A Princess of the Balkans/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
That night, as Dallas was smoking a final cigar on the terrace of the little hotel, he was joined by Sir James, who had quite recovered from his immersion.
"I have been walking on the beach with the Lady Thalia," said the Englishman cheerfully.
"So I observed," answered Dallas. "Your philandering was likewise noted by Rosenthal and the prince. The former laughed, but the latter appeared to be displeased."
"The beastly little rotter! He would have been even less pleased if he had known what the princess was telling me."
"The result of which is, I presume, that you have decided to elope, and wish me to lend you the car."
"Right-o!" answered Sir James cheerfully. "But that is not all. We look upon you personally to conduct the elopement."
"Well," replied Dallas shortly, "I won't."
"Don't be pig-headed, Stephen. The Lady Thalia is an exceedingly clever and attractive girl. She has honored me by her confidence."
Dallas grunted.
"The whole situation," said Sir James, "is very interesting. It appears that the kingdom of Servia wants to annex this sanjak, or district, which is known as Novibazar, and which belongs to Turkey, although by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 it came under the administrative control of Austria-Hungary, together with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now, the Prince Emilio, backed by Rosenthal, who is half wolf, half fox, is intriguing with the Servian government, and the Lady Thalia has discovered a plot by which they intend to stir up a frontier war with Servia, which will give that country a good excuse for grabbing Novibazar. There is reason to believe that Austria will not be sorry to see it exchange Turkish ownership for Servian."
"What does the prince get out of it?"
"He is to receive a lump sum of money and a governorship which will permit him to squeeze the people even tighter than he has already, while Rosenthal is to get certain concessions to work his silver mines."
"And the Lady Thalia?"
"Ah, there's the hitch. The prince's people are all south Slavonic Serbs and precisely the same breed as the Servians themselves. They can't be made to see the sense of fighting with Servia, which is quite natural, as all of their warfare from time immemorial has been against the Turks and with the Lady Thalia's Shkipetari. So what the prince and Rosenthal are trying to do is to persuade the girl to incite her people to start a ruction on the Servian frontier."
"And she won't do it?"
"No, she's far too clever. The girl is really patriotic; she hates Servia like poison, and so do her people, who are mostly Mohammedans, while the prince's crowd, like the Servians, profess Christianity. But the Lady Thalia is intelligent enough to see how much her country has advanced under Austrian rule, and now she strongly favors the annexation of Novibazar by Austria-Hungary. She says that she has positive information that Bulgaria is shortly going to assert her own independence, and that when this happens Austria will grab Bosnia and Herzegovina, and she wants Novibazar to be included in the annexation."
"How does she hope to bring this about?"
"Merely by keeping her people quiet until Bulgaria effects her coup d'état. Her Shkipetari are forever flaying Emilio's Serbs, and what Thalia wants to do now is to get out there and persuade the chieftains of the clans to keep the peace for another six months. You see, failing to persuade her to assist in their plans, Emilio might try to stir up a fight between his faction and hers, and as the fighting would be along the Servian frontier, even that might give Servia a pretext for interference, although it is really Turkey's job."
"You make my head swim," said Dallas. "But if the princess is so anxious to hold in her hairy mountaineers, what is she doing here in France?"
"Ah, now here we come to another complication. Did you notice that very pretty maid who took the girl's peignoir when she went into the water?"
"I did."
Sir James leaned toward his friend, and dropped his voice: "She is the Countess Rubitzki!"
"Indeed! It struck me that she was rather classy for a maid. And who is the Countess Rubitzki? Upon my word, I feel very common in this crowd!"
"She is Polish, and all her family are rampant nihilists. They have been mixed up in bloodthirsty plots to slaughter every monarch in Europe—and she herself has been more or less implicated."
"Really? A nice young person to be trailing around with your inamorata!"
"The Lady Thalia met her a good many years ago in Pesth, and they have always been bosom friends. Just now her father and brother are in hiding, and there are extradition papers for the whole lot in almost every country in Europe. When the chase got too warm the countess went to Thalia in Paris, and since then has been living with her, disguised as her maid. The two have been spending the summer in a quiet little place in Normandy, where the prince and Rosenthal discovered them. Rosenthal immediately recognized the countess, and is now using this knowledge to coerce the Lady Thalia. The poor girl is at her wits' end. They have tried twice to give Rosenthal the slip, but the big Jew seems to have second-sight. What she wants to do now is to run away and get back to Novibazar."
"I see. And she has persuaded you to take the oath of allegiance and help her carry out her plans."
"Quite so," replied Sir James calmly. "I have taken it for both of us."
"For me, too? How kind of you!"
"Don't be disagreeable, Stephen. It will be no end of a lark! And just think of those two lovely girls hounded about from place to place by these two semicivilized bounders!"
"Are you trying to make me cry?"
"All it means," said Sir James, ignoring the irony of his friend, "is a night run to Paris. Once there, they will want to keep out of sight for a few days, so I told her that you would no doubt be very glad to put your apartment at their disposal. You can come and stop with me at the studio."
"Infatuated insular ass!" was the polite comment of the American.
"Um—ah!" Sir James spun his monocle about his finger. "If you really must be nasty about it, old chap, I will give them the studio, and go and stop with you."
"Are you sure that you would be comfortable, James?" inquired Dallas solicitously.
"It would be only for a day or two. Then we can take your car and the two girls and make a run for Fiume, via Switzerland, the Simplon, and Venice. At Fiume we would get a steamer for Cettinjé, and then overland for—for—what the deuce is the name of that blooming country?"
"Novibazar. Oh, this is so sudden!"
"We will start," said Sir James placidly, "to-night. Rosenthal and the prince have retired. As soon as you can get your car ready, the garçon will bring down the ladies' things. I have arranged everything. All that you have got to do is to drive the car."
"And pay the bills."
"Don't be vulgar, Stephen. You have often complained to me about having had to lie awake nights worrying over what to do with your surplus income. Really, old chap, you astonish me!"
"I beg your pardon. Pray go on."
"It can't be much over two hundred kilometers to Paris from this place. Fact is, nothing could be jollier than a fast run on a lovely moonlight night like this."
"Unless, perhaps, to feel that we were performing a disinterested and unselfish act," said Dallas in his dryest voice.
"Jus' so!" agreed Sir James, with his usual cheer.
Dallas lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke meditatively upward.
"Look here, James," said he, "this all sounds like a lovely lark, I'll admit. The ladies are very pretty, and the prince a miserable coward, but I rather like old Rosenthal, and hate to play him a scurvy trick. Besides, the whole affair is distinctively none of our business."
"Ah, but you forget, old chap, that I've already agreed for you. You see, you're pledged—in a manner of speaking. Why, bless my soul, those two girls are packing up their things now!"
Dallas sighed deeply, then turned to his friend with an air of weary resignation.
"Oh, very well; then come on, Don Quixote. I'll run them as far as Paris. But I'll be hanged if I'll give up my apartment. Tell Armand to get the car ready at once; I will go up and pack."
A few minutes later, as the two friends walked across the court to where the big, high-powered car was garaged, they were met by Dallas' mécanicien, an alert, intelligent French youth.
"Do not strike a match, messieurs," said he in a low voice. "Some careless idiot has upset a bidon of essence, and the place is flooded."
"I should say it was," growled Dallas, sniffing the reek of petrol. "Who did that?"
"It must have been the chauffeur of the prince," said the man. "We had better push the car out of the court before starting the motor or lighting the lamps. The garçon will lend us a hand."
Very quietly the four men rolled the big car out upon the road. A full moon was blazing down from the zenith, and the sea lay sparkling and flashing in its brilliant light.
"I wonder," whispered Dallas, "what the fellow was doing with essence at this time of night."
Nobody answered, and a moment later two figures, closely veiled and followed by the garçon carrying two big valises, emerged from the back door of the inn and approached the car. Dallas, who had seated himself and was examining his levers, merely touched his cap. Sir James stepped forward and helped the ladies into the tonneau, where he proceeded to tuck them up with great care. Glancing over his shoulder, Dallas observed the face of the countess, and was struck by its singular beauty and the classic purity of feature.
"Nihilist—rubbish!" he thought to himself. "She looks more like a school-girl. Can't be more than twenty at the outside." He leaned forward and addressed his mécanicien, "Crank the motor and get in," said he. "We will stop down the road to light the lamps."
The man obeyed. The hotel menials, who saw in the whole performance merely an adventure of gallantry, stepped back and touched their caps. Sir James took the seat at Dallas' side, and the mécanicien seated himself upon the floor. Dallas let in the clutch, and they glided out upon the gleaming road.
A kilometer from the hotel he brought the car to a stop.
"Light up," said he to the mécanicien; then, twisting about in his seat, looked at the Lady Thalia and smiled.
"Now, just where is it that you wish me to take you?" he asked dryly. "What particular part of Novibazar?"
Through her chiffon veil, he caught the answering gleam of the girl's white teeth.
"Dakabar, if you please," she answered, without a moment's hesitation. "That is up on a plateau of the north Albanian Alps."
"Precisely. Perhaps we had better stop for a bite in Paris, then déjeuner at Munich, and dinner at Buda-Pesth. From there on, it will be a nice moonlight spin across the plains of Hungary to Belgrade."
The two girls laughed, the Lady Thalia in her throaty, low-pitched contralto, and her companion in a deliciously clear and contagious higher note. Dallas observed that when she laughed she threw back her head, her very blue eyes—which looked black in the moonlight—almost closed, and her pretty lips curved upward like the mouth of a bacchante.
"I have not yet presented you to my fellow prisoner," said the Lady Thalia. "Countess Rubitzki, Mr. Dallas, and Sir James Fenwick."
The two men bowed.
"For the next three kilometers, until we strike the big Dieppe-Paris route," said Dallas, "the road is a bit rough. I hope," he continued, looking at the countess with mock anxiety, "that Countess Rubitzki does not happen to have any—er—bombs among her personal effects."
The Polish lady elevated her pretty nose, the classic character of which was slightly marred, or improved, according to the taste of the observer, by the suspicion of a tilt. Her rather wide mouth—Anglo-Saxon in its firmness, though Oriental in its softer sensibilities—became a trifle haughty.
"If monsieur is afraid," said she, "he had better take me back to the hotel. There are a great many things more dangerous than bombs."
"I well believe you," said Dallas. "My word, I don't see why you should need to bother with explosives! I am sure no sovereign would refuse to abdicate if you were to ask him real prettily to do so. Tell me, are you really blacklisted?"
"So Rosenthal has told us," said the Lady Thalia.
"Never you mind," said Sir James comfortingly. "Once out in the Balkans, you can lie doggo for a few months, and the whole thing will blow over. Then you can promise to be good, and we will see what we can do."
The mécanicien had lit the lamps, and the powerful reflectors were rivaling the moonlight in their vivid twin beams.
"Everything is ready, m'sieu," said the man, wiping his hands.
"Very well," said Dallas. "Get in!" He started ahead, and the conversation was for the moment interrupted.
Proceeding at as fast a pace as the character of the road would permit, they presently turned into the big Paris-Dieppe highway, where Dallas began to raise his speed until presently the monster bearing them appeared to be rushing through the shimmering night like a planet torn from its orbit. On either side the tall poplar trunks tore past, like the palings of a fence, while the gleaming road before them suggested a broad band of flashing white ribbon which was being flicked into the wheels as a tape snaps into the roll of the tape measure. Higher mounted the speed, and still higher; the route was perfect, free of traffic, and brilliantly lighted, while the damp night air seemed to combine with the fuel to give the highest explosive power in the six smoothly running cylinders.
Neither of the women in the tonneau had ever experienced such speed, which, terrific as it was, became still more intensified by the vague illusiveness of their moonlit surroundings. Breathless and giddy, they clung to the sides of the tonneau as the flying car tore up the short kilometers and flung them astern. Dallas, a brilliant driver and a hopeless "speed maniac," was beginning to feel the deep, encompassing repose of soul with which such a pace always enveloped his nervous disposition, and Sir James was mentally conjecturing on which particular star he would strike should anything go wrong, when suddenly the tense, vibrant hum of the spinning mechanism began to drop in tone. Deeper and deeper it grew; the fierce bufferings of air diminished in their force. Dallas squirmed in his seat, and turned a startled face to his mécanicien, who flashed his pocket lamp upon the oil cups. Then, as they were breasting a gentle slope, the cylinders began to miss, the motor stopped, the terrific momentum was quickly lost, the car slowed, arrested its wild course with a whine of entreaty when Dallas flung on his brakes and sat in speechless anger, staring at his man.