Truxton King: A Story of Graustark Part 12

The Castle suddenly loomed up before them--grey and frowning, not more than three hundred yards away. He was possessed of a wild desire to walk straight into the grim old place and proclaim himself the feudal owner, seizing everything as his own--particularly the young woman in the rajah silk. People were strolling in the shady grounds. He felt the instant infection of happy indolence, the call to luxury. Men in gay uniforms and men in cool flannels; women in the prettiest and daintiest of frocks--all basking in the playtime of life, unmindful of the toil that fell to the Sons of Martha out in the sordid world.

"Do you think you can find your man from Cook's?" she asked.

"Unless he has gone and jumped into the river, your--madam. In any event, I think I may safely find my way out. I shall not trouble you to go any farther. Thank you for overlooking my indiscretion. Thank you, my dear little Prince, for the happiest experience of my life. I shall never forget this hour." He looked boldly into her eyes, and not at the Prince. "Have you ever been in New York?" he asked abruptly.

He was not at all sure whether the look she gave him was one of astonishment or resentment. At any rate, it was a quick glance, followed by the palpable suppression of words that first came to her lips, and the subst.i.tution of a very polite:

"Yes, and I love it." He beamed. The smile that came into her eyes escaped him. If he could have seen it, his bewilderment; would have been sadly increased.

"Say!" whispered the Prince, dropping back as if to impart a grave secret. "See that man over there by the fountain, Mr. King?"

"Bobby!" cried the lady sharply. "Good-bye, Mr. King. Remember me to your sister when you write. She--"

"That's Aunt Loraine's beau," announced the Prince.

"That's Count Eric Vos Engo." Truxton's look turned to one of interest at once. The man designated was a slight, swarthy fellow in the uniform of a colonel. He did not appear to be particularly happy at the moment.

The American observed the lady's dainty ears. They had turned a delicate pink.

"May I ask who--" began Truxton timidly.

"She will know if you merely call me Loraine."

"So long," said the Prince.

They parted company at once, the Prince and the lady in the rajah silk going toward the Castle, King toward the gates, somewhat dazed and by no means sure of his senses. He came down to earth after he had marched along on air for some distance, so to speak, and found himself deciding that she was a d.u.c.h.ess here, but Loraine at school. What a wonderful place a girl's school must be! And his sister knew her--knew a lady of high degree!

"Hobbs!" he called, catching sight of a dejected figure in front of the chief steward's door.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Mr. Hobbs sullenly.

"It is, Hobbs--very much me. I've been fis.h.i.+ng with royalty and chatting with the n.o.bility. Where the devil have _you_ been?"

"I've been squaring it with old man Fraasch. I'm through with you, sir.

No more for me, not if I know--"

"Come along, Hobbs," said the other blithely, taking Hobbs by the arm.

"The Prince sent his love to you."

"Did he mention Cook's?" gasped Hobbs.

"He certainly did," lied Truxton. "He spoke of you most kindly. He wondered if you could find time to come around to-morrow."

CHAPTER V

THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

It has been said before that Truxton King was the unsuspecting object of interest to two sets of watchers. The fact that he was under the surveillance of the government police, is not surprising when we consider the evident thoroughness of that department; but that he should be continually watched by persons of a more sinister cast suggests a mystery which can be cleared up by visiting a certain underground room, scarce two blocks from the Tower of Graustark. It goes without saying that corporeal admittance to this room was not to be obtained easily. In fact, one must belong to a certain band of individuals; and, in order to belong to that band, one must have taken a very solemn pledge of eternal secrecy and a primal oath to devote his life to certain purposes, good or evil, according to his conscience. By means of the friendly Sesame that has opened the way for us to the gentler secrets, we are permitted to enter this forbidding apartment and listen in safety to the ugly business of the Committee of Ten.

There were two ways of reaching this windowless room, with its low ceilings and dank airs. If one had the secret in his possession, he could go down through the mysterious trap door in the workshop of William Spantz, armourer to the Crown; or he might come up through a hidden aperture in the walls of the great government sewer, which ran directly parallel with and far below the walls of the quaint old building. One could take his choice of direction in approaching this hole in the huge sewer: he could come up from the river, half a mile away, or he could come down from the hills above if he had the courage to drop through one of the intakes.

It is of special significance that the trap door in Spantz's workshop was reserved for use by the armourer and his more fastidious comrades--of whom three were women and one an established functionary in the Royal Household. One should not expect ladies to traverse a sewer if oilier ways are open to them. The manner of reaching the workshop was not so simple, however, as you might suppose. The street door was out of the quest ion, with Dangloss on the watch, day and night. As much as can be said for the rear door. It was necessary, therefore, that the favored few should approach the shop by extraordinary paths. For instance, two of the women came through friendly but unknown doors in the bas.e.m.e.nts of adjoining houses, reaching the workshop by the narrow stairs leading up from a cobwebby wine-cellar next door. Spantz and Olga Platanova, of course, were at home in the place. All of which may go to prove that while ten persons comprised the committee, at least as many more of the shopkeepers in that particular neighbourhood were in sympathy with their secret operations.

So cleverly were all these means of approach concealed and so stealthy the movements of the Committee, that the existence of this underground room, far below the street level, was as yet unsuspected by the police.

More than that, the existence of the Committee of Ten as an organisation was unknown to the department, notwithstanding the fact that it had been working quietly, seriously for more than a year.

The Committee of Ten represented the brains and the activity of a rabid coterie in Edelweiss, among themselves styled the Party of Equals. In plain language, they were "Reds." Less than fifty persons in Graustark were affiliated with this particular community of anarchists. For more than a year they had been preparing themselves against the all-important hour for public declaration. Their ranks had been augmented by occasional recruits from other lands; their literature was circulated stealthily; their operations were as secret as the grave, so far as the outside world was concerned. And so the poison sprung up and thrived unhindered in the room below the street, growing in virulence and power under the very noses of the vaunted police of Edelweiss, slowly developing into a power that would some day a.s.sert itself with diabolical fury.

There were men and women from Axphain and Dawsbergen in this seed circle that made Edelweiss its spreading ground. They were Reds of the most dangerous type--silent, voiceless, crafty men and women who built well without noise, and who gave out nothing to the world from which they expected to take so much.

The nominal leader was William Spantz, he who had a son in the Prince's household, Julius Spantz, the Master-of-arms. Far off in the hills above the Danube there lived the real leader of this deadly group--the Iron Count Marlanx, exile from the land of his birth, hated and execrated by every loyal Graustarkian, hating and execrating in return with a tenfold greater venom. Marlanx, the man who had been driven from wealth and power by the sharp edict of Prince Robin's mother, the lamented Yetive, in the days of her most glorious reign,--this man, deep in his raging heart, was in complete accord with the desperate band of Reds who preached equality and planned disaster.

Olga Platanova was the latest acquisition to this select circle. A word concerning her: she was the daughter of Professor Platanova, one time oculist and sociologist in a large German University. He had been one of the most brilliant men in Europe and a member of a n.o.ble family. There was welcome for him in the homes of the n.o.bility; he hobn.o.bbed, so to speak, with the leading men of time Empire. The Platanova home in Warsaw was one of the most inviting and exclusive in that great, city. The professor's enthusiasm finally carried him from the conservative paths in which he had walked; after he had pa.s.sed his fiftieth year he became an avowed leader among the anarchists and revolutionists in Poland, his native state. Less than a year before the opening of this tale he was executed for treason and conspiracy against the Empire.

His daughter, Olga, was recognised as one of the most beautiful and cultured young women in Warsaw. Her suitors seemed to be without number; nor were they confined to the student and unt.i.tled cla.s.ses with whom she was naturally thrown by force of circ.u.mstance. More than one lordly adventurer in the lists of love paid homage to her grace and beauty.

Finally there came one who conquered and was beloved. He was the son of a mighty duke, a prince of the blood.

It was true love for both of them. The young prince pledged himself to marry her, despite all opposition; he was ready to give up his n.o.ble inheritance for the sake of love. But there were other forces greater than a young man's love at work. The all-powerful ruler of an Empire learned of this proposed mesalliance and was horrified. Two weeks afterward the prince was called. The will of the Crown was made known to him and--he obeyed. Olga Platanova was cast aside but not forgotten. He became the husband of an unloved, scrawny lady of diadems. When the situation became more than he could bear he blew out his brains.

When Olga heard the news of his death she was not stricken by grief. She cried out her joy to a now cloudless sky, for he had justified the great love that had been theirs and would be theirs to the end of time.

From a pa.s.sive believer in the doctrines of her father and his circle she became at once their most impa.s.sioned exponent. Over night she changed from a gentle-hearted girl into a woman whose breast flamed with a l.u.s.t for vengeance against a cla.s.s from which death alone could free her lover. She threw herself, heart and soul, into the deliberations and transactions of the great red circle: her father understood and yet was amazed.

Then he was put to death by the cla.s.s she had come to hate. One more stone in the sepulchre of her tender, girlish ideals. When the time came she travelled to Graustark in response to the call of the Committee of Ten; she came prepared to kill the creature she would be asked to kill.

And yet down in her heart she was sore afraid.

She was there, not to kill a man grown old in wrongs to her people, but to destroy the life of a gentle, innocent boy of seven!

There were times when her heart shrank from the unholy deed she had been selected to perform; she even prayed that death might come to her before the hour in which she was to do this execrable thing in behalf of the humanity she served. But there was never a thought of receding from the b.l.o.o.d.y task set down for her--a task so morbid, so horrid that even the most vicious of men gloated in the satisfaction that they had not been chosen in her place. Weeks before she came to Graustark Olga Platanova had been chosen by lot to be the one to do this diabolical murder. She did not flinch, but came resolute and ready. Even the men in the Committee of Ten looked upon the slender, dark-eyed girl with an awe that could not be conquered. She had not the manner of an a.s.sa.s.sin, and yet they knew that she would not draw back; she was as soft and as sweet as the Madonnas they secretly wors.h.i.+pped, and yet her heart was steeled to a purpose that appalled the fiercest of them.

On a Sat.u.r.day night, following the last visit of Truxton King to the armourer, the Committee of Ten met in the underground room to hear the latest word from one who could not be with them in person, but was always there in spirit--if they were to believe his most zealous utterances. The Iron Count Marlanx, professed hater of all that was rich and n.o.ble, was the power behind the Committee of Ten. The a.s.sa.s.sination of the little Prince and the overthrow of the royal family awaited his pleasure: he was the man who would give the word.

Not until he was ready could anything be done, for Marlanx had promised to put the Committee of Ten in control of this pioneer community when it came under the dominion of anarchists.

Alas, for the Committee of Ten! The wiliest fox in the history of the world was never so wily as the Iron Count. Some day they were to find out that he was using them to pull his choicest chestnuts from the fire.

The Committee was seated around the long table in the stifling, breathless room, the armourer at the head. Those who came by way of the sewer had performed ablutions in the queer toilet room that once had been a secret vault for the storing of feudal plunder. What air there was came from the narrow ventilator that burrowed its ways up to the shop of William Spantz, or through the chimney-hole in the ceiling.

Olga Platanova sat far down the side, a moody, inscrutable expression in her dark eyes. She sat silent and oppressed through all the acrid, bitter discussions which carried the conclave far past the midnight hour. In her heart she knew that these men and women were already thinking of her as a regicide. It was settled--it was ordained. At Spantz's right lounged Peter Brutus, a lawyer--formerly secretary to the Iron Count and now his sole representative among these people. He was a dark-faced, snaky-eyed young man, with a mop of coa.r.s.e black hair that hung ominously low over his high, receding forehead. This man was the chosen villain among all the henchmen who came at the beck and call of the Iron Count.

Julius Spantz, the armourer's son, a placid young man of goodly physical proportions, sat next to Brutus, while down the table ranged others deep in the consideration of the world's gravest problems. One of the women was Madame Drovnask, whose husband had been sent to Siberia for life; and the other, Anna Cromer, a rabid Red lecturer, who had been driven from the United States, together with her amiable husband: an a.s.sa.s.sin of some distinction and many aliases, at present foreman in charge of one of the bridge-building crews on the new railroad.

Every man in the party, and there were eight, for Olga was not a member of the Ten, wore over the lower part of his face a false black beard of huge dimensions. Not that they were averse to recognition among themselves, but in the fear that by some hook or crook Dangloss or his agents might be able to look in upon them--through stone walls, as it were. They were not men to belittle the powers of the wonderful Baron.

As it sat in secret conclave, the Committee of Ten was a sinister-looking group.