And so, cried John accusingly, and so you were letting me make love to you and pretending to return it, and talking about marriage, all the time knowing perfectly well that Id never get out of here alive
No, she protested passionately. Not any more. I did at first. You were here. I couldnt help that, and I thought your last days might as well be pleasant for both of us. But then I fell in love with you, and and Im honestly sorry youre going to going to be put away though Id rather youd be put away than ever kiss another girl.
Oh, you would, would you? cried John ferociously.
Much rather. Besides, Ive always heard that a girl can have more fun with a man whom she knows she can never marry. Oh, why did I tell you? Ive probably spoiled your whole good time now, and we were really enjoying things when you didnt know it. I knew it would make things sort of depressing for you.
Oh, you did, did you? Johns voice trembled with anger. Ive heard about enough of this. If you havent any more pride and decency than to have an affair with a fellow that you know isnt much better than a corpse, I dont want to have any more to do with you!
Youre not a corpse! she protested in horror. Youre not a corpse! I wont have you saying that I kissed a corpse!
I said nothing of the sort!
You did! You said I kissed a corpse!
I didnt!
Their voices had risen, but upon a sudden interruption they both subsided into immediate silence. Footsteps were coming along the path in their direction, and a moment later the rose bushes were parted displaying Braddock Washington, whose intelligent eyes set in his good-looking vacuous face were peering in at them.
Who kissed a corpse? he demanded in obvious disapproval.
Nobody, answered Kismine quickly. We were just joking.
What are you two doing here, anyhow? he demanded gruffly. Kismine, you ought to be to be reading or playing golf with your sister. Go read! Go play golf! Dont let me find you here when I come back!
Then he bowed at John and went up the path.
See? said Kismine crossly, when he was out of hearing. Youve spoiled it all. We can never meet any more. He wont let me meet you. Hed have you poisoned if he thought we were in love.
Were not, any more! cried John fiercely, So he can set his mind at rest upon that. Moreover, dont fool yourself that Im going to stay around here. Inside of six hours Ill be over those mountains, if I have to gnaw a passage through them, and on my way East.
They had both got to their feet, and at this remark Kismine came close and put her arm through his.
Im going, too.
You must be crazy
Of course Im going, she interrupted impatiently.
You most certainly are not. You
Very well, she said quietly, well catch up with father now and talk it over with him.
Defeated, John mustered a sickly smile.
Very well, dearest, he agreed, with pale and unconvincing affection, well go together.
His love for her returned and settled placidly on his heart. She was his she would go with him to share his dangers. He put his arms about her and kissed her fervently. After all she loved him; she had saved him, in fact.
Discussing the matter, they walked slowly back toward the château. They decided that since Braddock Washington had seen them together they had best depart the next night. Nevertheless, Johns lips were unusually dry at dinner, and he nervously emptied a great spoonful of peacock soup into his left lung. He had to be carried into the turquoise and sable card-room and pounded on the back by one of the under-butlers, which Percy considered a great joke.
IX
Long after midnight Johns body gave a nervous jerk, and he sat suddenly upright, staring into the veils of somnolence that draped the room. Through the squares of blue darkness that were his open windows, he had heard a faint far-away sound that died upon a bed of wind before identifying itself on his memory, clouded with uneasy dreams. But the sharp noise that had succeeded it was nearer, was just outside the room the click of a turned knob, a footstep, a whisper, he could not tell; a hard lump gathered in the pit of his stomach, and his whole body ached in the moment that he strained agonizingly to hear. Then one of the veils seemed to dissolve, and he saw a vague figure standing by the door, a figure only faintly limned and blocked in upon the darkness, mingled so with the folds of the drapery as to seem distorted, like a reflection seen in a dirty pane of glass.
With a sudden movement of fright or resolution John pressed the button by his bedside, and the next moment he was sitting in the green sunken bath of the adjoining room, waked into alertness by the shock of the cold water which half filled it.
He sprang out, and, his wet pajamas scattering a heavy trickle of water behind him, ran for the aquamarine door which he knew led out onto the ivory landing of the second floor. The door opened noiselessly. A single crimson lamp burning in a great dome above lit the magnificent sweep of the carved stairways with a poignant beauty. For a moment John hesitated, appalled by the silent splendor massed about him, seeming to envelop in its gigantic folds and contours the solitary drenched little figure shivering upon the ivory landing. Then simultaneously two things happened. The door of his own sitting-room swung open, precipitating three naked negroes into the hall and, as John swayed in wild terror toward the stairway, another door slid back in the wall on the other side of the corridor, and John saw Braddock Washington standing in the lighted lift, wearing a fur coat and a pair of riding boots which reached to his knees and displayed, above, the glow of his rose-colored pajamas.
On the instant the three negroes John had never seen any of them before, and it flashed through his mind that they must be the professional executioners paused in their movement toward John, and turned expectantly to the man in the lift, who burst out with an imperious command:
Get in here! All three of you! Quick as hell!
Then, within the instant, the three negroes darted into the cage, the oblong of light was blotted out as the lift door slid shut, and John was again alone in the hall. He slumped weakly down against an ivory stair.
It was apparent that something portentous had occurred, something which, for the moment at least, had postponed his own petty disaster. What was it? Had the negroes risen in revolt? Had the aviators forced aside the iron bars of the grating? Or had the men of Fish stumbled blindly through the hills and gazed with bleak, joyless eyes upon the gaudy valley? John did not know. He heard a faint whir of air as the lift whizzed up again, and then, a moment later, as it descended. It was probable that Percy was hurrying to his fathers assistance, and it occurred to John that this was his opportunity to join Kismine and plan an immediate escape. He waited until the lift had been silent for several minutes; shivering a little with the night cool that whipped in through his wet pajamas, he returned to his room and dressed himself quickly. Then he mounted a long flight of stairs and turned down the corridor carpeted with Russian sable which led to Kismines suite.
The door of her sitting-room was open and the lamps were lighted. Kismine, in an angora kimono, stood near the window of the room in a listening attitude, and as John entered noiselessly she turned toward him.
Oh, its you! she whispered, crossing the room to him. Did you hear them?
Oh, its you! she whispered, crossing the room to him. Did you hear them?
I heard your fathers slaves in my
No, she interrupted excitedly. Aeroplanes!
Aeroplanes? Perhaps that was the sound that woke me.
Therere at least a dozen. I saw one a few moments ago dead against the moon. The guard back by the cliff fired his rifle and thats what roused father. Were going to open on them right away.
Are they here on purpose?
Yes its that Italian who got away
Simultaneously with her last word, a succession of sharp cracks tumbled in through the open window. Kismine uttered a little cry, took a penny with fumbling fingers from a box on her dresser, and ran to one of the electric lights. In an instant the entire château was in darkness she had blown out the fuse.
Come on! she cried to him. Well go up to the roof garden, and watch it from there!
Drawing a cape about her, she took his hand, and they found their way out the door. It was only a step to the tower lift, and as she pressed the button that shot them upward he put his arms around her in the darkness and kissed her mouth. Romance had come to John Unger at last. A minute later they had stepped out upon the star-white platform. Above, under the misty moon, sliding in and out of the patches of cloud that eddied below it, floated a dozen dark-winged bodies in a constant circling course. From here and there in the valley flashes of fire leaped toward them, followed by sharp detonations. Kismine clapped her hands with pleasure, which, a moment later, turned to dismay as the aeroplanes at some prearranged signal, began to release their bombs and the whole of the valley became a panorama of deep reverberate sound and lurid light.
Before long the aim of the attackers became concentrated upon the points where the anti-aircraft guns were situated, and one of them was almost immediately reduced to a giant cinder to lie smouldering in a park of rose bushes.
Kismine, begged John, youll be glad when I tell you that this attack came on the eve of my murder. If I hadnt heard that guard shoot off his gun back by the pass I should now be stone dead
I cant hear you! cried Kismine, intent on the scene before her. Youll have to talk louder!
I simply said, shouted John, that wed better get out before they begin to shell the château!
Suddenly the whole portico[45] of the negro quarters cracked asunder, a geyser of flame shot up from under the colonnades, and great fragments of jagged marble were hurled as far as the borders of the lake.
There go fifty thousand dollars worth of slaves, cried Kismine, at pre-war prices. So few Americans have any respect for property.
John renewed his efforts to compel her to leave. The aim of the aeroplanes was becoming more precise minute by minute, and only two of the antiaircraft guns were still retaliating. It was obvious that the garrison, encircled with fire, could not hold out much longer.
Come on! cried John, pulling Kismines arm, weve got to go. Do you realize that those aviators will kill you without question if they find you?
She consented reluctantly.
Well have to wake Jasmine! she said, as they hurried toward the lift. Then she added in a sort of childish delight: Well be poor, wont we? Like people in books. And Ill be an orphan and utterly free. Free and poor! What fun! She stopped and raised her lips to him in a delighted kiss.
Its impossible to be both together, said John grimly. People have found that out. And I should choose to be free as preferable of the two. As an extra caution youd better dump the contents of your jewel box into your pockets.
Ten minutes later the two girls met John in the dark corridor and they descended to the main floor of the château. Passing for the last time through the magnificence of the splendid halls, they stood for a moment out on the terrace, watching the burning negro quarters and the flaming embers of two planes which had fallen on the other side of the lake. A solitary gun was still keeping up a sturdy popping, and the attackers seemed timorous about descending lower, but sent their thunderous fireworks in a circle around it, until any chance shot might annihilate its Ethiopian crew.
John and the two sisters passed down the marble steps, turned sharply to the left, and began to ascend a narrow path that wound like a garter about the diamond mountain. Kismine knew a heavily wooded spot half-way up where they could lie concealed and yet be able to observe the wild night in the valley finally to make an escape, when it should be necessary, along a secret path laid in a rocky gully.
X
It was three oclock when they attained their destination. The obliging and phlegmatic Jasmine fell off to sleep immediately, leaning against the trunk of a large tree, while John and Kismine sat, his arm around her, and watched the desperate ebb and flow of the dying battle among the ruins of a vista that had been a garden spot that morning. Shortly after four oclock the last remaining gun gave out a clanging sound and went out of action in a swift tongue of red smoke. Though the moon was down, they saw that the flying bodies were circling closer to the earth. When the planes had made certain that the beleaguered possessed no further resources, they would land and the dark and glittering reign of the Washingtons would be over.
With the cessation of the firing the valley grew quiet. The embers of the two aeroplanes glowed like the eyes of some monster crouching in the grass. The château stood dark and silent, beautiful without light as it had been beautiful in the sun, while the woody rattles of Nemesis[46] filled the air above with a growing and receding complaint. Then John perceived that Kismine, like her sister, had fallen sound asleep.
It was long after four when he became aware of footsteps along the path they had lately followed, and he waited in breathless silence until the persons to whom they belonged had passed the vantage-point he occupied. There was a faint stir in the air now that was not of human origin, and the dew was cold; he knew that the dawn would break soon. John waited until the steps had gone a safe distance up the mountain and were inaudible. Then he followed. About half-way to the steep summit the trees fell away and a hard saddle of rock spread itself over the diamond beneath. Just before he reached this point he slowed down his pace, warned by an animal sense that there was life just ahead of him. Coming to a high boulder, he lifted his head gradually above its edge. His curiosity was rewarded; this is what he saw:
Braddock Washington was standing there motionless, silhouetted against the gray sky without sound or sign of life. As the dawn came up out of the east, lending a cold green color to the earth, it brought the solitary figure into insignificant contrast with the new day.
While John watched, his host remained for a few moments absorbed in some inscrutable contemplation; then he signalled to the two negroes who crouched at his feet to lift the burden which lay between them. As they struggled upright, the first yellow beam of the sun struck through the innumerable prisms of an immense and exquisitely chiselled diamond and a white radiance was kindled that glowed upon the air like a fragment of the morning star. The bearers staggered beneath its weight for a moment then their rippling muscles caught and hardened under the wet shine of the skins and the three figures were again motionless in their defiant impotency before the heavens.