He would not lose sight of her now; of the poor young prisoner and the band which had carried her off by force; and her release would be a matter of twenty-four hours, the time which it would take him to inform the authorities at New Wachter. Nothing could be more simple. With this object he asked to see the proprietor, one Otto, a German-Swiss, a heavy-witted man who always seemed half asleep; so much so that to rouse him fully nothing was so effective as to prove to him that in those difficult times, when paper money had assumed a world-wide significance, one did not travel without a purse well lined with monetary devices which did not come from the printing presses of Vienna or Moscow.
Nevertheless, the man gave his visitor to understand that it would be impossible to disturb these gentlemen until the morning. A grievous piece of ill-luck! Rouletabille none the less took his precautions so that these “gentry” should be told as soon as possible. Meantime, he would have to rely upon himself, as usual.
Callista and Andréa’s arrival in the gipsy camp, which he knew was imminent, did not disturb him over much. They, too, were bound to be easy in their minds on his account; they must believe him “badly knocked about” after the incident in the train, perhaps dead, reduced to a mass of flesh and blood by the following train. At all events, they would assume that they had shaken him off for some time.
Rouletabille put on his clothes and loaded his revolver. He took care not to press on his left foot which once more began to hurt him, and he discovered with dismay that, short of hobbling on one foot, he would be unable to get to the camp which he intended to keep under close observation.
Just then the young goat-herd who had helped him to reach the inn passed his window. He called him and made him understand that he would pay him well if he would keep a sharp look out on the gipsies’ movements, and come and tell him when they started their preparations to break camp. He felt almost safe on this side. He massaged his foot and bandaged it tightly. It was at this moment that the inn echoed with the blows which some traveller was raining on the door.
He crept to the window and looked out.... The man who was shaking the door was wrapped in a great cloak and his face was hidden in a wide-brimmed felt hat. Rouletabille gave a start. A sure instinct warned him that the stranger’s nocturnal arrival was not unconnected with the tragedy which had brought him, too, to New Wachter. He collected all his strength and went downstairs. As a matter of fact, after his foot was bandaged he could use it, and the pain was not more than he could bear. On the other hand the dressing with which the old witch had rubbed it was beginning to take effect. His shoulder was much easier and he could now move his arm.... Witches have their uses!
He descended the stairs and entered the public room as the proprietor carrying a lamp, opened the door after parleying with the man outside. The newcomer’s face could be clearly seen: it was Hubert de Lauriac.
Hardly believing his eyes, Rouletabille drew back into the shadow. Otto put the lamp on the table and closed the door. De Lauriac seemed worn out with fatigue. He sank into a chair, threw down his hat and exclaimed:
“Give me something to eat.”
Otto made answer in a mixture of bad French and bad German that it was very late and he could only provide him with a few scraps.
De Lauriac fell upon them, and when his hunger was appeased, asked:
“Have these gipsies been in the place long?”
“A couple of days,” returned Otto, “and I wish the devil would take the whole lot of them. They prevent me from sleeping at night.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m afraid they’ll rob me. These people stick at nothing. Still, I must admit that up to now they’ve paid for everything they’ve taken.”
“What are they doing here?”
“You should ask them yourself. They don’t blab much.”
“I’ll tell you what they’re doing here,” said a voice from the darkness.
De Lauriac turned his head in the direction of the voice, and Rouletabille stepped forward with outstretched hand:
“How are you, Monsieur de Lauriac?”
De Lauriac shot up as if he had received an electric “You!... You here!”
“Well, you are here. Why shouldn’t I be here?” returned Rouletabille, drawing up a stool to the table and ordering a bottle of hock: “Rudesheimer, and the best you’ve got!”
While Otto went down to the cellar, Rouletabille said to de Lauriac:
“You made a mistake, Monsieur de Lauriac, not to take the hand that I offered you just now, because we are friends, or at least we shall become friends. Would you like me to tell you what these gipsies are here for?”
‘-That’s not necessary,” returned de Lauriac in a hoarse voice, a look of hostility in his eyes. “I know why.”
“And, doubtless, that’s why we are having the pleasure of meeting here,” said Rouletabille with his most ingratiating smile.
“The pleasure is entirely on your side,” retorted de Lauriac with a bear-like grunt.
Rouletabille burst out laughing.
“You are so bad tempered that you won’t let me touch you with my hands or even with a pair of tongs, here or anywhere else. What a grudge you must have against me!”
“It was you who had me ‘touched’ with the handcuffs,” he rapped out.” I can’t forget that.”
“That’s obvious. But as to the handcuffs, remember that it was I who had them taken off, Monsieur de Lauriac. Come, play the game. We are both of us here with the same object. We are pursuing the same goal. You for your own sake and I for my friend Jean’s sake. Let us join forces — that’s the best thing we can do. First of all, it is to our interest to deliver Odette from the hands of those brigands. That outweighs every other consideration. Afterwards we can talk. What do you say?”
Just then the proprietor came in with the hock, and his dog could be heard barking outside.
“I believe it’s those cursed gipsies prowling round my rabbit hutches,” he said.
He walked over to the window, opened it, and looked out upon the impenetrable darkness, which had once more relapsed into silence.
“Leave the window open, the room is stifling,” said Rouletabille.
The man lit a lantern:
“Excuse me, I’m going to have a look round.”
“Well?” questioned Rouletabille, when Otto had left the room.
“Well,” returned de Lauriac, “I’ve thought it over. It’s a bargain.”
He had reflected, chiefly, that he could not do other than accept Rouletabille’s proposition. Obviously both were embarrassed by meeting in that place when each hoped to arrive alone; but, after all, their temporary alliance would have the immediate advantage of enabling them to keep an eye on each other.
“Then we are friends,” said Rouletabille, offering his hand once more.
“Friends,” echoed de Lauriac, shaking hands.
“I say, how is it that you are here?” asked Rouletabille, greatly perplexed, for according to his calculations and inferences de Lauriac should have been on the direct rode to Sever Turn.
“Well, and what about you?” retorted de Lauriac, who, despite his protestations of friendship, had no intention of giving himself away.
“Look here,” went on Rouletabille, “don’t let us try it on with each other. I should get the better of you. You are clever enough to know that as well as I do. We must both feel certain that we shan’t do any good if we cross each other. The gipsies would reap the advantage.”
“Pooh!” returned the other with an air of indifference. “What can they do now that we have come up with them? They will have to hand Mademoiselle de Lavardens over to us. I shall inform the authorities first thing in the morning.”
“That’s unnecessary. I have already sent to New Wachter,” broke in Rouletabille. “All the same, don’t make any mistake. The matter will not be so easy, perhaps, as you think, and I will at once tell you why. First, it’s the business of these gipsies to trick the police, and th
en we shall be up against two persons whom you have evidently left out of consideration.”
“Who are they?”
“Andréa and Callista.”
“Andréa and Callista!” cried de Lauriac. “Why, I thought they were in prison.”
I helped them to escape.”
“You? But why did you do such a thing? Have you forgotten that they swore to see Odette dead before they gave her up?”
“I did so because I wanted them to show me the road by which they were taking her.”
“Then you followed them?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Now, that’s too bad.”
“Hang it all, it’s not at all bad,” said Rouletabille modestly. “And now that I’ve told you everything, it’s your turn to speak out. You started to go to Sever Turn, didn’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“By a process of deduction. Oh, don’t be so inordinately surprised, and try to realize that what I don’t know now I shall find out to-morrow. So it’s not worth wasting time, is it?”
De Lauriac gazed at Rouletabille for a moment in silence. Such a display of self-assurance somewhat disconcerted him. Was he speaking seriously? At last he made up his mind.
“Well, I have no objection to tell you that I did in fact set out for Sever Turn with the object of seeing the Patriarch, whom I know. You will be aware that the Patriarch of Transylvania is the chief religious dignitary, and even, if one may say so, the political head of the entire Romany race. At all events, the great majority of gipsies regard him as such. The position held by him invests him with exceptional authority. There is scarcely a Tsigane who does not, at least once in his life, make the pilgrimage to Sever Turn, just as there is scarcely a Mohammedan who does not long to see Mecca before he dies. Indeed, the Patriarch being all-powerful over these fanatics, a word from him might do a great deal. I intended to beseech him to intervene on behalf of Mademoiselle de Lavardens, pointing out the danger of this reckless act of abduction, and the unfortunate effect which it might have, for the Romanys, throughout Europe.”
“Excellent! I follow you,” interrupted Rouletabille with the gravity of a priest. “I know now the reasons why you set out for Sever Turn. And then?...”
“And then when I was within a day’s march of Sever Turn I met a gipsy on horseback who was coming away from it. He seemed very fatigued after the distance covered by him. We stopped at an inn and fell into conversation. I must tell you that to get to Sever Turn, and pass through territory which knew to be deliberately hostile to aliens, I put on an old suit of gipsy clothes.”
“A wise precaution,” said Rouletabille. “I can see that you know how to travel.”
“In spite of his fatigue, this man was in a state of religious frenzy and he invited me to rejoice with him. He told me that the time was at hand when Sever Turn would have its young queen. I let him talk, listening but absent-mindedly to his fanatical tirade. Then he mentioned two names which startled me: Andréa and Callista. He asked me if I knew Andréa. I answered that I certainly knew him, for he was a good friend of mine, and some years previously we had made the pilgrimage to Les Saintes Maries together. In short, I gained his confidence so completely that he told me that Andréa and Callista had been entrusted with the queyra whom they were bringing to Sever Turn.
“Thus the Patriarch had christened her whom they were seeking and whose coming they awaited — the messenger of God.... The queyra means in gipsy parlance the Messiah. In short, the high priest had appointed this gipsy to convey certain secret instructions to Andréa and Callista at New Wachter, where they would certainly be in camp for the time being.”
“So they did not know at the Patriarchate of the arrest of these two people?”
“That is my impression. But what I cannot describe, I assure you, is the state of mind into which I was thrown by this man’s confidences. Remembering Andréa and Callista’s admissions, I could not doubt for a moment that the girl whom these brigands of gipsies were carrying off to Sever Turn was Mademoiselle de Lavardens. But then, how explain this story about a young queen. De Lavardens’ daughter the queen of the gipsies! I was quite at a loss, and even now I can’t make it out.”
“Nor I,” said Rouletabille ingenuously. “The whole thing is extraordinary.”
“By the way, you were often at the Viei-Castou-Nou and must have seen Mademoiselle de Lavardens in evening dress, have you ever noticed any birth-mark on her shoulder?”
“I’ve never noticed any such mark,” declared Rouletabille. “But why do you ask?”
“Nothing — or rather for this reason. I call to mind that the gipsy — I left him to continue his journey alone, for I was bent on arriving here by another route before he did — I call to mind that he mentioned that Les Saintes Maries gipsies had discovered their young queen thanks to this birth-mark on the’ left shoulder. And that is why I asked you if you were certain that Mademoiselle de Lavardens bore no such mark.”
“None at all, I assure you. Her shoulder is as white as snow; at least as far as a young girl’s low-necked dress enables me to say positively. But between ourselves, I imagine that a birth-mark on the shoulder would not suffice to transform the heiress of the de Lavardens’ into a gipsy.”
“I can only repeat what that man in his excitement told me.”
“You were quite right, monsieur, because this extraordinary story at least shows the necessity of rescuing Mademoiselle de Lavardens from this band of fanatics without loss of time.”
“Of course,” returned de Lauriac, becoming suddenly wrapped in thought.
Just then the barking of the dogs broke out again. Rouletabille crept to the window and gazed into the darkness of the night, already beginning to lift.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH OLAJAÏ IS SORRY FOR TALKING TOO MUCH
ZINA TOOK ADVANTAGE of Callista’s temporary absence from the gipsy camp to proceed to the caravan, where she found Odette in tears, trembling with fear and dismayed by the unexpected appearance of the two gipsies. What was happening? Why had Andrea and Callista rejoined them? What new danger menaced her?
Before her eyes there flashed the vision of the scene in the cave, and the upraised knife with which Callista so cruelly threatened her.
Zina took her in her arms, covered her hands with kisses, seeking to comfort her, vowing that her life was sacred and no one would dare to touch a hair of her head. Had she to complain of any ill-treatment since she had been with them? Were they not all, on the contrary, at her feet, as they were at the feet of Saint Sarah? Had they not done their utmost to divert her thoughts in the evening with dancing and the music of songs and guitars? Was she not their young queen?
“Don’t cry. Don’t cry. A great surprise awaits you in a new land.... Every door will be open to you, and every head bow down before you....”
They both spoke at the same time. Odette answered Zina’s caresses by flying out at her and repeating for the thousandth time that she wanted to go back to Lavardens. But the old witch continued her soothsaying in a state of exaltation which rendered her insensible to the child’s outbursts.
Suddenly she rose from her tripod, for Callista’s voice could be heard, and the tumult broke out anew round the caravan. Entreating Odette not to budge, Zina went outside.
Odette at once ran to her observatory, and ventured to open slightly the small window, hoping that she might catch a word or two which would disclose the meaning of this unwonted excitement among the gipsies.
In her heart of hearts she thought that some attempt was being made to rescue her. That was her one insistent thought, the thought that caused her to wake with a start in the night and give ear to the mysterious sounds of the countryside. Oh, when would she awake from this horrible nightmare!... And then suddenly a word, a name, uttered by gipsy lips, fell on her ears:
“Rouletabille!”
In her astonishment a cry broke in her throat.
Rouletabille! Rouletabille! She was no
longer trembling with fear but with hope. Rouletabille!
The name was repeated quite near her by Callista, who was holding a stormy consultation with Andréa and Sumbalo. The latter had given orders for the camp to be struck, and every caravan warned of the danger with which their precious child was menaced.
Callista argued with the old chief of the tribe in language which Odette did not understand, that he ought not to stir, for if they all fled they were lost, since they would be overtaken. They numbered in that forest a hundred persons all told, and could not expect to get away unperceived, especially by Rouletabille.
Callista, put on her guard by Zina, had been lurking near the inn, and recognized standing at the window of the low room their most formidable enemy..., Therefore, they would never be able to shake him off!... In a few hours, perhaps at daybreak, he would be there, having made all his arrangements to spirit Odette away.
There was but one method of saving themselves from the danger, and that was to show that they could be more cunning than Rouletabille himself. And to do this, there was but one course to take; old Sumbalo and the entire tribe must resolutely remain where they were while she, Callista, and Andréa made off with Odette concealed in another caravan, which would have the start of him and travel only by night. They must not waste a moment. The camp was even now, perhaps, under observation.
Sumbalo was at last persuaded and gave fresh orders, which, however, the gipsies accepted much against their will and after many protests. Some of them indulged in threats and cries of rage. At length a fresh incident caused a general outburst of fury.
Olajai, availing himself of Andréa’s inattention, had slipped away. Andréa noticed it just as Rouletabille’s former servant was stealthily leaving the circle illuminated by the fires.
He swore an oath and shouted: “Olajai! “and Callista grasped the situation. Both rushed after him, followed by others. They would have to recapture their hypocritical brother at all costs.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 119