Marc"antonio rode forward deep in thought, his chin sunk upon his breast. At the summit, under the shadow of the great rock, he reined up, and slewing himself about in his saddle addressed Stephanu again.
"As I remember, there is a track below which branches off to the right, towards Nonza. It will take us wide of Olmeta and we can strike down into the lowland somewhere between the two. The Princess commands us to make for the north; so we shall be obeying her, and at the same time we can bivouac close enough to take stock at sunrise and, maybe, learn some news of the camp--yet not so close that our horses can be heard, if by chance one should whinny."
"As to that you may rest easy," Stephanu a.s.sured him. "It is known that many of the farms below keep ponies in stable."
From the pa.s.s we looked straight down upon another sea, starlit and dimly discernible, and upon slopes and mountain spurs descending into dense woodland over which, along the bluffs of the ridge, the lights of a few lonely hill-farms twinkled. Stephanu found for us the track of which Marc"antonio had spoken, and although on this side of the range the shadows of the crags made an almost total darkness, our ponies took us down at a fair pace. After thirty, or it may be forty, minutes of this jolting and (to me) entirely haphazard progress, Marc"antonio again reined up, on the edge of a mountain-stream which roared across our path so loudly as to drown his instructions. But at a sign from him Stephanu stepped back and took my bridle, and within a couple of minutes I felt that my pony"s feet were treading good turf and, at a cry from my guide, ducked my head to avoid the boughs as we threaded our way down through an orchard of stalwart olives.
The slope grew gentler as we descended, and eased almost to a level on the verge of a high road running north and south under the glimmer of the moon--or rather of the pale light heralding the moon"s advent.
Marc"antonio looked about him and climbed heavily from his saddle.
He had been riding since dawn.
I followed his example, though with difficulty--so stiff were my limbs; picketed my pony; and, having unstrapped the blanket from my saddle-bow, wrapped it about me and stretched myself on the thin turf to munch the ration of crust which Marc"antonio doled out from his bag; for he carried our provender.
"Never grudge a hard day"s work when "tis over," said he, as he pa.s.sed me the wine-skin. "Yonder side of the mountain breeds malaria even in winter, but on this side a man may sleep and rise fit for adventure."
He offered, very politely, to share his blanket with Stephanu, but Stephanu declined. Those two might share one loyalty and together take counsel for it, but between them as men there could be no liking nor acceptance of favours.
I lay listening for a while to the mutter of their voices as they talked there together under the olives; but not for long. The few words and exclamations that reached me carried no meaning. In truth I was worn out. Very soon the chatter of the stream, deep among the trees--the stream which we had just now avoided--confused itself with their talk, and I slept.
Of a sudden I started and sat up erect. I had been dreaming, and in my dream I had seen two figures pa.s.s along the road beyond the fringe of the trees. They had pa.s.sed warily, yet hurriedly, across the patch of it now showing white between the olive trunks, under the risen moon. Yet how could this have happened if I had dreamed it merely? The moon, when I fell asleep, had not surmounted the ridge behind me, and that patch of road, now showing so white and clear, had been dim, if not quite invisible. None the less I could be sworn that two figures had pa.s.sed up the road . . . two men . . .
Marc"antonio and Stephanu?--reconnoitring perhaps? I rubbed my eyes.
No: Marc"antonio and Stephanu lay a few paces away, stretched in profound sleep under the moonlight drifting between the olive boughs; and yonder, past the fringe of the orchard, shone the patch of white high road. Two figures, half a minute since, had pa.s.sed along it.
I could be sworn to it, even while reason insisted that I had been dreaming.
I flung off my rug, and, stepping softly to the verge of the orchard"s shadow, peered out upon the road. To my right--that is to say, northward--it stretched away level and visibly deserted so far as the bend, little more than a gunshot distant, where it curved around the base of low cliff and disappeared. A few paces on this side of the cliff glimmered the rail of a footbridge, and to this spot my ears traced the sound of running water which had been singing through my dreams--the same stream which had turned us aside to seek our bivouac. Not even yet could I believe that my two wayfarers had been phantoms merely. I had given them two minutes" start at least, and by this time they might easily have pa.s.sed the bend.
Threading my way swiftly between the boles of the olive trees, I skirted the road to the edge of the stream and stood for a moment at pause before stepping out upon the footbridge and into the moonlight.
The water at my feet, scarcely seen through the dark ferns, ran swiftly and without noise as through a trough channelled in the living rock; but it brought its impetus from a cascade that hummed aloft somewhere in the darkness with a low continuous thunder as of a mill with a turning wheel. I lifted my head to the sound, and in that instant my ears caught a slight creak from the footbridge on my left. I faced about, and stood rigid, at gaze. A woman was stepping across the bridge, there in the moonlight; a slight figure, cloaked and hooded and hurrying fast; a woman, with a gun slung behind her and the barrel of it glimmering. It was the Princess.
I let her pa.s.s, and as she turned the bend of the road I stole out to the footbridge and across it in pursuit. I knew now that the two wayfarers had not been phantoms of my dreaming; that she was following, tracking them, and that I must track and follow her.
Beyond the bend the road twisted over a low-lying spur of the mountain between outcrops of reddish-coloured rock, and then ran straight for almost three hundred yards, with olive orchards on either hand; so that presently I could follow and hold her in sight, myself keeping well within the trees" line of shadow.
Twice she turned to look behind her, but rapidly and as if in no great apprehension of pursuit; or perhaps her own quest had made her reckless. At the end of this straight and almost level stretch the road rose steeply to wind over another foot-hill, and here she broke into a run. I pressed after her up the ascent, and from the knap of it, with a shock, found myself looking down at close hand upon a small dim bay of the sea with a white edge of foam curving away into a loom of sh.o.r.e above which a solitary light twinkled. The road, following the curve of the sh.o.r.e a few paces above the waves, lay bare in the moonlight, without cover to right or left, until, a mile away perhaps, it melted into the grey of night. Along that distance my eyes sought and sought in vain for the figure that had been running scarcely two hundred yards ahead of me. The Princess had disappeared.
For a short while I stood at fault; but searching the bushes on my left, I was aware of a parting between them, overgrown indeed, yet plainly indicating a track; along which I had pushed but two-score of paces--perhaps less--before a light glimmered between the greenery and I stepped into an open clearing in full view of a cottage, the light of which fell obliquely across the turf through a warped or cracked window-shutter.
"Camillo!"--it was the Princess"s voice, half imperious, half pleading; and from beyond the angle of the cottage wall came the noise of a latch shaken. "Open to me, Camillo, or by the Mother of Christ I will blow the door in! I have a gun, Camillo, and I swear to you!"
The challenge was not answered. Crouching almost on all fours I sprang across the ray of light and gained the wall"s shadow. There, as I drew breath, I heard the latch shaken again, more impatiently.
"Camillo!"
The bolt was drawn. Peering around the angle of the wall, I saw the light fall full on her face as the door opened and she stepped into the cottage.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ORDEAL AND CHOOSING.
"Thou coward! Yet Art living? canst not, wilt not find the road To the great palace of magnificent death?-- Though thousand ways lead to his thousand doors Which day and night are still unbarr"d for all."
NAT. LEE.--_Oedipus_.
"No man"--I am quoting my father--"can be great, or even wise, or even, properly speaking, a man at all, until he has burnt his boats"; but I imagine that those who achieve wisdom and greatness burn their boats deliberately and not--as did I, next moment--upon a sudden wild impulse.
My excuse is, the door was already closing behind the Princess.
I knew she had tracked the Prince Camillo and his confessor, and that these two were within the cottage. I knew nothing of their business, save that it must be shameful, since she who had detected and would prevent it chose to hide her knowledge even from Marc"antonio and Stephanu. Then much rather (you may urge) would she choose to hide it from me. The objection is a sound one, had I paused to consider it; but (fortunately or unfortunately, as you may determine) I did not. She had stepped into peril. The door was closing behind her: in another couple of seconds it would be bolted again. I sprang for it, hurled myself in through the entry, and there, pulling myself erect, stared about me.
Four faces returned my stare; four faces, and all dismayed as though a live bombsh.e.l.l had dropped through the doorway. To the priest, whom my impact had flung aside against the wall, I paid no attention.
My eyes fastened themselves on the table at which, with a lantern and some scattered papers between them, sat two men--the Prince, and a grey-haired officer in the blue-and-white Genoese uniform.
The Prince, who had pushed back his chair and confronted his sister with hands stretched out to cover or to gather up the papers on the table, slewed round upon me a face that, as it turned, slowly stiffened with terror. The Genoese officer rose with one hand resting on the table, while with the other he fumbled at a silver chain hanging across his breast, and as he shot a glance at the Prince I could almost see his lips forming the word "treachery."
The Princess"s consternation was of all the most absolute.
"_The Crown! Where is the Crown?_"--as I broke in, her voice, half imperious, half supplicatory, had panted out these words, while with outstretched hand and forefinger she pointed at the table. Her hand still pointed there, rigid as the rest of her body, as with dilated eyes she stared into mine.
"Yes, gentlemen," said I, in the easiest tone I could manage, "the Princess asks you a question, which allow me to repeat. Where is the Crown?"
"In the devil"s name--" gasped the Prince.
The Genoese interrupted him. "Shut and bolt the door!" he commanded the priest, sharply.
"Master Domenico," said I, "if you move so much as a step, I will shoot you through the body."
The Genoese tugged at the chain on his breast and drew forth a whistle. "Signore," he said quietly and with another side glance at the Prince, "I do not know your name, but mine is Andrea Fornari, and I command the Genoese garrison at Nonza. Having some inherited knowledge of the Corsicans, and some fifty years" experience of my own, I do not walk into traps. A dozen men of mine stand within call here, at the back entrance, and my whistle will call me up another fifty. Bearing this in mind, you will state your business as peaceably as possible."
"Nevertheless," said I, "since I have taken a fancy--call it a whim, if you will--that the door remains at least unbolted. . . ."
He shrugged his shoulders. "It will help you nothing."
"I am an Englishman," said I.
"Indeed? Well, I have heard before now that it will explain anything and everything; but as yet my poor understanding scarcely stretches it to cover your presence here."
"Faith, sir," I answered, "to put the matter briefly, I am here because the Princess is here, whom I have followed--though without her knowledge--because I guessed her to be walking into peril."
"Excuse me. Without her knowledge, you say?" The Commandant turned to the Princess, who bowed her head but continued to gaze at me from under her lowered brows. "Absolutely, sir."
"And without knowledge of her errand? Again excuse me, but does it not occur to you that you may be intruding at this moment upon a family affair?"
Here the Prince broke in with a scornful laugh. For a minute or so his brow had been clearing, but, though he sneered, he could not as yet meet his sister"s eye. I noted this as his laugh drew my gaze upon him, and it seemed that my contempt gave me a sudden clear insight; for I found myself answering the Commandant very deliberately--
"The Princess, sir, until a moment ago, perhaps knew not whether I was alive or dead, and certainly knew not that I was within a hundred miles of this place. Had she known it, she would as certainly not have confided her errand to me, mixed up as it is with her brother"s shame. She would, I dare rather wager, have taken great pains to hide it from me. And yet I will not pretend that I am quite ignorant of it, as neither will I allow--family affair though it be--that I have no interest in it, seeing that it concerns the crown of Corsica."
The Commandant glanced at the Prince, then at the priest, who stood pa.s.sive, listening, with his back to the wall, his loose-lidded eyes studying me from the lantern"s penumbra.