Part 7

He laughed brutally. "I know," he said, "that you shall pay for their lives, or sacrifice them. I have waited long enough. I am sick of hearing men rave about your beauty, and feeling that that beauty is no more to me than if I were a beggar at my own gates."

"Do you forget," she said solemnly, "the compact we made? I am not at any man's choice, or disposal. My life has a mission to accomplish, and you, with all your brutal desires and evil passions, cannot turn that life from its destined purpose. Do not forget the warnings you have already received."

So beautiful she looked, standing there in her floating, snowy draperies, with her solemn, mysterious eyes fixed upon that sullen, lowering face. Beautiful and mysterious as some vestal priestess defending the secrets of her Order. But that beauty, for once, seemed less to subjugate than to inflame the evil desires of that lower nature to which it was bound.

"I will listen no more to vague threats," he said fiercely. "I have paid a heavy enough price for you. I mean to enjoy my purchase. See, here is the list—they are fairly trapped—a word from you and they are safe—these impatient fools. Keep silence—and the knout, the mines, the slow torturing death of Siberia, awaits them all. Now, once again— your answer?"

He drew nearer—his eyes aflame—his arms outstretched.

Then a change, wild and fearful, as that of the tropical tornado to a southern landscape, swept over that lovely form.

Her eyes flashed, her figure seemed to dilate. Slowly she raised her arm and stretched it towards that brutal ravisher...

Struggling, panting, tearing, as it were, against a power that bade him hearken to that terrible answer, Julian Estcourt cried or seemed to cry aloud in an agony of entreaty.

Then a rushing noise as of an unloosed torrent was in his ears; a dull, confused pain beat like clanging hammers in his brain.

His eyes opened and he found himself, bathed in the cold sweat of more than mortal terror, lying face downwards on the floor of his own bedroom.

In a blind, dazed fashion he struggled to his feet and rushed to the window and let the cool night air blow over his face. Every limb was trembling; he could not think with any clearness.

In some dim, unconscious fashion he groped for his watch, found it, and looked at the time. A quarter-past one. Only an hour had passed—an hour—and he felt as if centuries had swept over his head in the vivid horrors of that awful dream.

"But it was only a dream," he cried aloud, drawing in deep panting breaths of the pine-scented air. "Oh! thank God. Thank God, it was only a dream!"

And he sank on his knees and sobbed like a child in the star-lit solitude of the night.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

EFFECTS.

The next day, when Colonel Estcourt sent to know if the Princess Zairoff would receive him, he was informed she was ill, and could see no one.

Feeling strangely disinclined for mere ordinary society, he ordered his horse to be brought round and spent the greater portion of the day in long, fierce gallops over the miles of stretching sand that framed in the bay.

The sky was chill and grey; a cold wind blew from the sea and dashed the salt foam in his face as the waves swept stormily in. But the dull sky and the stormy sea suited his mood, and seemed to string up the relaxed tension of his nerves.

"Nature is man's best physician after all," he said to himself, reining in his beautiful Arab at last, and baring his brow to the fresh breeze. "Even as she is his best friend. Only we don't believe it. We live in the world and follow the ways of the world, until our faculties are blunted, our natures demoralised, our tastes vitiated, our energies enfeebled. How many lands I have travelled over, how many cities I have seen, and yet I verily believe that the wild Sioux in his prairies, and the wandering Bedouin of the desert, have more of real manhood than we. Yes; and get more real enjoyment out of life."

It was quite dusk before he reached the hotel. The country was all new and strange to him, and he had missed his way more than once. But though he was tired, and stiff, and hungry, he felt that his mental energies were braced, his mind at ease, and the disturbing and torturing memories of the previous night no longer tormented him.

At dinner he sat next to Mrs Ray Jefferson, who was radiant and voluble as ever.

She had a great deal to say about the Princess, who, it appeared, had again spent the morning in the Baths.

"She looked ill," said the little American. "Awfully white and languid. I asked her if she had seen a ghost. There was something scared and strange about her. I surmise it's nerves. It was odd, too," and she lowered her voice as if taking the Colonel into a special confidence. "But she went off to sleep in the hot room. Nothing could waken her. I got rather frightened."

His face looked disturbed. "To sleep?" he said. "That is rather unusual, is it not?"

"Oh, plenty of us go to sleep in the cooling-room," said Mrs Jefferson, "but I never saw anyone do it in any of the others. She was talking to me, and then quite suddenly she said `I feel sleepy. Please do not speak. I shall wake in a quarter of an hour.' And so she did."

"You did not try to waken her, I suppose?" asked Colonel Estcourt anxiously.

"Well, I did, but it was no use, so I let her be. I saw she was all right, because she breathed naturally, and her heart beat quite regularly. Still, it seemed odd. I asked her maid afterwards about it. She's a pretty little Frenchwoman, and always waits in the cooling-room for her mistress. But she didn't seem to think anything of it. She said she very often does that, and it is best not to try and waken her. I must say she seemed much better afterwards. Brighter and more alert. What a lovely creature she is!" she added enthusiastically. "I suppose you know you're the most envied person in the hotel at this present moment?"

He smiled, but his face still looked anxious and disturbed.

"Because I have the privilege of being her friend?" he said. "Well, I am not going to deny that it is a privilege—a most enviable one."

"I should think," said Mrs Jefferson meaningly, "it is also one that has its dangers."

The calm grey eyes met her sharp inquisitive glance, but were utterly unrevealing.

"I will not affect to misunderstand you," he said, "but there are men who covet danger for its own sake. They may seem foolhardy, but they are only accountable to themselves for the risks they run."

"Well," said Mrs Jefferson warmly, "I'm only a woman, and yet if it's possible to fall in love with one of my own sex, I've done it. She's perfectly charmed me. I can't get her out of my head for a single moment. It's not only her wonderful beauty, but her mind. As for our poet," she added, laughing, "he's quite gone. He's done nothing all day but moon about under the pine trees. Writing sonnets, I guess, and hoping to catch a glimpse of her. All useless—she's not left the hotel to-day, and I suppose she'll not favour us to night."

Colonel Estcourt was silent. Conversation was more or less general, but it sounded vague and unmeaning to him. He heard a voice on his left holding forth with energy, but he did not heed it until Mrs Jefferson touched his arm and whispered an entreaty.

"Do listen," she said, "it's Diogenes. Isn't he coming out? I surmise it's her influence. You remember last night?"

"An atheist," said the dogmatic voice of the individual who had given that common-sense view of spiritualism the previous evening, "must be a fool of the most complete type. Because he doubts what men teach of God, is no reason for doubting the existence of God. I grant that the Reverend John Smith, with his high-falutin' trappings of Ritualism on one side, and the Reverend Josiah Stiggins, with his coarse and commonplace familiarity with the Almighty (whose personality he has the effrontery to expound as if he were discussing the characteristics of an ordinary mortal), on the other, are enough to drive hundreds of people out of the pale of Christianity, and force them to take refuge in defiance and opposition. But, all the same, the expectation of another life is a rooted belief in the minds of all men, quite apart from religion. Even the savage has it. If we call it human nature to eat, drink, fight, love, or desire, it must also be human nature that gives universal assent to this idea of an after existence. The fact of finding it in all races is but a proof that Man is the creation of a Power that intends him for a far wider range of existence than he sees before him. There are many things affirmed by man's consciousness that he cannot really or logically explain. Yet it is a narrow reasoning that bids us reject the inexplicable."

"Yet you reject spiritualism," said Mrs Jefferson quickly.

"Not at all, my dear madam. I only reject the humiliating and degrading trickery that is its sensational form. I only repeat what I said yesterday, that no lofty or educated mind could do anything but resent the idea of being subjugated to a mere material will, and being forced by that will to perform conjuring tricks in order that a small portion of the civilised world should gape, and gaze, and cry out `How wonderful!' To deny that spirits exist, aye and work, would be to deny the very crudest faith in Christianity."

"There is no doubt," said Colonel Estcourt, "that everything is explicable, but we must wait for the growth and development of our higher natures before we can comprehend half the mysteries of the higher life. The great fault of the materialist and the scientist is, that they would fain bring everything down to the level of their present comprehension, instead of patiently waiting the completion of their future spiritual forces. It is quite evident that we are not meant to attain our full mental stature on the earth-plane, or what would be left to achieve in the countless ages of immortality? Man believes in immortality and yet seems to contemplate it as a state of stagnation and quiescence. Why he believes in it he cannot fully explain. It is, as you said before, a consciousness given to the races of humanity, but no more capable of commonplace analysis than time, or space, or thought."

"The beautiful is as the cloud that floats in radiant space," murmured the poet. "The very vagueness of form permits the eye to clothe it in the loveliest tints of Fancy."

"Now that's what I call rational," murmured Mrs Jefferson in Colonel Estcourt's ear. "Do you think he knows what he means. I guess he don't... Gracious!"

She started, and suddenly grasped his arm. "Look," she said, "there's the princess in the doorway. Is she coming in? No! She's moving away. I believe she's going into the drawing-room after all. Did you see her?"

"No," said Colonel Estcourt. "Are you sure it was the princess?"

His face looked strangely pale. She saw that his hand trembled as he laid down his knife on the plate before him.

"Sure?" exclaimed Mrs Jefferson, with asperity. "Of course I'm sure! It's not easy to mistake her, I fancy. I can't think why you didn't catch sight of her. She just looked in as she passed, I suppose."

"No doubt," he said. But the gravity and uneasiness of his face deepened.

Just then one of the waiters paused beside Mrs Jefferson's chair. She turned eagerly to him. "Watson," she said, "just oblige me by going to the drawing-room and finding out if Madame Zairoff is there. I guess," she added laughingly to Colonel Estcourt, "that I'm not going to waste my time over thirteen courses if she is."

Still he did not speak, and his unusual pallor and gravity began to affect the lively little American woman. She helped herself to truffled pheasant, and became absorbed in gastronomical duties.

Two or three minutes passed, when the man who had gone on her errand returned. She glanced eagerly up.

"Madame Zairoff is not in the drawing-room," he said in a low voice. "I met her maid on the stair-case, and she says that madame is not well enough to leave her apartments this evening."

"But, good gracious me," began Mrs Jefferson, with angry impatience. "I saw—"

"Hush," said Colonel Estcourt in a low, impressive voice. "Oblige me by saying nothing about it. Remember, I too was looking in the same direction, yet I saw—nothing."

Mrs Jefferson dropped her knife and fork and stared at him.

"Now, Colonel," she said, "am I in my senses, or am I not? I've only had iced water to drink. I believe I'm a commonplace person eating a commonplace, though very excellent, dinner. Nothing's been playing tricks with my nerves I can swear, and I do assure you that the Princess Zairoff stood there in that doorway and looked in here, not five minutes ago. Why, I'll even tell you the gown she had on. It was thick white silk and had a border of soft-looking white fur. There!" she added triumphantly. "You may go up to her rooms after dinner, and if she hasn't got that gown on, and if she didn't come by that doorway—well— I'll say I've gone stark staring mad! That's so!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A PROMISE.

Just as the ladies had left the dining-room, a note was put into Colonel Estcourt's hand.

He opened it and read the two brief lines it contained. "I will see you in my boudoir when you have finished dinner."

He pushed aside the glass he had just filled and left the table at once.

He knocked at the door of her room, and the low, sweet voice that bade him enter, thrilled his heart with its accustomed sorcery. He opened the door, but as he stepped across the threshold, he suddenly paused, and for a moment it seemed to him that his heart ceased to beat. Was it only chance that reproduced the dream-scene of the previous night, for the suite of rooms were thrown open, and through the delicate amber tints of the satin hangings gleamed the faint rose-hue of lamplight, paling into opal in the farthest chamber but giving to all the soft and glowing colouring he remembered so well. Swiftly as his eyes took in the picture, they seemed also to take in the lovely figure reclining among soft snowy furs, robed in colourless silk bordered with the same fur.

She raised herself on her arm as he approached. "I have not treated you well to-day, Julian," she said. "But I have been ill—nervous— disturbed. I slept badly, and had terrible dreams. You must forgive me."

He bent over the extended hand and touched it with his lips.

"You are cold," she said. "What is the matter?"

"I too, had a terrible dream," he said. "I suppose the effects are still upon me." Then he looked calmly and fixedly at her.

"You were downstairs a few moments ago," he said. "Why?"

She looked surprised. "Did you see me?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "It was your American friend."

Her face grew thoughtful. "Then the power is coming back," she said. "I wonder why."

He seated himself beside her. "Of course," he said, "it was not really yourself?"

"I have not left this couch for three hours," she said. "All the same, I wanted to have a peep at you all."

"I hope you will not exercise that power too frequently," he said. "You know I never liked it."

"I know," she said, smiling up at his grave face, "that you were always afraid I should not come back from my flights, but I always do. They send me—very much against my will—still, I must obey."

She sighed. Then after a moment she put out her hand with a caressing little gesture. "What was your terrible dream?" she said. "I see it is troubling you still. You are distrait and absent. Tell me."

He touched the white hand with his lips.

"I would rather not," he said, "because you were concerned in it, and it seemed as if you were trying to reveal something or show me something that I dreaded to see. It was in fighting against seeing it that I awoke."

She started from her reclining position and fixed her eyes on his face. "Julian," she cried, in a sudden breathless way, "was it—was it?—No." She broke off and wrung her hands helplessly. "It has escaped me again. I cannot remember. Oh, that I could! It tortures me so. Julian—" and she looked at him appealingly. "You must help me—you must bring it back. I will not wed you till that mystery is solved. Something warns me against it."

"My dearest," he said soothingly, "do not excite yourself in this fashion. It can make no difference to me that there should be mystery or tragedy in your past life. Have I not always loved you? Have we not chosen the same path in life, only now we shall tread it side by side, not one far in advance of the other? The infinite delight of that companionship shall not be marred by any memories of the past. If I am content to let it rest, surely you may be."

She drew herself away. Her deep strange eyes looked coldly and yet mournfully back to his yearning gaze.

"You were never a coward, Julian," she said. "What is it you fear now?"

He threw himself on his knees by her side and buried his face in the soft white furs. She saw that he was trembling greatly. "I cannot tell," he said hoarsely. "Would to God that I could! But if you should change, if you should repent—Oh! to lose your love now would kill me!"

She laid her hand on his bowed head. "Rest assured you shall not lose that," she said in her low thrilling voice. "No, Julian, that is not the danger—it threatens me, not you. There will be no change on my part, not so far as my love is concerned. Will that assurance satisfy you?"

"You need not ask that, beloved? But why disturb our peace? If I am content—"

"There must be no secret between your soul and mine," she said solemnly. "For what, think you, is your power granted, but that I may answer to it, that I may lead you on the road—and that you, for me, may throw open the portals?"

"In the future," he said eagerly, "I am content to do your will. But not now—not to draw the veil from our buried miseries. Let them be as dead things—out of sight and mind."

"You know," she said, "that nothing dies—not a life, or an act, or a thought. You may put the past out of sight, but it lives still—lives in its hidden crimes, its secret sins, its evil and its good—lives to haunt and shape our future, let that future dream as it will of forgetfulness."

He rose from his knees, his face was still pale, but his eyes glowed like living fire.

"When will you wed me, Estarah?" he asked, abruptly.

The soft colour flushed her cheek. Her eyes drooped.

"My heart is yours," she said. "My life lives but in the shadow of your own. Why should I withhold—this poor gift?"

She placed her hand in his, and let him draw her to his heart. "I will wed you when you will," she said, "but only if you yield to my condition. It is an easy one, Julian. Why do you fear?"

Ah—why? He could not answer that question to his own heart, much less to hers. He could not paint the shuddering horror which had forced him to veil his eyes and shrink aghast from that last scene in his Dream.

Yet when he looked down on her in her pure womanly beauty, and felt the clinging tenderness of her arms, and knew that among all the world of men who had worshipped and wooed her, he alone had kept his place and awakened a response of tenderness, he felt his heart thrill and glow with sudden strength and pride.

"It shall be as you wish," he said. "On the night that heralds our bridal morn, I promise, if my power be still the same, that I will do your bidding."