The Street of Seven Stars Part 42

In soul she was again in the courtyard back of the old lodge, in the Street of Seven Stars, with the rabbits stirring in the hutch, and Peter, with rapt eyes, gazing out over the city. Bed, toilet-table, coffee-pot, Peter; pigeons, rolls, Peter; sunrise over the church roof, and Peter again. Always Peter!

Monia Reiff was stirring in the next room. Harmony could hear her, muttering and putting coal on the stove and calling to the Hungarian maid for breakfast. Harmony dressed hastily. It was one of her new duties to prepare the workroom for the day. The luminous streak above the church was rose now, time for the day to begin.

She was not certain at once that some one had knocked at the door, so faint was the sound.

She hesitated, listened. The k.n.o.b turned slightly. Harmony, expecting Monia, called "Come in."

It was the little Georgiev, very apologetic, rather gray of face. He stood in the doorway with his finger on his lips, one ear toward the stairway. It was very silent. Monia was drinking her coffee in bed, whither she had retired for warmth.

"Pardon!" said the Bulgarian in a whisper. "I listened until I heard you moving about. Ah, Fraulein, that I must disturb you!"

"Something has happened!" exclaimed Harmony, thinking of Peter, of course.

"Not yet. I fear it is about to happen. Fraulein, do me the honor to open your window. My pigeon comes now to you to be fed, and I fear--on the sill, Fraulein."

Harmony opened the window. The wild pigeons scattered at once, but the carrier, flying out a foot or two, came back promptly and set about its breakfast.

"Will he let me catch him?"

"Pardon, Fraulein, If I may enter--"

"Come in, of course."

Evidently the defection of the carrier had been serious. A handful of grain on a wrong window-sill, and kingdoms overthrown! Georgiev caught the pigeon and drew the message from the tube. Even Harmony grasped the seriousness of the situation. The little Bulgarian's face, from gray became livid; tiny beads of cold sweat came out on his forehead.

"What have I done?" cried Harmony. "Oh, what have I done? If I had known about the pigeon--"

Georgiev recovered himself.

"The Fraulein can do nothing wrong," he said. "It is a matter of an hour's delay, that is all. It may not be too late."

Monia Reiff, from the next room, called loudly for more coffee. The sulky Hungarian brought it without a glance in their direction.

"Too late for what?"

"Fraulein, if I may trouble you--but glance from the window to the street below. It is of an urgency, or I--Please, Fraulein!"

Harmony glanced down into the half-light of the street. Georgiev, behind her, watched her, breathless, expectant. Harmony drew in her head.

"Only a man in a green hat," she said. "And down the street a group of soldiers."

"Ah!"

The situation dawned on the girl then, at least partially.

"They are coming for you?"

"It is possible. But there are many soldiers in Vienna."

"And I with the pigeon--Oh, it's too horrible! Herr Georgiev, stay here in this room. Lock the door. Monia will say that it is mine--"

"Ah no, Fraulein! It is quite hopeless. Nor is it a matter of the pigeon. It is war, Fraulein. Do not distress yourself. It is but a matter of--imprisonment."

"There must be something I can do," desperately. "I hear them below. Is there no way to the roof, no escape?"

"None, Fraulein. It was an oversight. War is not my game; I am a man of peace. You have been very kind to me, Fraulein. I thank you."

"You are not going down!"

"Pardon, but it is better so. Soldiers they are of the provinces mostly, and not for a lady to confront."

"They are coming up!"

He listened. The clank of scabbards against the stone stairs was unmistakable. The little Georgiev straightened, threw out his chest, turned to descend, faltered, came back a step or two.

His small black eyes were fixed on Harmony's face.

"Fraulein," he said huskily, "you are very lovely. I carry always in my heart your image. Always so long as I live. Adieu."

He drew his heels together, gave a stiff little bow and was gone down the staircase. Harmony was frightened, stricken. She collapsed in a heap on the floor of her room, her fingers in her ears. But she need not have feared. The little Georgiev made no protest, submitted to the inevitable like a gentleman and a soldier, went out of her life, indeed, as un.o.btrusively as he had entered it.

The carrier pigeon preened itself comfortably on the edge of the washstand. Harmony ceased her hysterical crying at last and pondered what was best to do. Monia was still breakfasting so incredibly brief are great moments. After a little thought Harmony wrote a tiny message, English, German, and French, and inclosed it in the bra.s.s tube.

"The Herr Georgiev has been arrested," she wrote. An hour later the carrier rose lazily from the window-sill, flapped its way over the church roof and disappeared, like Georgiev, out of her life.

Grim-visaged war had touched her and pa.s.sed on.

The incident was not entirely closed, however. A search of the building followed the capture of the little spy. Protesting tenants were turned out, beds were dismantled, closets searched, walls sounded for hidden hollows. In one room on Harmony's floor was found stored a quant.i.ty of ammunition.

It was when the three men who had conducted the search had finished, when the boxes of ammunition had been gathered in the hall, and the chattering sewing-girls had gone back to work, that Harmony, on her way to her dismantled room, pa.s.sed through the upper pa.s.sage.

She glanced down the staircase where little Georgiev had so manfully descended.

"I carry always in my heart your image. Always so long as I live."

The clatter of soldiers on their way down to the street came to her ears; the soft cooing of the pigeons, the whirr of sewing-machines from the workroom. The incident was closed, except for the heap of ammunition boxes on the landing, guarded by an impa.s.sive soldier.

Harmony glanced at him. He was eying her steadily, thumbs in, heels in, toes out, chest out. Harmony put her hand to her heart.

"You!" she said.

The conversation of a sentry, save on a holiday is, "Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay."

"Yes, Fraulein."

Harmony put her hands together, a little gesture of appeal, infinitely touching.

"You will not say that you have found, have seen me?"

"No, Fraulein."