fortnight."
The girl nodded. He relaxed, and dropped into a blessed position ofcomfort. He buried his face in his hands--how many times had he struckthis same attitude since the bitter days at Meadow Green, withoutrealizing the repetition!
For two minutes or an hour he sat there--he knew not which. Hiscompanion, with sudden renewal of consciousness of the _deshabille_ ofher dressing-gown, retreated to the corner of the brass bed. She satdown, to scrutinize the better this strange intruder. The moonlightwhich fell in pale green bars across the Bokhara beneath her slipperedfeet; the melodramatic situation which had brought them together; theunmistakable gentility of this compelling intruder of her maidenlydomain; the curious collapse of his aggressiveness--all these thingsunited to cast a sympathetic spell over her. She was foolish--to theextreme of placing herself in a ridiculous situation! She wasculpable--in protecting a self-confessed butcher! She was weak--inyielding to girlish sentiment by permitting this man to shatter theconventionalities,--she who had been accustomed, throughout her twentyyears of adulation and awe-inspiring respect, to a servile respect fromevery man, woman, and child! And, worst of all to an essentiallyfeminine mind, she had allowed this presumptuous, calculating strangerto override her better judgment, to subjugate her resistance, without avisible tribute to the charms which had stirred the masculine souls ofa continent!
And yet, in spite of--perhaps, _because of_--all these illogical,provoking, equilibrium-shattering irritants--she sat there, patiently,eagerly awaiting an explanation. Consistency, thy name is notMaidenhood!
Suddenly he looked at her.
"Do you know what a feud is?" was the curious prologue.
Her answer was apt and surprising.
"Feud? Spain is the garden of feuds."
"So is Kentucky. That's where I'm from. You're Spanish, then?"
"Yes!"
"Then you'll understand and sympathize.... Those shots you heard endeda feud which has lived through three or four generations. They broughtme back to earth, to life, to a realization of things about me, afterthe most horrible nightmare through which I've ever passed. I know myown name now,--and I had almost forgotten it since I went back home--soshort a time, so many centuries ago!"
Then Warren Jarvis told her the story; his eyes were half closed, andwith his fingers clasped and intertwined beneath his square-chiseledchin he recounted the steps of the recent event with the monotone ofone who chants a mechanically memorized tale. She understood at last.
"But what did he do when you went to his room in the hotel?"
"Just what I expected--in fact, what I prayed for! As the door openedhe fired his revolver--and I carry the witness inside this crimsonhandkerchief. I had my own weapon in my coat pocket ... it's a trick Ilearned in Central American revolutions. I fired from my waist, burneda hole in my overcoat--and burned a hole in the heart of that murderoushound."
Suddenly he sprang to his feet and walked to the window, just as he haddone back in Meadow Green so short a time before.
"Dad, dear old dad! I know you're satisfied. I let him take the firstchance, and it was his last."
He was silent. The girl twisted the dressing-gown in her slender,nervous fingers. She waited for him to speak. He turned about, anddropped his hands, palm outward, as he quietly ended it all with thequestion: "Now, can you understand why the law would not give mejustice?"
"Is he dead--are you sure?"
"I didn't wait--I came ... to ... visit you. Now are you going to driveme out?... You don't know what it is to fight single-handed againstfearful odds. That's how I planned to spend my summer. To fight theendless fight alone...."
She leaned forward eagerly as she answered: "Oh, yes, I do! I know whatit means.... I, too, have been fighting against fearful odds!"
Jarvis looked at her sharply.
"There is no man to fight for you?"
"No man who dares."
"Oh, God! If there had only been a woman left for me to fight for!...But with my mother gone it was simply a hopeless, desperatedetermination to square the score at any cost, and then cry 'Quits!'and care nothing."
She drew back, studying the outline of his agile body, as he stoodsilhouetted against the moonlight.
"And are you alone?"
"Alone."
"And if you're caught," there was a curious eagerness in her low voice,"it means payment with your life?"
"Yes!"
"Suppose that I decided to help you--to do more than I have done?"
Jarvis discarded his fatalism, as he caught at this loophole.
"What do you mean?"
"You have no fear of death? You are not afraid of ghosts?"
"Ghosts? Don't joke with me. I am an American."
"Yes--ghosts--they are not confined to America, or China, or Africa. Imean Spanish ghosts."
Jarvis' laugh was almost bitter, as he responded with a tenseearnestness:
"After to-night I am not afraid of the living or the dead. What are youthinking about?"
After a hesitation, poignant in its baffling anxiety, she rose andwalked toward him, absolutely forgetful of their curious meeting andtheir lack of a common ground of interest.
"If you escape from here, it will be because I helped you. We mightsay, I saved your life,--if what you tell me is true and if I do itfrom a selfish motive entirely, I am justified. I have work for you ...hard, dangerous work, and as I am frank, it may mean your life in theend. It's a chance, and you have nothing to lose."
"And if I agree?"
"You will begin by taking the ancient feudal oath of my country."
"Isn't my word enough? I'm a Kentuckian, you know."
"But I insist."
Jarvis smiled indulgently.
"Very well--I'll swear the blackest oath you can utter." His eyestwinkled. "Let's hear it all now."
The girl drew back her shoulders haughtily. It was apparent that shetook this curious idea more seriously than the prelude would suggest.
"What is your name?"
"Jarvis."
"All of it?"
"Warren Jarvis."
She raised her hands, to the Kentuckian's surprise.
"Kneel then, Warren of Jarvis!... No, not that way,--on one knee only!"
"I beg your pardon." Jarvis began to feel ridiculous, in spite ofhimself. But there were reasons for humoring this curious beauty. Thefootsteps were still audible in the hall.
"Now repeat this oath: I, Warren of Jarvis" (he followed word forword), "Senor of all the domains, fiefs, keeps, and marches of Warrenof Kentucky..."
"Whew!" and he stifled a laugh as he echoed the words.
The girl continued: "Do convey to Maria Ther
esa, of Aragon, all myworldly titles and possessions..."
"Sounds like I were marrying her--I beg your pardon. 'Do convey toMaria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions!'"
The shade of a smile played over his features.
The girl caught his hand in hers, placed her left in both of his, andthen continued: "And receive them back as vassal and retainer and tofaithfully fight in my lady's cause, according to the feudal laws ofCastile and Aragon!"
--"_and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause_"]
As he finished the repetition, she added: "Arise, vassal!"
With the spirit of the ceremony, he jestingly caught her hand andkissed it, as he arose. She drew back sharply.
"That is part of the ceremony, but I meant to omit it."
Warren Jarvis laughed provokingly.
"That seemed to me the only sensible part of it--again I beg yourpardon. But who on earth is this Maria Theresa of Aragon person whosehired man I have become?"
The girl drew herself up with a hauteur which could never have beenimitated upon the stage. Her dark eyes glinted coldly as she replied:"I--I am her Serene Highness--Maria Theresa--Princess of Aragon!"
Jarvis looked at her, waiting for the cue to the joke. She was serious.It was all so unreal, so ridiculous--and yet back there on the floor ofthe room down the corridor lay Jim Marcum. This mad, sad,heart-rending, adventure must have driven him to insanity. He rubbedhis brow, looked out of the window, heard the unromantic honk-honk of apiratical night-owl taxicab on the street so far below. He steadied hismental equilibrium, and looked again at the self-possessed young woman,whose regal manner was as convincing as all the other details wereunconvincing. On the table lay a fortune in jewels and rings and anecklace. He had not noticed them before. He remembered the Spanishconversation which he had heard through the bathroom door. He realizedfrom the size and elegance of the rooms that this must indeed be aregal suite in the great hotel.
And the girl's steady look never wavered.
American humor, in the presence of royalty, came to his aid in thisstaggering blow to his credence.
"Good-_night_! You a Princess ... and I've been ordering you aroundwith a gun! Great Scott ... what _next_?"
The Ghost Breaker: A Novel Based Upon the Play Page 4