Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  We had stopped, by a mutual impulse, at the head of the stone stairway.

  “Why do you shelter such a man as John Buckhurst?” I asked, abruptly.

  She raised her eyes to me with perfect composure.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I have come here from Paris to arrest him.”

  She bent her head thoughtfully and laid the tips of her fingers on the sculptured balustrade.

  “To me,” she said, “there’s no such thing as a political crime.”

  “It is not for a political crime that we want John Buckhurst,” I said, watching her. “It is for a civil outrage.”

  Her face was like marble; her hands tightened on the fretted carving. 48

  “What crime is he charged with?” she asked, without moving.

  “He is charged with being a common thief,” I said.

  Now there was color enough in her face, and to spare, for the blood-stained neck and cheek, and even the bare shoulder under the torn crape burned pink.

  “It is brutal to make such a charge!” she said. “It is shameful!—” her voice quivered. “It is not true! Monsieur, give me your word of honor that the government means what it says and nothing more!”

  “Madame,” I said, “I give my word of honor that no political crime is charged against that man.”

  “Will you pledge me your honor that if he answers satisfactorily to that false charge of theft, the government will let him go free?”

  “I will take it upon myself to do so,” said I. “But what in Heaven’s name is this man to you, madame? He is a militant anarchist, whose creed is not yours, whose propaganda teaches merciless violence, whose programme is terror. He is well known in the faubourgs; Belleville is his, and in the Château Rouge he has pointed across the river to the rich quarters, calling it the promised land! Yet here, at La Trappe, where your creed is peace and non-resistance, he is welcomed and harbored, he is deferred to, he is made executive head of a free commune which he has turned into a despotism ... for his own ends!”

  She was gazing at me with dilated eyes, hands holding tight to the balustrade.

  “Did you not know that?” I asked, astonished.

  “No,” she said.

  “You are not aware that John Buckhurst is the soul and centre of the Belleville Reds?”

  “It is — it is false!” she stammered.

  “No, madame, it is true. He wears a smug mask here; he has deceived you all.” 49

  She stood there, breathing rapidly, her head high.

  “John Buckhurst will answer for himself,” she said, steadily.

  “When, madame?”

  For answer she stepped across the hall and laid one hand against the blank stone wall. Then, reaching upward, she drew from between the ponderous blocks little strips of steel, colored like mortar, dropping them to the stone floor, where they rang out. When she had flung away the last one, she stepped back and set her frail shoulder to the wall; instantly a mass of stone swung silently on an unseen pivot, a yellow light streamed out, and there was a tiny chamber, illuminated by a lamp, and a man just rising from his chair.

  IV

  PRISONERS

  Instantly I recognized in him the insolent priest who had confronted me on my way to La Trappe that morning. I knew him, although now he was wearing neither robe nor shovel-hat, nor those square shoes too large to buckle closely over his flat insteps.

  And he knew me.

  He appeared admirably cool and composed, glancing at the Countess for an instant with an interrogative expression; then he acknowledged my presence by bowing almost humorously.

  “This is Monsieur Scarlett, of the Imperial Military Police,” said the Countess, in a clear voice, ending with that slightly rising inflection which demands an answer.

  “Mr. Buckhurst,” I said, “I am an Inspector of Military Police, and I cannot begin to tell you what a pleasure this meeting is to me.”

  “I have no doubt of that, monsieur,” said Buckhurst, in his smooth, almost caressing tones. “It, however, inconveniences me a great deal to cross the frontier to-day, even in your company, otherwise I should have surrendered with my confrères.”

  “But there is no question of your crossing the frontier, Mr. Buckhurst,” I said.

  His colorless eyes sought mine, then dropped. They were almost stone white in the lamp-light — white as his delicately chiselled face and hands. 51

  “Are we not to be exiled?” he asked.

  “You are not,” I said.

  “Am I not under arrest?”

  I stepped forward and placed him formally under arrest, touching him slightly on the shoulder. He did not move a muscle, yet, beneath the thin cloth of his coat I could divine a frame of iron.

  “Your creed is one of non-resistance to violence,” I said— “is it not?”

  “Yes,” he replied. I saw that gray ring around the pale pupil of his eyes contracting, little by little.

  “You have not asked me why I arrest you,” I suggested, “and, monsieur, I must ask you to step back from that table — quick! — don’t move! — not one finger!”

  For a second he looked into the barrel of my pistol with concentrated composure, then glanced at the table-drawer which he had jerked open. A revolver lay shining among the litter of glass tubes and papers in the drawer.

  The Countess, too, saw the revolver and turned an astonished face to my prisoner.

  “Who brought you here?” asked Buckhurst, quietly of me.

  “I did,” said the Countess, her voice almost breaking. “Tell this man and his government that you are ready to face every charge against your honor! There is a dreadful mistake; they — they think you are—”

  “A thief,” I interposed, with a smile. “The government only asks you to prove that you are not.”

  Slowly Buckhurst turned his eyes on the Countess; the faintest glimmer of white teeth showed for an instant between the gray lines that were his lips.

  “So you brought this man here?” he said. “Oh, I am glad to know it.”

  “Then you cannot be that same John Buckhurst who stands in the tribune of the Château Rouge and promises all Paris to his chosen people,” I remarked, smiling.

  “No,” he said, slowly, “I cannot be that man, nor can I—”

  “Stop! Stand back from that table!” I cried.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, coolly.

  “Madame,” said I, without taking my eyes from him, “in a community dedicated to peace, a revolver is an anachronism. So I think — if you move I will shoot you, Mr. Buckhurst! — so I think I had better take it, table-drawer and all—”

  “Stop!” said Buckhurst.

  “Oh no, I can’t stop now,” said I, cheerfully, “and if you attempt to upset that lamp you will make a sad mistake. Now walk to the door! Turn your back! Go slowly! — halt!”

  With the table-drawer under one arm and my pistol-hand swinging, I followed Buckhurst out into the hall.

  Daylight dazzled me; it must have affected Buckhurst, too, for he reached out to the stone balustrade and guided himself down the steps, five paces in front of me.

  Under the trees on the lawn, beside the driveway, I saw Dr. Delmont standing, big, bushy head bent thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back.

  Near him, Tavernier and Bazard were lifting a few boxes into a farm-wagon. The carriage from Trois-Feuilles was also there, a stumpy Alsatian peasant on the box. But there were yet no signs of the escort of gendarmes which had been promised me.

  As Buckhurst appeared, walking all alone ahead of me, Dr. Delmont looked up with a bitter laugh. “So they found you, too? Well, Buckhurst, this is too bad. They might have given you one more day on your experiments.” 53

  “What experiments?” I asked, glancing at the bottles and retorts in the table-drawer.

  “Nitrogen for exhausted soil,” said the Countess, quietly.

  I set the table-drawer on the grass, rested my pistol on my hip, and looked around at my p
risoners, who now were looking intently at me.

  “Gentlemen,” said I, “let me warn you not to claim comradeship with Mr. Buckhurst. And I will show you one reason why.”

  I picked up from the table-drawer a little stick about five inches long and held it up.

  “What is that, doctor? You don’t know? Oh, you think it might be some sample of fertilizer containing concentrated nitrogen? You are mistaken, it is not nitrogen, but nitro-glycerine.”

  Buckhurst’s face changed slightly.

  “Is it not, Mr. Buckhurst?” I asked.

  He was silent.

  “Would you permit me to throw this bit of stuff at your feet?” And I made a gesture.

  The superb nerve of the man was something to remember. He did not move, but over his face there crept a dreadful pallor, which even the others noticed, and they shrank away from him, shocked and amazed.

  “Here, gentlemen,” I continued, “is a box with a German label— ‘Oberlohe, Hanover.’ The silicious earth with which nitro-glycerine is mixed to make dynamite comes from Oberlohe, in Hanover.”

  I laid my pistol on the table, struck a match, and deliberately lighted my stick of dynamite. It burned quietly with a brilliant flame, and I laid it on the grass and let it burn out like a lump of Greek fire.

  “Messieurs,” I said, cocking and uncocking my pistol, “it is not because this man is a dangerous, political criminal and a maker of explosives that the government has sent me here to arrest him ... or kill him. It is because he is a common thief,... a thief who steals crucifixes,... like this one—”

  I brushed aside a pile of papers in the drawer and drew out a big gold crucifix, marvellously chiselled from a lump of the solid metal.... “A thief,” I continued, “who strips the diamonds from crucifixes,... as this has been stripped,... and who sells a single stone to a Jew in Strasbourg, named Fishel Cohen,... now in prison to confront our friend Buckhurst.”

  In the dead silence I heard Dr. Delmont’s heavy breathing. Tavernier gave a dry sob and covered his face with his thin hands. The young Countess stood motionless, frightfully white, staring at Buckhurst, who had folded his arms.

  Sylvia Elven touched her, but the Countess shook her off and walked straight to Buckhurst.

  “Look at me,” she said. “I have promised you my friendship, my faith and trust and support. And now I say to you, I believe in you. Tell them where that crucifix came from.”

  Buckhurst looked at me, long enough to see that the end of his rope had come. Then he slowly turned his deadly eyes on the girl before him.

  Scarlet to the roots of her hair, she stood there, utterly stunned. The white edges of Buckhurst’s teeth began to show again; for an instant I thought he meant to strike her. Then the sudden double beat of horses’ hoofs broke out along the avenue below, and, through the red sunset I saw a dozen horsemen come scampering up the drive toward us.

  “They’ve sent me lancers instead of gendarmes for your escort,” I remarked to Dr. Delmont; at the same moment I stepped out into the driveway to signal the riders, raising my hand. 55

  Instantly a pistol flashed — then another and another, and a dozen harsh voices shouted: “Hourra! Hourra! Preussen!”

  “Mille tonnerre!” roared Delmont; “the Prussians are here!”

  “Look out! Stand back there! Get the women back!” I cried, as an Uhlan wheeled his horse straight through a bed of geraniums and fired his horse-pistol at me.

  Delmont dragged the young Countess to the shelter of an elm; Sylvia Elven and Tavernier followed; Buckhurst ran to the carriage and leaped in.

  “No resistance!” bellowed Delmont, as Bazard snatched up the pistol I had taken from Buckhurst. But the invalid had already fired at a horseman, and had gone down under the merciless hoofs with a lance through his face.

  My first impulse was to shoot Buckhurst, and I started for him.

  Then, in front of me, a horse galloped into the table and fell with a crash, hurling his rider at my feet. I can see him yet sprawling there on the lawn, a lank, red-faced fellow, his helmet smashed in, and his spurred boots sticking fast in the sod.

  Helter-skelter through the trees came the rest of the Uhlans, shouting their hoarse “Hourra! Hourra! Preussen!” — white-and-black pennons streaming from their lance-heads, pistols flashing in the early dusk.

  I ran past Bazard’s trampled body and fired at an Uhlan who had seized the horses which were attached to the carriage where Buckhurst sat. The Uhlan’s horse reared and plunged, carrying him away at a frightful pace, and I do not know whether I hit him or not, but he dropped his pistol, and I picked it up and fired at another cavalryman who shouted and put his horse straight at me. 56

  Again I ran around the wagon, through a clump of syringa bushes, and up the stone steps to the terrace, and after me galloped one of those incomparable cossack riders — an Uhlan, lance in rest, setting his wiry little horse to the stone steps with a loud “Hourra!”

  It was too steep a grade for the gallant horse. I flung my pistol in the animal’s face and the poor brute reared straight up and fell backward, rolling over and over with his unfortunate rider, and falling with a tremendous splash into the pool below.

  “In God’s name stop that!” roared Delmont, from below. “Give up, Scarlett! They mean us no harm!”

  I could see the good doctor on the lawn, waving his handkerchief frantically at me; in a group behind stood the Countess and Sylvia; Tavernier was kneeling beside Bazard’s body; two Uhlans were raising their stunned comrade from the wreck of the table; other Uhlans cantered toward the foot of the terrace above which I stood.

  “Come down, hussar!” called an officer. “We respect your uniform.”

  “Will you parley?” I asked, listening intently for the gallop of my promised gendarmes. If I could only gain time and save Buckhurst. He was there in the carriage; I had seen him spring into it when the Germans burst in among the trees.

  “Foulez-fous fous rendre? Oui ou non?” shouted the officer, in his terrible French.

  “Eh bien,... non!” I cried, and ran for the château.

  I heard the Uhlans dismount and run clattering and jingling up the stone steps. As I gained the doorway they shot at me, but I only fled the faster, springing up the stairway. Here I stood, sabre in hand, ready to stop the first man.

  Up the stairs rushed three Uhlans, sabres shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my sabre and shortened my arm for a thrust — then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in the face and I fell flat on my back.

  Without any emotion whatever I saw an Uhlan raise his sabre to finish me; also I saw a yellow-and-black sleeve interposed between death and myself.

  “No butchery!” growled the big officer who had summoned me from the lawn. “Cursed pig, you’d sabre your own grandmother! Lift him, Sepp! You, there, Loisel! — lift him up. Is he gone?”

  “He is alive, Herr Rittmeister,” said a soldier, “but his back is broken.”

  “It isn’t,” I said.

  “Herr Je!” muttered the Rittmeister; “an eel, and a Frenchman, and nine long lives! Here, you hussar, what’s the matter with you?”

  “One of them shot me; I thought it was to be sabres,” said I, weakly.

  “And why the devil wasn’t it sabres!” roared the officer, turning on his men. “One to three — and six more below! Sepp, you disgust me. Carry him out!”

  I groaned as they lifted me. “Easy there!” growled the officer, “don’t pull him that way. Now, young hell-cat, set your teeth; you have eight more lives yet.”

  They got me out to the terrace, and carried me to the lawn. One of the men brought a cup of water from the pool.

  “Herr Rittmeister,” I said, faintly, “I had a prisoner here; he should be in the carriage. Is he?”

  The officer walked briskly over to the carriage. “Nobody here but two women and a scared peasant!” he called out. 58


  As I lay still staring up into the sky, I heard the Rittmeister addressing Dr. Delmont in angry tones. “By every law of civilized war I ought to hang you and your friend there! Civilians who fire on troops are treated that way. But I won’t. Your foolish companion lies yonder with a lance through his mouth. He’s dead; I say nothing. For you, I have no respect. But I have for that hell-cat who did his duty. You civilians — you go to the devil!”

  “Are not your prisoners sacred from insult?” asked the doctor, angrily.

  “Prisoners! My prisoners! You compliment yourself! Loisel! Send those impudent civilians into the house! I won’t look at them! They make me sick!”

  The astonished doctor attempted to take his stand by me, offering his services, but the troopers hustled him and poor Tavernier off up the terrace steps.

  “The two ladies in the carriage, Herr Rittmeister?” said a cavalryman, coming up at salute.

  “What? Ladies? Oh yes.” Then he muttered in his mustache: “Always around — always everywhere. They can’t stay there. I want that carriage. Sepp!”

  “At orders, Herr Rittmeister!”

  “Carry that gentleman to the carriage. Place Schwartz and Ruppert in the wagon yonder. Get straw — you, Brauer, bring straw — and toss in those boxes, if there is room. Where’s Hofman?”

  “In the pool, Herr Rittmeister.”

  “Take him out,” said the officer, soberly. “Uhlans don’t abandon their dead.”

  Two soldiers lifted me again and bore me away in the darkness. I was perfectly conscious.

  And all the while I was listening for the gallop of my gendarmes, not that I cared very much, now that Buckhurst was gone. 59

  “Herr Rittmeister,” I said, as they laid me in the carriage, “ask the Countess de Vassart if she will let me say good-bye to her.”

  “With pleasure,” said the officer, promptly. “Madame, here is a polite young gentleman who desires to make his adieux. Permit me, madame — he is here in the dark. Sepp! fall back! Loisel, advance ten paces! Halt!”

  “Is it you, Monsieur Scarlett?” came an unsteady voice, from the darkness.