CHAPTER XXI
WHAT HAPPENED AT TRELITZ
It was the 6th of June again.
Once more Prince Zastrow rode with Ulik von Kessner and Alexis Vollmarand the attendant huntsmen up the avenue of pines leading to the gate ofthe Castle of Trelitz, but now accompanied by two unseen Presences whichbelonged at once to their own world and also to another and wider one.Once more the great doors opened and they passed into the trophy-decked,skin-carpeted hall: and once more they were welcomed by the stately,silken-clad woman who came down the broad staircase to greet her lordand his guests. Emil von Zastrow, last and worthiest scion of hisancient line, the very _beau ideal_ of youthful strength and manlydignity, ran half-way up the stairs to meet his lady and his love, andthen the men went away to their rooms, while the Princess Hermia, truehousewife as well as princess, betook herself to the pleasant task ofmaking sure that all the preparations for dinner were complete.
The dinner was served in one of the smaller rooms, in the modern wing ofthe Castle, on an oval table. The Prince sat at one end faced by hisbeautiful consort. To his right sat his guest, Alexis Vollmar, and atall, handsome, but somewhat hard-featured woman of about thirty, withthe clear blue eyes and thick, yellow-gold hair which proclaimed her adaughter of the northern German lowlands. This was Hulda von Tyssen, thePrincess's companion and lady-in-waiting. They were faced by a stout,powerfully-built man with a full beard and moustache _a la_ Friedrich,Ulik von Kessner, High Chamberlain of Boravia. Captain Alexis Vollmarwas a typical Russian officer of the younger school, tall, well-set-up,and good-looking after the Muscovite fashion. He had distinguishedhimself in the Far East, but just now he preferred the serene atmosphereof Boravia to the thunder-laden air of Holy Russia.
The talk was of hunting and war and politics and the chances of theRussian revolution, and on this latter subject it was perfectlyunrestrained, for all knew that the Powers had made a secret compact bywhich they bound themselves, in the event of the fall of the RomanoffDynasty and the Arch-Ducal oligarchy--which all Europe would be veryglad to see the last of--to support Prince Zastrow as elective candidatefor the vacant throne.
The Revolutionary leaders had been sounded on the subject, and werefound strongly in favour of the scheme. It meant a return to the ancientprinciple of elected monarchy, and Prince Zastrow, though now a Germanruling prince, represented the union of two of the oldest and noblestfamilies in Russia and Poland. Moreover, he had pledged himself to aConstitution which, without going to Radical or Socialistic extremes,embodied all that the moderate and responsible adherents of theRevolutionary cause desired or considered suitable for the people intheir present stage of political development--which, of course, meanteverything that Oscar Oscarovitch did not want.
After dinner they went out through the long French windows on to averandah which overlooked a vast sea of forest, lying dark and seeminglylimitless under the fading daylight and the radiance of the brighteningmoon. Since their marriage day the Prince had made it a bargain thatwhenever they dined _en famille_, his wife should prepare his coffeewith her own hands. She even roasted the berries and ground themherself, and, as many a time before, she did it to-night in theseclusion of the little room set apart for that and similar purposes.She was alone in the physical sense, for the two watching Presences wereinvisible to her, and so, for all she knew, no one saw her measuretwenty drops of a colourless fluid from a little blue bottle into thecoronetted cup of almost transparent porcelain which had been one of herwedding presents to her husband.
After a couple of cups of coffee and half a dozen half-smokedcigarettes, the Prince stretched his long legs out, struggled with ayawn, and said in a sleepy voice:
"My Princess, you must ask our guests to excuse me. I am tired after thelong day in the sun; and so, if I may, I will go to bed."
He rose, and the rest rose at the same moment. He bowed his good-night,and the two saluted. The Princess followed him into the dining-room.
The unseen watchers stood by the end of the great heavily-hung bed, inthe midst of which lay Prince Zastrow, seemingly sinking into theslumber of death. Von Kessner leaned over and raised an eyelid, and saidto the Princess, who was standing on the other side, the single word:"Unconscious." She bent forward for a moment as though she were biddinga silent farewell to the man to whom she had pledged her maiden troth,then straightened up and walked like some beautiful simulacrum of awoman towards the door which Vollmar held open for her....
The earth-hours passed, and the two men kept their watch by the bed,conversing now and then in whispers between long intervals of anxioussilence, until three strokes sounded from the bell of the Castle clock.The whole household, save one fair woman, who, in softly-slippered feet,was pacing the floor of her bedroom, was fast asleep, and the days ofsentries were far past. Von Kessner gently lifted one of the arms lyingon the coverlet of the bed and let it fall. It dropped as the arm of aman who had just died might have done. Again he raised an eyelid, thistime with some difficulty. The eyeball beneath was fixed and glassy asthat of a corpse. He nodded across the bed to the Russian, and togetherthey turned the bedclothes down to the foot. Then from under the bed hepulled out a bundle of grey skins which he spread on the floor besidethe bed. It was a sleeping bag such as hunters use in winter on thesnow-swept plains and forests of Northern Europe. Vollmar turned thehead-flap back. Then they lifted the body of the Prince from the bed,slid it into the sack, and buttoned the flap down over the face.
"That Egyptian's drug has worked well," whispered Von Kessner.
Vollmar nodded, and whispered back:
"I wish I had a handful of it. But it is time. He will be ready for usnow."
Even as he spoke the locked door opened, as it were of its own accord,and Phadrig stood in the room dressed in the livery of the Prince'scoachman. Von Kessner and Vollmar turned grey as he bowed, andwhispered:
"The doors are open, Excellencies, and all is ready!"
Then the three lifted the shapeless bag and carried it with noiselesstread down to the hall and out through the half-open doors to where acarriage drawn by four black horses stood waiting. Though there was noone in charge of them, they stood as still as though carved out ofblocks of black marble until the body of the Prince had been laid in thecarriage and Von Kessner and Vollmar had taken their places beside it.Then Phadrig mounted the box, shook the reins, and the rubber-shodhorses moved silently away at a trot, which, as soon as the main roadwas reached, became a gallop only a little less silent than the trot.
The carriage turned aside from the road, and ran down a broad forestlane till it stopped by the shore of a little sandy inlet. The bow of along black boat was resting on the sand, and six closely-blindfolded menwere sitting on the thwarts with oars out. Another stood on the beachwith the painter in his hands. The body of the Prince was carried fromthe carriage to the boat, and laid in the stern sheets. Von Kessner andVollmar remained on board, and Phadrig went back to the carriage. At ashort word of command the oarsman backed hard, and the boat slid off thesand into the smooth water of the little cove. Then she shot away andmelted into the light haze which hung over the outside sea.
The boat stopped under the shadow of the long, low-lying black hull of afour-funnelled destroyer. A rope dropped from the deck and was made fastby Vollmar in the bow. The blindfolded crew were helped up the ladderwhich hung over the side and taken below forward. Then came a sharporder: "All hands below"; and when the deck was deserted, Von Kessnerand Vollmar went up the ladder and were met on deck by Oscar Oscarovitchin civilian dress. There was another man beside him in the uniform of alieutenant. He slacked off the tackle falls of the davits under whichthe boat had brought up, dropped down the ladder and hooked them on.When he got back to the deck the four men hauled first on one tackleand then on the other, till the boat was up flush with the deck. Thefalls were belayed, and Oscarovitch got into the boat and opened theflap of the sleeping-sack. He touched the spring of an electricpocket-lamp and looked upon the calm, cold features of his rival
. Thenhe buttoned down the flap again and returned to the deck. The four wentdown into the cabin: glasses were filled with champagne, and asOscarovitch raised his to his lips, he said:
"Count and Captain Vollmar, I am satisfied. Let us drink to the NewEmpire of the Russias and the sceptre of Ivan the Terrible!"
"And his illustrious successor!" added Von Kessner.
Within half an hour a small boat was lowered; the Chamberlain andVollmar got into it and rowed away toward the cove. The Russian officerwent on to the little bridge, signalled "full speed ahead" to theengine-room, and then took the wheel. The screws ground the water asterninto foam, the black shape leapt forward and sped away eastward into theglimmering dawn with its silent passenger lying in the swinging boat,and the unseen watchers standing by the helmsman....
More earth-hours passed. The sun rose upon a lonely sea. The destroyerstopped, and a white speck on the eastward horizon rapidly grew into thewhite shape of a large yacht flying through the water at a tremendousspeed. In a few minutes she was almost alongside. She swung round in asharp curve, slowed down and dropped a boat. Oscarovitch and thelieutenant lowered the destroyer's boat till it touched the water. Theother came alongside, and the body of Prince Zastrow was transferred toit, and Oscarovitch followed it. Four men from the yacht's boat jumpedon board the destroyer and hauled hers up. The other was backed to theladder and they came on board. A silent salute passed betweenOscarovitch and the lieutenant, and a few minutes later the yacht's boatwas hoisted to the davits, and the white shape was growing smaller anddimmer amidst the light haze that lay on the water shimmering under theslanting rays of the rising sun.
Morning grew into noon, noon faded into evening, and evening darkenedinto night. The yacht ran into a wide-opening gulf between twoforest-clad points, on the southern of which twinkled the lights of alarge town. These were soon left behind by the flying yacht, and as avast sea of fleecy cloud drifted up from the north-east and spread itsveil across the path of the half moon, a little cluster of lightsgleamed out on the port bow. Her bowsprit swerved to the left till itpointed directly to them. Presently she slowed down and ran into alittle land-locked bay surrounded with dense pine woods which came downalmost to the water's edge, swung round and slowed up alongside a woodenjetty. From this a broad road, cut straight through the forest, slopedsteeply up to a plateau on which stood a gaunt, grey, turreted castle,the very picture of the sea-robbers' home that it had been in the daysof Oscarovitch's not very remote ancestors. Up this road and into theouter gate across the lowered drawbridge the sleeping-sack and theinsensible man within were borne. Through the keep-yard it was takeninto the Castle and up to a large room in the eastern turret,comfortably furnished, and containing a bed almost as luxurious as thatin which Prince Zastrow had lain down to sleep the evening before.Oscarovitch preceded the men who carried him, and was met at the door bya grey-haired, keen-eyed man, who bowed before him, and said in a lowtone:
"May I presume to ask if this is my charge, Highness?"
"It is, Doctor Hugo; and I give him into your hands with everyconfidence that you will restore your patient to health as quickly asany man in Europe could do. I must leave immediately, and so I trusteverything to you. All care must be taken of him. He must want fornothing that you can give him--except liberty."
Oscarovitch returned the doctor's assenting bow and left the room. Inhalf an hour the yacht was flying at full speed over the smooth watersof the Baltic, heading a little to the south of West.
The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension Page 22
