The Vultures Part 18

"I can see," she said, in her confidential way, "well enough for myself with my own eyes."

And Martin looked into the eyes, so vaunted, with much interest.

"I am sure," she said to Wanda, when the race was over, "that I saw Mr.

Cartoner a short time ago. Has he gone?"

"I fancy he has," was the reply.

"He did not see us. And we quite forgot to tell him the number of our box. I only hope he was not offended. We saw a great deal of him on board. We crossed the Atlantic in the same s.h.i.+p, you know."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. And one becomes so intimate on a voyage. It is quite ridiculous."

Deulin, leaning against the pillar at the back of the box, was thoughtfully twisting his grizzled mustache as he watched Netty. There was in his att.i.tude some faint suggestion of an engineer who has set a machine in motion and is watching the result with a contemplative satisfaction.

Martin was reluctantly making a move. One or two carriages were allowed to come to the gate of the lawn, and of these one was Prince Bukaty's.

"Come, Wanda," said Martin. "We must not keep him waiting. I can see him, with his two sticks, coming out of the club enclosure."

"I will go with you to make sure that he is none the worse," said Deulin, "and then return to the a.s.sistance of these ladies."

He did not speak as they moved slowly through the crowd. Nor did he explain to Wanda why he had reintroduced Miss Cahere. He stood watching the carriages after they had gone.

"The G.o.ds forbid," he said, piously, to himself, "that I should attempt to interfere in the projects of Providence! But it is well that Wanda should know who are her friends and who her enemies. And I think she knows now, my shrewd princess."

And he bowed, bareheaded, in response to a gay wave of the hand from Wanda as the carriage turned the corner and disappeared. He turned on his heel, to find himself cut off from the grand-stand by a dense throng of people moving rather confusedly towards the exit. The sky was black, and a shower was impending.

"Ah, well!" he muttered, philosophically, "they are capable of taking care of themselves."

And he joined the throng making for the gates. It appeared, however, that he gave more credit than was merited; for Netty was carried along by a stream of people whose aim was a gate to the left of the great gate, and though she saw the hat of her uncle above the hats of the other men, she could not make her way towards it. Mr. Mangles and his sister pa.s.sed out of the large gateway, and waited in the first available s.p.a.ce beyond it. Netty was carried by the gentle pressure of the crowd to the smaller gate, and having pa.s.sed it, decided to wait till her uncle, who undoubtedly must have seen her, should come in search of her. She was not uneasy. All through her life she had always found people, especially men, ready, nay, anxious, to be kind to her.

She was looking round for Mr. Mangles when a man came towards her. He was only a workman in his best suit of working clothes. He had a narrow, sunburned face, and there was in his whole being a not unpleasant suggestion of the seafaring life.

"I am afraid," he said, in perfect English, as he raised his cap, "that you have lost the rest of your party. You are also in the wrong course, so to speak. We are the commoner people here, you see. Can I help you to find your father?"

"Thank you," answered Netty, without concealing her surprise. "I think my uncle went out of the larger gate, and it seems impossible to get at him. Perhaps--"

"Yes," answered Kosmaroff, "I will show you another way with pleasure.

Then that tall gentleman is not your father?"

"No. Mr. Mangles is my uncle," replied Netty, following her companion.

"Ah, that is Mr. Mangles! An American, is he not?"

"Yes. We are Americans."

"A diplomatist?"

"Yes, my uncle is in the service."

"And you are at the Europe. Yes, I have heard of Mr. Mangles. This way; we can pa.s.s through this alley and come to the large gate."

"But you--you are not a Pole? It is so kind of you to help me," said Netty, looking at him with some interest. And Kosmaroff, perceiving this interest, slightly changed his manner.

"Ah! you are looking at my clothes," he said, rather less formally. "In Poland things are not always what they seem, mademoiselle. Yes, I am a Pole. I am a boatman, and keep my boat at the foot of Bednarska Street, just above the bridge. If you ever want to go on the river, it is pleasant in the evening, you and your party, you will perhaps do me the great honor of selecting my poor boat, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, I will remember," answered Netty, who did not seem to notice that his glance was, as it were, less distant than his speech.

"I knew at once--at once," he said, "that you were English or American."

"Ah! Then there is a difference--" said Netty, looking round for her uncle.

"There is a difference--yes, a.s.suredly."

"What is it?" asked Netty, with a subtle tone of expectancy in her voice.

"Your mirror will answer that question," replied Kosmaroff, with his odd, one-sided smile, "more plainly than I should ever dare to do. There is your uncle, mademoiselle, and I must go."

Mr. Mangles, perceiving the situation, was coming forward with his hand in his pocket, when Kosmaroff took off his cap and hurried away.

"No," said Netty, laying her hand on Mr. Mangle's arm, "do not give him anything. He was rather a superior man, and spoke a little English."

XIV

SENTENCED

Like the majority of Englishmen, Cartoner had that fever of the horizon which makes a man desire to get out of a place as soon as he is in it.

The average Englishman is not content to see a city; he must walk out of it, through its suburbs and beyond them, just to see how the city lies.

Before he had been long in Warsaw, Cartoner hired a horse and took leisurely rides out of the town in all directions. He found suburbs more or less depressing, and dusty roads innocent of all art, half-paved, growing wider with the lapse of years, as in self-defence the foot-pa.s.sengers encroached on the fields on either side in search of a cleaner thoroughfare. To the north he found that the great fort which a Russian emperor built for Warsaw's good, and which in case of emergency could batter the city down in a few hours, but could not defend it from any foe whatever. Across the river he rode through Praga, of grimmest memory, into closely cultivated plains. But mostly he rode by the riverbanks, where there are more trees and where the country is less uniform. He rode more often than elsewhere southward by the Vistula, and knew the various roads and paths that led to Wilanow.

One evening, when clouds had been gathering all day and the twilight was shorter than usual, he was benighted in the low lands that lie parallel with the Saska Island. He knew his whereabouts, however, and soon struck that long and lonely river-side road, the Czerniakowska, which leads into the manufacturing districts where the sugar-refineries and the iron-foundries are. It was inches deep in dust, and he rode in silence on the silent way. Before him loomed the chimney of the large iron-works, which clang and rattle all day in the ears of the idlers in the Lazienki Park.

Before he reached the high wall that surrounds these works on the land side he got out of the saddle and carefully tried the four shoes of his horse. One of them was loose. He loosened it further, working at it patiently with the handle of his whip. Then he led the horse forward and found that it limped, which seemed to satisfy him. As he walked on, with the bridle over his arm, he consulted his watch. There was just light enough to show him that it was nearly six.

The iron-foundries were quiet now. They had been closed at five. From the distant streets the sound of the traffic came to his ears in a long, low roar, like the breaking of surf upon s.h.i.+ngle far away.

Cartoner led his horse to the high double door that gave access to the iron-foundry. He turned the horse very exactly and carefully, so that the animal's shoulder pressed against that half of the door which opened first. Then he rang the bell, of which the chain swung gently in the wind. It gave a solitary clang inside the deserted works. After a few moments there was the sound of rusted bolts being slowly withdrawn, and at the right moment Cartoner touched the horse with his whip, so that it started forward against the door and thrust it open, despite the efforts of the gate-keeper, who staggered back into the dimly lighted yard.

Cartoner looked quickly round him. All was darkness except an open doorway, from which a shaft of light poured out, dimly illuminating cranes and carts and piles of iron girders. The gate-keeper was hurriedly bolting the gate. Cartoner led his horse towards the open door, but before he reached it a number of men ran out and fell on him like hounds upon a fox. He leaped back, abandoning his horse, and striking the first-comer full in the chest with his fist. He charged the next and knocked him over; but from the third he retreated, leaping quickly to one side.

"Bukaty!" he cried; "don't you know me?"

"You, Cartoner!" replied Martin. He spread out his arms, and the men behind him ran against them. He turned and said something to them in Polish, which Cartoner did not catch. "You here!" he said. And there was a ring in the gay, rather light voice, which the Englishman had never heard there before. But he had heard it in other voices, and knew the meaning of it. For his work had brought him into contact with refined men in moments when their refinement only serves to harden that grimmer side of human nature of which half humanity is in happy ignorance, which deals in battle and sudden death.