Sophy of Kravonia Part 17

"Yes, I'm committed to your side. Who else is with you?"

"In Slavna? n.o.body! Well, the Zerkovitches, and my hundred in Suleiman's Tower. And perhaps some old men who have seen war. But at Volseni and among the hills they're with me." Again he seemed to muse as he reviewed his scanty forces.

"I wish we had another match. I want to see your face close," said Sophy. He rose with a laugh and leaned his head forward to the window.

"Oh no; you're nothing but a blur still!" she exclaimed impatiently.

Yet, though Sophy sighed for light, the darkness had its glamour. To each the other's presence, seeming in some sense impalpable, seemed also diffused through the room and all around; the world besides was non-existent since unseen; they two alone lived and moved and spoke in the dead silence and the blackness. An agitation stirred Sophy's heart--forerunner of the coming storm. That night she had given him life; he seemed to be giving back life to her life that night. How should the hour not seem pregnant with destiny, a herald of the march of Fate?

But suddenly the Prince awoke from his reverie--perhaps from a dream. To Sophy he gave the impression--as he was to give it more than once again--of a man pulling himself up, tightening the rein, drawing back into himself. He stood erect, his words became more formal, and his voice restrained.

"I linger too long," he said. "My duty lies at the Tower yonder. I've thanked you badly; but what thanks can a man give for his life? We shall meet again--I'll arrange that with Marie Zerkovitch. You'll remember what I've told you to do in case of danger? You'll act on it?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

He sought her hand, kissed it, and then groped his way to the stairs.

Sophy followed and went with him down to the porch.

"Be careful to lock your door," he enjoined her, "and don't go out to-morrow unless the streets are quite quiet."

"Oh, but I've a French lesson to give at ten o'clock," she remonstrated with a smile.

"You have to do that?"

"I have to make my living, Monseigneur."

"Ah, yes," he said, meditatively. "Well, slip out quietly--and wear a veil."

"n.o.body knows my face."

"Wear a veil. People notice a face like yours. Again thanks, and good-night."

Sophy peeped out from the porch and watched his quick, soldierly march up the street to St. Michael's Square. The night had lightened a little, and she could make out his figure, although dimly, until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. She lingered for a moment before turning to go back to her room--lingered musing on the evening's history.

Down the street, from the Square, there came a woman--young or old, pretty or ugly, fine dame or drudge, it was too dark to tell. But it was a woman, and she wept as though her heart were broken. For whom and for what did she weep like that? Was she mother, or wife, or sweetheart?

Perhaps she wept for Sterkoff, who lay in peril of death. Perhaps she loved big Mist.i.tch, over whom hovered the shadow of swift and relentless doom. Or maybe her sorrow was remote from all that touched them or touched the girl who listened to her sobs--the bitter sobs which she did not seek to check, which filled the night with a dirge of immeasurable sadness. In the darkness, and to Sophy's ignorance of anything individual about her, the woman was like a picture or a sculpture--some type or monument of human woe--a figure of embodied sorrow, crying that all joy ends in tears--in tears--in tears.

She went by, not seeing her watcher. The sound of her sobbing softened with distance, till it died down to a faint, far-off moan. Sophy herself gave one choked sob. Then fell the silence of the night again. Was that its last message--the last comment on what had pa.s.sed? Tears--and then silence? Was that the end?

Sophy never learned aught of the woman--who she was or why she wept. But her memory retained the vision. It had come as the last impression of a night no moment of which could ever be forgotten. What had it to say of all the rest of the night's happenings? Sophy's exaltation fell from her; but her courage stood--against darkness, solitude, and the unutterable sadness of that forlorn wailing. Dauntlessly she looked forward and upward still, yet with a new insight for the cost.

So for Sophy pa.s.sed the name-day of King Alexis.

V

A QUESTION OF MEMORY

King Alexis was minded that all proper recognition should be made of Sophy's service to his family. It had been her fortune to protect a life very precious in his eyes. Alien from his son in temperament and pursuits, he had, none the less, considerable affection for him. But there was more than this. With the Prince was bound up the one strong feeling of a nature otherwise easy and careless. The King might go fis.h.i.+ng on most lawful days, but it was always a Stefanovitch who fished--a prince who had married a princess of a great house, and had felt able to offer Countess Ellenburg no more than a morganatic union.

The work his marriage had begun his son's was to complete. The royal house of Kravonia was still on its promotion; it lay with the Prince to make its rank acknowledged and secure.

Thus Sophy's action loomed large in the King's eyes, and he was indolently indifferent to the view taken of it in the barrack-rooms and the drinking-shops of Slavna. Two days after Mist.i.tch's attempt, he received Sophy at the Palace with every circ.u.mstance of compliment. The Prince was not present--he made military duty an excuse--but Countess Ellenburg and her little son were in the room, and General Stenovics, with Markart in attendance, stood beside the King's chair.

Sophy saw a tall, handsome, elderly man with thick, iron-gray hair, most artfully arranged. (The care of it was no small part of the duty of Lepage, the King's French body-servant.) His Majesty's manners were dignified, but not formal. The warmth of greeting which he had prepared for Sophy was evidently increased by the impression her appearance made on him. He thanked her in terms of almost overwhelming grat.i.tude.

"You have preserved the future of my family and of our dynasty," he said.

Countess Ellenburg closed her long, narrow eyes. Everything about her was long and narrow, from her eyes to her views, taking in, on the way, her nose and her chin. Stenovics glanced at her with a smile of uneasy propitiation. It was so particularly important to be gracious just now--gracious both over the preservation of the dynasty and over its preserver.

"No grat.i.tude can be too great for such a service, and no mark of grat.i.tude too high." He glanced round to Markart, and called good-humoredly, "You, Markart there, a chair for this lady!"

Markart got a chair. Stenovics took it from him and himself prepared to offer it to Sophy. But the King rose, took it, and with a low bow presented it to the favored object of his grat.i.tude. Sophy courtesied low, the King waited till she sat. Countess Ellenburg bestowed on her a smile of wintry congratulation.

"But for you, these fellows might--or rather would, I think--have killed my son in their blind drunkenness; it detracts in no way from your service that they did not know whom they were attacking."

There was a moment's silence. Sophy was still nervous in such company; she was also uneasily conscious of a most intense gaze directed at her by General Stenovics. But she spoke out.

"They knew perfectly well, sir," she said.

"They knew the Prince?" he asked sharply. "Why do you say that? It was dark."

"Not in the street, sir. The illuminations lit it up."

"But they were very drunk."

"They may have been drunk, but they knew the Prince. Captain Mist.i.tch called him by his name."

"Stenovics!" The King's voice was full of surprise and question as he turned to his Minister. The General was surprised, too, but very suave.

"I can only say that I hear Mademoiselle de Gruche's words with astonishment. Our accounts are not consistent with what she says. We don't, of course, lay too much stress on the protestations of the two prisoners, but Lieutenant Rastatz is clear that the street was decidedly dark, and that they all three believed the man they encountered to be Colonel Stafnitz of the Hussars. That officer much resembles his Royal Highness in height and figure. In the dark the difference of uniform would not be noticed--especially by men in their condition." He addressed Sophy: "Mist.i.tch had an old quarrel with Stafnitz; that's the true origin of the affair." He turned to the King again. "That is Rastatz's story, sir, as well as Mist.i.tch's own--though Mist.i.tch is, of course, quite aware that his most unseemly, and indeed criminal, talk at the Golden Lion seriously prejudices his case. But we have no reason to distrust Rastatz."

"Lieutenant Rastatz ran away only because he was afraid," Sophy remarked.

"He ran to bring help, mademoiselle," Stenovics corrected her, with a look of gentle reproach. "You were naturally excited," he went on.

"Isn't it possible that your memory has played you a trick? Think carefully. Two men's lives may depend on it."

"I heard Captain Mist.i.tch call the Prince 'Sergius Stefanovitch,'" said Sophy.

"This lady will be a most important witness," observed the King.

"Very, sir," Stenovics a.s.sented dryly.

Sophy had grown eager. "Doesn't the Prince say they knew him?"

"His Royal Highness hasn't been asked for any account at present,"

Stenovics answered.