The Dark Star

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XXX

  JARDIN RUSSE

  At midnight the two young men had not yet parted. For, as Sengounexplained, the hour for parting was already past, and it was too lateto consider it now. And Neeland thought so, too, what with thelaughter and the music, and the soft night breezes to counsel folly,and the city's haunting brilliancy stretching away in bewitchingperspectives still unexplored.

  From every fairy lamp the lustrous capital signalled to youth herinvitation, her challenge, and her menace. Like some jewelledsorceress--some dreaming Circe by the river bank, pondering newspells--so Paris lay in all her mystery and beauty under the Julystars.

  Sengoun, his arm through Neeland's, had become affectionatelyconfidential. He explained that he really was a nocturnal creature;that now he had completely waked up; that his habits were due to apassion for astronomy, and that the stars he had discovered at oddhours of the early morning were more amazing than any celestial bodiesever before identified.

  But Neeland, whose head and heart were already occupied, declined tostudy any constellations; and they drifted through the bluish lustreof white arc-lights and the clustered yellow glare of incandescentlamps toward a splash of iridescent glory among the chestnut trees,where music sounded and tables stood amid flowers and grass and littleslender fountains which balanced silver globes upon their jets.

  The waiters were in Russian peasant dress; the orchestra was Russiangipsy; the bill of fare was Russian; and there was only champagne tobe had.

  Balalaika orchestra and spectators were singing some evidentlyfamiliar song--one of those rushing, clattering, clashing choruses ofthe Steppes; and Sengoun sang too, with all his might, when he andNeeland were seated, which was thirsty work.

  Two fascinating Russian gipsy girls were dancing--slim, tawny, supplecreatures in their scarlet and their jingling bangles. After adeafening storm of applause, their flashing smiles swept the audience,and, linking arms, they sauntered off between the tables under thetrees.

  "I wish to dance," remarked Sengoun. "My legs will kick over somethingif I don't."

  They were playing an American dance--a sort of skating step; peoplerose; couple after couple took the floor; and Sengoun looked aroundfor a partner. He discovered no eligible partner likely to favour himwithout a quarrel with her escort; and he was debating with Neelandwhether a row would be worth while, when the gipsy girls saunteredby.

  "Oh," he said gaily, "a pretty Tzigane can save my life if she will!"

  And the girls laughed and Sengoun led one of them out at a recklesspace.

  The other smiled and looked at Neeland, and, seating herself, leanedon the table watching the whirl on the floor.

  "Don't you dance?" she asked, with a sidelong glance out of hersplendid black eyes.

  "Yes; but I'm likely to do most of my dancing on your pretty feet."

  "_Merci!_ In that case I prefer a cigarette."

  She selected one from his case, lighted it, folded her arms on thetable, and continued to gaze at the dancers.

  "I'm tired tonight," she remarked.

  "You dance beautifully."

  "Thank you."

  Sengoun, flushed and satisfied, came back with his gipsy partner whenthe music ceased.

  "Now I hope we may have some more singing!" he exclaimed, as theyseated themselves and a waiter filled their great, bubble-shapedglasses.

  And he did sing at the top of his delightful voice when the balalaikasswept out into a ringing and familiar song, and the two gipsy girlssang, too--laughed and sang, holding the frosty goblets high in thesparkling light.

  It was evident to Neeland that the song was a favourite one withRussians. Sengoun was quite overcome; they all touched goblets.

  "Brava, my little Tziganes!" he said with happy emotion. "My littlecompatriots! My little tawny panthers of the Caucasus! What do youcall yourselves in this bandbox of a country where two steps backwardtake you across any frontier?"

  His dancing partner laughed till her sequins jingled from throat toankle:

  "They call us Fifi and Nini," she replied. "Ask yourself why!"

  "For example," added the other girl, "we rise from this table andthank you. There is nothing further. _C'est fini--c'estFifi--Nini--comprenez-vous, Prince Erlik?_"

  "Hi! What?" exclaimed Sengoun. "I'm known, it appears, even to thatdevilish name of mine!"

  Everybody laughed.

  "After all," he said, more soberly, "it's a gipsy's trade to knoweverybody and everything. _Tiens!_" He slapped a goldpiece on thetable. "A kiss apiece against a louis that you don't know my comrade'sname and nation!"

  The girl called Nini laughed:

  "We're quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but a _louis d'or_ isnot a copper penny. And your comrade is American and his name isTchames."

  "James!" exclaimed Sengoun.

  "I said so--Tchames."

  "What else?"

  "Nilan."

  "Neeland?"

  "I said so."

  Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini's hand and looked at Neeland withan uncomfortable laugh.

  "I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish me, these Tziganes.Tell us some more, Nini----" He beckoned a waiter and pointedindignantly at the empty goblets.

  The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed their faces withslim and dusky hands, and gazed at Sengoun out of humorous,half-veiled eyes.

  "What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?" they asked mockingly.

  "Well, for example, is my country really mobilising?"

  "Since the twenty-fifth."

  "_Tiens!_ And old Papa Kaiser and the Clown Prince Footit--what dothey say to that?"

  "It must be stopped."

  "What! _Sang dieu!_ We must stop mobilising against the Austrians?But we are not going to stop, you know, while Francis Joseph continuesto pull faces at poor old Servian Peter!"

  Neeland said:

  "The evening paper has it that Austria is more reasonable and that theServian affair can be arranged. There will be no war," he addedconfidently.

  "There will be war," remarked Nini with a shrug of her bare, brownshoulders over which her hair and her gilded sequins fell in a brightmass.

  "Why?" asked Neeland, smiling.

  "Why? Because, for one thing, you have brought war into Europe!"

  "Come, now! No mystery!" said Sengoun gaily. "Explain how my comradehas brought war into Europe, you little fraud!"

  Nini looked at Neeland:

  "What else except papers was in the box you lost?" she asked coolly.

  Neeland, very red and uncomfortable, gazed back at the girl withoutreplying; and she laughed at him, showing her white teeth.

  "You brought the Yellow Devil into Europe, M'sieu Nilan! Erlik, theYellow Demon. When he travels there is unrest. Where he rests there iswar!"

  "You're very clever," retorted Neeland, quite out of countenance.

  "Yes, we are," said Fifi, with her quick smile. "And who but M'sieuNilan should admit it?"

  "Very clever," repeated Neeland, still amazed and profoundly uneasy."But this Yellow Devil you say I brought into Europe must have beenresting in America, then. And, if so, why is there no war there?"

  "There would have been--with Mexico. You brought the Yellow Demonhere, but just in time!"

  "All right. Grant that, then. But--perhaps he was a long time restingin America. What about that, pretty gipsy?"

  The girl shrugged again:

  "Is your memory so poor, M'sieu Nilan? What has your country done butfight since Erlik rested among your people? You fought in Samoa; inHawaii; your warships went to Chile, to Brazil, to San Domingo; theblood of your soldiers and sailors was shed in Hayti, in Cuba, in thePhilippines, in China----"

  "Good Lord!" exclaimed Neeland. "That girl is dead right!"

  Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed without restraint;and the gipsies laughed, too, their beautiful eyes and teeth flashingunder their black cascades of unbound hair.

  "Show me your palms," sai
d Nini, and drew Sengoun's and Neeland'shands across the table, holding them in both of hers.

  "See," she added, nudging Fifi with her shoulder, "both of them bornunder the Dark Star! It is war they shall live to see--war!"

  "Under the Dark Star, Erlik," repeated the other girl, looking closelyinto the two palms, "and there is war there!"

  "And death?" inquired Sengoun gaily. "I don't care, if I can lead a_sotnia_ up Achi-Baba and twist the gullet of the Padisha before I sayFifi--Nini!"

  The gipsies searched his palm with intent and brilliant gaze.

  "_Zut!_" said Fifi. "_Je ne vois rien que d'l'amour et la guerre auxdames!_"

  "_T'en fais pas!_" laughed Sengoun. "I ask no further favour ofFortune; I'll manage my regiment myself. And, listen to me, Fifi," headded with a frightful frown, "if the war you predict doesn't arrive,I'll come back and beat you as though you were married to a Turk!"

  While they still explored his palm, whispering together at intervals,Sengoun caught the chorus of the air which the orchestra was playing,and sang it lustily and with intense pleasure to himself.

  Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual strangers knewabout his own and intimate affairs, had become silent and almostglum.

  But the slight gloom which invaded him came from resentment towardthose people who had followed him from Brookhollow to Paris, and who,in the very moment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction fromhim.

  He thought of Kestner and of Breslau--of Scheherazade, and theterrible episode in her stateroom.

  Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow house, there wasnothing in his subsequent conduct on which he could plume himself. Hecould not congratulate himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carriedhim through as far as the rue Soleil d'Or--mere chance, and thatcapricious fortune which sometimes convoys the stupid, fatuous, andastigmatic.

  Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom, an intense desire todistinguish himself began to burn.

  If there were any way on earth to trace that accursed box----

  He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies, who had relinquishedSangoun's hand and who were still conversing together in low toneswhile Sangoun beat time on the jingling table top and sang joyouslyat the top of his baritone voice:

  "Eh, zoum--zoum--zoum! Boum--boum--boum! Here's to the Artillery Gaily riding by! Fetch me a distillery, Let me drink it dry-- Fill me full of sillery! Here's to the artillery! Zoum--zoum--zoum! Boum--boum--boum!"

  "Fifi!"

  "_M'sieu?_"

  "You're so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?"

  "Pouf!" giggled Fifi. "On its way to Berlin, _pardie_!"

  "That's easy to say. Tell me something else more expensive."

  Nini said, surprised:

  "What we know is free to Prince Erlik's friend. Did you think we sellto Russians?"

  "I don't know anything about you or where you get your information,"said Neeland. "I suppose you're in the Secret Service of the RussianGovernment."

  "_Mon ami_, Nilan," said Fifi, smiling, "we should feel lonely_outside_ the Secret Service. Few in Europe are outside--few in theworld, fewer in the half-world. As for us Tziganes, who belong toneither, the business of everybody becomes our secret to sell for asilver piece--but _not_ to Russians in the moment of peril!... Nor totheir comrades.... What do you desire to know, _comrade_?"

  "Anything," he said simply, "that might help me to regain what I havelost."

  "And what do you suppose!" exclaimed Fifi, opening her magnificentblack eyes very wide. "Did you imagine that nobody was paying anyattention to what happened in the rue Soleil d'Or this noon?"

  Nini laughed.

  "The word flew as fast as the robber's taxicab. How many thousandsecret friends to the Triple Entente do you suppose knew of it half anhour after it happened? From the Trocadero to Montparnasse, from thePoint du Jour to Charenton, from the Bois to the Bievre, the wordflew. Every taxicab, omnibus, _sapin_, every _bateau-mouche_, everytrain that left any terminal was watched.

  "Five embassies and legations were instantly under redoubledsurveillance; hundreds of cafes, bars, restaurants, _hotels_; all thetheatres, gardens, cabarets, _brasseries_.

  "Your pigs of Apaches are not neglected, _va_! But, to my idea, theygot out of Paris before we watchers knew of the affair at all--in anautomobile, perhaps--perhaps by rail. God knows," said the girl,looking absently at the dancing which had begun again. "But if we everlay our eyes on Minna Minti, we wear toys in our garters which willcertainly persuade her to take a little stroll with us."

  After a silence, Neeland said:

  "Is Minna Minti then so well known?"

  "Not at the Opera Comique," replied Fifi with a shrug, "but _since_then."

  "An _artiste_, that woman!" added Nini. "Why deny it? It appears thatshe has twisted more than one red button out of a broadcloth coat."

  "She'll get the Seraglio medal for this day's work," said Fifi.

  "Or the _croix-de-fer_," added Nini. "Ah, _zut_! She annoys me."

  "Did you ever hear of a place called the Cafe des Bulgars?" askedNeeland, carelessly.

  "Yes."

  "What sort of place is it?"

  "Like any other."

  "Quite respectable?"

  "Perfectly," said Nini, smiling. "One drinks good beer there."

  "Munich beer," added Fifi.

  "Then it is watched?" asked Neeland.

  "All German cafes are watched. Otherwise, it is not suspected."

  Sengoun, who had been listening, shook his head. "There's nothing tointerest us at the Cafe des Bulgars," he said. Then he summoned awaiter and pointed tragically at the empty goblets.