Part 31 (1/2)
”You won't leave me to my fate because you think I'm going to marry--some one else?”
He grew very sober. ”Miss Tullis, you and I have one chance in a thousand. You may as well know the truth.”
”Oh, I can't bear the thought of that dreadful old man,” she cried, abject distress in her eyes.
He gritted his teeth and turned away. She went back to the corner, dully rearranging the coat he had given her for comfort. She handled it with a tenderness that would have astonished the garment had it been capable of understanding. For a long time she watched him in silence as he paced to and fro like a caged lion. Twice she heard him mutter: ”An American girl--good Lord,” and she found herself smiling to herself--the strange, vagrant smile that comes of wonder and self-gratification.
Late in the afternoon--long hours in which they had spoken to each other with curious infrequency, each a prey to sombre thoughts--their door was unlocked and Anna Cromer appeared before them, accompanied by two of the men. Crisply she commanded the girl to come forth; she wanted to talk with her.
She was in the outer room for the better part of an hour, listening to Anna Cromer and Madame Drovnask, who dinned the praises of the great Count Marlanx into her ears until she was ready to scream. They bathed the girl's face and brushed her hair and freshened her garments. It occurred to her that she was being prepared for a visit of the redoubtable Marlanx himself, and put the question plainly.
”No,” said Anna Cromer. ”He's not coming here. You are going to him. He will not be Count Marlanx after to-morrow, but Citizen Marlanx--one of the people, one of us. Ah, he is a big man to do this.”
Little did they know Marlanx!
”Julius and Peter will come for you to-night,” said Madame Drovnask, with an evil, suggestive smile. ”We will not be here to say farewell, but, my dear, you will be one of us before--well, before many days have pa.s.sed.”
Truxton was beginning to tremble with the fear that she would not be returned to their room, when the door was opened and she came in--most gladly, he could see. The two women bade him a cool, unmistakable _Good-bye_, and left him in charge of the men who had just come down from the shop above.
For half an hour Peter Brutus taunted him. It was all he could do to keep his hands wrapped in the rope behind his back; he was thankful when they returned him to his cell. The time was not ripe for the dash he was now determined to make.
”Get a little nap, if you can,” he said to Loraine, when the door was locked behind him. ”It won't be long before something happens. I've got a plan. You'll have your part to play. G.o.d grant that it may work out well for us. You--you might pray if--if--”
”Yes, I _can_ pray,” she said simply. ”I'll do my part, Mr. King.”
He waited a moment. ”We've been neighbours in New York for years,” he said. ”Would you mind calling me Truxton,--and for Adele's sake, too?”
”It isn't hard to do, Truxton.”
”Good!” he exclaimed.
She rebelled at the mere thought of sleep, but, unfastening her collar and removing the jabot, she made herself a comfortable cus.h.i.+on of his coat and sat back in her corner, strangely confident that this strong, eager American would deliver her from the Philistines--this fighting American with the ten days' growth of beard on his erstwhile merry face.
Sometime in the tense, suffocating hours of the night they heard the sounds of many footsteps shuffling about the outer room; there were hoa.r.s.e, guttural, subdued good-byes and well-wishes, the creaking of heavy doors and the dropping of bolts. Eventually King, who had been listening alertly, realised that but two of the men remained in the room--Peter Brutus and Julius Spantz.
An hour crept by, and another, seemingly interminable King was fairly groaning under the suspense. The time was slowly, too slowly approaching when he was to attempt the most desperate act in all this sanguinary tragedy--the last act for him, no doubt, but the one in which he was to see himself glorified.
There remained the chance--the slim chance that only Providence considers. He had prayed for strength and cunning; she had prayed for divine intervention. But, after all, Luck was to be the referee.
He had told her of his plan; she knew the part she was to play. And if all went well--ah, then! He took a strange lesson in the language of Graustark: one sentence, that was all. She had whispered the translation to him and he had grimly repeated it, over and over again. ”She has fainted, d.a.m.n her!” It was to be their ”Open Sesame”--if all went well!
Suddenly he started to his feet, his jaws set, his eyes gleaming. The telegraph instrument was clicking in the outer room!
He had wrapped his handkerchief about his big right hand, producing a sort of cus.h.i.+on to deaden the sound of a blow with the fist and to protect his knuckles; for all his strength was to go into that one mighty blow. If both men came into the room, his chance was smaller; but, in either event, the first blow was to be a mighty one.
Taking his position near the girl, who was crouching in real dismay, he leaned against the wall, his hands behind him, every muscle strained and taut.
The door opened and Julius Spantz, bewhiskered and awkward, entered. He wore a raincoat and storm hat, and carried a rope in one of his hands.