Mrs. Fitz Part 54

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE CREATURES OF PERRAULT

Half paralysed as were the physical senses, there was a magic in the words. Involuntarily, scarcely knowing what I did, I helped to unloose the horses. I saw others climb into their saddles; with a little friendly help I got into mine.

In the growing light of the dawn, we started at a gentle pace towards the old and quaint and many-gabled city. Yet it was still too dark to see who precisely was of our company. We came to the bridge, and halted while Fitz gave the pa.s.sword at the gate. Suspicious eyes were cast upon him, but they let us through.

At the farther gate Fitz gave the pa.s.sword again. There was a little delay, in the course of which Fitz spoke in a jovial manner with the corporal of infantry. Finally another gold piece changed owners, and then we were allowed to pa.s.s on to the open country.

Without having to fire a shot, we had got clear of the city. As yet I knew nothing of what had happened during the hours of my suspense, but I was able to make out in the dim light that two of another s.e.x had augmented our company. One riding by the side of Fitz had a familiar outline; the other, an unknown lady, was accommodated somewhat insecurely in front of the saddle of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere.

As we turned towards the mountain road there came the booming of a gun across the turbulent water of the Maravina.

"They are awake at last," said a gruff voice at my elbow. The Chief Constable seemed very weary and very grim.

Hard and straight we rode through the comparatively easy country to the inn at the head of the pa.s.s of Ryhgo. We had to be content with a change of horses here; there was not time to allow of anything else beyond a cup of spiced wine.

In broad daylight the pa.s.s of Ryhgo was shorn of many of its terrors.

But as we rode above the lake the path was so narrow and its turns so sharp that care was still necessary. Happily the wind was now dead.

Even now I was hardly in a state to realise what had occurred. The strain upon my mind was still acute; my faculties seemed to have got out of control.

"We had wonderful luck." The voice of the Chief Constable sounded remote and meaningless. "It was a devil of a climb up that rock, and I'll lay odds that we should never have got to the top at all, if Fitz hadn't remembered a secret stairway that led right into the heart of the place. Either the burghers of Blaenau had forgotten all about it or they didn't know of its existence. But Fitz remembered it all right as soon as he happened to see the hole in the rock. When we got in, it was as black as the tomb, except for Fitz's lantern.

"It was a poisonous journey up an interminable flight of winding stone steps. It took us quite an hour to come to the end. And then we found ourselves confronted by a door of solid oak, which was three parts rotten. It took us another hour to cut through that, and Fitz's lantern went out and we had to keep striking matches. I shall never forget that hour in the dark until my dying day. And when we got through that infernal door at last, where do you suppose we found ourselves?"

"I cannot say," I said, dreamily, with a vague eye upon the black waters of the lake below.

"Behind the tapestry of the King's bedroom. A marvellous piece of luck! It is a strange providence that watches over some things. And there we waited in the darkness, with our hands on our weapons, while Fitz made his way to the Princess, and he brought her and her woman to us, and we got clear away without disturbing a soul."

"A wonderful and an incredible story!"

I began to have a fear that I might pitch from my horse. But we got through the fell pa.s.s of Ryhgo at last, and by three o'clock that afternoon were in the presence of food and shelter and security in the hostelry a mile beyond the frontier. Thereupon a mute prayer pa.s.sed up to heaven from the still shuddering soul of a married man, a father of a family, and a county member.

The unknown lady whom Jodey had borne so gallantly upon his saddle through the perilous mountain pa.s.ses was none other than the Countess Etta von Zweidelheim, that lover of Schubert, that charming interpreter of Schumann who had made herself responsible for the statement that our memorable evening at the Emba.s.sy was "petter than Offenbach."

Even when she was lifted cold, hungry and desperately fatigued from the saddle of her cavalier, she was inclined to laugh; and we were able to raise among us a sort of hollow echo of her mirth when we observed the solemnity with which my relation by marriage escorted her to the stove and chafed her bloodless hands to restore the circulation.

The somewhat formal, perhaps slightly embarra.s.sed nature of our laughter did not fail, even in these circ.u.mstances, of its customary appeal to her Royal Highness. Her own, however, unloosed a thousand memories which I shall carry to the grave, and perhaps beyond.

"Aha, _les Anglais_!" There was a maternal indulgence in the gaunt eyes. "_Tres bons enfants!_" Her voice was low, canorous, quaintly caressing. "_Tres bons enfants!_"

Suddenly she turned and gave both her hands to me. Lightly my lips touched the frozen fingers. For an instant my eyes were upon the strange pallor of her face; and then they met in a kind of challenge the sunken brilliancy which gave it life.

"The creatures of Perrault, ma'am," I said, rather hysterically.

THE END